Articles by: Bradley Peniston

It’s a lost cause, General. What has evolved (devolved is a more apt phrase) in the acquisition world since the end of the Cold War is something that would make an old …

Virtual environments replicate our complex wars

It is April 2009. Not far from Los Angeles International Airport, I am in the giant Hughes Aircraft hangar, which once housed the Spruce Goose and …

Tanker bid would support EADS’ widening ambitions for U.S. market

The Air Force’s KC-X program should instead be called the KC-360, for all the twists, turns and about-faces bringing parties full circle …

Joint basing is model for other projects

Ever since the Goldwater-Nichols Act became law in 1986, the Defense Department has placed increasing emphasis on jointness: joint training, joint procurement, joint organizations, even …

I must take issue with a few of Lt. Col Paul L. Yingling’s points regarding military funding and manpower. On these two points his arguments are not germane to his central thesis, …

Managing the strategic consequences of persistent surveillance

The tactical use of a new set of intelligence collection systems known as persistent surveillance (PS) is well-known. Sometimes colloquially referred to an “unblinking eye,” …

To the Army for pushing into production systems it knows don’t work. After the Future Combat Systems’ program was canceled last year, the Army worked to salvage some high-tech spinouts from the …

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales’ article “A vehicle for modern times” [December-January] highlighted a number of issues regarding combat vehicle design relevant to today’s insurgency wars. Several of his comments are directly …

To Defense Secretary Robert Gates for his swift action on the recommendations of the interim report on the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting. Gates directed the Pentagon to immediately implement 26 recommendations from …

Optimizing the Army for irregular and conventional wars

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that “the defining principle of the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy is balance” — between winning today’s wars …