Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told us something we’d been waiting to hear Tuesday: “Gaddafi’s days are numbered,” he said of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during a session with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at National Defense University.
But then we started flipping through the pages of our notebook, backwards through time …
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 …
As NATO’s war against Libya nears its sixth-month anniversary, there’s one question that keeps churning over and over again in what passes for my mind: why can’t the most powerful military alliance in history topple a third-rate army? I discuss the topic with John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security, Paul Hughes, a …
Why did the U.S. military agree to do the “heavy lifting” in the opening days of the war with Libya — launching long-range bombing strikes from the continental U.S., among other martial fireworks — before handing off the next nearly six months (and counting!) to our NATO allies? Is this a new way of waging war on the cheap for …
This week on Command Post we’re taking a look at what has been going on for more than five months — yikes, by my watch that’s nearly half a year — in Libya. This was supposed to be a flick-of-the-wrist military action by the most powerful military alliance in the history of the world. NATO chieftains expected the barrage would lead …
Did you catch that sleight-of-command over the weekend? The U.S. recognized the rebels in Libya even as the NATO-led coalition announced the first 650 troops – of President Obama’s planned pullout of 33,000 by the end of next summer – started coming home from Afghanistan with no one slated to replace them.
Tuesday marks …
Georgia Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson Friday brought the issue of mass graves in Sudan to the House floor.
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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 …
As the war for Libya stretches into its fifth month next week, it’s easy to question the wisdom of entering into a conflict with as many caveats on it as this one. But there’s no questioning the gee-whizzedness of the Air Force’s initial strikes carried out by five bombers from bases in the United States. While that “quick symphony …
The Obama Administration clearly wants the American public to know it is not allowing Pakistan’s double game in Afghanistan and on militant jihadists to go unpunished: The New York Times reports that the U.S. is withholding some $800 million — one third of the aid designated for the Pakistani military — to send a message that …
This from my Global Spin entry today:
As NATO’s war in Libya entered its 100th day on Monday, an end to the conflict may be in sight — but not necessarily a decisive one. Military and diplomatic signs point increasingly towards some measure of compromise by both sides in shaping an outcome that neither the regime nor the rebels
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The New America Foundation’s sponsored debate over defense spending showcased two schools of American political thought entirely comfortable with allowing American power and influence to decline on the global stage.
