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Policy Blog
- Defeating Drones: The Most Promising Weapons Are All Non-Kinetic (From Forbes)
The joint force is confronting a new kind of threat: swarms of drones that are hard to track and less expensive to replace than the missiles used to intercept them. Over time, these unmanned systems will likely proliferate and acquire features that enable them to overwhelm conventional air defenses. Part of the solution is to rely more on non-kinetic defensive [ Read More…]
- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
- Five Ways A New Air Force Tanker Competition Would Be Very Different From The Last One (From Forbes)
After a long and difficult gestation, the Air Force seems to be getting comfortable with its KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueling tanker. However, it needs to begin making plans for the next round of tanker procurement, and Congress may not let it proceed without conducting a competition. That would pit Boeing’s KC-46 against Lockheed Martin’s LMXT, the latter based on a [ Read More…]
- Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
- Hypersonic Weapons: Using Statistical Analysis To Understand Capability And Intent
The Falls Church-based company Kingfisher has recently published an interesting paper on hypersonic weapons. This is the kind of work that the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment used to do. In the 2000s, Andy Marshall funded research into areas of technological competition with China, precisely to assess what they were working on and where they were ahead of the U.S. [ Read More…]
- Air Force, Navy Plans Look Totally Out Of Sync With China Threat Estimates (From Forbes)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday have recently warned that China could move to seize control of Taiwan in the very near future. They aren’t the only ones expressing concern about a near-term threat in the Western Pacific. However, the modernization plans of the Air Force and Navy seem curiously disconnected from the timeframe in which Beijing’s aggression might occur. In the case of the Navy, amphibious warship programs central to Marine Corps [ Read More…]
- U.S. Marine Corps Could Be Left With No Effective Amphibious Warfare Fleet (From 1945)
The Department of Defense may be creating a “perfect storm,” a situation in which LSD decommissioning and LPD 17 Flight II production terminations, coupled with increasing costs for the LAW, could leave the Sea Services with inadequate numbers of both large and small amphibs. As a result, the amphibious fleet would not be postured to meet either its peacetime presence and crisis response missions or contribute to a high-end fight as envisioned by the Marine Corps’ new operational concept. I [ Read More…]
- The Air Force’s Aged Fleet Of AWACS Radar Planes Is In ‘Hospice Care.’ It Needs New Planes As Soon As Possible. (From Forbes)
The Air Force should have begun replacing its fleet of AWACS airborne surveillance and battle-management planes 20 years ago. It didn’t, and as a result it is saddled today with 31 aircraft that are expensive to operate, hard to find parts for, and incapable of tracking some emerging threats. Early next year, the service plans to award Boeing a sole-source contract to develop an advanced version of the E-7 Wedgetail radar plane operated by Australia, South Korea and Turkey. Wedgetail, [ Read More…]
- Marine Corps War Plans Are Too Sino-Centric. What About The Other 90% Of The World? (From Forbes)
The U.S. Marine Corps is striving to be more relevant in the Western Pacific by reorganizing to help defeat Beijing’s navy in the China littoral. Marine leaders think that by fielding smaller, more mobile units they can hide in the first island chain off the Chinese coast and track Beijing’s forces at sea. This is a dubious proposition, given the advances China could achieve in regional recon using systems like long-endurance drones. The concept is rendered more dubious by the [ Read More…]
- Lockheed Martin Laser Breakthroughs Could Signal A Turning Point For Missile Defense (From Forbes)
Lockheed Martin last month delivered the most powerful laser it has ever built to the Pentagon, a 300-kilowatt system. A month earlier, it delivered the first tactical laser suitable for use in layered defense of U.S. warships. And earlier this year, it joined with Rolls Royce in demonstrating a compact 100-kilowatt laser capable of downing cruise missiles. It seems the time is fast approach when beam weapons will become part of the joint force’s active arsenal. This is a welcome [ Read More…]
- Why U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers Are Irreplaceable (From 1945)
There is a school of thought in academic circles that aircraft carriers may soon become obsolete due to the nature of the threat posed by China. The long-range reconnaissance systems and missiles being developed by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) are believed to be accurate and destructive enough to disable an aircraft carrier, and taking out even one of them would have a devastating effect on the U.S. defense posture in the Pacific theater. But where this argument breaks down is [ Read More…]
- Conservatives Should Nix Support For Klobuchar’s Tech Bill (From RealClearPolicy)
Senator Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) big tech-bashing American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) has garnered significant Republican support, even though it does nothing to address the free speech issues that have so justifiably enraged conservatives. Enactment of AICOA would have the practical effect of taking free speech reform at Big Tech off the table in the next session of Congress, while giving Klobuchar and her allies, including those at the Federal Trade Commission, even greater leverage in manipulating Big Tech [ Read More…]
- Reforming This UN Agency Will Spark An International E-Commerce Boom (From The National Interest)
There is an international e-commerce boom coming. It will soon be common for small packages to be sent anywhere in the world in three days or less, at affordable prices with electronic tracking and other features. Thinks of it as e-commerce 2.0. Today, the road to an accelerated international e-commerce boom runs through the United Nations (UN). But if the UN fails to undertake much needed and overdue reforms on the standards and operating practices it sets for packages that [ Read More…]
- The Biggest Threat To America’s Global Dominance In Software & Services Isn’t China–It’s Washington (From Forbes)
Over the last 20 years, software and digital services have become the most vibrant sector of the U.S. economy. The pace of innovation is furious, and the impact on global commerce and culture is profound. At a time when America was losing ground in many traditional industries, companies like Amazon and Alphabet have redefined what it means to be competitive. That’s a good thing, because as President Biden’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance states, “in today’s world, economic security is [ Read More…]
- As DoD Continues To Send Equipment to Ukraine, It Needs To Buy Back Better At Home (From RealClearDefense)
The U.S. military assistance effort for Ukraine is one of the largest and most rapid transfers of weapons from this country to another since the end of World War II. It includes tens of thousands of anti-aircraft and anti-armor munitions, hundreds of artillery pieces and military vehicles, dozens of rocket launchers and hundreds of thousands of rockets, missiles, and artillery shells. Because of the urgency of Ukraine’s need, much of this equipment was taken from U.S. stockpiles. As a consequence, [ Read More…]