Author Archives: Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

January 26, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

RAND Study Puts A Spike Through Administration’s Plans For Biofuels A recent report by the prestigious RAND Corporation appears to put a spike through the Obama Administration’s plans for biofuels. The report focuses specifically on U.S. Navy programs to develop a range of biofuels but has clear implications for the [Read More...]

January 25, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Can The Ground Combat Vehicle Really Rise From The Ashes Of FCS? Pretty soon the Army’s only hope of salvaging anything from its ill-fated Future Combat System (FCS) program will rest with the new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV). Just last week the Army announced its decision not to equip its combat brigades [Read More...]

January 24, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Pentagon Can Learn Useful Lesson About Insourcing From The Post Office The Department of Defense is on a crusade to reduce its costs and shift resources from overhead to procurement. Two weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Gates announced some $158 billion in savings of which some $78 billion was being reinvested. [Read More...]

January 21, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

GCV Versus Soldier Equipment: Will The Army Invest In Both? The Army’s acquisition system has been captivated of late by the ongoing effort to procure a new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV). In some sense the GCV along with its linear antecedent the Future Combat System has preoccupied the Army for [Read More...]

January 20, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Bringing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles To the Skies Over You The advent of heavier-than-air flight has been one of the great technological revolutions of all times. It changed many aspects of modern life, most notably transportation, surveillance and warfare. The numbers alone make it clear how much flying has become [Read More...]

January 19, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Defeating China – If We Must The history of status quo powers managing the rise of new competitors is not one marked by lots of success. Whether it was Byzantium with the Ottoman Turks, Austria and Prussia with revolutionary France, France with Prussia or Great Britain [Read More...]

January 18, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Bring Back The F-22 Only two years after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ decision to end production of the F-22 Raptor at 187 aircraft, the program may be poised to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. When Gates made his decision, it was [Read More...]

January 17, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Running China’s Military: Hu’s In Charge? Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ recent trip to Asia was intended to restart military-to-military relations between our two countries, reaffirm the U.S.-Japan relationship and send a message to the regime in Pyongyang regarding conditions for resumption of six-party talks. The [Read More...]

January 13, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Marine F-35 Problems Are Fixable Last week, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, announced that he had placed the short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on “double secret probation.” The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, has two years to fix problems [Read More...]

January 12, 2011Daniel Gouré, Ph.D.

Defense Program Begins To Swing Back Towards “High-End” Conflicts One of the defining features of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ tenure has been the focus he placed on fighting and winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost single-handedly he dragged the military away from its traditional focus on [Read More...]