For traditional defense companies, the operative word is “non-kinetic,” another speaker asserted.
“We love our kinetic weapons, and we don’t want to let them go,” he said. “But the world is moving in a different direction.”
Here’s the problem: Kinetic weapons only are useful in phases two, three and four of war. Gates is veering the emphasis to the fringes — to phases zero and one (prevention of conflict, interagency work) and to phases five and six (stabilization and policing).
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I love articles like this, because looking into the future of an industry, takes analysis and synthesis. You have to put all the pieces together, and create a picture of what you think will happen. If you have a enough of these articles, you can start to gain a consensus with predictions. You also hope that people aren’t just copying what everyone else is saying, and calling that prediction.
With that said, I take all of these with a grain of salt, and enjoy the process. From what I can deduct, I think organizations like the IPOA are gonna be very popular in this industry. Because stabilization and policing is right at the top of the list with this industry, and if we continue to apply Kaizen to the way we do business, this industry will continue to gain.
I also got the obvious hint in this article about what the big guys are reading. Andrew Krepinevich should be on the reading list for everyone here, if they want to make their own assessments. If the big guys are reading it, and the thing is shaping policy because of what was said, I kind of think that our industry should keep up and get on the same track. – Matt
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To Defense Industry, the Future Looks Uncomfortably Unfamiliar
April 2010
By Sandra I. Erwin
Once upon a time there was much anxiety in the defense industry about the Obama administration gutting the Pentagon’s budget.
Those worries have been allayed, for now. Defense is the only portion of the federal budget that the president sheltered from the axe.
So the industry is breathing a sigh of relief, sort of.
Yes, the budget is huge, but the industry still feels vulnerable. Executives fear that weapons systems that for decades have been reliably profitable are becoming obsolete. They see the Defense Department shifting into new areas of warfare, but are not sure how to reposition their companies to succeed in non-traditional markets. They also fret about the nation’s oncoming fiscal train wreck, and wonder when someone will make the tough choices.
The much-anticipated Quadrennial Defense Review was supposed to give the industry “planning tools” to strategize about the future of the business. But the review was mostly a disappointment for its lack of specificity. One industry official compared the QDR to the Soviets’ infamous five-year plans for economic development.
In boardrooms these days, corporate bosses are brainstorming.