LexNextThe Lexington
Policy Blog
- House Democrats Happily Stand Up To EU Business Bullies (From RealClearMarkets)
Common sense and advocacy for free markets and innovation are alive and well in some quarters of the Democratic party. Largely overlooked during the rush of the Christmas season, 22 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including 12 Democrats, sent President Biden a muscular letter on December 15 raising “grave concern” about the European Union (EU) designating five U.S. [ Read More…]
- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
- Tanks Are Crucial To Ukraine’s Future Battlefield Success. The U.S. Needs To Provide Them. (From Forbes)
Ukraine’s offensive failed because it could not overcome entrenched Russian defenders. In the absence of decisive air power–which neither side possesses–the only way to penetrate such defenses is with massed armor. Kyiv has a collection of disparate armored systems, but not the kind of focused strength needed to break through. America has the needed equipment. There are thousands of tanks [ Read More…]
- Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.
- Ukraine Needs More M1 Abrams Tanks Now (From The National Interest)
Despite predictions for a swift victory in Ukraine, first by Moscow and then by Kyiv, the war in Ukraine is becoming what should have been expected from the outset: a long and difficult slog. Having been pushed by its Western backers into conducting an ill-advised major fall offensive before it had received sufficient Western armaments, Ukraine is now facing the [ Read More…]
- Next-Gen Interceptor Is Pentagon’s Only Option For Defeating Future North Korean ICBMs (From Forbes)
North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program is steadily advancing, including three successful tests of ICBMs this year. Building out a defense against this threat should be an urgent priority for the Pentagon, but in fact efforts have lagged. Now U.S. defenders face the prospect of Pyongyang introducing multiple warheads on each missile, or maneuvering warheads, or sophisticated penetration aids. Existing interceptors can’t cope with these emergent threats, which is why the military is pursuing a Next Generation Interceptor. But now comes word [ Read More…]
- FTC Chair Lina Khan Must Either Pivot, Or Face Irrelevance (From RealClearMarkets)
2023 will go down as one of the worst years in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) 109-year history. This is due to its activist, controversial Chair, Lina Khan, a close advocate of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s visceral, anti-business, anti-free market policies. The FTC has had numerous prominent legal losses, declining staff morale, widespread career professional staff exits, and ethics controversies. Even some who would normally seem likely to be generally supportive of Chair Khan have taken notice and recently weighed in [ Read More…]
- Coalition Deploys US Navy’s Lethal Swiss Army Knife To Send A Message To Iran And China (From Fox News)
Biden’s next move in the Red Sea wars is critical. If we “go to war” in the Mideast, it could be over Houthi hits on Red Sea shipping. “Regarding the Houthis, these attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at a press conference in Israel on December 18. Austin later announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, calling it an important new multinational initiative to deal with the Houthi attacks. Warships from Britain, France, Japan [ Read More…]
- RTX Promotion Of Chris Calio To CEO Is A Vote For Competence And Continuity (From Forbes)
Global aerospace and defense enterprise RTX disclosed on December 14 that it is elevating chief operating officer Chris Calio to the position of chief executive officer, effective May 2. This is the culmination of a multiyear process aimed at finding a successor to CEO and chairman Greg Hayes who can shepherd the company into what looks to be a bright future. RTX is so well-positioned in military and commercial markets, both domestically and internationally, that it looks poised to be [ Read More…]
- Why China’s Growing Challenge To Big Tech Is A Problem For The Pentagon (From Forbes)
During the last two decades, U.S. manufacturing has undergone a steady decline, thanks in no small part to competition from China. As the ‘arsenal of democracy’ has gradually eroded, the Pentagon has turned increasingly to software and service providers to generate the innovations that can give U.S. warfighters an edge in conflicts. However, Chinese companies are now challenging the nation’s leading software and service providers is areas such as social media, cloud computing and cellular operating systems. It is an [ Read More…]
- Postal Service Needs To Correct Its Financial Projections (From FEDweek)
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) needs to scrap its financial projections in the 10-year Delivering for America (DFA) strategic plan and take a hard, comprehensive look at how it does financial forecasting. Its recent projections have been way off. New projections are important to the U.S. Congress, which has provided more than $120 billion in assistance to USPS since 2020. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan, independent auditor, and the Postal Regulatory Commission will also be able to perform [ Read More…]
- Airbus May Seek New Subsidies, Sparking A Transatlantic Trade War (From Forbes)
Last week, the chief executive of Airbus hinted that his company might seek government subsidies to launch development of new aircraft. If that came to pass, it would likely spark a trade war between Europe and America, because European “launch aid” was long ago ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. European leaders may not fully grasp how attitudes in Washington have hardened against countries that violate trade rules. I have written a commentary for Forbes here.
- F-35 Reminds China Who’s Top Gun By Shooting Down A Houthi Cruise Missile (From Fox News)
American technology is scoring big against Iran-backed threats in the Red Sea region, and it’s bad news for China. You know the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney was in the news again Sunday, shooting down drones launched from Yemen’s Houthi rebels against merchant shipping in the Red Sea. This crew has been taking out drones and missiles supplied by Iran for weeks now, and their tally is over two dozen destroyed so far. You may not have heard about another [ Read More…]
- How American Naval Power Enhances Its Diplomacy (From The National Interest)
In the wake of the deadly attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas, the Biden administration’s deployment of a massive naval presence in the Mediterranean shows that the U.S. possesses the capability and the will to use its military to preserve international order. Its presence in Crete’s Souda Bay is a shining example of the American military’s ability to facilitate conflict de-escalation through partnerships with allies. In the future, the United States’ presence in the eastern Mediterranean will be a factor [ Read More…]
- U.S. Army Moves To Mobilize And Disperse Its Increasingly Vulnerable Command Posts (From Forbes)
The U.S. Army has traditionally set up its combat command posts in clusters of tents near the action. That won’t do anymore. Any fixed location within range of enemy weapons is likely to be taken out early in the fighting, or to have its transmissions electronically jammed. To survive and thrive in high-intensity combat, command posts now must disperse and stay on the move. So, the Army is moving command-post operations out of tents and onto vehicles while encrypting signals. [ Read More…]