Palantir DCGS-A update
Looks like good news for Palantir trying to break into the defense industry. Silicon Valley-based Palantir, who sued the U.S. Army several years ago over the service’s […]
Industry
Do defense firms tax the US government?
A good deal of the defense business in your State is conducted by conglomerates. That is another problem. Frequently a conglomerate means the pooling of […]
The need to demonstrate technical feasibility
Finally, it is clear that in the German case, as in the British, an early demonstration of the technical feasibility of the turbojet engine made […]
Prophecy for the defense industrial base
The way that the defense industrial base has been progressing since World War II, one future that appears to have a reasonable likelihood is that […]
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 […]
Palantir proves high barriers to entry in defense
“What I figured out soon after I started,” recalls Philippone, “was that when it comes to procurement, there are two sovereigns at the Pentagon: the […]
Can the F-35 really achieve a 15-to-1 kill ratio?
… the U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II, who had just been declared IOC (Initial Operational Capable) achieved a resounding score in mock aerial engagements against […]
What are they not telling us about Navy experimental exercises?
The Navy and Marine Corps are continuing a series of exercises to understand what technologies and tactics the services need to rapidly develop to fight […]
Lockheed’s F-21 looks like a good hedge
Lockheed Martin has just unveiled the new jet the giant U.S. defense company is offering India in response to the Indian Air Force’s RFI (Request […]
Analyzing corporate welfare in defense
In a previous post, I argued that corporate welfare is a function of Government restrictions on supply, which raises barriers to entry and lowers the […]
The upside of capture
In a previous post, I described how Luigi Zingales’ framework of regulatory capture also applies to the defense industry. I will here try to describe […]
Did fear of competition send lobbyists running to the Hill?
The 2019 budget actually allocates R&D funding for accelerated acquisition of urgently needed technologies of the Navy’s choice, Kilby said, rather than specifying every line […]
Boeing’s KC-46 struggles, but here’s the payoff
The U.S. Air Force on Thursday finally accepted and took ownership from Boeing of its first KC-46A air-to-air refueling tanker, though it pointed to flaws […]
What causes buy-ins on production?
When people in defense talk about “buy-ins”, they are talking about a contractor who purposefully under-bids on a competitively awarded contract. Instead of expecting losses […]
The innovator’s dilemma of weapon systems
Let’s say the Government has awarded R&D work to a contractor. During the course of the contract, the engineering team spontaneously generates new insight. The […]