Senior Fellow, @AEI. I analyze and write about defense budgets and strategy, space security and policy, defense acquisitions and industrial base, and more.
Feb 15 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I see Twitter (or whatever this place is called now) is still buzzing about the intel on a Russian space threat, and people seem to be conflating or glossing over the differences and forgetting what is new versus old. Let's think through this for a minute...
Some are speculating that it could be a nuclear weapon in space--a clear violation of the Outer Space Treaty. But there is a reason why the US and USSR agreed to that restriction back in 1967--there's no need to place nukes in orbit.
1) It's at least the third time he has said something like this publicly, so it's not completely out of the blue (no pun intended, Air Force).
2) The president can't just create a new military service on his own. It requires congressional authorization.
May 25, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I watched this portion of @realDonaldTrump's speech at the Naval Academy today, and can't let it go. In just 2 minutes he makes at least 6 factual errors. Watch the clip and then read the rest of this thread: c-span.org/video/?c473152…
Error #1: The $700B defense budget for FY18 is not the largest ever. It was larger under the Obama administration: $710B in FY11 and $714B in FY10. And that's without adjusting for inflation!
