In the third of our ongoing series forecasting key defense issues for 2013, Aerospace Industries Association president Marion Blakey, a member of Breaking Defense’s Board of Contributors, talks about what it will take to preserve the critical defense capabilities in a time of falling budgets. If 9/11 brought to an abrupt end Francis Fukuyama’s “End… Keep reading →

The U.S. aerospace industry got an early Christmas present this week, when House and Senate conferees approved defense authorization legislation that gives the President discretion to determine export jurisdiction for satellites. The legislation next will be voted on by the full Congress, and signed by the President. That process will conclude a necessary-but-not-sufficient, long-awaited first… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: You think US defense spending is a mess? At least we’re not Europe. A study out Tuesday from the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that a decade of shrinking forces and funding is likely to continue, threatening a European defense industrial base already burdened by inefficiencies, national rivalries, and governmental tendencies to… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: While anxiety over sequestration dominated yesterday’s annual meeting dominated of the Aerospace Industries Association, its member companies actually did pretty well in 2012. Civil aircraft sales, up 14 percent since 2011, and arms exports, up 12 percent, grew faster than Pentagon spending declined, which was just 3.4 percent. Overall, aerospace and defense profits are… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Sequestration, sequestration, sequestration — that was the one note the Aerospace Industries Association struck over and over at its biggest annual public event. Flanked by AIA’s now-iconic clock counting down 27 days before the sequester destroys “two million jobs” (a disputed figure), President Marion Blakey declared: “I’m an optimist and we have to prevail.”… Keep reading →

AUSA: The Association of the US Army’s annual meeting was smaller this year, but when it comes to AUSA — like most things Army-related– small is a relative term. The conference, held this week, engulfed the entire Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Defense industry displays ranging from rifles to huge armored vehicles sprawled over 198,000… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As US defense spending drops, lots of arms makers are seeking sales abroad, including mighty Lockheed Martin. But Raytheon executive Thomas Kennedy insists his company’s different. While other US contractors began emphasizing foreign sales in the last year, “54 percent of the revenue for the IDS business is from international [already],” said Kennedy, president… Keep reading →

[Corrected at 4:50 pm to fix misquotation; see note below] With today’s spectacular but not unanticipated collapse of the mega-merger between Airbus parent company EADS and British armsmaker BAE, what’s next? The conventional wisdom is that BAE, the smaller of the two firms, is now vulnerable. But top analysts tell Breaking Defense that, in many… Keep reading →

Even if Congress somehow averts sequestration, the defense industry is headed for layoffs and, at best, anemic growth, and the much-vaunted surge in foreign military sales won’t turn that around. If the automatic cuts known as sequestration do take effect as currently scheduled in January, the impact would be “a devastating blow.” That’s the bleak… Keep reading →

Paris and Berlin are in a bind as British-based BAE and Franco-German giant EADs, the parent company of Airbus, seek approval to merge into the world’s largest aerospace company. If the French and German governments accept the companies’ current merger terms, their ability to influence the new tri-national behemoth will be sharply diminished and they… Keep reading →