Sunday Links

I guess we’ll never learn the ills of concurrency. Who keeps Congress accountable for bad decisions? Here’s Navy Matters on the CVN-78.

Interesting Quora thread on the Chinese rail gun.

“Rear Admiral Lou Yuan is deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences. In his speech, he said there were ‘five cornerstones of the United States’ open to exploitation: their military, their money, their talent, their voting system — and their fear of adversaries.”

Air Force General ousted. “The Air Force said an inspector general investigation substantiated allegations that Tibbets had made inappropriate comments about women on two occasions, failed to properly report suicide attempts through his chain of command on four occasions, violated policy on use of a government vehicle, and failed to report the value of autographed photographs given to him by celebrities.”

Here’s another Air Force general ousted for “unprofessional relationships.” Not that this social accountability is bad development. But when will heads start rolling for wasting taxpayer money on losing programs? Well, so long as the program manager is a merely “caretaker,” inter-mediating a vast DOD bureaucracy and the contractor, I suppose it makes no sense to hold the PM accountable. Of course a lack of accountability is not desirable in the least bit. 

The above reminds me that there is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity, whether that’s inappropriate conduct with women or making expedient weapons decisions for personal benefit.

Somewhat related: How does an aspiring officer attain the rank of general

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