The Pentagon rolled out its new cyber-defense strategy Thursday, hyping it with the news that foreign hackers (from an unidentified country) invaded the computers of one of its (unidentified) contractors in March and pilfered 24,000 sensitive documents in one fell swoop.
Cyber-security is a Pentagon growth area, make no mistake …
Did the Pentagon ignore proposals by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) to increase oversight of federal contractors and save taxpayer dollars? The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has obtained documents outlining legislative proposals submitted by the DCAA to Pentagon leadership back in September 2009—but the Department of …
George Clooney’s Satellite Sentinel Project set up to monitor the spiraling violence in Sudan has a stunning report out today with convincing evidence showing “a campaign of systematic mass killing of civilians in Kadugli, South Kordofan” in the south-central area of the country. TIME was the first to write about Clooney’s …
Like two evenly-matched bantam-weights tiring as they enter the final round of a matchup low on the global strategic undercard in which the crowd has long-since lost interest, NATO and Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi are staggering towards the final bell. NATO will keeping jabbing away and win the bout on points, no doubt, but it’s …
Marine General James “Hoss” Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just made a lot of enemies in the Air Force. Over breakfast Thursday, he made clear he finds the service’s push for a new manned bomber as a part of the U.S. nuclear triad less than convincing. “I’m known as a bomber-hater, I guess,” the nation’s No. …
…because it is getting really confusing, as I tried to detail Wednesday night on the PBS NewsHour, along with Aubrey Sarvis of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, in a segment with Judy Woodruff. There’s a race now underway — will “Don’t Ask” die a merciful death, hospiced away under the Pentagon’s carefully thought-out …
Cool NYT story on the US military’s use of biometrics (eye scans, etc.) to create unforgeable identification records of roughly one-in-five fighting-age Iraqi and Afghani males, creating databases that can be perused in seconds by a handheld device at a border crossing. Naturally, there is much interest and some desire to use the …
As the U.S. begins pulling troops out of Afghanistan, is Pakistan going to be a help or a hindrance to stability in the region? John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and your Battlelander discuss the issue with Dr. Nora Bensahel, counter-insurgency expert with CNAS, and Dave Barno, retired Army lieutenant general and …
In the recent swirl of articles and blogs about the new Presidential policy on honoring those who suicide in combat with a condolence letter, there are some who may be lost: the Families. The controversy seems to be about whether or not you should “honor” the Soldier who died with a letter of condolence. Recently the White House …
There’s no reason yet to believe the latest Mumbai terror attacks bear the same signature as the 2008 massacre that left 164 people dead. Wednesday’s multiple explosions appear from early reports to have involved small-scale and relatively crude bombs, even though they appear to have inflicted substantial casualties. That might point …
A recent revelatory study by my colleagues Eric Hagt and Matthew Durnin to be published in the Journal of Strategic Studies (October 2011 Vol. 34) describes China’s rapid expansion of its space satellite network from humble beginnings only one decade ago. It’s constellation of reconnaissance, data-relay, navigation and communications …
In the daily drone of news it flitted by as an unfortunate act of God of one sect or another: at least 15 people died Monday in a blast at a major naval base in Cyprus. The blast was so fierce it blew out windows and doors of a tourist town two miles away along the Mediterranean island nation’s southern coast. Initially, authorities …
For those who have not read it, the Times has a hilarious account of new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s first trip to Iraq in his new job. Apparently, the new secretary regularly employs “salty” language.
He has reportedly employed the following lexicon:
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