This week, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey published his new professional reading list. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like a big story, but it does offer a look into the thinking of the general who will be leading our armed forces in the coming years. Every service has their respective professional development programs, …
That phrase, with its powerful imagery, was often tossed at me following the publication of my 2004 book, The Pentagon’s New Map. In it, I argued that globalization’s expansion was, and would continue to be, the primary cause of unrest and conflict in the world, as connectivity – in all its forms – extended itself into the …
Before the rebels finish celebrating — and catch Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi (or don’t) — it’s worth noting that 42 years of dictatorship can leave some dangerous residue behind. Olli Heinonen, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, is a former deputy director of the …
….is going to be released Wednesday afternoon. Can we all calibrate our threat-hype meters beforehand? Fearsome new warplanes? Check. Scary aircraft carrier? Check. Able to gobble up Taiwan as mainland China keeps our carriers at bay with its fearsome carrier-killing missiles? Check. May need to sell Taiwan — think of it as a …
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The Dutch military intercepted a pair of Russian Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers several days ago. The hulking aircraft apparently got close enough to the Netherlands to draw the attention of its F-16s. Between the turboprop behemoths — first flight: 1952 — …
As Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told 2,500 troops Tuesday about the foreign-language skills he championed as a congressman, an active-duty Army officer was complaining about the paucity of military personnel who can speak anything other than English.
The current push to train soldiers to speak the local languages in Afghanistan …
Is the White House assuming massive defense cuts next year–much bigger than the cuts already made? Even bigger than the additional reductions contained in the recently passed debt-ceiling legislation?
It sure seems so.
Rumor has it that the Administration’s accounting arm, the Office of Management and Budget, has issued fresh …
Andrew Krepinevich, one of the most solid thinkers to come out of the Army in the past generation, has a thought-provoking – and foreboding – piece in the latest issue of Foreign Policy. In it, he suggests that the rules of military might are changing, and not in ways that favor the U.S. and the rest of what we might call “the …
Provocative piece written by a U.S. Army officer now serving in Afghanistan concludes:
…The fact that the U.S. has established the front line of its national security as the Hindu Kush Mountains of Central Asia is at its core imprudent. Is the future of Afghanistan really critical to the national security of the U.S.? There is an
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After more than 30 years of watching the U.S. military pour money into weapons that can’t meet performance, schedule and cost targets, you sort of become inured to such chicanery. “It would be impossible to sit here and justify the current process, given that it has not delivered the capabilities we’ve required within the resources …
War, first and foremost, is a collection of choices. When President Obama ruled out the use of U.S. military boots on the ground inside Libya, it may have made political sense. But did it make military sense as well? John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and I weigh the issue with Andrew Exum, former Army officer now …
After five months of bombing the government of Muammar Gadaffi, the U.S. finally recognized Libya’s rebel forces. Was this the right decision, and, if so — why did it take so long? Paul Hughes, a retired Army colonel now with the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Andrew Exum, a Center for a New American Security fellow who has led …
