Challenges Facing Widespread Use of Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) Contracts in the Defense Sector A Way to Shape Acquisition Reform The Obama Administration seeks to apply firm-fixed price contracting in a number of sectors, including defense. Indeed, it appears that the Administration equates the use of this contract vehicle with the…
In his recent monthly Teal newsletter, Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group provided an insightful overview on the state of play of Italian aerospace and defense. The global business is in a serious period of re-structuring and redesign. The Russians, the Brazilians, the Chinese and the Japanese all have aspirations,…
[caption id="attachment_630" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Michael Wynne at Normandy"][/caption] Secretary of the Air Force Donley together with the Air Force Chief of Staff Schwartz wrote an oped over this past summer wanting to put the contentious F-22 debate behind them. With their then recent installation and the heated debate on 'next…
[caption id="attachment_537" align="alignleft" width="137" caption="Ambassador Jon Glassman"][/caption] Ambassador Glassman addresses the important question of how the new governments of the industrial democracies will address defense modernization. The global economic crisis could lead to a significant reduction in the capability of these democracies to defend themselves and their interests. Short-sided economic…
[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…
