Loren Thompson

Joe Biden looks likely to be the next president. That’s what the preponderance of polling data indicates, and it is what history tells us: no first-term president who...

Contrary to the predictions of some pundits, the presidential race is not tightening up as Election Day approaches. To quote Niall Stanage of The Hill, “The Democratic...

There are plenty of reasons to suspect that the Battle Force 2045 plan for remaking America’s Navy, unveiled by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on October 6, will not produce a...

On October 6, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper laid out his vision of what the U.S. Navy’s future fleet should look like. Called Battleforce 2045, it proposed big increases in...

Tech dominates business news these days the way Trump dominates political news. And with good reason: technologies spawned by the information revolution such as the internet and...

President Trump’s hospitalization after testing positive for Covid-19 is one of many instances in which the performance of the nation’s chief executive has been impaired...

The U.S. Department of Defense is contemplating construction of the most ambitious space constellation in history to defeat the threat posed by hypersonic weapons. Called the Space...

At the dawn of the 20th century, British geographer Halford MacKinder proposed that there was a “geographical pivot of history” in central Asia from which a nation such...

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office released an analysis of whether independent research and development (IR&D) performed by defense contractors matches...

The government of Japan’s decision earlier this year to cancel construction of a land-based defense against North Korean ballistic missiles has become the latest battleground...

On August 7, the U.S. Space Force awarded contracts for Phase Two of its long-running launch services program, covering national security missions through 2027. United Launch...

Three aircraft programs define the future of the modern Air Force: the F-35 fighter, the KC-46 tanker, and the B-21 bomber. Lockheed Martin is prime contractor for the F-35 airframe....

When President Trump took office in 2017, the U.S. Army was in bad shape. Only two of its 50+ brigades were in a high state of readiness. Many of its top modernization priorities had...

In the midst of a global pandemic and hard-fought election season, it is easy to lose sight of the biggest danger to our democracy. The biggest by far is the threat posed by nuclear...

The Air Force Research Laboratory is developing a family of robotic air vehicles designed to work with manned aircraft in heavily contested airspace. The program is called Skyborg, a...

The Boeing Company’s sprawling rotorcraft complex in suburban Philadelphia, the largest industrial employer in the region, is facing a big decline in demand because its two key...

There has been a flurry of commentaries recently speculating that a Biden administration might not proceed with plans to replace the nation’s 50-year-old force of...

Confronted with heavy seas and poor visibility on Capitol Hill, Navy leaders are moving to make their case for funding unmanned warships more compelling. Unmanned systems, both in...

The Japanese government calculates that operating Aegis Ashore would cost $4 billion over 30 years, which arguably is a bargain when you consider the damage that a handful of North...

The U.S. Army's top modernization priority is to increase the reach and lethality of its fires, meaning artillery and tactical missiles. To say it has been making steady progress...

The USS Gerald R. Ford is the lead ship in a new generation of large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Like every other major effort to transform U.S. Navy warfighting...

If recent voting patterns persist, November's presidential election is likely to be decided by results in a handful of battleground states. Because the electoral college aggregates...

Aerojet has been manufacturing solid rocket motors—SRMs—in Camden since the late 1970s, but until recently it built its biggest such systems at the company's heritage...

Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing to supply a new generation of heavy lift helicopters to two of America's most important allies.The allies are Germany and Israel, which both...

The current version of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, is the most important arms control agreement to which the U.S. is party.It limits the number of...

It is not common in U.S. political culture to oppose trends set in motion by the behavior of millions of consumers seeking the best solutions to their needs.Nonetheless, on July 27...

The U.S. Air Force wants to continue operating the venerable B-52 bomber through 2050. As I have written recently, that would make it the longest continuously operating jet in...

Congress has generally concluded that the security and safety advantages of protecting domestic routes outweigh the cost appeal of turning to foreign operators. One reason is that...

Later this month, the U.S. Army is expected to release a draft request for proposals leading to competitive development of a next-generation infantry fighting vehicle.The...

The U.S. Marine Corps has an uncanny way of seeing the future of military aviation long before it arrives.During the 1990s, when the Pentagon was canceling programs right and left...

The coronavirus pandemic has severely impacted the nation's economy, particularly industrial activities that cannot be performed remotely. One of the most affected sectors is...

The biggest union at Maine's Bath Iron Works has reached an impasse in negotiations with management for a new three-year contract, and is holding a strike vote this weekend. If...

There was a time when the U.S. aerospace and defense sector was dominated by larger-than-life leaders, with egos to match, who frequently took big risks with their shareholders'...

Senior defense officials have become increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of U.S. space systems in recent years. America's military forces scattered around the world are...

The good news is that planners in the Office of the Secretary of Defense have recently begun to back away from the notion that threats to the carrier force are a compelling reason to...

Across time and cultures, the one great constant of warfare is confusion. Since the dawn of man, warriors on all sides have often lacked the situational awareness they needed to...

This coming Friday, June 5, marks the anniversary of the day in 1946 when the Air Force announced that Boeing BA had won the competition to build the plane that would become the B-52...

Of all the missions assigned to America's military, none has a more tortured history than missile defense of the homeland. In the 60+ years since Russia first proved it could launch...

The U.S. Army is leading what looks to be the biggest rotorcraft program in history. Called Future Vertical Lift, it could eventually buy thousands of aircraft to replace over a...

Here are five reasons for suspecting that the Digital Century Series, exciting though it is in technological terms, would prove unworkable in an operational environment.

As in other sectors of the economy, the coronavirus crisis has spawned uncertainty about the future in defense circles. Military planners, think tank analysts and media pundits are...

Raytheon Technologies, the merged aerospace and defense enterprise of Raytheon and United Technologies, reported its first quarterly results on May 7. All things considered, they...

The U.S. Army began calendar year 2020 in a high state of readiness, smoothly executing operations around the world while implementing its most comprehensive modernization agenda...

Compared with defense mega-contractors such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings is not a big company. With 5,000 employees, annual sales...

The U.S. Navy is developing a new warfighting concept called Distributed Maritime Operations that calls for dispersing warships over vast areas and coordinating their operations via...

Defense News reported this week that a Pentagon office has proposed reducing the number of aircraft carriers in the U.S. fleet from eleven to nine. That may not sound like much, but...

The recent acquisitions and awards are focused mainly on security and safety, themes that run through much of what Leidos does. Although only about half of its revenues are generated...

When I first got into the defense business 30 years ago, I would often hail a taxi on the streets of Washington, ride it into the bowels of the Pentagon, and then walk into the...

When Rear Admiral Mark Buzby, head of the U.S. Maritime Administration, testified before Congress last year about strategies for bolstering the maritime industry, a striking fact was...

Few economic sectors have held up as well in the coronavirus crisis as the arms industry. While some other sectors are furloughing workers at a furious pace, defense industry leader...

It is now nearly 20 years since the U.S. Air Force decided it needed to replace its aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers, and settled on a modified version of the Boeing 767...

It isn't easy for a company to celebrate when a global pandemic is forcing it to furlough thousands of workers and the world is awash in pessimism about future economic performance....

Dr. Will Roper, the U.S. Air Force's top acquisition and technology official, is pressing his service to respond quickly and imaginatively to the stresses imposed on military...

Friday, April 3, marks the first day of share trading for the merged enterprise of Raytheon and United Technologies, to be known as Raytheon Technologies. Otis and Carrier, the two...

President Trump has been criticized for highlighting the Chinese origins of the current coronavirus crisis. Whether such comments are constructive or not, the crisis has provoked a...

Marillyn Hewson, Chairman and CEO of the nation's biggest defense contractor, today announced immediate steps the company is taking to assist its workforce, customers and communities...

The coronavirus crisis is a reminder that catastrophes sometimes befall civilization with little or no warning. U.S. policymakers can be forgiven for not realizing how quickly the...

Marillyn Hewson, the most powerful executive that the modern defense industry has produced, surprised Wall Street on Monday by disclosing that she would relinquish control of...

The RQ-21 Blackjack unmanned aircraft system won a major award from the commander of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) yesterday for exceeding U.S. Navy readiness goals during...

When future historians analyze U.S. security policies during the early decades of the 21st century, they may be hard-pressed to explain what policymakers were thinking.Between 2001...

The coronavirus crisis diminishes President Trump's prospects for reelection. With domestic growth running at only 2% annually, it would not take much of a global slowdown to push...

The CH-53K King Stallion helicopter being developed by Sikorsky for the U.S. Marine Corps has overcome early challenges and is meeting all key performance objectives. The program is...

The Trump defense increases are over. After a big jump between 2017 and 2018, military budgets have plateaued and will not keep up with inflation in future years.As a result,...

The U.S. Army has a problem. Many of the high-priority programs it wants to develop as it modernizes lack a hard-wired constituency in Congress. Meanwhile, many of the legacy...

When United Technologies and Raytheon combine later this year, they will form the most broadly diversified, technically proficient aerospace and defense supplier in the world. With...

When the U.S. Air Force awarded Boeing the contract for its next-generation training system in 2018, many observers were amazed at the low price. The service had estimated that...

When the U.S. armed forces revealed their proposed fiscal 2021 budgets on Monday at the Pentagon, it became clear that the Department of the Air Force has a problem the other...

When the Department of Defense unveils its fiscal 2021 budget request next week, the numbers will reveal that the Pentagon remains one of the biggest consumers of manufactured goods...

The Trump Administration is pursuing a series of secret military space projects that collectively will cost tens of billions of dollars. At least one of those projects is too big to...

The United States outspends every other nation on defense, and as a result has the best trained, best equipped military in the world. The joint force regularly undertakes missions...

On February 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will begin hearing oral arguments in a case that could potentially enable China to surpass the U.S. in cutting-edge...

During the long years that U.S. forces were fighting Islamic extremists in Southwest Asia, Russia and China were investing in new warfighting technologies.Russia's hybrid military...

For much of U.S. history, the vast oceans separating America from Europe and Asia protected the nation against attack by foreign enemies. Today, those oceans are as much a hindrance...

The news from the U.S. Army this week is that it is cancelling a replacement for its venerable Bradley fighting vehicle. This will strike some observers as a repetition of past...

The F-35 fighter program continues its march towards dominance of the global market for tactical aircraft. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have all declared their versions...

Last week's domestic reaction to the killing of Iran's top military commander was predictably partisan and speculative. Nobody can say for sure what will happen next in the Persian...

Washington breaks up the company. The company was founded by Bill Boeing and a partner in 1916, just in time to benefit from a surge of military orders during World War One. After...