What is the global landpower network and what value might it provide?

US national security guidance, as well as the US Army’s operational experiences since 2001, emphasizes the importance of working closely with partner countries to achieve US strategic objectives. The US Army has introduced the global landpower network (GLN) concept as a means to integrate, sustain and advance the Army’s considerable ongoing efforts to meet US national security guidance. This study develops the GLN concept further, and addresses three questions. What benefits can the GLN provide the Army? What are the essential components of the GLN? What options exist for implementing the GLN concept? By developing the GLN concept, the Army has the opportunity to transition the GLN from an often ad hoc and reactive set of relationships to one that the Army more self-consciously prioritizes and leverages as a resource to meet US strategic objectives.     

Collaborative projects and the number of partner nations

Collaborative defence projects have been a distinctive feature of European defence industrial policy. This article focuses on whether the number of partner nations in international collaborative defence and aerospace programmes is a source of inefficiency. It appears that there is not a simple linear relationship. Two nation collaborations can be efficient, but conventional wisdom assumes that inefficiencies emerge with more than two partner nations. Inevitably, data problems made what appears to be a simple hypothesis difficult to test. The major result is that there is no evidence that efficiency as measured by development times is adversely affected by the number of partner nations. A limited sample regression and a comparison of Airbus vs. Boeing shows a similar conclusion.     

Operating Costs of Aging Air Force Aircraft: Adjusting for Aggregate Budget Effects

The rate at which operating costs grow as aircraft age is important for setting operating budgets and for deciding when to replace aging systems. While studies using data from the 1990's typically found 1–3 percent real rates of growth in operating costs as aircraft age, studies using data from the 2000's found greater rates, for example in the 4–6 percent range. Growth in the total U.S. Air Force budget during the 2000s appears to explain much of the higher estimated annual growth rates in operating costs per flying hour beyond the growth rate intrinsic to the aging of the fleet.