BattlelandNational Security
It’s important to keep in mind that North Korea isn’t a country in the western sense of the word. It’s a murderous cult. It is the bastard child of the Soviet Union, born in the days following World War II, and succored by China following the Soviets’ collapse. In 2007, a congressional researcher assembled a list of some of Pyongyang’s …
BattlelandNational Security
The Pentagon’s latest report on progress in Afghanistan, released late Wednesday afternoon, is mixed, but it starts out upbeat:
Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance, and development in operational priority areas. The deliberate application of our strategy is beginning to have cumulative
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BattlelandNational Security
Former Pentagon strategist Thomas P. M. Barnett urges the U.S. to avoid brinkmanship, act responsibly, curb the South Korean military, welcome Beijing into the next war game — and change the topic of conversation.
BattlelandNational Security
It’s important to remember that the long-ago Korean war has never ended. Hostilities were terminated between the U.N.-backed South and the Chinese-backed North with an armistice on July 27, 1953. Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops remain in South Korea, sworn to defend the South from an attack from the North. The North alleges its latest …
BattlelandNational Security
The ultimate arbiter of the fairness of U.S. government contracts — that would be the Government Accountability Office — has ruled against Sikorsky Helicopter of Connecticut in favor of the Navy’s decision to limit the purchase of new choppers for the Afghan air force to a Russian model. Its decision, dated November 5, has just been …
BattlelandNational Security
North Korea dealt the world’s crumbling efforts to contain the nuclear genie yet another body blow when the one-time Hermit Kingdom invited a U.S. scientist to take an inside peek at Pyongyang’s nuclear complex on November 12 – and floored him with a “stunning” new uranium enrichment plant sporting at least 1,000 centrifuges. Not only …
BattlelandNational Security
Eyebrow-raising piece in the Washington Post this morning reporting that the U.S. Marines are dispatching 16 M-1 tanks to southwestern Afghanistan. The 68-ton behemoths can hurl a 120mm shell a mile downrange to blow up pretty much anything. It’s the first time such heavy armor is being sent to Afghanistan.
This raises a couple of …
BattlelandNational Security
I know there are some soldiers fighting for us today who are glad Bryan Fischer isn’t serving alongside them. The alleged pro-family blogger complained the other day that the Medal of Honor is becoming “feminized” because it’s being awarded to soldiers who have saved comrades instead of killing the enemy (be sure to check out the …
BattlelandNational Security
The “boom” you just heard coming from the Pentagon isn’t a test of the newest nuclear cannon, but the starting pistol in the race to figure out where — and how deeply — to cut the U.S. military budget. It’s a strange fight to be having as the U.S. military wraps up one war and remains engaged in a second. But with defense spending …
BattlelandNational Security
Close to 200 lawmakers have written to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking questions about the pending $60 billion sale of F-15 jet fighters and other weapons to Saudi Arabia. They want to know the “rationale for a sale of such magnitude” and what might happen to the arms “in the event of …
BattlelandNational Security
When police work doesn’t work, offer money. That’s what the FBI is doing after weeks of investigation have failed to find the person responsible for firing on the Marine museum, a Marine recruiting station (a Coast Guard recruiting station, too) and the Pentagon itself. The feds are offering “up to” $20,000 for information leading to the …
BattlelandNational Security
President Obama’s start date for pulling some of the 100,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan — next July — now has an end date, as well: 2014, according to this morning’s New York Times. But if the 2011 date is squishy — and it is — so is the withdrawal date. Neither specifies how many will be coming out, or how fast: numbers and pace …
BattlelandNational Security
The Air Force sure knows where to plot its future. Later this week, the Air Force Association, the service’s independent lobbying arm, is conducting a so-called Global Warfare Symposium to delve into the challenges of “the nuclear enterprise, cyberspace, expeditionary forces and space.”
(Military types have begun referring to the …
