The U.S. Army is in the midst of a successful campaign to modernize its equipment and close gaps in capabilities needed for an era of great-power competition. This is a distinct departure from the uneven performance of modernization efforts during the Bush and Obama administrations. What changed? Four lessons are apparent. First, the Army developed a clear plan, a roadmap for modernization, in 2018 and stuck with it. Second, the Army’s leadership team was unusually cohesive and collegial. Third, the [ Read More…]

What are the measures of a superpower? For the U.S. it is not just the number and diversity of its nuclear weapons, the size of its Army or the number of ships in its fleet. Being an oceanic power, a critical measure of U.S. military power and a unique strategic advantage for the U.S. is its capacity to move large amounts of forces and supplies across oceans and sustain them while engaged in combat, often for years. 90 percent of [ Read More…]

The F-35 fighter is a technological marvel, but it won’t stay at the cutting edge of capability unless it is periodically improved to keep up with new threats and missions. The Joint Program Office has begun executing the most ambitious round of enhancements to date, called Block 4. The effort involves over 75 significant upgrades, and before those are fully installed the fighter’s core processor and memory unit must be bolstered to support the planned gains in functionality. When all [ Read More…]

During today’s public comment period before the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors, the Lexington Institute’s Paul Steidler urged that a semipostal stamp be issued to benefit Ukraine. His remarks are below. A fuller proposal the Lexington Institute submitted for the semipostal stamp can be found here. On Monday, November 7, the Lexington Institute submitted a proposal to the U.S. Postal Service to issue a semipostal stamp that would provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and help its postal service, Ukrposhta, [ Read More…]

The Biden administration’s effort to assist Ukraine shines a light on two serious national security problems: the Department of Defense’s inadequate stockpiles of munitions and the difficulties facing the defense industrial base to respond to quickly increase production of critical items. Unfortunately, these problems were not a surprise to senior defense decision-makers. It has long been recognized both in and out of government that the Pentagon’s inventory of munitions, particularly precision weapons, is inadequate to support a high-end conflict lasting [ Read More…]

The bloom is off the rose that was Big Tech. Washington may need to look to other sectors of the economy to sustain the pace of innovation. One candidate for that role is the defense industry, particularly big players with diverse operations, Much of what these companies do involves dual-use technology with relevance to commercial industry, and yet unlike in the commercial world there is a longstanding, bipartisan consensus supporting industrial policy in defense. Thus, if tech companies like Google [ Read More…]

On Thursday morning, November 10, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors will convene for a quarterly public meeting while announcing financial results for fiscal year 2022, service performance (likely including election mail performance), and many other matters. Here are three big issues likely to be addressed, and that should also be top of mind to the Board and policy makers going forward. Impact of Inflation on USPS’s Finances. Inflation hits USPS hard with higher costs, particularly for gasoline [ Read More…]

Barring the unexpected, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is poised to have another solidly successful election season, meaning it will promptly deliver ballots to and from voters. In 2020, amid historically high voter turnout and COVID, the average time for USPS to deliver ballots from voters to election officials was 1.6 days. USPS has built off this by further improving its practices and procedures. Election officials are working better with USPS, the non-partisan leadership at USPS is committed to mail-in [ Read More…]

The Air Force is in the market for another 140-160 aerial refueling tankers to add to the 179 it already plans to order from Boeing. There will likely be a competition for the next increment between Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus and a Lockheed Martin alternative dubbed LMXT. Boeing thinks it will have important advantages in the comparisons. First, Air Force leaders have expressed confidence in the Boeing tanker, which is performing well in deployments. Second, the KC-46 may be better suited [ Read More…]

In 2016, the U.S. Army began the most comprehensive modernization of its major platforms and weapons systems since the so-called Big Five of the 1980s. Part of the current modernization effort is focusing on defining the characteristics of and requirements for a new main battle tank (MBT). But the Army may not need to undertake this effort. General Dynamics, the company that builds what is currently the best MBT in the world, the Abrams M1A2, has unveiled the AbramsX, a revolutionary [ Read More…]