Author Archives: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D
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Ex-Im’s Enemies Find An Ally — At Airbus
September 12, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D There’s good news this morning for misguided ideologues who want to make America the only industrialized country without an export credit agency by blocking reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. They now have a real expert on their side, an authority [Read More...] -
Retiring U-2: As ISIS Battle Looms, Airborne Recon Decays (From Forbes)
September 11, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D Yesterday, only hours before the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, President Obama summoned the nation to a renewed campaign against Islamic terrorists in the Middle East. He proposes to defeat the terrorist group ISIS using a combination of U.S. air [Read More...] -
Fighting ISIS: If You Wonder Why Obama Is So Cautious, Look At What Happened To His Predecessors (From Forbes)
September 5, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D President Obama has been accused of excessive caution in responding to outrageous acts of violence by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). However, when you look at how his predecessors have fared in dealing with the various brigands [Read More...] -
Army Gets Less Than One-Percent Of Federal Budget For Weapons
September 3, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D The federal government’s budget is so big and complicated that almost nobody really understands it. As a result, misconceptions about spending patterns often become firmly rooted in public discourse despite lacking a factual basis. For instance, it is an article [Read More...] -
Sequester’s Legacy: How A Bad Budget Law Could Lose America’s Next War (From Forbes)
September 2, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D At first blush, the sequestration provisions of the 2011 Budget Control Act don’t look like a big burden for the nation’s warfighters. The law reduces defense spending by $55 billion annually, which is barely a tenth of what the Pentagon [Read More...] -
The Navy’s Newest Drone: Unmanned, Or Just Unmanageable?
August 20, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D Although the Department of Defense has established high hurdles for initiating new weapons programs, every once in a while an effort slips through the process that seems doomed to failure from the start. The Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and [Read More...] -
What If Deterrence Doesn’t Work Anymore? Five Reasons To Worry (From Forbes)
August 18, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D In the years since Russia began acquiring nuclear weapons, deterrence has become the central organizing concept of U.S. national-security strategy. And unlike at its inception, deterrence today isn’t applied just to averting nuclear war: it pops up in official pronouncements [Read More...] -
When SpaceX Falters, Washington Looks The Other Way (From Forbes)
August 15, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — SpaceX — has won broad support in Washington by offering a low-cost, innovative alternative to traditional launch providers for lofting satellites into orbit. However, the company is struggling to meet commitments to its government customer, [Read More...] -
New Energy Sources: How To Make Ukraine More Secure Without Using U.S. Military Forces (From Forbes)
August 11, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D The Obama Administration faces a dilemma in trying to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, because that country sits on the doorstep of a nuclear-armed rival that enjoys local superiority in every measure of military power. One way of making Ukraine [Read More...] -
Sustaining America’s Edge In Military Technology Requires More Than Rhetoric
August 8, 2014- Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D Sidney Freedberg of Breaking Defense reports that the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer is getting nervous about America’s edge in military technology. For three generations, the U.S. joint force has relied on superior technology to compensate for the numerical and geographical [Read More...]