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Eric Fanning, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, and former US Army Secretary, says President Donald Trump’s proposed steel and aluminum tariffs risk inviting foreign retaliation because the US “aerospace and defense industry” depends on exports, and such blowback would “really dry up the market for some of these products” and inflate prices for US consumers during a wide-ranging, March 8, 2018, interview with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian. Fanning also discusses funding for the US Defense Department and NASA, and his priorities at AIA in the interview, which was conducted at the association’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

Tom Karako, PhD, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project and a senior fellow in its International Security Program, analyzes the Trump administration’s FY19 missile defense budget request, says the US must increase its investment in advanced capabilities, stresses that the US needs “a space sensor layer for not merely missile warning, but tracking and discrimination,” the hypersonic weapons threat and more during a Feb. 28, 2018, interview at the think tank’s headquarters in Washington. The interview was conducted at the Strategic National Security Space: FY19 Budget Forum, co-hosted by CSIS’ Aerospace Security Project and the Jacques & Associates consultancy.

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Defense and State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittees, says increased defense funding “will help us catch up” from a sequestration-induced national security slump and that “the degradation of the State Department has to stop,” and discusses defense budget priorities, the federal appropriations process, deterring North Korea and more during a March 6, 2018, interview with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian in Washington.

Marillyn Hewson, chairman, president and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, says the company is “on track to deliver 90” F-35 Lightning II fighter jets in 2018, and discusses corporate performance, priorities and more during her opening remarks at the company’s 2018 Media Day, held at the Lockheed Martin Global Vision Center in Arlington, Virginia, on March 5.

Michael Mattock, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, discusses the US military’s Blended Retirement System that took effect on Jan. 1, 2018, and its force-size implications, the US Air Force’s pilot-retention challenge and more in a wide-ranging, Feb. 16, 2018, interview with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian at the think tank’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California.

Bill LaPlante, PhD, senior vice president at the MITRE Corporation and former US Air Force acquisition chief, and Jamie Morin, PhD, vice president and executive director of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy, and former Pentagon director of cost assessment and program evaluation, discuss challenges to the nation’s space enterprise, the need to upgrade Cold-War era architectures (especially in terms of sensing and missile defense), harnessing commercial innovation, balancing speed and efficacy while modernizing national security space — whether through acquisitions or development — and more during a Feb. 28, 2018, interview with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The interview was conducted after the “Strategic National Security Space: FY19 Budget Forum” event co-hosted by CSIS’ Aerospace Security Project and the Jacques & Associates consultancy.