national security threats

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How Pentagon Contracting Is Killing the Military’s Technological Edge

Katherine McIntire Peters | Government Executive | May 17, 2017

How long does it take to buy a new handgun? More than a decade, if you’re the U.S. Army. What sounds like the set up to a bad joke is all too real in the world of Defense acquisition. It took the Army 10 years to develop and rewrite requirements for a new handgun when, in 2005, the service set out to replace the M9 Beretta pistol soldiers had carried for decades. The first draft of the Army’s 350-page request for proposals (not counting 23 attachments) issued in 2015 somehow neglected to identify key requirements, such as the caliber of the weapon. As chronicled in a new report on Defense acquisition, “the paperwork alone added an estimated $15 million or 20 percent to procurement cost”...

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Installing Solar to Combat National Security Risks in the Power Grid

Press Release | Michigan Technological University | May 8, 2017

Vulnerabilities in the power grid are one of the most prevalent national security threats. The technical community has called for building up the resiliency of the grid using distributed energy and microgrids for stabilization. Power production from multiple sources increases the difficulty of triggering cascading blackouts, and following an attack or natural disaster, microgrids can provide localized energy security...