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	<title>U.S. &#187; Gordon Adams &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>U.S. &#187; Gordon Adams &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com</link>
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		<title>Get Serious, Lockheed</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/07/31/get-serious-lockheed/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/07/31/get-serious-lockheed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:47:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense Contractors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=79254</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the last few months, the aerospace industry has become a thespian, staging a drama of fear about the impact of a sequester on defense. Lockheed CEO Robert Stevens warned his employees that as many at 10,000 Lockheed jobs could be affected and thumped the tub about the one million defense jobs that a sequester would threaten (according to an Aerospace Industries Association-commissioned study). Republican Senators Ayotte, Graham, and McCain are putting the production on the road,  touring carefully selected audiences with the same message. Stevens was very specific.  He sent a letter to his employees with the warning that their jobs might be at risk.  And he said the company would be forced to let employees know that they were “late in the third quarter” this year. Sounds suspiciously political theater. And it is. The Department of Labor is bringing the curtain down. It has now issued “guidance” to state agencies about the requirements of the WARN Act and it is patently clear that no defense contractor is under any obligation to inform anyone about the potential implication of a sequester. The heart of the Labor Department’s guidance is clear. The law and implementing regulations (developed at the end of the Reagan administration) require such notices at least 60 days before ordering a plant closing or mass layoff.  And the WARN notifications need to go to “affected employees.” That means the company needs to know a) that sequester will happen; b) that DOD will execute the sequester in a specific way; and c) that DOD decisions will affect specific contracts, work locations, and employees, who need to be notified. None of this is known today, and very little of it is likely to take immediate effect if a sequester were to happen. As the Labor Department memo notes:  “It is unlikely that employers will have enough information to predict which contracts will be affected and, therefore which plants could close and which groups of employees could experience employment losses” without knowing what the level of FY 2013 funding is<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=79254&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Military Spending</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/military-spending-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/2100_us_lockheedrobertstevens_0731.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Defense Industry CEO&#039;s Testify At House Armed Services Committee</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>The Defense Build-Down is On, But Fantasies Remain</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/05/17/the-defense-build-down-is-on-but-fantasies-remain/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/05/17/the-defense-build-down-is-on-but-fantasies-remain/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2012 12:02:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PTSD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State Department]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[defense budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=74217</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marine General John Allen, commander of forces in Afghanistan, is planning for the end – the withdrawal of U.S. forces, expecting to leave behind a small training force, but saddling the U.S. taxpayers with at least $2 billion a year to pay for the Afghan security force.  Better deal than we have now, at roughly $100 billion a year, with not much to show for it. The State Department, meanwhile, is looking to scale down the U.S. effort to train Iraqi police, because it is not going as planned.  After a year or more of assuming responsibility for remaining U.S. involvement in that country, it seems the Department is seeing reality, or, as Deputy Secretary Tom Nides put it: “I don’t think anything went wrong…The Iraqis don’t believe they need a program of that scale and scope.” America is retrenching, no doubt about it. Only a third of the soldiers back from the wars think that the Iraq war ended successfully, and more would leave Afghanistan than continue the military presence there, Reuters reports. Two-thirds of the American public does not think the war is worth the cost. The American public is prepared to cut the defense budget, even if they think it continues to be a dangerous world out there. And with debt, deficits, and economic troubles continuing to pile up, many think it is about time.  As Kelly Grafton, a retired Army master sergeant who served in Somalia and Iraq put it: “We can’t keep policing the world.” But not everbody agrees, however.  The world “policers” continue to push for a global constabulary mission, despite the American public’s awareness that this enterprise has backfired and now provides negative returns for U.S. security, as well as 6,300 dead, 33,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of victims to PTSD, depression, and traumatic brain injury. The Special Operations Forces seem to want to keep it up.  The new plan is to create a world-wide network of Special Operations Forces, keying off the NATO SOF headquarters in Belgium.  As Brigadier General Sean Mulholland (Deputy Director<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=74217&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Military Spending</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/military-spending-2/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>The Army and Special Forces: The Fantasy Continues</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/05/03/the-army-and-special-forces-the-fantasy-continues/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/05/03/the-army-and-special-forces-the-fantasy-continues/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 May 2012 12:16:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Special Operations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=73206</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=73206&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://nation.time.com/2012/05/03/the-army-and-special-forces-the-fantasy-continues/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Army</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/army-2/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Screen shot 2012-05-03 at 8.15.01 AM</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Defense Budgets: The &#8220;Drole de Guerre&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/04/19/defense-budgets-the-drole-de-guerre/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/04/19/defense-budgets-the-drole-de-guerre/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:44:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=71966</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The next seven months is going to be fun for bloggers, journalists, and other remnants of the chattering class, but it won’t shed much truth.  Wait until November for that. The latest rounds have been fired this week. The “phony war” part was posted by House Armed Services Committee chairman &#8212; and prophet of doom &#8212; Buck McKeon, R-Calif., whose staff worst-cased and low-balled every thing in sight to argue that a sequester would be a disaster for defense. In truth, it would take some adjusting, though everything depends on how OMB would define the application of a sequester and nobody &#8212; including the armed services committee majority staff &#8212; knows what that definition will be. So spare yourself the shivers when you read the HASC staff view. And let’s be clear: even the worst case would leave the American military with a capability that exceeds anybody else in the world for decades to come (yes, that includes China), including the size of the Navy. People tend to forget that the U.S. Navy in 1922 was so large we were one of the greatest naval powers in the world, and hosted the Washington Naval Conference to restrain the world’s navies.  (The others – the UK, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, kind of dropped off the radar screen after World War II and we sit alone in the blue water today). While McKeon fights a verbal battle over the defense budget up there in the air, the other war continues on the ground.  We are not going to get a budget any time soon.  Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., of the House Budget Committee fired his artillery a few weeks ago, with a resolution that restored an amazing $5 billion (1%) to defense from the President’s request, but proposed leveling most domestic budgets to pay for it. Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., fired back two days ago, proposing deeper cuts to defense (about $720 billion over the next 10 years from the Administration’s FY 2012 projection – we are working our way<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=71966&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://nation.time.com/2012/04/19/defense-budgets-the-drole-de-guerre/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Military Spending</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/military-spending-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/13313.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Photo by Chris Oxley</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>The Defense Budget Non-Debate</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/04/05/the-defense-budget-non-debate/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/04/05/the-defense-budget-non-debate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:41:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=70696</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week, as he issued his political budget, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan tried to pull the “Generals are not telling us the honest truth” rabbit out of the hat. The Wisconsin Republican was suggesting that either the military leadership was lying &#8212; in saying they could live with $487 billion less over the next 10 years than they had previously hoped for &#8212; or that they had somehow been muzzled by the White House and were just singing to a common hymnal, scripted for the occasion. There is a stunning lack of awareness of the realities of national-security budgeting buried in Ryan’s attempt to make political hay out of the fact that defense budgets are now projected to be flat, not growing above the rate of inflation (for that is all the administration has done.) Ryan and many other political leaders appear not to be aware that budgets and policy operate in synergy, always have and always will. Time to wake up and smell the coffee. Bernard Brodie, the great strategic thinker, wrote it more than thirty years ago: “strategy wears a dollar sign.”  Strategy affects resources; resources affect strategy.  That’s the way the defense business is done, has always been done.  Yes, indeed, we would not have had a strategy review last year, in the middle period between regular four year reviews, were it not for the reality that resources are not going to grow as previously projected. And wasn’t it smart to have a strategy review, instead of just salami slicing the budget in every direction, knowing that resources would be less generous than thought? Frankly, the defense plan, after Iraq and (soon) after Afghanistan needs just that kind of review, and more.  With a defense budget that is around $150 billion higher (in constant dollars) than any previous spending peak, peace or war, and with unprecedented global military superiority, we have more than enough room to deal with flat defense budgets. And we could go even further.  In fact, that flat budget actually grows in<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=70696&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Military Spending</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/military-spending-2/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/1420781141.jpg?w=214" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Budget</media:title>
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		<title>The Promise &#8212; and The Danger &#8212; in Panetta&#8217;s Budget</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/01/27/the-promise-and-the-danger-in-panettas-budget/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/01/27/the-promise-and-the-danger-in-panettas-budget/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:30:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troops]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weapons]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=64948</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Leon Panetta rolled out some of the first details on the new FY 2013 defense budget on Thursday. It&#8217;s the first since FY 1998 to actually decline in nominal terms (though FY 2011 and FY 2012 were “real” cuts, as they did not keep up with inflation). The Secretary didn’t have much choice about the base budget for FY 2013; the 2011 Budget Control Act pretty much froze the fiscal options and the base budget request stays within that framework, as Congress intended. While Congress may mix and match the details, many of which are still to come, they cannot quarrel with the cap, so the total is unlikely to change. There is some promise, and some danger, in the longer-term plan the Secretary unveiled, however. The promise is the indication that the big ship DOD is slowly turning toward the future, though the strategic framework for that shift remains to be filled in. some of that shift looks a bit like what my colleague Matt Leatherman and I wrote a year ago in Foreign Affairs. Reducing ground forces is something that needs to happen and always does at the end of war(s). U.S. ground forces remain globally superior and are globally deployable, unlike those of any other country. There is a reason, however, that the Constitution calls for Congress to &#8220;raise and support armies,” but “to provide and maintain a navy.&#8221;  Ground forces are easier to raise and historic uneasiness about a large standing army remains.  Moreover, with over 500,000 reserve and guard forces (well used the past 10 years), the capacity to “go active” is large. Moreover, the expeditionary capability that has thrived in the past decade – the Special Forces – is slated to grow, matching the sense that rapid, small missions are the more likely use of our military, rather than regime-change, stabilization/occupation, nation-building missions like Iraq and Afghanistan.  Major stabilization (and related sizeable COIN) mission seem to be fading, which is a good thing.  What is unanswered, is where and why all these Special Forces need to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=64948&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://nation.time.com/2012/01/27/the-promise-and-the-danger-in-panettas-budget/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Military Spending</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/military-spending-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cranach_28gravure_sur_bois29_1539_martyre_de_st_matthieu.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Cranach_%28gravure_sur_bois%29_1539_Martyre_de_St_Matthieu</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>Reaping Non-Existent Savings From Defense</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2011/09/19/reaping-non-existent-savings-from-defense/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2011/09/19/reaping-non-existent-savings-from-defense/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=56819</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The President&#8217;s plan for deficit reduction, sent today to the Super Committee, collects 25% of its overall spending reductions by bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Bringing them home is probably a good thing, but the budget savings the administration claims will only appear when porcine animals are airborne. The proposal bags over a trillion from defense by measuring savings against the Congressional Budget office baseline. CBO, however, does not do a programmatic estimates of war costs. It is constrained to project funding, once appropriated, out into the future, as if it were going to continue at that level forever. It&#8217;s a &#8220;mechanical.&#8221; So the $159 billion appropriated for the wars in FY 2011 is inflated for ten years, as if it were going to continue for ten years. The number is a phoney. The savings are not real. And because the administration (and the Simpson-Bowles Commission, and the Gang of Six, and Rep. Paul Ryan) all claim them, they can say defense contributed to deficit reduction, when it does not. And, in any case, the super committee is not supposed to deal with war costs; they are off the table. The rubber will hit the road for defense when the super committee decides it will tackle something more than the $350 billion in savings over ten years the administration claims is already realized through passage of the Budget Control Act. Those are easy; just take the FY 2011 figure for defense and inflate it over ten years and you can pretty much get home. No discipline at all. And it is time for discipline in the defense budget. Hopefully, the super committee will provide it, but don&#8217;t hold your breath, or launch the bacon.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=56819&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/national-security/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>Defense Appropriations and the Slippery Slope of War Spending</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2011/09/14/defense-appropriations-and-the-slippery-slope-of-war-spending/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2011/09/14/defense-appropriations-and-the-slippery-slope-of-war-spending/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:09:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=56452</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Senate Defense appropriators have made a good first step towards returning discipline to the defense budget in their mark for FY 2012. According to Sen. Inouye, DOD will have the same resources for FY 2012 they had for FY 2011, zero budget growth, or a flat line. This confirms what DOD still needs to acknowledge fully – we are in a defense build down, similar to the four previous defense build downs we have experienced since the end of the Second World War. But there is an asterisk, there often is, in what the appropriators have done. According to Sen. Inouye, the committee found $6.6 billion in war spending that was not needed – due to troop reductions in Afghanistan and a lower funding need for Afghan Security Forces. Now these are funds that are normally provided through the separate, war spending account, known as OCO (for Overseas Contingency Operations). But at the same time, the appropriators provided the full $117.8 billion the administration requested for OCO. Meaning the committee slid something out of the base budget into the OCO account that was not previously requested as part of war costs. Or to put it another way, watch out for a bit of budgetary legerdemain here, similar to what previous Congress’ have done – putting non-war costs into the war budget when you can’t fund them in the base defense budget. We will have to see what slid over into OCO on Thursday. But it is a dangerous budgetary practice and a relaxation of the otherwise splendid budget discipline the committee began. We should not go down that slippery slope.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=56452&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/national-security/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>The Twilight of Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Stabilization</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2011/09/08/the-twilight-of-post-conflict-reconstruction-and-stabilization/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2011/09/08/the-twilight-of-post-conflict-reconstruction-and-stabilization/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:23:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=56450</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reporting in Government Executive suggests that the days of US planning and intervention to straighten out other countries in the Arab world may, mercifully, be coming to a close. In Iraq, it seems the government we helped install is reluctant to invite 14-18,000 American troops to remain, despite Gen. Allen&#8217;s apparent desire to do so. It seems domestic politics prevail, and Iraqis may have had enough of a large US troop presence. Gen. Allen may think it is necessary, but perhaps the Iraqi government is now in charge and, for better or worse, prepared to handle its own affairs. As for Libya&#8230; In Libya, where US and European post-conflict reconstructors and stabilizers are champing at the bit to fix things for the new regime, it seems the US administration is not prepared to devote large resources to the task. Although a US coordinator at State is soon to be named, he may have few resources to work with. It seems the new Libyan government has its own ideas about what it wants to do and, if the Kadafi resources are released to it, that government will also have the resources to carry out plans for which only it can be responsible. And, most interesting, it seems the new Egyptian government and military have suggested that an American plan to provide additional funding (on top of the more than $1 billion the US already provides in military assistance) was not welcome, leading State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland to worry about a streak of &#8220;anti-Americanism&#8221; appearing in that country. It is high time to step back and review our record in &#8220;fixing&#8221; other countries and ask ourselves if post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization is something we do well or poorly, and whether it is truly welcome in other countries who may want to run their own affairs.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=56450&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/national-security/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">gadams02</media:title>
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		<title>Here We Go Again: Telling the Libyans What to Do</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2011/08/25/here-we-go-again-telling-the-libyans-what-to-do/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2011/08/25/here-we-go-again-telling-the-libyans-what-to-do/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:37:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Gordon Adams</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://battleland.blogs.time.com/?p=55560</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We just can&#8217;t help ourselves. No sooner did it look like Khadafi was on his way out then the promoters of &#8220;post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization&#8221; and &#8220;stability operations&#8221; were on the march. Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, told the world that &#8220;NATO has to pick up the pieces.&#8221; He called for an &#8220;international force&#8230;for some time to help restore and maintain order,&#8221; including at least &#8220;hundreds of military and police advisers,&#8221; and, at most &#8220;an international force of several thousand troops.&#8221; (Financial Times, 22 August 2011) Max Boot went further, arguing that &#8220;Libya will need aid and, like it or not, peacekeeping troops,&#8221; including economic assistance and expert advice,&#8221; plus the inevitable &#8220;outside stabilization force.&#8221; (Los Angeles Times, 24 August 2011) The providers of good will, advisers of merit, and profit-seekers cannot be far behind. Based on what British blogger Julian Lindley-French called NATO&#8217;s&#8221;huge expertise in stabilization and reconstruction&#8221; (Lindley-French&#8217;s Blog Blast 24 August 2011) learned over the past decade, it is now Libya&#8217;s turn. What on earth are we thinking? That huge reservoir of experience has left a staggering Iraqi economy and polity behind, having failed to achieve much of the goals the Americans set out for themselves in 2003 (or was it 2004, when the goals all changed, or 2008 when they changed again) thanks to the civil war unleashed by the American invasion. And the &#8220;success story&#8221; in Afghanistan remains to be found, with Karzai&#8217;s &#8220;government&#8221; mired in corruption, its security forces not up to the task, and an economy based largely on the growth and export of an illegal crop. Isn&#8217;t it time to take stock here and recognize that the western countries have a pretty sorry record of bringing stability and reconstruction to other countries. The Europeans brought colonialism, and were chased from the scene. And the Americans brought a talent for destruction and a well-intentioned desire for near-term results, but little long-term success in telling other countries what to do. Maybe the Libyans ought to be asked what they think<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=55560&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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