Peter Garretson, Airpower & Spacepower Strategist, and Grand Stategist, is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
This paper makes an attempt to analyse and evaluate the US Department of Defence Acquisition System by highlighting the relationship of the requirements generation and budgeting process, the key actors, the major phases in an acquisition programme, and the major categories of acquisitions. It argues that the Department of Defence Acquisition System represents an ever evolving system-of-systems that attempts to translate Warfighter requirements into actual developed, purchased and fielded systems.
Let's face the facts: we are not going to regulate our way out of either climate change, or a peaking of fossil fuels. Even if we could imagine that individuals and nations were capable of accepting significant reductions in their lifestyle for long-term self-interest or the interests of their grandchildren, no amount of increased efficiency of those already using energy is going to make up for the Other Three Billion (O3B) citizens of the world moving to developed lifestyles and their accompanying energy demand.
This paper provides a policymaker's overview of a highly scalable, revolutionary, renewable energy technology, Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP), and evaluates it utility within the context of the Indo-US strategic partnership.
Modern Nation States are complex systems that today suffer from the affliction of terrorism, which can attack its vital centers and connective tissue. Even as nation’s try to counter, terrorists are themselves evolving and seeking new capabilities to more effectively injure their hosts, including all forms of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Security planners often grapple with the question of how far out they should be looking and planning, and it is not a problem to take lightly. Many believe that as the pace of technology quickens and the number of possible interactions in a globalized, flattened world increase, the real horizon of meaningful forecast moves ever closer. But in my view that only forces us to look farther out, to things that seem distant today, but can be anticipated, and to take a longer view.
The recent publication and controversy over STRATFOR founder George Friedman's The Next 100 Years, with its forecasts of war and new space technology reminds us all to consider the value of science fiction to strategic thinking.
The idea is to launch giant orbiting solar collectors into space, where there is no night, and beam the power to receivers on the ground, where it is fed as electricity to the grid. Long championed by former President Dr. Abdul Kalam, and the Aerospace Society of India (AeSI), the idea is seen as a long-term solution for energy security and climate change, and the most environmentally benign and scalable renewable energy option, which deserves its own focused development programme.
Between 2015 and 2050: Considerations in Negotiating a Date for an Indian Grand Strategy Project
Security planners often grapple with the question of how far out they should be looking and planning, and it is not a problem to take lightly. Many believe that as the pace of technology quickens and the number of possible interactions in a globalized, flattened world increase, the real horizon of meaningful forecast moves ever closer. But in my view that only forces us to look farther out, to things that seem distant today, but can be anticipated, and to take a longer view.