(c) DJ Elliott
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DJ Elliott is a retired USN Intelligence Specialist (22 years active duty) who has been analyzing and writing on Iraqi Security Forces developments since 2006. His Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle is an open-source compilation that attempts to map and detail Iraqi units and equipment, as their military branches and internal security forces grow and mature. While “good enough for government use” is not usually uttered as a compliment, US Army TRADOC has maintained permission to use the ISF OOB for their unclassified handouts since 2008.

This compilation is reproduced here with full permission. It offers a set of updates highlighting recent changes in the ISF’s composition and development, followed by the full updated ISF OOBs in PDF form. Reader feedback and tips are encouraged. This month’s developments include:

• Peshmerga
• Iraqi Army
• Iraqi Navy
• Iraqi Air Force
• Ministry of the Interior
• Additional Readings: Full ISF OOB
• Additional Readings: DID Articles
  
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Guest Article by Mark R. Hamel and Charles J. Wolfe

Tofukuji Reiun-in
Gaun-no-niwa
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Kaizen events often represent the initial rapid deployment vehicle for lean transformations. Effective events drive step-function improvement, momentum and organizational learning and engagement. But while many people gravitate to the technical side of kaizen events (hey, check out this cool kanban system!), it’s as much, if not more, about embedding lean principles and capabilities within the culture.

Only then can improvements become sustainable. Only then can the organization move from purely event driven kaizen to the much more powerful combination of (occasional) events and true daily kaizen – the frequent, small, process focused improvements conducted by engaged and enabled employees in their everyday work. This is what separates the lean pretenders from the lean practitioners.

• The 2 Cores
• Case Study: An Aerospace Success
• Eleven questions that lean leaders need to answer
• Tip From the Pros: When the Kaizen Circus Leaves Town
• The Transformation Leadership Model [NEW]
• Case Studies: What about that second shift? [NEW]
• Emotions… really? [NEW]
• Tip From the Pros: Fear Not [NEW]
• Conclusion: Ultimately, more than an event [NEW]

(c) DJ Elliott
(click to view full)

DJ Elliott is a retired USN Intelligence Specialist (22 years active duty) who has been analyzing and writing on Iraqi Security Forces developments since 2006. His Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle is an open-source compilation that attempts to map and detail Iraqi units and equipment, as their military branches and internal security forces grow and mature. While “good enough for government use” is not usually uttered as a compliment, US Army TRADOC has maintained permission to use the ISF OOB for their unclassified handouts since 2008.

This January 2010 compilation is reproduced here with full permission. It offers a set of updates highlighting recent changes in the ISF’s composition and development, followed by the full updated ISF OOBs in PDF form. Reader feedback and tips are encouraged. This month’s developments include…

• December 2009 Updates
  • Weapons Orders
  • Peshmerga
  • Iraqi Army
  • Iraqi Navy
  • Iraqi Air Force
  • Ministry of the Interior
• Additional Readings: Full ISF OOB
• Additional Readings: DID Articles
  
  Continue Reading… »

(c) DJ Elliott
(click to view full)

DJ Elliott is a retired USN Intelligence Specialist (22 years active duty) who has been analyzing and writing on Iraqi Security Forces developments since 2006. His Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle is an open-source compilation that attempts to map and detail Iraqi units and equipment, as their military branches and internal security forces grow and mature. While “good enough for government use” is not usually uttered as a compliment, US Army TRADOC has maintained permission to use the ISF OOB for their unclassified handouts since 2008.

This December 2009 compilation is reproduced here with full permission. It offers a set of updates highlighting recent changes in the ISF’s composition and development, followed by the full updated ISF OOBs in PDF form. Reader feedback and tips are encouraged. This month’s developments include reports of a fighter plane contract, and significant shifts within Iraq’s ground force units, among others…

• November 2009 Updates
  • Iraqi Army
  • Iraqi Navy
  • Iraqi Air Force
  • Ministry of the Interior
• Additional Readings: Full ISF OOB
• Additional Readings: DID Articles
  
  Continue Reading… »

(click for firm site)

Over the last 5 years, AlixPartners’ aerospace practice has conducted an annual Global Aerospace & Defense Review of the industry. The survey evaluates financial performance, as measured by such indices as revenue growth, cash flow, and operating income, for the top 100 industry participants. Detailed analyses are conducted on topics of interest, involving examination of industry trends and interviews with senior industry executives. The entire survey typically involves 250 – 300 pages of analysis and conclusions.

While defense aerospace companies have not yet been subject to the same kinds of pressures that are already visible in civil aviation, cuts have already been announced in the 2010 defense budget. We believe that recent changes in the political, economic, and geo-strategic landscapes make it likely that those cuts are only the beginning of a long-term realignment in government spending. That realignment will be compounded by shifts within the supply chain itself, creating a set of imperatives that will put inattentive businesses at risk – even as they create opportunities for the prepared…

• Losing Altitude
• Depressed Defense?
• The Second Shift: The Supplier Imperative
• Beyond the Storm: What’s Next?
  
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By The Heritage Foundation’s Mackenzie Eaglen and Eric Sayers

USN Fleet plan, 2009
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House Armed Services Committee Chairman Representative Ike Skelton [D-MO] recently expressed his concern about the state of the United States Navy, noting that since the Cold War ended, the U.S. ”...forgot that we are a maritime nation. We forgot that lesson of history that only the nations with powerful navies are able to exert power and influence, and when a navy disappears so does that nation’s power.”

In The Heritage Foundation’s Jan 28/09 publication “Quadrennial Defense Review: Building Blocks for National Defense,” we argued that:

“The U.S. has 11 aircraft carriers, and that number should increase to 13 over the longer term. The number of cruisers and destroyers should increase from a projected 88 to 100, and the number of attack submarines should rise from 48 to at least 60. This should be facilitated, in part, by reducing the projected number of littoral combat ships from 55 to 20. Further, the QDR should at least consider recommending that the Navy proceed with DDG-1000 procurement instead of extending the construction of DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers by ensuring that the DDG-1000s will have both air and ballistic missile defense capabilities.”

This article is set within the context of Heritage’s overall QDR recommendations, which were necessarily brief. It expands on the strategic, tactical, and industrial rationales behind the choices that we believe a secure America will require, within the context of Heritage’s belief that America needs consistent defense budgets around 4% of national GDP.

• A Maritime Nation
• An Inherently Uncertain Future
• A Navy for Force Projection
• Building A Global Maritime Constabulary Force
• A Coast Guard for Constabulary Missions
• Maintaining a Viable Shipbuilding Industrial Base
• Additional Readings
  
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Guest article by Ian Cookson & Grant Thornton Corporate Finance LLC

Aerospace component M&A activity remained strong in 2008, and was one of the best performing sectors, with the same number of transactions as the record set in 2007. Activity was again weighted toward the first half of the year (in a 60/40 split), with a similar number of transactions in the second half of 2008 as 2007. Although 40% of transactions were led by private equity groups, this masks a shift in the second half where strategic buyers proved more successful in winning bids (by a factor of 3:1). Private equity buyers found it harder to raise the levels of debt that supported prices of previous acquisitions.

The strong level of aerospace component activity is in stark contrast to U.S. M&A activity as a whole, which declined by a third in volume terms from the prior year (and substantially more by value). However, the number of smaller deals across all industries (under $50 million) remained remarkably constant. It is this category of smaller deals that is more reflective of aerospace component transactions.

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The US refusal to sell the F-22 Raptor to its main allies is a matter of grave concern to many around the world and is an issue exacerbated by the possible termination of the Raptor project before it even delivers the number of aircraft demanded by the American military itself.

There seem to be no dissenting voices to the view that the Raptor is far and away the best air dominance fighter on the planet. But key US allies – particularly Australia, Britain, Japan and, although with a very different relationship, Israel – have been told the Raptor is simply too good for them, and that they will have to be content with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (and a hobbled export model at that, to ensure even America’s closest friends remain inferior in the skies).

Now there have been many serious concerns raised about the JSF, and specifically its ability to meet the air defence requirements of some intended client states such as Australia. Some critics suggest this aircraft will never be a match for the new Russian-origin aircraft and air defence systems already proliferating in the Asia-Pacific, and so will fail both as a deterrent and as a counter in any conflict. But even giving the JSF the benefit of the doubt, its staunchest proponents quite openly concede it will be found lacking against the Raptor.

To foist this inferior “Little Brother” of the Raptor on close long-term allies is akin to a motorcycle dealer telling a customer they can buy only a 50cc scooter. Unfortunately, such light-hearted analogies fail to convey the gravity of the issue…

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Cougar MRAP
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Guest Article by James Hasik

The start of 2009 seems to be viewed with some ease by most military contractors. In the United States, Barack Obama has selected a so-called “centrist” team of top national security lieutenants largely from Bill Clinton’s administration, plus continued service from Republican Robert Gates. The signals of continuity seem so unavoidably clear that Obama’s most leftist benefactors are upset.

Throughout the rest of the Western world, the settling global recession has thus far led at worst to mere program delays, while small bursts of spending meant to fill immediate battlefield needs continue. There is a widespread feeling that most existing procurement programs will remain on course for some time, and perhaps trend downward later.

This conventional wisdom is unconvincing. Rather, it is quite possible that financial constraints, conventional overmatch, and constabulary impulses may combine to significantly reorder military spending priorities throughout the western world in the next few years. Procuring the right kit for small wars, cost-effectively and on-time, means following the economics demonstrated in the procurement of their decisive weapons: the Predator, the JDAM, and the MRAP…

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by P.W. Singer, The Brookings Institution

Something big is going on in the history of war, and maybe even humanity itself. The US military went into Iraq with just a handful of drones in the air and zero unmanned systems on the ground, none of them armed. Today, there are over 5,300 drones in the US inventory and another roughly 12,000 on the ground. And these are just the first generation, the Model T Fords compared to what is already in the prototype stage. This is what is happening now. Peering forward, one Air Force lieutenant general forecast that “given the growth trends, it is not unreasonable to postulate future conflicts involving tens of thousands.”

For my book Wired for War, I spent the last several years trying to capture this historic moment, as robots begin to move into the fighting of our human wars. The book features stories and anecdotes of everyone from robotic scientists and the science fiction writers who inspire them to 19 year old drone pilots and the Iraqi insurgents they are fighting. The hope wasn’t just to take the reader on a journey to meet this new generation of warriors—both human and machine, but also to explore the fascinating, and sometimes frightening, political, economic, legal and ethical questions that our society had better start facing in how our wars will be fought and who will fight them. In other words, “What happens when science fiction becomes battlefield reality?”

Despite all the enthusiasm in military circles for the next generation of unmanned vehicles, ships, and planes, there is one question, however, that people are generally reluctant to talk about. It is the equivalent of Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, the issue That-Must-Not-Be-Discussed. What happens to the human role in war as we arm ever more intelligent, more capable, and increasingly more autonomous robots?

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