Clinton’s speech at the Kennedy Center proves she can’t do anything outside the framework of her potential presidential candidacy.
Embracing Virtual Reality
The flood of behavioral-health problems in the military seems to have peaked. Fortunately, things stayed far from the degeneracy of the late 1960s and early 1970s described by Colonel Robert Heinl Jr. in his 1971 Armed Forces …
“Designed for stealth operations, the high-contrast markers are bound to attract attention.”
— From an advertisement, here, for a watch until recently “restricted to America’s most elite fighting forces.” But now “you can put one on your wrist for three covert payments of only $99!” There is, as they say, one born every minute.
BattlelandChuck Hagel
Hagel Taking Pay Cut
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel – following a path blazed by his deputy, Ash Carter – will kick back up to 14 days’ pay to the U.S. Treasury to replicate the pecuniary pain sequestration will inflict on fellow Pentagon …
“I'm not in the business of messaging; I'm in the business of facts.”
— Pentagon spokesman George Little on Tuesday afternoon, trying to reconcile his expressed concern over recent North Korean actions while stressing that recent U.S. military moves in the region are generally part of normal operations.
BattlelandMilitary Spending
Costly Flight Hours
Last week, Battleland bemoaned the increasing difficulty finding cost-per-flight-hour data for U.S. military aircraft.
In a flash, longtime defense watcher – from a perch on Capitol Hill, as well as a stint at the Government …
Scoring Our Four Iraq Wars
A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
— Thucydides
It’s still unclear how history will judge the U.S. …
BattlelandDrones
Drone Pilots: No Worse Off Than Those Who Actually Fly
A new Pentagon study contrasting the mental-health concerns of pilots who actually climb into the cockpit – as opposed to military drone drivers who sit at desks – shows that land-based pilots suffer 60% more mental-health …
Snipe-Hunt Training
A pair of Marine scout snipers head to a live-fire range on Camp Leatherneck, Helmand Province, March 23.
BattlelandMilitary
Where’d Our Shiniest Brass Go?
Max Boot, the hawkish hardliner (is that redundant?) and author of the recently-published Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, says the nation got the short end of the stick …
Understanding the Rise in ADHD Diagnoses: 11% of U.S. Children Are Affected
The rates of U.S. children affected by attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are skyrocketing, according to a recent report, but experts caution that the latest numbers require …
“The Taliban is despised. They may be feared in Afghanistan, but they are despised in Afghanistan.”
— Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the armed services committee, in a Mar. 28 interview with Charlie Rose.
Tailpipe Politics: The Lessons (So Far) of 2013
Here’s what you can learn about Obama’s climate agenda from the EPA’s new effort for cleaner air.