Loren Thompson

In 1919, Ralph D. Paine began a brief history of the old U.S. merchant marine with these words: “The story of American ships and sailors is an epic of blue water which seems...

So key members of Congress are outraged at what seems to be a searing indictment of the Pentagon’s biggest weapons program. Obviously, this begs the question of why countries...

The U.S. Air Force in June released a “sources sought” announcement for the next installment in its program to replace over 400 aged aerial refueling tankers. The new...

President Biden’s executive order launching a whole-of-government campaign to promote competition in the U.S. economy is long overdue. Enforcement of antitrust measures has...

In the 128 years since Maine’s Bath Iron Works (BIW) delivered its first gunboats to the U.S. Navy, the nation’s oldest full-service shipyard has endured many...

Earlier this year, the Collins Aerospace unit of Raytheon Technologies, working with teammate Leonardo DRS, received Pentagon approval to commence production of a next-generation air...

In the two decades since Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to develop the F-35 fighter, the industrial team it formed has had to overcome many engineering challenges. Each of...

In mid-July, the latest in a series of classified seminars will be held at the Charles Stark Draper Lab adjacent to MIT’s campus to educate naval personnel and contractors...

The U.S. Army is in the midst of a generational transformation in its warfighting technology that by the end of this decade will begin replacing some of the service’s...

Late last year, the U.S. Air Force conducted a secret war game testing how it might repulse a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030. As described by Valerie Insinna in Defense...

Over a hundred years after German U-boats first threatened Britain’s maritime lifelines to North America, submarines continue to pose a danger to the security of Western...

KC-46 will play a pivotal role in supporting U.S. military services and overseas allies in future military operations.

If you were expecting the Biden administration to cancel a raft of weapons programs inherited from the Trump years, guess again. The Pentagon investment priorities revealed by the...

The U.S. Air Force on Friday unveiled details of its first budget request during the Biden years, stressing investment in a slew of overdue technology initiatives. The proposed...

The Federal Trade Commission is currently completing its review of a proposed merger between defense contractor Lockheed Martin LMT +0.5% and...

Federal contractors working in the national security field tend to be a discreet lot. Much of what they do is secret, and sharing details too widely can help enemies counter U.S....

The U.S. Navy is struggling to keep up with China’s massive investment in new warships. Although American warships are more capable and American sailors are better trained, if...

Raytheon Technologies RTX +2.5% celebrated its first birthday on April 3. The company came together in the biggest aerospace merger ever just as the global pandemic...

President Biden has nominated former Under Secretary of Defense Frank Kendall to be the next Secretary of the Air Force. It will be some time before the Senate gets around to holding...

The clouds hanging over the biggest industrial complex in southeastern Pennsylvania began to clear Wednesday as Army leaders endorsed helicopter upgrades essential to its future. In...

The U.S. Army’s competition to develop a successor for its venerable Bradley infantry fighting vehicle has attracted a formidable array of contenders, both foreign and...

The recent efforts of airpower proponents to discredit Army pursuit of long-range fires looks, at first blush, like the kind of inter-service bickering that often breaks out when...

The U.S. Navy wants to develop a successor to the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers, the most successful surface combatant of the postwar era. July 4 of this year marks the 30th...

Lockheed Martin’s LMT -1.8% proposed merger with Aerojet AJRD +0.1% Rocketdyne, announced in December, is currently under review by the Federal...

Proponents of the Air Force’s heavy bombers have launched a campaign to discredit Army plans for its own long-range strike systems. One article in the Air Force...

The U.S. Navy’s director of air warfare did taxpayers a big favor last week when he opined that there is no need for a new class of light aircraft carriers. That half-baked...

Shortly after President Trump took office in 2017, the U.S. Army certified to Congress that upgrades of its CH-47F Chinook heavy lifter were a high priority for which funding had...

Providence, Rhode Island-based Textron is emerging from the global pandemic in good shape. Its commercial lines, such as Cessna and Beechcraft airplanes, are poised for a strong...

The island of Taiwan, home to the Republic of China, occupies a pivotal position in Washington’s Sino-centric defense strategy. Geographically, Taiwan is the anchor of the...

Every few years or so, national media rediscover that the F-35 fighter is the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program. Then, predictably, they get all of the facts wrong. Know...

The F-35 fighter being bought for three U.S. military services and a dozen allies is going through one of its periodic rough patches with the political culture. Although the price of...

Contrary to what you may have heard, Republicans and Democrats do not disagree on everything. When it comes to the growing economic challenge posed by China, they seem to share...

Collectively, these ten indicators support the assessment of the late Senator John McCain that the F-35 is destined to be “the greatest combat aircraft in...

President Biden’s defense team is reworking the Pentagon’s fiscal 2022 budget request to reflect the new administration’s priorities. The biggest challenge is...

Last week I participated in an online panel about modernizing the U.S. strategic arsenal sponsored by the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance. ANWA, as it is called, is one of the few...

In January the U.S. Department of Defense sanctioned Chinese civil-aviation manufacturer COMAC due to concern that it shares technology with the People’s Liberation Army. The...

In December the world’s biggest military contractor, Lockheed LMT -0.8% Martin, disclosed plans to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne AJRD -0.4%. Aerojet is...

When the Clinton administration first conceived the notion of a “joint strike fighter” in 1995, it was the ideal solution to a host of military challenges. The basic idea...

The U.S. remote sensing industry is in grave danger of being wiped out by foreign competitors. Known in military circles as geospatial intelligence, the industry’s products are...

President Biden made good on one of his campaign promises this week by extending the last Cold War arms control agreement still in force for another five years, to...

There is a widespread perception in our political culture that progressives, or as we used to call them, liberals, are opposed to military spending. Having participated in the...

There’s a longstanding ritual among defense contractors and pundits when a new president takes office. They try to convince the incoming administration that their priorities...

Joe Biden never has been much impressed with plans to protect the United States against attacks by long-range ballistic missiles. During the Reagan years, he fought proposals to...

Domestic conditions in the U.S. over the last year have been so poor—a pandemic, a recession, an insurrection—that a casual observer could easily conclude the Trump years...

It is now a year since the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, roiled the waters in Washington by proposing that his service receive a bigger share of the...

The arsenal of democracy may not be dead, but it is definitely dying. That’s the message I got from perusing the Pentagon’s 2020 assessment of U.S. industrial...

The Air Force’s fleet of heavy bombers has grown decrepit with age. The 158 aircraft remaining in the fleet—down nearly 50% from the 290 that existed when the Cold War...

President-elect Biden has signaled that his administration will review the U.S. nuclear posture with an eye to revitalizing strategic arms control negotiations and potentially...