Eugene Gholz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Eugene Gholz

The authors acknowledge the financial support for this research made available by the Lean Aircra... more The authors acknowledge the financial support for this research made available by the Lean Aircraft Initiative at MIT sponsored jointly by the US Air Force and a group of aerospace companies. All facts, statements, opinions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not in any way reflect those of the Lean Aircraft Initiative, the US Air Force, the sponsoring companies (individually or as a group), or MIT. The latter are absolved from any remaining errors or shortcomings for which the authors take full responsibility. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by DSpace@MIT Many in and out of government believe that the weapons acquisition process is in need of reform. They argue that our weapons cost too much, frequently miss their promised performance targets, and rarely proceed according to their intended schedules. A long series of official studies of those failings have produced literally hundreds of proposals for reform, many of which have been implemented. But the belief remains that the acquisition process is in need of further reform. Here we review the major acquisition studies of the past and the underlying causes of the continual search for, and frustration of, reform. This review is a preliminary step toward policy recommendations for acquisition reform, but no such recommendations are offered here. Six reports command our attention. They are the ones commissioned directly by the President or the Congress with the goal of system-wide reform. Dozens of others have been produced, but most of these are quite limited in scope, are technically focused, or are confined to a single system or service.

Review of International Political Economy, 2019

: Since the end of the Cold War, the availability of new technologies and changes in the national... more : Since the end of the Cold War, the availability of new technologies and changes in the national security environment have raised the possibility of substantial new demand for military space systems. Trends in technology, military operations, politics, and economics highlight several possible trajectories for national security space policy. Decisionmakers in the United States and in Europe are preparing today to make key choices about military doctrine, resource investments, and the policy goals that leaders hope to achieve using military operations that rely on space assets. The wish-list for new space systems includes improved intelligence-gathering satellites, navigation satellites to enable precision strike against fixed and mobile targets, and communications satellites to allow decentralized forces to share access to information and coordinate operations in a complex environment. Both the U.S. and European governments may find it useful to cooperate on national security space ...

Energy Research & Social Science, 2017

The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy, 2016

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1162 15203970051032372, Mar 13, 2006

The extraordinary year-to-year continuity in the list of top Cold War aerospace suppliers has led... more The extraordinary year-to-year continuity in the list of top Cold War aerospace suppliers has led many analysts to adopt theories of a military-industrial complex (MIC). The collapse of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, once the second-largest manufacturer in the United States and a leading defense contractor, belies their approach. This article recounts the histories of Curtiss-Wright's three independent divisions and uses these to test the MIC theory against three other explanations of the pattern of Cold War defense procurement: the technological imperative, the bureaucratic-strategic perspective, and free-market competition. The bureaucratic-strategic theory is most consistent with the case-study evidence.

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ABSTRACT Plentiful spare capacity persists in the oil production and tanker industries, contrary ... more ABSTRACT Plentiful spare capacity persists in the oil production and tanker industries, contrary to Michael Levi's contention in his response to our earlier article, “Protecting ‘The Prize.' ” OPEC leaders retain excess capacity to minimize cartel members' cheating, and tanker companies retain considerable flexibility that allows them to adapt to political-military and other fluctuations in the market. Oil supplies are not on a knife-edge; exaggerated claims of energy vulnerability distort U.S. national security policy.

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1162 016228899560220, Mar 29, 2006

The end of the Cold War produced major changes in the U.S. defense sector. More than 2 million de... more The end of the Cold War produced major changes in the U.S. defense sector. More than 2 million defense workers, military personnel, and civil servants have lost their jobs. Thousands of ªrms have left the industry. More than one hundred military bases have closed, and the production of weapons is down considerably. As signiªcant as these changes are, they do not address the key issues in restructuring the post-Cold War defense sector. The Reagan-era defense buildup led contractors to invest in huge production capacity that no longer is needed. This capacity overhang includes too many open factories, each of which produces a "legacy" system that was designed for the Cold War. Many individual defense plants are also too large to produce efªciently at post-Cold War levels of demand. Until this excess capacity is eliminated, the United States will continue to spend too much on defense. The politics of jobs and congressional districts that many analysts thought governed the Cold War have triumphed in its aftermath. Today, years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, not one Cold War weapon platform line has closed in the United States. 1 The same factories still produce the same aircraft, ships, and armored vehicles (or their incremental descendants). During the Cold War, the high level of perceived security threat increased U.S. policymakers' respect for military advice on weapons procurement and research and development (R&D) decisions. The military services' expert knowledge checked Congress's pork barrel instincts, and failed or unneeded weapon systems were often canceled. Today, however, contractors and congres

... technology and financial support from the military projects "spilled over" to the c... more ... technology and financial support from the military projects "spilled over" to the commercial 15Laura Tyson, Who's Bashing Whom? ... 22 Roger D. Launius and Betty R. Kennedy, "A Revolution in Air Transport: Acquiring the C-141 Starlifter," Airpower Journal, Volume V, No. ...

This article briefly describes a business model that companies may apply to develop, produce, and... more This article briefly describes a business model that companies may apply to develop, produce, and sell avionics to the Department of Defense under a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA). Recent acquisition reforms have encouraged the use of MOSA, and the defense industry will need to adapt to the new style of acquisition. A business model summarizes the way a firm earns profits sufficient to remain in business: it describes core competencies, principal activities, cost structure, and expected revenue stream. The model proposed here suggests that firms can succeed under the new framework but that MOSA entails some drawbacks for both industry and the government that may limit its applicability to a relatively small subset of programs.

Issues in science and technology

Many pundits and leaders in the U.S. government hope to use the apparatus of successful military ... more Many pundits and leaders in the U.S. government hope to use the apparatus of successful military innovation to stimulate innovation for green technologies, using DoD’s substantial procurement budget to pull the development of new energy technologies and to help new energy technologies achieve economies of scale. This paper builds on the baseline of knowledge about military innovation – what we know about why some military innovation has worked while some has not – to explain which parts of the new push for defense-led energy innovation are likely to be more successful than others.

This report reviews the six most recent major acquisition reform reports, starting in 1949 with t... more This report reviews the six most recent major acquisition reform reports, starting in 1949 with the Hoover Commissions and including McNamara's Total Package Procurement, Fitzhugh Commission, the Commission on Government Procurement,the Grace Commission, and ending with the Packard Commission report in 1986. The reports' recommendations are devided into six areas: centralized procurement, professionalization of the acquisition corps, management improvements, changes in contracting procedures, new development strategies, and legislative/executive relations.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Page 1. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=999649 Many Americans have lost co... more Page 1. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=999649 Many Americans have lost confidence in their country&#x27;s “energy security” over the past several years. Because the United States is a net oil importer, and a ...