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	<title>U.S.Category: Pentagon &#124; U.S. &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>U.S.Category: Pentagon &#124; U.S. &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Pentagon Programs Target of China Cyber Threat</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2013/05/29/pentagon-programs-target-of-china-cyber-threat/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2013/05/29/pentagon-programs-target-of-china-cyber-threat/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 May 2013 09:40:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / LOLITA C. BALDOR</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=122453</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) &#8212; New revelations that China used cyberattacks to access data from nearly 40 Pentagon weapons programs and almost 30 other defense technologies have increased pressure on U.S. leaders to take more strident action against Beijing to stem the persistent breaches. The disclosure, which was included in a Defense Science Board report released earlier this year, but is only now being discussed publicly, comes as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel heads to Southeast Asia, where he will discuss the escalating cyberthreat with counterparts from a number of area nations. (MUST-READS: More on the China Cyber Allegations) While officials have been warning for years about China&#8217;s cyber espionage efforts aimed at U.S. military and high-tech programs, the breadth of the list underscored how routine the attacks have become. And, as the U.S. looks to grow its military presence in the Asia Pacific, it heightens worries that China can use the information to blunt America&#8217;s military superiority and keep pace with emerging technologies. &#8220;It introduces uncertainty on how well the weapons may work, and it means we may have to redo weapons systems,&#8221; said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. &#8220;If they know how it works precisely, they will be able to evade it and figure out how to better beat our systems.&#8221; A chart included in the science board&#8217;s report laid out what it called a partial list of 37 breached programs, which included the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense weapon _ a land-based missile defense system that was recently deployed to Guam to help counter the North Korean threat. Other programs include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, and the hybrid MV-22 Osprey, which can take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. The report also listed another 29 broader defense technologies that have been compromised, including drone video systems and high-tech avionics. The information was gathered more than two years ago, so some of the data is dated and a few of the breaches &#8212;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=122453&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Pentagon</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/pentagon-2/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Pentagon Sequestysteria</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2013/02/25/pentagon-sequestyria/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2013/02/25/pentagon-sequestyria/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:54:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Navy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=108332</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ever since the Cold War ended, the Pentagon has been pushing to become more “flexible” and “agile,” to use two words frequently heard at Defense Department briefings and found burrowed into innumerable Pentagon reports. So how come the building is so flummoxed by a looming budget cut of 10%? It&#8217;s a strange thing, this sequester – especially the Pentagon&#8217;s over-reaction. Sure, entitlement spending is driving the budget crisis. But that doesn&#8217;t mean military spending should be bullet-proof. Yet instead of smartly saluting and doing what it has been told, the U.S. military has been wailing for more than a year about how the impending cuts – amounting to more than $500 billion over the coming decade – will cripple U.S. national security. Looking like nothing so much as the Bolshoi Ballet, the choreographed screams about coming cuts has gone too far, even for hawks like conservative columnist George Will. In Sunday&#8217;s Washington Post, Will protested the Navy&#8217;s recent delay in dispatching the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman to the Persian Gulf, purportedly due to the looming budget shortfall: The Navy is saying it cannot find cuts to programs or deployments less essential than the Truman deployment. The Navy’s participation in the political campaign to pressure Congress into unraveling the sequester is crude, obvious and shameful, and it should earn the Navy’s budget especially skeptical scrutiny by Congress. The Defense Department’s civilian employment has grown 17 percent since 2002. In 2012, defense spending on civilian personnel than in 2002. And the Truman must stay in Norfolk? This is, strictly speaking, unbelievable. [Battleland modestly believes Will gleaned these facts from our post last month linking him to a Government Accountability Office report containing them -- Whatever Floats Your Bloat, By George! – but is pleased, nonetheless, to share such interesting tidbits far and wide.] Here&#8217;s something to keep in mind: the Department of Defense budget, strictly speaking, isn&#8217;t elastic. It doesn&#8217;t expand and shrink on a moment&#8217;s notice. According to the rulebook, wars and other major operations are not funded in its<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=108332&#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/2013/02/56983735.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">mt53</media:title>
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		<title>F-35: Blade Bummer</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2013/02/25/f-35-blade-bummer/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2013/02/25/f-35-blade-bummer/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:38:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Air Force]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense Contractors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Procurement]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=108372</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The news that the Pentagon&#8217;s fleet of 51 F-35 fighters has been grounded because of a half-inch crack in one of its engine&#8217;s turbine blade is one of those problems that can truly be called a teething issue: it&#8217;s something that happens on most every high-tech jet engine that is pushing the engineering envelope. Pentagon officials over the weekend suggested waiting for Pratt &#38; Whitney, the maker of the F-135 powerplant that powers the F-35, could take a week to 10 days. Sometimes such problems are natural; sometimes not. All involved want to make sure that whatever caused the crack is unique to that particular blade and not a threat to all F-35 engines. A single-engine warplane like the F-35 could be doomed by a disintegrating turbine blade. This isn&#8217;t a new problem with the F-35 powerplant; a similar blade cracked during testing in 2007. &#8220;Most likely root cause is resonant response to aerodynamic excitation by the upstream 54 vanes in STOVL operation,&#8221; an investigation into that earlier failure concluded. &#8220;No indication that defects in material properties or single crystal orientation significantly contributed to the failures.&#8221; News of the grounding comes at a sensitive time, as F-35 advocates try to convince the Australian government this week to stick to its original plan to buy 100 of the jets. The grounding is only the latest in a series of problems for the program, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. The U.S. military plans on spending $396 billion for 2,457 of the planes, making it the most costly weapons system in the history of the world (the planes, built by Lockheed Martin, are slated to cost $332 billion; Pratt&#8217;s price for the engines is projected to be $64 billion). But the program&#8217;s problems, and looming defense-spending cuts, are likely to cut the program, perhaps by as much as half, defense officials say privately. The grounding affects the F-35s being built for the Air Force, the Marines and the Navy because all three variants use the same engine (&#8220;Putting all<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=108372&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Procurement</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/procurement/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/screen-shot-2013-02-24-at-5-16-23-pm.png?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-02-24 at 5.16.23 PM</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">mt53</media:title>
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		<title>Sequestration is for Sissies: $6.9 Billion More for the F-22</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2013/02/21/sequestration-is-for-sissies-6-9-billion-more-for-the-f-22/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2013/02/21/sequestration-is-for-sissies-6-9-billion-more-for-the-f-22/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:47:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Air Force]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Procurement]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=107894</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pentagon officials took to PBS and the Pentagon press room to warn Wednesday about the impending sequester&#8217;s impact on military spending. &#8220;We&#8217;re really trying to keep on protecting the country and delivering the defense under these circumstances,&#8221; Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on the PBS NewsHour Wednesday evening. &#8220;In some cases, that&#8217;s not going to be possible.&#8221; On March 1, assuming no White-House-congressional deal on a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction package over the coming decade, more than $500 billion in Pentagon cuts will kick in automatically, including a $46 billion cut between March 1 and October 1. &#8220;Two-thirds of the Army active combat brigade teams, other than those that are currently deployed, would be at below acceptable levels of readiness,&#8221; Pentagon money chief Robert Hale said. &#8220;It could affect their ability to deploy to a new contingency, if one occurred, or if this goes on long enough, even to Afghanistan.&#8221; Yet slightly more than an hour before Carter appeared on television, the Air Force slipped Lockheed Martin a little something extra to keep their fleet of F-22s flying: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (FA8611-13-D-2850) with a ceiling of $6,900,000,000 for F-22 modernization…This award is a result of a sole source acquisition. One doesn&#8217;t know whether to laugh or cry. The F-22 program has become a parody of itself, and of all that is wrong and warped in the military-industrial complex. Let&#8217;s review the bidding: &#8211; The 188-plane program cost $67 billion, or more than $350 million per plane. &#8211; Just over two years ago, the Air Force awarded Lockheed a similar $7.4 billion contract &#8220;for the development of system upgrades to existing requirements, incorporate new requirements, add capability and enhance performance in the F-22 Weapon System.&#8221; &#8211; That&#8217;s apparently a total of $14.3 billion added to the initial cost of $67 billion &#8212; a 21% hike. &#8211; The F-22 became operational in 2005. &#8211; It has yet to fly a single combat mission, even as the nation has waged wars in<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=107894&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</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/2013/02/130105-f-pb632-946.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Raptor in flight</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">mt53</media:title>
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		<title>The Picasso of Procurement</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/24/the-picasso-of-procurement/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/24/the-picasso-of-procurement/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:36:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Air Force]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense Contractors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Procurement]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=90287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Air Force Lieutenant Colonel – and occasional Battleland contributor – Dan Ward not only has a way with words. He is, according to his new The Comic Guide to Improving Defense Acquisitions, also the Picasso of Procurement. In a series of comic-book-like drawings, he points out how the perpetual push for better may be thwarting the U.S. military&#8217;s goal of buying the best. Check out what he has to say – um, draw – here. But just remember his warning: The views expressed in this comic are those of the author and do not represent the official policies of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government yet.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=90287&#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/2012/10/ward-art1.png?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">ward.art</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">mt53</media:title>
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		<title>With War Ending, When Should We Look for a Peace Dividend?</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/24/with-war-ending-when-should-we-look-for-a-peace-dividend/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/24/with-war-ending-when-should-we-look-for-a-peace-dividend/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:05:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Winslow Wheeler</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=90243</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The defense budget has become such a pampered darling of the American political system that the most stringent budget scenario that most Republicans and Democrats are currently contemplating &#8212; the so-called “Doomsday” scenario &#8212; is so stuffed with money as to be historically unprecedented. Moreover, as Pentagon spending begins to approach the modestly-reduced levels it currently faces, we can anticipate a titanic effort by defense industry and many across the U.S. political spectrum to pump additional tens, even hundreds, of billions of dollars into Pentagon coffers. Conventional wisdom on these questions is so poorly informed as to the actual data that politicians running for both the White House and Congress make stupendously daft statements about the defense budget, only to be greeted by many nods of pontificatory agreement. Consider the data in the graph below. It shows spending for the Department of Defense (DOD) since the end of World War II to 2022. The data up to the year 2012 are actual spending, expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars equivalent to the year 2012—according to DOD’s records. The data for the years 2012-2022 show Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s approximate plan (in red), President Obama’s (in blue), and the spending to be impose by “sequestration” (in green). That green line is a result of Congress’ failure to come to a broad budget deal under the provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011, resulting in automatic reductions in DOD’s and other budgets now scheduled for January 2, 2013.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=90243&#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/2012/10/289927-034.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">289927-034</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/ec58dc826721ceca9b4f9b9b965a8fa2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">winslowwheeler</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">ww chart</media:title>
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		<title>Sky King</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/23/sky-king/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/23/sky-king/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:01:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Air Force]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troops]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Veterans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weapons]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=90085</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Dan Hampton flew nearly 4,000 hours – including 726 in combat – in an F-16 during his 20 years in the Air Force. (Battleland has flown about, um, one, including none in combat. Final brave words as we hurtled down the runway: &#8220;Get us back safely, and there&#8217;s a cold case of Heineken in the trunk of my rental car.&#8221;) Hampton, who retired in 2006, has written about the experience in Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat. The Air Force wanted to name its F-16 fighter the Falcon 30 years ago, but that name was already taken by a French business jet. Zut alors! So the service ended up calling it the Fighting Falcon (Department of Redundancy Department), which pilots thought was so dumb they&#8217;ve embraced Viper instead. More than 4,500 Vipers have been built. Hampton flew one tricked out as a radar-killing Wild Weasel, flying against enemy surface-to-air missile sites in the opening hours of air campaigns, to clear the way for others to follow. He also picked up four Distinguished Flying Crosses along the way. &#8220;Two Dogs&#8221; Hampton spoke with Battleland in an email interview recently. Why did you write Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat? I wanted people to get a glimpse into, and a more in depth appreciation of, a fighter pilot&#8217;s life. There&#8217;s lots of interest in military aviation and I wanted folks to see a bit of it. Maybe inspire a few younger people. Tell us about your most memorable moment in the cockpit? Was that also the scariest? If not, tell us about both. The most memorable moment was at the end of the last war [in Iraq]. We had made it home and were all landing amidst the crowds &#8212; waving flags, banners etc. As I shut down the engine and opened the canopy, I got a big breath of air &#8212; smelled like cut grass &#8212; and could hear the people cheering. It was a nice way to come back. The scariest moment was probably discovering<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=90085&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Author Q&amp;A</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/author-qa/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/030322-f-7203t-015.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Operation Iraqi Freedom</media:title>
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		<title>Fire the Horse-Holders!</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/19/fire-the-horse-holders/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/19/fire-the-horse-holders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:22:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=89782</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Battleland is always impressed with 20/20 hindsight, visual clarity of any sort being so unusual in the rarified circles at the top echelon of U.S. national security. Take the column in Friday&#8217;s Washington Post by physicist Harold Brown. He served as President Carter&#8217;s defense secretary &#8212; and as LBJ&#8217;s Air Force secretary from 1965 to 1969, nearly a half-century ago. Having once been a civilian service chief himself, Brown says they have out-lived their utility. He drags out one of the most pejorative terms military folks use – &#8220;horse holders&#8221; – to describe the positions of the secretaries of the Air Force, Army and Navy. He doesn&#8217;t estimate how much money doing away with them would save, but that might not be the most important reason to get rid of them: they have simply become management underbrush that rusts the political chain of command. Changes in the structure and the way the U.S. military operates have made the service secretaries and the service chiefs – the top uniformed officer in each service – redundant, Brown argues. He says it&#8217;s time for those civilians to get the heave-ho: I am reminded of an apocryphal [Battleland editor's note: perhaps not] piece of Washington history. In the 1950s, the Army reexamined its Table of Organization and Equipment. It found that an artillery battery contained one soldier whose presence and function were unexplained. The position was that of the man who, during combat, had held the horses that drew the caissons carrying the guns. The horses had gone, but not the personnel slot. Let’s retire another set of horse holders.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=89782&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Military</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/military-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/patrol-i1.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Patrol-I</media:title>
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		<title>Leveraging</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/19/leveraging/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/19/leveraging/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:01:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mitt Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Veterans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=89701</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[See where GOP candidate Mitt Romney has just released a roster of more than 300 retired generals and admirals who are endorsing him for President. They range from former Army general Tommy Franks, who commanded the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as chief of U.S. Central Command, to ex-Marine general James Conway, who served as commandant from 2006 to 2010.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=89701&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Politics</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://nation.time.com/category/politics/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/6195-000224.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">6195-000224</media:title>
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		<title>Converting the Taliban</title>
		<link>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/19/converting-the-taliban/</link>
		<comments>http://nation.time.com/2012/10/19/converting-the-taliban/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:55:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Thompson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Battleland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Counter-Insurgency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troops]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nation.time.com/?p=89728</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Air Force Major Matthew Brown served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as part of the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AFPAK) Hands counter-insurgency program during the final eight months of 2011. A one-time B-1 pilot, his main mission was to turn Taliban fighters into law-abiding Afghan citizens.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=nation.time.com&#038;blog=20157722&#038;post=89728&#038;subd=timemilitary&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">Screen shot 2012-10-18 at 5.50.45 PM</media:title>
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