David Axe: For instance, which of these is better: * An air-superiority system comprising, say, 381 F-22s with 60-percent readiness, two pilots per plane, no electronic jamming and very aged tankers, or * A system, costing roughly the same, but comprising 187 F-22s plus 200 brand-new F-15E+s, with a...

The times change; children don't respect their parents, and everyone's writing a book. However, the forces of interest don't change, and one place you find them pure is the defence procurement economy. Consider this story. The first thing you'll note is that it's kinda plausible, if you're the kind ...

Ha. Ha. Ha. So, how are those ID cards going? It seems that despite the government's fanfare, repeated several times, of announcing the issue of the first ID cards, it is impossible to check anyone's card because there are no card readers. Of course, it's actually worse than that - even if the card ...

I promised more serious content; here goes. Right, everyone is vexed about the RUSI report (PDF download) that was recently published under the names of Gwyn Prins (a minor hero of this blog's, for his The Heart of War: Power, Conflict, and Obligation in the 21st Century) and the Marquess of Salisbu...

It appears that the defence procurement stories we've been tracking are coming to a head. Recently, it emerged that the Astute SSN, Nimrod MRA4, and T-45 destroyer projects are going significantly overbudget again; the first two of these are, of course, the ones that were already £800 million over ...