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A new Government Accountability Office report scolds the Department of Defense for failing to figure out which rare earth elements are critical to national security — China controls the world market — and for not developing plans to make sure the United States has enough even though Congress passed a law telling them to five years…
By Richard WhittleHow to ensure readiness of next-generation defense technology: Solving the issue of massive heat.
High-performance systems generate tremendous amounts of heat that can compromise missions and make high-tech systems less effective in tactical environments. But there is a solution to this modern-age challenge.
WASHINGTON: This morning, Sen. Dick Durbin set off heart attacks across the Army when he said the service’s $13.8 billion Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program was a whopping $2.6 billion over budget. AMPV is the last survivor of 14 years of cancelled major programs and deliberately designed to be modest, achievable, and affordable, so the previously…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Paying for the Navy’s new nuclear missile subs through a special fund with special authorities “could potentially save several hundred million dollars per submarine,” according to a recent Congressional Budget Office study. House Armed Services seapower subcommittee chairman Randy Forbes, father of the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund, is unsurprisingly touting this little noticed conclusion…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: The war over the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is far from over. This morning, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain warned Navy leaders that their drive towards an upgraded LCS frigate may be repeating the mistakes that resulted in the original, much-criticized LCS design. “Without a clear capabilities-based assessment, it is not clear…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA: Even as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flew here with much fanfare to reaffirm his “strong, strong confidence” in the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force quietly let slip they have started a competition for the Long-Range Strike Bomber. The two programs could hardly be more different. JSF is…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CRYSTAL CITY: The Littoral Combat Ship was supposed to be one of the fastest things in the fleet, but it seems like the skeptics – and the sequester – have caught up with it. The question is, what’s next? After a Pentagon memo recommended slashing the program by more than a third — from 52 ships to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Acquisition reform. It almost makes you feel good to hear those words. They connote improvement, reason and good government. But the more acquisition reform America gets from Congress and the Pentagon, it seems, the less return we get on each dollar we spend. Estimates of the cost of government oversight of Pentagon acquisition range…
By Colin Clark
Modernizing our supply chain is a national security imperative
Closing supply chain gaps in innovating technology will reposition the industrial base to be a strategic source of value.
