* Tight budgets mean consolidation, so we present Bain Insights on “The renaissance in mergers and acquisitions: How to make your deals successful“. Scale, or scope?
* “The Private-Intelligence Boom, by the Numbers.” The leftist Mother Jones magazine highlights the growing percentage of the top secret workforce that’s composed of contractors, and the growth in private intelligence contracts that has created the shadow intelligence community – to use Booz Allen VP Joan Dempsey’s term.
* Yesterday’s Rapid Fire highlighted the use of a shipborne aerostat with radar and optical sensors, for wide-area naval surveillance. JHSV 1 Spearhead is likely to replace Swift after the charter expires in August 2013. But why use a high-speed vessel like HSV-2, or JHSV 1, at all? HSV-2 has often served as a concept test ship, but it’s not great as a long-term mission match. Aerostats’ low price & costs are a strength, and they can be mated with smaller, inexpensive ships – but if the USA has no money for charters, and few suitable in-service platforms, the opportunity could be wasted.
* Weather is an issue for aerostats, but Chuck Hill reminds us the US Coast Guard had a very successful MAP aerostat program in the Caribbean from 1984 – 1992, using chartering and contracting. MAP ended when drug war funding dried up, and the Navy has focused on far more expensive solutions to littoral surveillance. (Hat Tip: MSC vet Lee Wahler)
* Saker Aircraft calls its “S-1” design a 2-seat business jet. Looks like a supersonic-capable fighter. We want one.
* The US GAO looks at US military planning for its $12.1 billion basing shifts in the Pacific. More planning, more paperwork, yeah, yeah… except they have some good points. So does the Pentagon, who says that environmental studies and host nation negotiations have to finish. On the other hand, why omit mobility support costs, which can be estimated? What about better sustainment costs in Okinawa and Guam, including crumbling infrastructure in Okinawa and the possibility of using unoccupied housing in Guam? Why not conduct some analysis to determine the reliability of the assumptions made so far? Fair questions.
* UPI reports that Israel’s Ministry of Defense has blocked a number of “big UAV deals” by a wide range of firms. We might understand Blocking IAI and Elbit’s high-end offerings that are in Israeli service. But Aeronautics DS, Bluebird Aero Systems, and Gilat Satellite Networks? Whatever the Ministry is trading off had better be worth hurting a leading global position in a critical military field.
* Bestseller lists can be fascinating. One Chinese hit, recommended by Vice Premier Wang Qishan himself, is Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1856 classic “The Old Regime and the Revolution.” It’s about the demise of a hugely centralized and all-reaching administrative state, triggered by the population’s growing belief that better days are possible. You can pick it up yourself as a free PDF or eBook, in English. Just click here:
It’s OK – we don’t think the US government has classified it.
