2,072 retired top brass officers employed at defense firms, circa 1969
Last month, Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., said that as of February 1969 the top 100 defense contractors employed 2,072 retired military officers of the rank of colonel […]
Month: March 2019
The rise of the administrator in government
We enter a scene at a hearing on the powers of the Secretary of Defense in 1949. Senator Saltonstall asks Secretary of the Air Force […]
Implications of the Space Development Agency
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Tuesday [March 12, 2019] officially established the Space Development Agency as a separate organization within the Department of Defense […]
Rickover on human considerations for technology
Vice Adm. Hyman G. Rickover said tonight that both governmental and private organizations were disregarding human considerations in making technological decisions. He traced this […]
Only the highly efficient can burden inefficient processes
“It is a good thing that we are a rich country, because poorer countries just could not afford to waste this kind of money,” the […]
The market as a discovery procedure
They had a healthfully vague understanding that the dynamic competition which is always at work in free markets. It continually inspires market movements, movements in […]
Acquisition Headlines
“I can guarantee that no Air Force maintainer will ever name their daughter ‘Alice.’ ” That was from an article about the F-35 logistics system, […]
Why is construction so costly in the US?
The best industry practice, outlined by Madrid Metro’s Manuel Melis Maynar, is to award contracts by a combination of cost, construction speed, and a technical score […]
50 years of state-planned technology
Mr. Chairman, I believe we are in a de facto situation of nationalized high technology industry. All that is left is to formalize the arrangement. […]
Is defense where tech and government mix?
Elisabeth Braw writes (WSJ), For a model, look to Finland. For nearly six decades, the Finnish government has offered the National Defense Course, a quarterly boot […]
Where should DARPA focus its innovation?
DARPA has no doubt stimulated many important innovations over the past 60 plus years, from the internet and GPS to drones and autonomous vehicles. But […]
The pitfalls of Army culture on talent management
Probably the first cultural line of defense against talent reform — or for that matter, any transformational change — is the perspective that dictates: if it’s […]
What is the slogan for acquisition reform?
At the Air Force “Spark Tank” innovation award — presumably titled after CNBC’s Shark Tank show — Mark Cuban asks a young innovative airman why […]
Acquisition Headlines
“We had one underlying element of comfort and reassurance during the war,” Lockheed’s president wrote. “We knew we’d get paid for anything we built.” The […]
How political competition benefits procurement
This article asks if low political competition is associated with more restricted public procurement processes. Using unique Swedish municipal data from 2009 to 2015, it […]