2013-03-19 Second Line of Defense visited San Diego for the christening of the USNS Montford Point. The ship is the first of a new class of ships, the Mobile Landing Platform, and a contributor to the innovation in sea basing. As Admiral Buzby, the head of the Military Sealift Command,…
2013-03-19 By Ed Timperlake and Robbin Laird When the Senate Armed Services Committee was grilling the new nominee for Secretary of Defense, more time was spent on his views on the surge in Iraq than the focal point of his first test: North Korea. In fact, the subject did not…
2013-03-18 by Robbin Laird The Western powers are facing the end game in Afghanistan. Whether what they do in the next few months is a transition or an exit remains up in the air. I mean this quite literally. If the Afghans as a nation are going to work together…
2013-03-18 What follows are several videos which highlight the path in Afghan pilot training since 2008. In the first video, the Armed Forces Network Afghanistan highlights the inauguration ceremony for the start of the first Afghan Air Force flight school class of seven students was highlighted on 12/10/11. They are…
2013-03-15 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake In a wide ranging discussion with Dr. Mark Lewis about hypersonic cruise missiles, former Chief Scientist of the USAF and now head of IDA’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, Dr. Lewis simply stopped and said: “Why are we putting 3rd and 4th generation…
2013-03-15 By Harald Malmgren ECB President Mario Draghi dramatically declared last year “the ECB would do whatever it takes” to stabilize Eurozone bond markets. It would purchase sovereign debt of troubled Euro member governments on condition that such governments would permit a European Union or Eurozone body to oversee and…
Northrop Grumman reports that detection of hostile ground fire has been added to the capabilities of its Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System. The AN/AAQ-37 was designed for use by F-35 Lightning IIs for simultaneously detecting and tracking aircraft and missiles in every direction and for providing visual imagery for day or…
2013-03-10 by Robbin Laird I was spending my Sunday working on the last chapter of our book on shaping a 21st century Pacific strategy. The F-35 among other systems figures prominently in how to build a 21st strategy, not simply funding a 20th century residue. We have interviewed many of…
