India’s Uncertain Future in Bangladesh - Analysis

Sumit Ganguly

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Faced with nationwide antigovernment protests, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on Monday, boarding a military helicopter and fleeing the country. When Hasina, who held office since 2009, initially landed at the Hindon air force base outside of New Delhi, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was on hand to greet her. Should she seek it, the Indian government would likely grant her asylum, even if it alienates an interim government in Bangladesh.

India’s Climb up the Innovation Ladder: Policy Enablers and Impediments

Sarthak Pradhan and Pranay Kotasthane

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In 2015, Indian brands dominated India’s smartphone market, commanding 68% of the market share by volume.[1] Fast forward to 2021, and the share of Indian brands plunged to a mere 1 percent. Despite their earlier dominance, Indian brands could not keep pace with market trends, such as the move toward 4G connectivity. This shift raises significant questions: Why were Indian brands unable to compete or at least maintain their market shares despite their initial dominance? Why didn’t they innovate and upgrade faster even when they had the opportunity to do so?

The decline of Indian brands in smartphone manufacturing is not an aberration. India lags in innovation and advanced manufacturing across the board. For instance, India’s share of high-tech exports in its manufacturing basket is a mere 12%, while countries such as China, Israel, and Vietnam have shares of 23%, 22%, and 39%, respectively.[2]

India’s underperformance in innovation is puzzling because it is not a result of government neglect. The government invested in building science and technology capabilities soon after independence, even when it faced other developmental challenges. Government spending accounts for nearly 60% of total research and development (R&D) spending in India today and does not compare too unfavorably to other countries when normalized by GDP per capita.[3] The critical weakness is in-house industry R&D, substantially pulling down overall R&D spending.[4]

What to Know About Muhammad Yunus and Bangladesh’s Uncertain Future

Anna Gordon and Chad de Guzman

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Bangladesh was plunged into political turmoil after longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India on Monday under pressure from the military and a mass public uprising. Now, the country faces an uncertain future.

The 76-year-old Hasina, who is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first Prime Minister of the country, had become increasingly authoritarian in recent years. But it was the clashes between police and anti-government protesters—which have officially left at least hundreds dead, though diplomatic sources have told TIME the true toll could be over 1,000—that ultimately proved her undoing.

As Hasina’s resignation was announced by the military on Monday, protesters ransacked the Ganabhaban, the Prime Minister’s official residence in capital Dhaka. Mohammed Shahabuddin, who holds the largely ceremonial role of President of Bangladesh, announced the dissolution of parliament, which had been led by Hasina’s ruling party the Awami League for a fourth straight term after January elections that observers deemed neither free nor fair, and Shahabuddin promised fresh elections as soon as possible. By early Wednesday, Shahabuddin’s office announced that 84-year-old Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, a popular figure among the protesters and who had been prosecuted by Hasina’s government, was tapped to lead an interim government.

The Taiwan Fallacy

Jonathan D. Caverley

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To hear many tell it, the future of the United States’ security—and, indeed, the world’s—rides on Taiwan. “A self-governing Taiwan anchors Japan’s defense and denies China a springboard from which it could threaten U.S. allies in the western Pacific,” wrote a collection of authors in Foreign Affairs, including Matt Pottinger, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s deputy national security adviser. Speaking before Congress in 2021, Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, described Taiwan as “critical to the region’s security and critical to the defense of vital U.S. interests.” Ratner also testified that defense of Taiwan is his department’s “pacing scenario,” or the primary guide for U.S. military planning and operations. On the topic of Taiwan, contemporary analysts often invoke General Douglas MacArthur’s description of the island as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier” and “submarine tender.” Others have cited Admiral Ernest King—the World War II U.S. chief of naval operations, who said Taiwan was a “cork in the bottle”—to suggest that it geographically contains China’s ambitions.

There are many reasons to help defend Taiwan: its significant economy, its microelectronics prowess, its mature democracy, the effect its seizure might have on U.S. credibility. But keeping China’s military in check is not one of them. Taiwan is a small, 90-mile-wide island just off China’s vast coast. If it became a fully armed Chinese province, the difference in military power between Beijing and Washington would barely shift.

China already possesses formidable space, land, air, sea, and cyber systems designed to detect and destroy U.S. and allied naval and air platforms far from the mainland. It does not need the island to menace the United States. Taiwan would give China a new place to base its systems, but the advantages that come from putting its weapons on the island versus the mainland are marginal.

Strategically important Myanmar military HQ appears to fall to the resistance, in a blow to regime

DAVID RISING

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Myanmar’s military regime acknowledged Monday it had lost communications with the commanders of a strategically important army headquarters in the northeast, adding credence to a militia group’s claims it had captured the base.

The fall of the army’s Northeast Command in Lashio city would be the biggest in a series of setbacks for Myanmar’s military government this year, as an offensive by an alliance of powerful militias of ethnic minority groups makes broad gains in the civil war.

“The regime’s loss of the Northeast Command is the most humiliating defeat of the war,” said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-based analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project. “Without Lashio, it will be extremely difficult for the regime to hold onto its final outposts in the theater.”

Those include the key Muse border crossing with China, as well as the strategic crossroads at Kyaukme, and it opens the way for attacks on Pyin Oo Lwin and Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, Michaels said.

China Is Neither Collapsing Nor Booming

Howard W. French

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I felt a sense of relief last week when I got into the hired car that would take me to my hotel after arriving at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, exhausted and a little disoriented after a long flight from New York.

China’s Real Economic Crisis

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

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The Chinese economy is stuck. Following Beijing’s decision, in late 2022, to abruptly end its draconian “zero COVID” policy, many observers assumed that China’s growth engine would rapidly reignite. After years of pandemic lockdowns that brought some economic sectors to a virtual halt, reopening the country was supposed to spark a major comeback. Instead, the recovery has faltered, with sluggish GDP performance, sagging consumer confidence, growing clashes with the West, and a collapse in property prices that has caused some of China’s largest companies to default. In July 2024, Chinese official data revealed that GDP growth was falling behind the government’s target of about five percent. The government has finally let the Chinese people leave their homes, but it cannot command the economy to return to its former strength.

To account for this bleak picture, Western observers have put forward a variety of explanations. Among them are China’s sustained real estate crisis, its rapidly aging population, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on the economy and extreme response to the pandemic. But there is a more enduring driver of the present stasis, one that runs deeper than Xi’s growing authoritarianism or the effects of a crashing property market: a decades-old economic strategy that privileges industrial production over all else, an approach that, over time, has resulted in enormous structural overcapacity. For years, Beijing’s industrial policies have led to overinvestment in production facilities in sectors from raw materials to emerging technologies such as batteries and robots, often saddling Chinese cities and firms with huge debt burdens in the process.

How Will Iran Attack Israel?

Arman Mahmoudian

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Speculation abounds regarding where Iran or its proxies will strike as retaliation for Israel’s recent assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah deputy Fuad Shukr. While numerous scenarios are being discussed, all remain conjectural. However, one particular possibility warrants extended consideration.

This time, Iran’s interest in hitting Israel is not just about showing force but about exercising power and inflicting significant pain and damage upon the Israelis. Yet, Iran faces a major problem: while they can inflict damage in a first strike, they lack the military means and capability to protect themselves from retaliatory strikes by either Israel, the United States, or a combination of both and their allies. Therefore, the best scenario for Iran would entail a strike that creates a chain reaction that preoccupies Israel so that it can’t mount an immediate or effective counterattack.

One specific target could be the narrow strip of land between the West Bank and Gaza. This Israeli territory, approximately fifty-eight miles long, separates about 2.7 million Arabs in the West Bank from about 1.8 million Arabs in Gaza. The Israelis have numerous military bases in this area to ensure their protection. In a strike, Iran could aim to damage these military bases, hoping that the built-up resentment and anger in the West Bank over the last eight months would lead to a revolt against the Israelis. An indicator that Iran might target this area is that in the list of targets published by Iranian media, four out of the seven targeted military bases are located in this strip.

Ukraine’s Pocket-Sized Answer to Russian Drones

Fabrice Deprez

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For Ukrainian soldiers facing the near-constant threat of Russian drones, a crude-looking, pocketable drone detector has become one of the most sought-after gadgets on the battlefield. Dubbed Tsukorok, or “sugar,” by its London-based creator, the grassroots device produced by a variety of manufacturers beeps loudly when a drone enters its detection range, allowing soldiers time to run to cover or turn on their jamming devices.

Is a sub-Saharan ‘African Spring’ in the offing?

Tafi Mhaka

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Kenyan President William Ruto, who won the August 2022 presidential election on a promise to lower the cost of living within 100 days, has failed to address economic hardships in Kenya – and triggered a wave of unrest that could have important consequences well beyond his country.

On June 18, thousands of Kenyan youths took to the streets to protest a controversial tax bill that threatened to raise the prices of basic commodities. While Ruto tried to make immediate, albeit small concessions, the protesters refused to give up on their objectives. Every day, more and more people joined the revolt and even the parliament was stormed.

As police moved to break up the rallies with force, dozens were killed and scores more were injured.

Eventually, on June 26, Ruto gave up and changed course.

“I concede and therefore I will not sign the 2024 finance bill and it shall subsequently be withdrawn,” he said in a televised address. “The people have spoken.”

However, even the withdrawal of the contentious bill proved insufficient to calm the public’s anger. So in an effort to put an end to the protests, on June 11, Ruto made another major concession, dismissed his cabinet, and promised to form a new, “broad-based” one in its place.

Europe’s heavy-metal options

Yurri Clavilier

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As it now appears that it will be at least two decades before the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) is ready for service, European heavy-armour manufacturers are refining multiple offers to fill the gap. While the target date for the first delivery of the MGCS family was by 2040, this date is now trending toward the middle of the decade, if not beyond.

Europe’s two main heavy-armour manufacturers, Rheinmetall and KNDS, are touting at least five approaches in providing improved Main Battle Tank (MBT) designs, taking on board the lessons of recent and ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has starkly displayed both the utility and vulnerability of heavy armour, and MBT designers are looking to absorb lessons that Moscow’s aggression continues to offer.

Crewed and otherwise

Rheinmetall continues to work on two variants of its KF51 Panther design, while KNDS is pursuing the Leopard 2A-RC 3.0, the Leclerc Evolution (EVO) and the more advanced Euro Main Battle Tank (EMBT)-ADT 140. Of the five designs, three feature uncrewed turrets. All five were on show at the June 2024 Eurosatory land-systems exhibition, suggesting that any notions of the demise of heavy armour are ill-placed.

The return of long-range US missiles to Europe

Timothy Wright & Douglas Barrie

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The rhetoric was as predictable as the analogy was inaccurate. Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to draw a comparison between Berlin and Washington’s July 2024 agreement to deploy US conventionally armed surface-to-surface missiles with 500 kilometre-plus ranges to Germany to NATO’s 1979 decision to deploy nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles on the continent. Echoing the language of the Soviet leadership of the early 1980s, Putin warned on 28 July that the United States’ deployment would place key Russian military installations at increased risk of attack and reduce the flight and detection time in which Moscow could respond. Russia, he said, would respond in kind if the US went ahead with the deployment.

The scheduled deployment follows Russia’s development and deployment of a long-range ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM), in violation of its arms-control commitments, and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s threatened response has raised concerns among sections of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrat Party (SPD). Some have criticised the deployment agreement as being destabilising, insufficiently scrutinised and decoupled from the SPD’s deep-seated commitment to disarmament. However, other SPD policymakers, including Scholz and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, have rejected such thinking, citing Russia’s continued war of aggression against Ukraine and stressing the need for Germany and NATO to close capability gaps. More broadly, so long as Moscow continues to link arms-control discussions to its war against Ukraine, it is unlikely that any arms-control overtures will yield positive results. Instead, improvements in NATO’s long-range conventional capabilities may deter further aggressive actions by Russia in a way that ultimately benefits regional stability.

Ron Paul: America Reaches A Sad Milestone – OpEd

Ron Paul

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Last week the national debt reached 35 trillion dollars, a mere seven months after the debt reached 34 trillion dollars. To put this in perspective, the national debt first reached one trillion dollars in October of 1981, almost 200 years after the Constitution’s ratification!

The fact that the government was adding one trillion dollars in debt in little over half a year was not deemed worthy of comment by President Biden, Vice President Harris, and most other US politicians. This is not surprising since the national debt has not been a central issue in DC since the days of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party’s efforts to focus attention on the debt resulted in a bipartisan deal that made minuscule spending cuts. In fact, most of the cuts were not real cuts. They were just reductions in the “projected rate of spending increase,” meaning the spending still increased but just by not as much as originally planned.

This was not the first time that apparent spending limits consisted of smoke and mirrors. For example, the budget “surpluses” of the 1990s were due to the government’s practice of counting the social security trust fund as both a liability and an asset, not because of bipartisan budget deals.

Ukraine And The Frontlines Of The War On Disinformation – Analysis

Kollen Post

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On July 8, a Russian Kh-101 rocket flew into a children’s hospital in the center of Kyiv.

On July 9, no less a figure than Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s primary mouthpiece, took to TASS, a preferred Kremlin megaphone, to declare “as before, we maintain: We do not strike civilian objects.”

Almost immediately, Kremlin-affiliated Telegram channels and pro-Russian propagandists on Twitter took to blaming the attack on Ukraine’s air defense, specifically first a US-supplied Patriot missile, before settling on a NATO-supplied NASAMS missile—belying the jet engine visible in footage of the strike and setting up one of the most insulting narratives of victim-blaming imaginable.

The fake news campaigns over Ukraine have become relentless in the West but are endemic within Ukraine itself. Some preferred themes include misfortune befalling Kyiv’s Chief of Defense Intelligence Budanov, President Zelensky abandoning the country for some estate in the UK or a private island, or egregious corruption in the Ukrainian government with Zelensky’s right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, a frequent target.

Many recurrent subjects for fake news fodder—like Budanov’s death—are overtly false. Though they are easily falsifiable, they are also easily verifiable. But others are trickier.

How, When, and Whether to Employ Non-Lethal Weapons in Diverse Contexts

Scott Savitz, Krista Romita Grocholski, Monika Cooper, Nancy Huerta, Keytin Palmer & Isabelle Winston

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Introduction

Non-lethal weapons (NLWs) can be used to influence individuals’ behavior or to temporarily incapacitate either people or equipment, and NLWs employ a wide variety of effects to achieve these aims. For example, an acoustic hailing device (AHD) can be used to communicate or generate irritating sounds, an eye-safe ocular interrupter (OI) laser dazzler creates distracting glare, an Active Denial System (ADS) emits millimeter-wave energy to create a temporary heating sensation, and various electronic and mechanical systems can halt vehicles

or vessels. NLWs are a subset of intermediate force capabilities (IFCs), which include other capabilities that might not have lethal effects, such as information operations, electronic warfare, and cyberwarfare.

Prior RAND reports have characterized how employment of NLWs contributes to the strategic goals of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).1 Those reports also describe ways to measure the impact of NLWs, as well as how they can be effectively incorporated into wargames. Those reports also reveal a number of reasons why DoD rarely employs NLWs. One of these is widespread unfamiliarity with these systems, which contributes to a reluctance to bring them to forward positions or to use them, continuing that unfamiliarity in a vicious cycle. The result is that there are relatively few well-documented instances of NLWs being employed in real-world contexts beyond the scope of military policing. 

Germany’s Economy Tips Back Toward Recession

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The German economy faces substantial challenges that impede growth. Preliminary data from the government’s statistics agency shows a slight contraction in growth for the second quarter, while declining investment in equipment and construction heighten the strain. Falling consumption and rising inflation compound the issues, signaling the potential onset of a recession.

Berlin aims to break the economy out of its stagnation by focusing on its high-tech sector. Authorities are pushing for investment and expanding capacities in the energy sector, particularly in green energy. However, deep-rooted structural problems persist, with industries citing a shortage of skilled workers and outdated infrastructure. Germany is Europe’s largest economy, and the prospect of a German recession could significantly affect the Continent’s ability to tackle internal challenges as well as its position on the Ukrainian conflict.

White House Rushes to Limit Fallout From Looming Iran Strike

Michael R. Gordon, Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman

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The Biden administration is working to blunt a potential Iranian attack on Israel, but it faces an array of fresh challenges as it seeks to replicate the success it had in April when a multinational coalition helped Israel intercept a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones.

U.S. officials said they have since the weekend started seeing Iran moving missile launchers and conducting military drills, which could indicate Tehran is preparing for an attack in the coming days. Iran has signaled it plans to retaliate against Israel for the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Tehran.

Biden administration officials also are concerned that an Iranian assault might be accompanied this time by strikes from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, and Tehran’s other proxies in an attempt to overwhelm Israeli defenses.

How the U.S. and Mexico Drove Border Crossings Down in an Election Year

Michelle Hackman and Santiago Pérez

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When illegal migration surged across the U.S.-Mexico border last fall, Phoenix’s largest migrant shelter was so busy that cots filled the cafeteria and lined the hallways. Today the shelter, housed in a converted elementary school, is empty.

The U.S. has experienced a stark decline in illegal border crossings in the past six months, thanks to a newly sprung security gantlet migrants encounter traveling to the U.S. border through Mexico.

On the Mexican side, security checkpoints dot highways. Mexico’s National Guard patrols the southern banks of the Rio Grande, aiming to prevent mass concentrations of migrants. Thousands of asylum seekers caught heading north have been put on buses and sent back to southern Mexico near Guatemala. Aid organizations liken the busing strategy to the board game Chutes and Ladders, as migrants are moved around the country. The policy aims to discourage them from heading north. Many decide to return to South America, migrants say.

Transforming war: A strategic integration of unmanned aerial systems - Opinion

Florent Groberg

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As conflicts across the Middle East and in Eastern Europe have demonstrated, unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, are reshaping the dynamics of modern warfare, emerging as a pivotal technology alongside communication in military engagements.

In contemporary military operations, UAS are being tightly integrated into infantry tactics, used in new and creative ways for reconnaissance, leveraged for forward operating base defense, relied on to provide critical intelligence and deployed for data collection. Because UAS can autonomously operate in hazardous environments and undertake high-risk missions, they have revolutionized warfare by significantly enhancing operational safety and expanding tactical options for ground forces.

In response to China’s historical technological dominance in the UAS market and amid the technology’s rapid evolution, Congress has taken steps to foster technology development while addressing new potential dangers. Legislative measures have been introduced to support the development of domestic UAS capabilities.

Mass arrests and conflicting narratives following the Haniyeh assassination

Janatan Sayeh

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In response to the assassination of former Hamas Political Chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, the Islamic Republic has arrested over 20 senior intelligence officers and military officials, as well as staff workers at the military-run guesthouse, The New York Times reported on August 4. A day prior, The Independent Persian claimed that some 40 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Ansar al-Mahdi Protection Unit were arrested shortly after the assassination.

Some reports even claim that officials as high-ranking as Law Enforcement Special Units Commander Hassan Karami were also arrested in the raids. The regime was quick to address any allegations related to the mass arrests, and the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News promptly rejected some claims, stating that Karami was still the commander of the special units.

The Independent Persian and The Telegraph claim that the IRGC’s specialized intelligence unit for espionage has taken over the investigation into Haniyeh’s assassination, with The Independent Persian reporting that the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) was not allowed to participate in the ongoing manhunt. If true, this further strengthens existing claims about a rivalry among the regime’s security and intelligence institutions.

The U.S. Finally Wakes Up on Venezuela - Opinion

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The Biden Administration finally awakened late last week to the obvious reality that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is trying to steal another election. The question is whether the U.S. is willing to do anything other than stomp its feet in protest.

For days the State Department dallied in making a judgment even as Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) had refused to release tallies backing up Mr. Maduro’s claims that he had won. But the opposition had organized thousands of monitors at local polling stations who took photos of the tabulated results, and it has posted them online. They show a dominant opposition victory.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged on Thursday evening. The Organization of American States has also issued a statement acknowledging the opposition victory.

Lessons Never Learned: The US Army Disinterest in the 1912–13 Balkan Wars and Today’s Professional Military Discourse

Brian McAllister Linn

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The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have generated an extensive commentary seeking both to define the characteristics of modern war and to identify lessons applicable for future conflicts. Reflecting today’s proliferation of information (and opinions), students of modern war can quickly exhaust themselves listening to podcasts and seminars, watching videos, and reading everything from blogs to official documents. Given the vast—and often contradictory—amount of current analysis, a study of how the pre–information age US Army’s professional journals assimilated and disseminated lessons from ongoing conflicts may assist those seeking a path through today’s flood of commentary. It also confirms the Harding Project’s recognition of the importance of both the quality and influence of the service’s professional journals.

Much of the current professional military discussion revolves around the purported lessons from Ukraine and Gaza. But will those lessons be propagated across the Army and inform the way it prepares for tomorrow’s wars? To explore this question, we can turn to the past and examine how Army journals derived lessons from the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). Both conflicts were seen by contemporaries as examples of modern war, involving the rapid mobilization of mass armies, costly infantry assaults, intense artillery barrages, machine guns, trenches, and appalling numbers of casualties. But how the Army leadership and its intellectual community perceived these two conflicts was very different.

The next president must restore our faith in America - Opinion

Jamie Dimon

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We live in a perilous time. Deeply divided, our nation now faces both challenging domestic issues and perhaps the most complicated geopolitical situation since World War II. We may be at an inflection point that will determine the fate of the free and democratic world for decades.

We should not sleepwalk into disaster — we will prevail, but we need an active, comprehensive effort. This is precisely the time when strong American leadership is needed to unite us and strengthen the indispensable role our country plays for the safety of the world.

We’ve faced worse: war, economic upheaval, social transformation. In those moments, leaders such as Presidents Lincoln, Truman and Eisenhower guided us forward with common sense and pragmatism. Our best leaders strengthen the bonds that unite us. They address the broader interests of our country and don’t pander to base politics or cater to extremes.

Moscow’s Spies Were Stealing US Tech — Until the FBI Started a Sabotage Campaign

Zach Dorfman

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One day at the dawn of the 1980s, an FBI agent in his 30s named Rick Smith walked into the Balboa Café, an ornate, historic watering hole in San Francisco’s leafy Cow Hollow neighborhood. Smith, who was single at the time, lived nearby and regularly frequented the spot.

As he approached the oak wood bar to order a drink he suddenly spotted a familiar face — someone Smith had met about a year before, after the man had walked into the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco. He was Austrian by birth, but a denizen of Silicon Valley, an entrepreneur who operated as a middleman between American tech companies and European countries hungry for the latest hi-tech goods. 

The Austrian had visited the consulate to drum up business behind the Iron Curtain. The tech entrepreneur may not have put much thought into how closely the building was being watched by FBI spy hunters. And why should he? At the time, there wasn’t necessarily anything suspicious about trying to conduct commerce with the Soviets. In 1979, for instance, there was $4.5 billion in legal trade between the U.S. and Soviet Union; about $200 million of that was in high-tech goods. But bureau counterintelligence routinely blanketed the consulate with surveillance. And their interest was piqued. After the FBI clocked the Austrian’s visit to the consulate, Smith had reached out.

Why SpaceX is running away with the commercial space race

Mark R. Whittington

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Recently, Eric Berger at Ars Technica sounded the alarm about a peculiar and vexing problem in the commercial space sector.

SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk, is beating the competition hands down for NASA contracts. That includes the old-line aerospace companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and its fellow new space startups.

SpaceX has achieved an unprecedented degree of reliability and low cost with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. Company engineers recently found and resolved a glitch in the Falcon 9 second stage and returned to flight in two weeks. The ability to reuse the first stage multiple times has left SpaceX’s competition in the dust.

During the second Bush administration, NASA turned to the private sector for launch services for two reasons.

First, commercial companies can deliver goods and services more cheaply and reliably, using fixed-priced contracts, than the government using traditional cost-plus arrangements.