Loren Thompson Quotations

We're in no rush to bomb Iran. The fact that we have bombing plans on the shelf for dealing with Iran is not new because we've been generating those plans for a quarter-century. That's what planners do.

There is a point beyond which it isn't practical to expect so many different things from the same group of people.

So far the Democrats look like better news for the defense industry than the Republicans, ... I don't see how anyone could disagree. The Democrats are on the record wanting to spend more money than Bush does. The Gore plan envisions spending $10 to $11 billion more a year on defense, whereas the Bush plan sees half as much (of an increase).

Since it's actually a handful of nuts with no real resources at their command, it's a little hard to see why such imagery is appropriate.

Much of the Marine Corps equipment was purchased with the prospect of a shore assault in mind.

Now they've introduced a cluster that they themselves can't define. It seems as though the most important people in the system don't really grasp the details of what's being funded.

Obviously, the Teamsters are counting on all that work to create a problem that management can only solve by caving in to their demands.

If we're going to bomb Iran, it's a long time off in the future, and we're certainly not going to use nuclear weapons to do it.

If the rules are too demanding, they're going to be hard pressed to find a place to operate other than a desert. When you build a military base, somebody is going to lose their land, somebody is going to object because of noise. But if everybody gets a veto then you're not going to have any new military bases anywhere.

If it doesn't get the money, at some point down the road, Northrop is going to have to raise the cost of building warships to cover the cost of doing business.

He has always taken the role of a controversial visionary whose job is to articulate a new path forward to people who don't want hear it.

There is a huge demand for spare parts that only Sikorsky can meet. Without the Teamsters, the company can't maintain a coherent production schedule.

What you see in these examples is that the Nunn-McCurdy cost breaches cover a lot of diversity in terms of causes and consequences. To punish programs equally for such different difficulties is not constructive.

What you're seeing in these recent remarks is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how widely disliked Rumsfeld is.

Having already gone through a bad aircraft choice once, the Army wants to make absolutely certain that this time it picks the right aircraft.

I think that there's no question that the Air Force is leaning toward US 101 as the solution to the mission.

Part of the story on space radar can't be told because it concerns the most sensitive missions of government satellites.

We ought to get off this notion that we're going to be deploying it, because we're not.

There has been a lot of talk about the appropriate head count for the National Guard. But the actual number of National Guard soldiers is far less important than how well-equipped each of those soldiers is.

The government should never have tried to develop one system to meet the very different needs of the Army and Navy.

You have to wonder where the Army thinks it's going after Iraq.

What happened here is that the technology enthusiasts got far beyond what the laws of physics would allow.

Cutting that much money from the program clearly foreshadows either program termination or a long delay and major restructuring.

Cutting-edge military technology today is very similar to cutting-edge commercial technology. It's not clear we can control any of these dual-use technologies to stop them from reaching enemy hands.

There's going to be big cuts in the spacecraft program.

The sad thing is that in the effort to demonstrate that it is being diligent, the agency is undermining popular support for any manned spaceflight. It enforces the public's apprehension of human spaceflight.

Rumsfeld will have been so weakened by this process that as the election approaches the White House will signal that his resignation wouldn't be unwelcome.

Rumsfeld was a buffer between the president and public criticism and staying behind him was a sign of Bush's strength. Now Rumsfeld is becoming the cause of the criticism and standing behind him could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

A prolonged shut down of spare parts production potentially endangers Army readiness. There's no way Sikorsky can maintain a high rate of production without the Teamsters on the line.

The British are going to spend billions on this, and they're concerned they won't really understand the technology of what they're buying. They don't want to be treated like a Third World arms dealer. They're saying, ' If you can't trust us, how can we trust you?

This is an interesting twist on an argument that the Air Force has been pursuing for some time on the need to cut its purchases of Joint Strike Fighters. The Air Force has settled on a number of about 1,100.

This base closure is the roar that moused, ... It started out being very ambitious, but ended up being modest.

They're using them at a very rapid pace in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They're (the Emirates) not going to retaliate because they need us. Who is going to protect that little outpost of modernity on the Arabian Peninsula if it isn't us?

Although they may not have won the original competition in an entirely proper manner, they've got a pretty strong track record in developing these kinds of weapons.

This is very good news for Boeing at a time when its space operations seemed to be faltering.

They're expecting that the government will publicly disclose its approval of the transaction, with conditions, this month.

It's just to guarantee that we're not left blind against an enemy missile launch.

It is so uncommon for senior military officers in the United States to criticize civilian leaders that it has to make an impression on the White House and Congress.

It's not hard to see where this story ends -- he won't be effective in office. He's losing his ability to execute his agenda.

It's hard to overstate how important this technology is to future U.S. military plans.

The big question going forward is how intensive the military commitment to Iraq remains. If it stays at current levels, then the Army is facing a recruiting challenge every month for years to come.

It's time for the administration to do a fundamental reassessment of what it is that we are willing to do in order to stabilize Iraq. The United States needs to draw a line in terms of how deep it is willing to be drawn into Iraqi domestic politics.

Existing levels of demand are driving the market toward one provider of launch services.

If you're Frank Lanza, you're getting on in years, you don't have a clear succession plan in place, and your share price may be as high as it's going to get. Why wouldn't you be thinking about selling?

Because Gore doesn't show great enthusiasm for missile defense, he's not going to initiate another big program that has to be fit into a tight program, ... That's probably a net positive for contractors.

Gordon England has believed since he was in industry that the acquisition system is broken. If given the opportunity, he'll push to change almost every aspect of the way the Pentagon does business because he believes billions of dollars are being wasted.

The entire Marine force was designed around the concept of amphibious warfare, which is a good deal different from the kind of conflict they're fighting in Iraq today, hundreds of miles from the sea. The Marines are a light force; they kick in the door but they are not supposed to occupy all the rooms.

The crux of this issue is that the Marine force really isn't very well designed for the type of fight it's facing in Iraq.