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Norman Augustine is the former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, one of the largest U.S. defense contractors, and a long-time advisor to Republican administrations and militarist advocacy groups whose defense policy preferences closely dovetail with the interests of the defense industry.

Augustine has served as an advisor to the hardline Center for Security Policy, led by Frank Gaffney, and has participated in initiatives organized by the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute. He has also served on the board of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a key promoter of  controversial counterinsurgency strategies for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Augustine has spoken at various CNAS events, including a January 2010 panel entitled the “The Contested Commons: The Future of American Power in a Multipolar World.

Other groups Augustine has been involved with include the policy group American Security Project (ASP) and the lobbying group Business Executives for National Security. ASP is a centrist organization that describes itself as “a non-profit, bipartisan public policy and research organization dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of national security issues, promoting debate about the appropriate use of American power, and cultivating strategic responses to 21st century challenges.”[1]

Founded in 1982 by Stanley Weiss, a former executive of a mining and chemicals company, Business Executives for National Security (BENS) aims to promote corporate involvement in helping the government do national security “faster, better, and cheaper.”[2] In his capacity as chair of a BENS Task Force on Defense Acquisition Law and Oversight, Augustine provided testimony to a House Armed Services subcommittee in early 2010 on how to run defense acquisition as a business. Among the problems he cited in the current defense acquisition model were that government officials, not business people, run the process; poor coordination and communication between war fighters, technology experts, and financial experts; and faulty program execution that results, in part, from not having enough reserve funding to address contingencies.[3]

In 2009, Augustine chaired a blue ribbon panel on the U.S. space program that pushed for substantial increases in the NASA budget. In early 2010, the Barack Obama administration decided against most of the recommendations, opting instead to cut back several programs and encourage commercial development of space.[4]

Augustine has been involved in both the aerospace industry and government advising for decades. According to his American Security Project biography, Augustine  “joined the Douglas Aircraft Company in California where he worked as a Research Engineer, Program Manager and Chief Engineer. Beginning in 1965, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Assistant Director of Defense Research and Engineering. He joined LTV Missiles and Space Company in 1970, serving as Vice President, Advanced Programs and Marketing. In 1973 he returned to the government as Assistant Secretary of the Army and in 1975 became Under Secretary of the Army, and later Acting Secretary of the Army. Joining Martin Marietta Corporation in 1977 as Vice President of Technical Operations, he was elected as CEO in 1987 and chairman in 1988, having previously been President and COO. He served as president of Lockheed Martin Corporation upon the formation of that company in 1995, and became CEO later that year. He retired as chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin in August 1997, at which time he became a Lecturer with the Rank of Professor on the faculty of Princeton University where he served until July 1999.”[5]

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.