BattlelandNational Security
President Obama, administration, and military officials have insisted for months that the pre-trial confinement conditions of suspected Wikileaker Pfc. Bradley at the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va., including effective solitary confinement and periods of forced nudity, were in the best interest of Manning’s apparently frail mental …
BattlelandPentagon
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUhiXQaJy9M]
Has anyone else been wondering why our vast nuclear forces are largely escaping unscathed from the budgetary axe falling on other defense programs? The justification, as put to me this week by a top Pentagon official, is that we still need to maintain ‘residual deterrence’ in …
BattlelandNational Security
Tony Cordesman is one of the most prolific national-security analysts working these days. The Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar is important because he doesn’t live in the fringe, as do so many of his contemporaries. He inhabits, generally, a sensible middle, and imbues his work with a gravitas based on his wide …
BattlelandNational Security
While the third-largest Libyan city, the rebel stronghold of Misrata, continues to burn — ignited by Muammar Gaddafi — the West continues to fiddle. Rhetorical war rages between European capitals and Washington, even as a growing number of European nations — including Britain, France and Italy — say they will be dispatching dozens of …
BattlelandNational Security
Top Pentagon officials announced Tuesday evening that suspected Wikileaker Pfc. Bradley Manning would be moved from the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va. to the Army prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson and Army Under Secretary Joseph Westphal opened a Pentagon press conference by arguing that …
BattlelandNational Security
Here is an eyebrow raiser. The Associated Press is reporting that suspected Wikileaker Pfc. Bradley Manning will be transferred from the Marine Brig at Quantico, Va. to the Army prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. According to the AP, an announcement is likely Wednesday and the transfer comes “in the wake of international criticism about …
BattlelandVeterans
Troops back from war and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder can download a new app put together by the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments to help them cope. PTSD Coach lets users track their symptoms and links them to local agencies that can offer assistance. It provides accurate information and individual strategies …
BattlelandNational Security
Mark Thompson noted the Pentagon inspector general’s review of the Rolling Stone article that torpedoed the career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, so I won’t go over that again here.
I will, however, note my favorite part of the inspector general’s investigation, a probe into McChrystal’s middle finger:
The incident, described in the
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BattlelandWeapons
President Obama was sharpening his Pentagon ax in remarks at a town hall meeting in northern Virginia earlier today. Defense contractors hang on every word when the government is in a cutting mood like this. They’re eager to adopt any strategy to blunt the impact of the coming cuts on their programs. So let’s look at what the President …
BattlelandNational Security
Media organizations are increasingly worried that they won’t be able to accurately cover the pending military trial of alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators. Among the concerns are how many reporters will be able to see what is happening in the military courtroom – even through closed-circuit TV – …
BattlelandNational Security
A Taliban suicide bomber reached deep into the Afghan defense ministry Monday — one of the most secure buildings in the country — before he was discovered, The Long War Journal reports.
The bomber reached the third floor of the Ministry of Defense and came close to the Afghan defense minister’s inner circle. He was stopped by Afghan
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BattlelandWeapons
BattlelandTroops
