Archive for November, 2009

Industry pulse: The unknown

Cyber threats: We don’t know what we don’t know

“As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is …

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Why we can’t walk away

There is certainly a lot of hand-wringing, chin-rubbing and forceful exhaling going on these days over the increasingly challenging war in Afghanistan, where nearly 70,000 U.S. troops are duking it out with …

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Unmanned limits

Robotic systems can’t replace a pilot’s gut instinct

Our defense establishment has become seduced by the idea of unmanned airpower. Futurists predict an eventual combat force of unmanned systems performing existing wartime …

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Are boots always necessary?

I read with great interest Lt. Col. Mike Grice’s article [Air power’s limits,” September], and while he was very eloquent, I think he missed the boat on some key issues. Grice says …

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Cleaning up corruption

The international community has striven to reduce corruption through encouraging development of robust autonomous auditing agencies, increasing the pay of public sector officials, and enhancing the criminal justice system — however, this …

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Misinformed on IO

I’m concerned by the overuse of the term “information operations” (IO) in Armed Forces Journal and a number of other recent publications, particularly when attributed to our adversaries.

In the U.S., our …

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Joint speak

TO THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY for their apparent jitters over the JTRS radio program. For sure, the Joint Tactical Radio System has had a checkered history with the usual tangle …

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The Taliban’s political program

At their core, insurgencies are about political power struggles, usually between a central government and those who reject its authority, where the objective of the conflict is the population itself and the …

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Vietnam’s distorted legacy

This summer, we lost two icons of the Vietnam War: Robert McNamara, its steward, and Walter Cronkite, its chronicler. In remembrance, commentators have repeated narratives about the men that twist the war’s …

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Off course

The dark side of tracking all shipping: Pirates can do it too

Maritime domain awareness (MDA) is imperiling global maritime security. Developed and implemented correctly, MDA is one tool among a panoply …

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