Category: National Security

Lockheed Takeover Plan Jeopardizes US Ability to Counter Evolving Missile Threats

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Competition, innovation, and cost-containment in the missile defense sector are vital to countering rapidly evolving missile threats from China, Russia, and other sources. History has taught us that excessive consolidation in any industry, especially defense, has increased taxpayers’ costs and high-level clumsiness in strategic thinking. That’s why Washington should prohibit Lockheed Martin’s proposed acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne and take other decisive actions to promote enhanced competition in the already highly-concentrated missile defense, propulsion, and hypersonic development market.

Politically Opportunistic Attempts to Gut U.S. Shipping Laws Jeopardize National Security and the Economy

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Americans should be alarmed by recent calls for repeal of the Jones Act, a 1920 law requiring that merchant vessels navigating between U.S. ports must be manufactured and flagged in the U.S., owned and operated by American companies, and crewed by American citizens. Passed in the wake of World War I to ensure that the United States maintained a vital sea transport capacity in the event of future conflict, the law has been vital to U.S. national security and economic strength for almost 100 years.

The Jones Act and National Security

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Dr. William J. Murphy of the New England Institute of Technology in East Greenwich, RI and the Heartland Institute discusses how repeal of the Jones Act would jeopardize national security with Cheryl Fritz on The Steve Gruber Show, 1240 WJIM, Lansing, MI on December 22, 2017.  The Jones Act is a 1920 law restricting shipping between U.S. ports to vessels manufactured and flagged in the U.S., owned and operated by American companies, and crewed by American citizens.  Murphy argues that repealing the Jones Act would jeopardize national security by increasing threats from weaponized shipping containers, terrorism, and illegal immigration.