PENTAGON ACQUISITION REFORM - CounterStrikeMedia

PRECARIOUS STATE OF CIVIL MILITARY AFFAIRS & CHINA'S FUSION OF CIVILIAN & SOLDIER CONSTITUTING DANGEROUS MILITARY ETHOS OVER POLICY

3/28/2018

The Precarious State of Civil-Military Relations
By Lindsay P. Cohn, War on the Rocks: “More recently, the apparent ramping-up of the U.S. military presence in Syria, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa has continued apace, while lacking a clear and consistent strategic narrative about what this is supposed to accomplish. There is no shortage of things for observers and scholars to worry about when it comes to civil-military relations.”

Civil-Military Fusion and the PLA’s Pursuit of Dominance in Emerging Technologies
By Lorand Laskai, China Brief: “China’s efforts to become a dominant ‘science and tech superpower’ (科技强国) in technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum communications, robotics and smart manufacturing are well documented. Less is known about how China plans to use CMF to convert its technological push into a long-term military advantage.”

Sri Lanka cedes major port to China, fueling tensions
(Defense News) Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean the size of West Virginia, has become another flashpoint in regional naval competition.

The Global Dimension of China’s Influence Operations
By Bates Gill & Benjamin Schreer, The Strategist (ASPI): “...sharp power shouldn’t be conflated with ‘soft power with Chinese characteristics’. Instead, it’s a vital instrument to fulfill President Xi Jinping’s ambition for China to become a global power by piercing, penetrating or perforating the political and information environments in target countries.”

What Austria Can Teach the U.S. About Civil-Military Relations
By Franz-Stefan Gady, Defense One: “I was raised in a culture in which soldiering is seen as just another dangerous profession.”

Xi Doubles Down on Civil-Military Fusion
By Lorand Laskai, China Brief: “Amid growing tensions with the United States over technology and trade, China is elevating civil-military fusion to the center of the country’s cybersecurity and informatization agenda.”

Tempering the Rhetoric About Civil-Military Relations
By Charlie Dunlap, Small Wars Journal: “The military is hardly as homogenous in its views as many narratives would have you believe.”

WHY THE F-35 IS A RABBIT HOLE

3/27/2018

What the F-35 Can Learn From F-22 Upgrades
By Lara Seligman, Aviation Week: “Before there was “C2D2,” the Star Wars-evoking acronym for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 upgrade program, there was the F-22 Raptor’s “Scaled Agile Framework,” or SAFe.”

There’s Still No Finish Line in Sight for the F-35 Program
(War Is Boring) Jim Roche, then-secretary of the U.S. Air Force, made an announcement on Oct. 26, 2001, that all aviation enthusiasts had been waiting for. A winner had been picked to design and build the Joint Strike Fighter.

The Pentagon's Plan to Move F-35 Management to the Services
By Valerie Insinna & Aaron Mehta, Defense News: “The Defense Department plans to dissolve the F-35 Joint Program Office and revert to a more traditional management structure where the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all run their own program offices – eventually.”

The F-35's 'Drone-Like' Targeting and Sensor Capabilities
By Kris Osborn, Warrior Maven: ““The F-35s ability to integrate with air, ground and sea platforms is there. We do missions at Edwards AFB where we integrate with aircraft carriers and destroyers,” Lt. Col. Tucker Hamilton, F-35 Test Director, Edwards AFB, told reporters.”

U.S. ARMY: AT THE CROSSROADS

3/27/2018

Army Air & Missile Defense Faces The Future By Robbin Laird

Army aviation at ‘a crossroads’ as future requirements take shape
(Defense News) Army aviation has found itself at a “crossroads” where the current fleet of CH-47 Chinook, AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Black Hawk multi-year contracts are “sunsetting” and the Army must decide when and how it takes the leap from the current fleet to a far more advanced rotorcraft, according to Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen, who has taken the lead on the service’s Future Vertical Lift modernization effort.

US Army’s Futures Command sets groundwork for battlefield transformation
(Defense News) It’s the beginning of a new era in Army acquisition in which soldiers might not have to wait 10 years or longer to see a new weapon or capability in the field, but instead could get modern, new systems in their hands within just a few short years.

Army Units Will Be Tasked to Work on Each of Futures Command’s Priorities
By Meghann Myers, Defense News: “There are eight cross-functional teams tasked with tackling the Army’s modernization needs, and this time around, leaders are taking care to get soldier feedback from the get-go.”

U.S. Army Aviation: Get Your Act Together
By Dave Funk, RealClearDefense: “The U.S. Army Aviation is forty years behind best practices in the flying business.”

How (Not) to Fight Proxy Wars
By C. Anthony Pfaff & Patrick Granfield, The National Interest: “The U.S. Army Aviation is forty years behind best practices in the flying business.”

While the Army National Guard has retained the service’s only Short-Range Air Defense capability in its Avenger Battalions for years, the Army is now pushing to prioritize SHORAD in the active force. - Defense News

Army Futures Command has yet to officially stand up after initially taking shape just six months ago, but the cross-functional team leaders in charge of the service’s most pressing modernization priorities within the command are already changing. - Defense News

Army Secretary: We Will Kill Programs To Fund Big Six
By Sydney Freedberg, Breaking Defense: “Dreading the potential return of sequestration cuts in 2020, the Army has started scouring over 800 acquisition programs for things it can cancel to free up funds for its Big Six modernization priorities.”

New Army acquisition chief takes on rapid buying
(Defense News) Bruce Jette is the new assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology where he is responsible for not only acquisition but also serves as the science adviser to the Army secretary, is the senior research and development official and is responsible for matters related to logistics.

Here’s how the Army is trying to catch up to Russia and China on missiles, artillery
(Army Times) While senior officials admit that the Army is currently outgunned and outranged in its artillery and missiles programs, the service’s secretary and top general told Congress that fixing that problem at every level is their top priority.

UNMANNED AERIEL TANKER TAKES OFF

3/27/2018

Lockheed Martin unveiled its concept for the Navy’s MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial tanker in a series of images provided to USNI News on Monday by the company. - USNI News

When rapid deployments have long-term costs
(C4ISRNET) After 17 years of war, Army leaders have learned they need to take think harder about the maintenance and sustainment of the equipment they ship out for urgent needs.

OVERCOMING MOORE'S LAW FOR WARFARE

3/27/2018

Overcoming the Death of Moore’s Law: The Role of Software Advances
and Non- Semiconductor Technologies in the Future Defense Environment
By Stuart Vanweele & Ralph Tillinghast, Small Wars Journal: “The Army should lead core technologies when it is imperative and when only the Army will or can lead, shape other technologies by leveraging industrial and academic work to meet Army-specific applications and watch developing technology trends which may impact the Army mission.

Thomas Karako and Ian Williams write: The new [Missile Defense Review] will need to address at least two major trends that have emerged over the past several years: the significant advances made by U.S. adversaries in nuclear and missile technology, and the shift to a more competitive footing with near-peer states like Russia and China as noted in the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy. - Center for Strategic and International Studies

Innovation and the Challenger Mentality
By Kareen Hart, Strategy Bridge: “An inherent tension exists in U.S. military culture. Intellectually, military members recognize the need to embrace technological innovation and change to survive in a complex and adaptive environment, yet the military organizational structure favors slow and deliberate development.”

HOW CHINA ENDS ITS WARS

3/27/2018

How China ends wars
Oriana Skylar Mastro | The Washington Quarterly
China’s approach to wartime diplomacy, escalation, and mediation all play roles in determining how a hypothetical conflict would unfold in East Asia and what the US role in restoring peace and stability should be. In its three major conflicts since the Cold War began, China has demonstrated a preference only to talk to weaker states, rapidly escalate any conflict to quickly impose peace, and use third parties to pressure its adversaries to concede.

Chinese Nuclear Capabilities and Competition With the U.S.
By Lorenzo Termine, RealClearDefense: “The NPR points that while the U.S. was seeking a smaller, less dangerous and less powerful atomic stockpile, the PRC moved in the opposite direction, increasing and modernizing its own.”

Fewer Checks, More Balancing:
How Xi Jinping’s Consolidation of Power Changes the Risk of War
By Stephan Pikner, Strategy Bridge: “Since modern China has always been led by a highly authoritarian regime, is the shift from consensus-based decision making by Party elites to a more personalist style of rule merely a distinction without a difference? Does the consolidation of power under President Xi matter, particularly to issues of war and peace?”

South China Sea: The Philippine Fissure
By Jay Batongbacal, the interpreter: “A new normal is evident in the South China Sea disputes. Last week, Philippine Secretary of Defense Delfin Lorenzana revealed that China continues to exchange radio challenges and responses with Philippine aircraft patrols and resupply missions in the West Philippine Sea. ”

Michael J. Green writes: There is a shortage of infrastructure investment to meet the needs of developing nations across the Indo-Asia-Pacific region and most nations have welcomed the opportunity to bid for Chinese funding. At the same time, there are growing questions about the economic viability and the geopolitical intentions behind China’s proposals. - Center for Strategic and International Studies

URBAN WAR IS HERE & U.S. ARMY MUST GO BIG

3/25/2018

The Army Needs to Go Big With Futures Command
By Daniel Gouré, RealClearDefense: “There has been a great deal of speculation in public fora regarding how far the Army will go with this reform effort and how hard senior leaders will fight to overcome the inevitable resistance from entrenched interests.”

The End of the American Way of War
By Paul McCleary, Breaking Defense: “For the past two decades, “the Chinese and the Russians have been working to undermine that model,” said Elbridge Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development.”

The Era of Urban Warfare is Already Here
By Margarita Konaev & John Spencer, FPRI: “The future of global violence is urban. While rural insurgencies have not vanished, recent trends reflect the rise of intrastate conflict involving non-state actors using the advantages of cites to achieve their political goals.”

The Marine Corps is planning for a future that will pit Marines against an enemy well-versed in fighting and hiding in crowded urban areas and equipped with high-tech weapons and communications systems. - USNI News

The Army of 2028 will be ready to fight any war, top civilian says
(Defense News) U.S. Army Secretary Mark Esper said the service of 2028 will be ready to fight any war, in his first major speech in the position, which laid out his vision for the future of the service.

Army Futures Command taking charge of conjuring up new capability
(Defense News) The Army Futures Command (AFC) will take charge of the Army’s processes for conjuring up materiel designs for modernized capability going forward, which means taking some elements from some of the major commands and moving them over to the new organization, Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy told Defense News in an exclusive interview just ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium.

CHINA TESTING UNMANNED TANKS

3/25/2018

CHINA: China Testing Unmanned Tanks
By Gabriel Dominguez & Samuel Cranny-Evans, IHS Jane's 360: “Images have emerged showing a People's Liberation Army (PLA) Type 59 main battle tank (MBT) being remotely operated: an indication that China has begun trials of unmanned tanks as part of a push to modernise its armed forces.”

20TH CENTURY "COLD WAR" WAY OF CONFLICT IS OVER

3/22/2018

The End Of The American Way of War; The Cold War Really Is Over

Artillery, Drones, Missiles Will Help FVL Penetrate Air Defenses: FVL CFT

ACQUISITION MYTHS: DEFENSE ONE

5 MYTHS OF PENTAGON WEAPONS PROGRAMS & WHY SMALLS LIMITED WARS IS OVER

3/21/2018

Five Myths About Pentagon Weapons Programs // Frank Kendall
As the service secretaries converge on Capitol Hill to talk acquisition reform, it's important to sort fact from fiction.

Revamping the Army's Tactical Network
By Connie Lee, National Defense Magazine: “Gallagher noted some of his team’s tasks include examining a “unified network transport” that will come after the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T.”

The new National Defense Strategy marks a clear change of direction for the U.S. military. After focusing for almost two decades on limited wars and non-state threats, it is now entering a period of great power competition and the renewed possibility of a major conflict. - War on the Rocks

WHAT THE NAVY NEEDS & IS THE F35C CARRIER READY?

3/17/2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/for-the-navy-strike-capability-should-be-top-priority/#slide-1

Navy's Carrier-Launched F-35C to Be War Ready in 2021
By Kris Osborn, Warrior Maven: “The anticipated historical deployment could be accelerated by the 2019 budget proposal which supports a transition of the F-35C program from a developmental phase to more formal test and evaluation before being declared operational later this year.”

U.S. Evolving Middle East Operations of Carrier Strike Group
By Megan Eckstein, USNI News: “The rollback of ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria and changes in how Iran operates in the Persian Gulf are prompting the U.S. Navy to evolve how it operates its carrier strike groups in the Middle East.

Attack Submarine USS Colorado Commissions
By Ben Werner, USNI News: “Construction of Colorado started in 2012 and is the 15th Virginia-class fast attack submarine, and the fifth Virginia-class Block III submarine to be built. Colorado will be the fourth U.S. Navy ship commissioned named for the state of Colorado.

Persian Gulf are prompting the U.S. Navy to evolve how it operates its carrier strike groups in the Middle East. - USNI News

Office of American Innovation leader named to new White House role
(Federal Times) Chris Liddell has been named White House deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, according to a March 19, 2018, White House statement. Liddell joined the administration during the transition, acting as assistant to the president for strategic initiatives and an Office of American Innovation official.

EVOLUTION OF CHINESE NUCLEAR DOCTRINE

3/16/2018

The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Doctrine: Updating or Overhauling?
By Lorenzo Termine, RealClearDefense: “Lost in the piles of rubble amid thousands of corpses on that tragic day on 9/11 were small handheld devices which afforded the hijackers a distinct advantage in the small, confined spaces of the aircraft cabins: namely, miniaturized chemical weapons containing CS gas or cayenne pepper.”

China irons out high-altitude jet fighter engine faults in boost to defences against India, analysts say
(South China Morning Post) Video of Chengdu J-10 and Shenyang J-11 jets flying low over snow-capped mountains was posted on the People’s Liberation Army’s official website on Monday. The jets are part of China’s fleet of third-generation lightweight multi-role fighter aircraft and are powered by Russian AL-31F engines.

CHINA: China to Commence Research on Sixth-Gen Fighter
From DefenseWorld: “China is preparing to commence research on a sixth-generation fighter aircraft from experience gained in the developing the fifth-generation J-20 stealth jet, its most modern fighter to date.”

The Patchy Results of China’s Soft Power Efforts
By Merriden Varrall, the interpreter: “Chinese media has reported that the Chinese Ministry of Culture is set to be merged with the National Tourism Association. So what? Well, as Xinhua points out, this is no mere bureaucratic reshuffle.”

The Policy-Strategy Distinction:
Clausewitz and The Chimera of Modern Strategic Thought
By Adam Elkus, Infinity Journal: “Tactics and strategy are frequently mistaken for policy, and policy mistaken for the strategies needed to execute them. Widespread ignorance of policy-strategy in, among others, America holds back a sound analysis of modern security threats and retards the development of intellectual tools needed to cope with them.”

Beijing’s Anti-Satellite and Missile Defense Systems: A Threat to Its Neighbors
By Davis Florick, National Institute for Public Policy: “In recent years, Beijing’s investments in missile defense and anti-satellite systems have stood in stark contrast to its sharp criticism of its rivals’ initiatives in the same fields”

RUSSIA SEEKS NUCLEAR ARMED DRONE

3/16/2018

DIA: Russia 'Probably Developing' Nuke-Armed Drone
By Anthony Capaccio, Bloomberg: “DIA also says multiple countries, particularly those with less established weapons programs, seek to build “ever smaller and more sophisticated nuclear weapons.” through their “technical ambitions may lead to compromises in safety” that “could make a weapons accident more likely””

RUSSIA: Russian Submarine Activity at Post-Cold War High
By John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes: ““They are deploying more and they are deploying at a higher rate,” said Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, adding that the Russian navy is regularly maneuvering from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. “The forces they are deploying are being modernized, particularly with their weapons systems.””

HOW BEIJING VIEWS THE NUCEAR POSTURE REVIEW & CHINA'S SYSTEMS THINKING CONCEPT OF WAR

3/13/2018

Chinese Views on the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, and Their Implications
By Michael S. Chase, China Brief: “Chinese experts assessing the NPR’s implications for China appear to be focusing on its proposals to develop new nuclear capabilities and its listing of several types of non-nuclear strategic attacks that could result in nuclear escalation.”

In A Fortnight: Xi’s Other Amendments
By Matt Schrader, China Brief: “But mostly lost in the uproar over the end of collective rule was the fact that the proposed amendment is but one of a larger package of amendments proposed by the Central Committee—21 in total—that, as a whole, comprise the largest rewriting of the PRC Constitution since its wholesale revision in 1982.”

Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People's Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare Jeffrey Engstrom
The People's Liberation Army's approach to training, organizing, and equipping for modern warfare over the past two decades has been influenced by systems thinking. It now characterizes modern warfare as a confrontation between opposing operational systems rather than merely opposing armies. Read more »

OPERATIONAL TEMPO DAMAGES SPECIAL OPS

3/13/2018

Special Operations for Strategic Effect:
Protracted Campaigns, Rationale and Implications
By LTCOL N, The Cove: “Knowledge of the logic that underpins the relationship between special operations campaigns and strategic effect is essential for policymakers and military practitioners, (within and external to the special operations community) if SOF are to achieve the return on the taxpayers’ investment that their existence implies.”

How the Network Generation Is Changing the Millennial Military
By KC Reid, War on the Rocks: “This new generation is more intellectually prepared for danger and uncertainty, and is full of determination and self-confidence, but it is also uniquely fragile. The U.S. military requires mental toughness beyond what many NetGens possess when they join.”

Special Operators Are Getting a Bit More Much-Needed Rest
// Caroline Houck
At least two SOF components are on a 'glide path' to the Pentagon's desired optempo.

EDMUND PHELPS ON CHINA'S INNOVATION PROBLEM

3/12/2018

Will China Out-Innovate the West?
Edmund Phelps thinks Asia's giant has discovered what Western economies have forgotten: the engine of productivity growth.

Next phase of Belt and Road: Xi's own military-industrial complex
(Nikkei Asian Review) Beijing envisions high-tech arms exports as it extends its web of influence.

FIXING CLOSE COMBAT LETHALITY

3/12/2018

Ten Ways to Fix the U.S. Military’s Close Combat Lethality
By Steven Cummings, Jeff Cummings, John Kivelin, John Spencer & Scott Cuomo, War on the Rocks: “Last month, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis directed the establishment of a Close Combat Lethality Task Force. The task force's mission is to improve the “combat preparedness, lethality, survivability, and resiliency of our Nation's ground close-combat formations.””

The Key to Good Infantry is Training Squad Leaders
By Keith Nightingale, Task & Purpose: “The position of squad leader is the least experienced and the most junior of all infantry positions. Yet, it often is the most important on the field of battle as well as the least capable of supervision.”

THE CRISIS OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE

3/10/2018

Why Are so Many Fighter Pilots Leaving the Air Force?
By Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media: “For the Air Force, the main issue is retaining pilots after they've gone through years of costly training. And those staffing problems are only likely to get worse in the years ahead."

Revitalizing the Air Force’s Aging Four Horsemen
By John C. Johnson, National Defense Magazine: “Today's battlefield requires a fully interoperable grid and near instantaneous data sharing. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information sharing and exploitation with strike platforms has become a mainstay of the modern battlefield.

Air Force in Crisis, Part II: How Did We Get Here?
By Mike Benitez, War on the Rocks: “Distilling internal Air Force retention data from the flying community reveals the true crisis: the Air Force has not met its fighter pilot retention goal in 10 years.

Air Force in Crisis, Part III: It’s All About the Culture
By Mike Benitez, War on the Rocks: “The methodology a fighter pilot uses to debrief after a mission is simple yet effective: What happened, why did it happen, and how do you fix it?

We Are on the Road to Aviation Retention
By VADM Robert P. Burke, Proceedings Magazine: ““The border wall is only one of the tools we need to secure the border – the wall system also involves mission-ready agents, patrol roads, sensor technology, and support resources.”

CHINESE REFORM OF THE PLA

3/10/2018

Navy, Marine Corps Leaders Warn That China Is 'Weaponizing Capital'
By Ellen Mitchell, The Hill: “Top Navy and Marine Corps officials on Wednesday expressed concern over China’s expanding global reach and said the superpower was rapidly buying up foreign land to “win without fighting.””

Swifter mobilization, more drills among proposals for PLA
BY ASIA TIMES STAFF
Armed police may face more drills and reforms after the force was brought under the Central Military Commission

With the stated national goal of achieving ‘great power status,’ China’s military modernization efforts have contributed to rising tension in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as between China and the United States.

China’s growing ability to project military force, buttressed by the opening of its first overseas naval base in Djibouti and rapid naval advancements, are worrying developments from the perspective of the U.S. and its allies as China seeks to reshape the existing international order.
Massive investments in technological advancements are paying dividends in terms of Chinese military capabilities, particularly in the air and on the water. There is no denying that much of the military preparation by both the U.S. and China is meant to respond to the other.
Both nations remain committed to finding areas of common ground—on issues such as anti-piracy, counterterrorism and nuclear nonproliferation—but they have found limited success, and the military ramp-up continues, with China’s capabilities presenting an increasing threat to U.S. and allied forces.

Read the full brief, with expert commentary from:

RETENTION & LEADERSHIP

3/7/2018

The Road to Retention Is Paved with Good Intentions
By Tony Kochanski, Proceedings Magazine: “Retention in any organization is a direct reflection of leadership. If the Navy is to recover from its retention problems in Naval Aviation, leaders must acknowledge where we have drifted and fix the processes that got us here.”

U.S. ARMY FUTURES COMMAND, COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU NOW

3/7/2018

Army Studies 30 Cities For Futures Command

U.S. Army leaders are now scouring the country to find a city with the right mix of academics and business leaders to stand up the service's new Futures Command. - Military.com

Army to base new Futures Command in major city, blend tech and academic cultures
(Army Times) The Army is weeks away from unveiling the next phase in its plans to centralize and streamline modernization under one Army Futures Command, including moves to lease office space in a major city where leaders will have access to civilian experts.

The future battlefield: Army, Marines prepare for ‘massive’ fight in megacities
(Army Times) In the midst of the Vietnam War, U.S. troops were rocked by an offensive that saw conventional and irregular enemies sweep over territories and entrench themselves in areas of South Vietnam previously untouched by the war.

Using lessons learned, soldiers and Marines are training for urban combat
(Army Times) When retired Marine Lt. Gen. Ron Christmas was a young lieutenant in training, officers received a grand total of a one-hour lecture on urban combat.

Conflict follows humanity wherever it goes, and the world’s population is increasingly living in cities. Waning are the days of rural insurgents in small peripheral villages, or seeking refuge in the hard terrain of mountainous caverns, dense forests or expansive deserts.

Soon, terrorist and insurgent groups will mount operations from crowded slums and ritzy skyscrapers—not just in a dense urban landscape, but in coastal megacities that pose a unique challenge for which the U.S. military largely remains unprepared.

Wars of the future will not be fighting for cities, but rather fighting within them. Counterinsurgency of the future will take place in peripheral slums, along narrow backstreets, and among a metropolis of civilians going about their days.
The advantage of heavy weaponry a counterinsurgent force has enjoyed in the past will become limited in megacities, and ground forces, such as tactical counterterrorism units or special operations forces, will encounter related challenges as a result of the physical terrain within a burgeoning metropolis.
Counterinsurgent forces must adapt, and that requires a change in mindset about the use of unconventional military power. In anticipation of the explosive urbanization trend predicted to continue and accelerate, the U.S. military needs to adapt to operating within sprawling metropolitan environments.

Read the full brief, with expert commentary from:

The Army Needs to Buy Capability Today to Be Modern Tomorrow
By Daniel Gouré, RealClearDefense: “Processes are no substitute for production. The U.S. Army’s effort to reform the processes associated with its acquisition system, from requirements definition through investments in technology to engineering development and production, is moving forward.”

US STEALTH FAILS FOR F35 & OUR NON-COMPETITIVE INDUSTRIAL BASE

3/6/2018

Stealth features responsible for half of F-35 defects, Lockheed program head states
(Defense News) As the production rate of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 joint strike fighter goes up, the company is wrestling with quality escapes involving the jet’s low observability features, which now amount to about half of all defects on the aircraft, the company’s vice president of the program revealed Monday.

To Lead in Space, U.S. Needs Globally Competitive Industry
By Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews: “The U.S. aerospace industry needs to be able to export products around the world and forge international alliances in order to be competitive in space, said Marillyn Hewson, chairman, president and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation.”

CHINA HITS THE WALL: LIMITATIONS OF EXPANSION

3/4/2018

China’s quest for techno-military supremacy
BY ADAM NI
Xi Jinping's China seems destined to challenge US technological supremacy in key fields such as AI, supercomputing and quantum information science

China boosts defense spending amid military modernization
(Reuters) China unveiled its largest rise in defense spending in three years on Monday, setting an 8.1 percent growth target compared to 2017, fuelling the country’s ambitious military modernization program amid rising Chinese security concerns.

https://navaldiplomat.com/2018/02/26/has-china-passed-an-inflection-point/

We shouldn’t take too much comfort, though, if China is indeed bumping up against its limits. You might suppose a state undergoing demographic or economic decline would conduct its affairs with caution in order to husband increasingly scarce resources. And you would be right: that does make sense. But my finding from the population-decline study—drawing on demographic catastrophes in classical Greece—was that demographic stresses may have just the opposite effect. A contender could run even more risks than it normally would despite its loss of manpower and other resources.

FIXING DEFENSE BUDGET
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TRANSPARENCY & COST CAPABILITY
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MACKENZIE EAGLEN
AEI

DEFENSE STRATEGY-PRIORITIES
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DEFENSE INNOVATION PROBLEMS
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REBUTAL TO EAGLEN
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DOD ACQUISITION REFORM

twelve problems_negatively_impacting_defense_innovation___american_enterprise_institute_-_aei.pdf
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the_1960s_had_their_day__changing_dod’s_acquisition_processes_and_structures___realcleardefense.pdf
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Dr. Kathleen Hicks

getting_to_less.pdf
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THUCYDIDES & THE LONG WAR PROBLEM

FORCE PLANNING IN AGE OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION

AGAINST ALL ODDS: CHANGING ACQUISITION CULTURE

THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN MILITARY PRIMACY

NATIONAL MILITARY STRATEGY: REVOLUTIONARY APPROACH

UNDERSTANDING MILITARY MODERNIZATION

5 STRATEGIES FOR SEC. OF DEFENSE

WHY THE 3RD OFFSET FAILS

INADEQUATE DOCTRINES FOR IRREGULAR WAR

ALTERNATIVE WAR STRATEGIES & FORCE POSTURE

REVERSING DECLINE: ELIZABETHIAN ENGLAND

U.S. GRAND STRATEGY FOR WINNING WORLD WAR IV

MULTI-DOMAIN BATTLE REPLACES R.M.A.

GLOBAL DEFENSE SPENDING.pdf
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REBUILDING AMERICAN MILITARY.pdf
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Tweets by WilliamHolland

Principles Guiding Pentagon Acquisition Reform
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