In a recent study published by the Mitchell Institute for Airpower studies, Rebecca Grant examines the challenges facing the future of the defense aerospace industrial base. Grant underscores the challenge of maintaining a viable defense aerospace industrial base over the next decades in the presence largely of simply one major…
In June 2009, the Aircraft Sectoral Group (ASG) within the AeroSpace and Defense Industries Association of Europe (ASD) issued a thought piece on the future of European Air Power Systems entitled "European Future Air Power Systems in the 2035 Perspective". The ASG represents Alenia Aeronautica, BAE Systems, Dassault-Aviation, EADS Military…
[caption id="attachment_2771" align="alignleft" width="300"] Michael W. Wynne[/caption] The Defense Industrial Base Under Pressure: How to Lead With Shrinking Manufacturing Capabilities? Schumpeter, in his classic approach to creative economic destruction, watched consolidation in technologies and industries driven by natural forces until a secondary or new technology essentially destroyed the hold…
This is the first of regular contributions by Rear Admiral (Retired) Ed Gilbert, one of the most experienced and knowledgeable experts on maritime security, who is president of Gilbert Associates and a frequent commentator on the challenges facing the US Coast Guard today. The pressing need to modernize U.S. Coast…
The Administration Proposes a New Model for the Vertical Lift Industry: Shaping a Way Ahead on Research and Development On October 27, 2009, a vertical lift aviation industry day was held by DOD to try to set in motion a new approach to the industry . The approach was legitimized…
Ninety years ago, British strategist and inventor Major General J.F.C. Fuller understood that “Tools, or weapons, if only the right ones can be discovered, form 99 percent of victory…. Strategy, command, leadership, courage, discipline, supply, organization and all the moral and physical paraphernalia of war are nothing to a high…
Reports of China's impending decision to restrict exports of rare-earth minerals has suddenly awoken the U.S. government to its dependence on China for virtually all of the permanent magnets and rare-earth materials used throughout the defense industrial complex. China controls more than 95 percent of the world's supply of rare-earth…
[caption id="attachment_627" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Robert Johnson"][/caption] The shape of tactical vehicle modernization impacts on other services and on other procurement choices. We discuss elsewhere the C5M modernization effort: determining what vehicles the lift fleet will carry is an important driver in debates about what to modernize and what to buy…
