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defense spending
BattlelandMilitary Personnel
PTSD…And Cash
The Army removed Colonel Dallas Homas, commander of Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state, on Tuesday from his post because of an investigation into whether post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses were reversed …
BattlelandChina
The “Strategic Pivot” to Asia Now Committed, Pentagon Can Float Allegedly Deep Cuts
Nice piece in the New York Times on Tuesday, previewing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s much-anticipated announcement of almost a half-trillion in defense cuts over the next decade.As Mark Thompson just noted, not a whole lot …
BattlelandNational Security
Global Arms Exports Track Global Economy’s Double Dip
It’s interesting to think back to the start of the global economic crisis, when there were a lot of assumptions voiced about how a rising quotient of international tension would inevitably morph into more conflicts and thus more traditionally focused defense spending – i.e., great powers hedging against one another versus, say, …
BattlelandCyber
Cyberwar fears: disaggregating the threat
My man Mark Thompson puts up a cheeky post yesterday that I most heartily approved of. In it he speaks of cyberwar worrywarts and rightly fears that, as the terror war recedes in some priority, new little piggies approach the DoD trough. And as these cyberwar advocates find such a prime target in China, I would note that their …
BattlelandChina
Think Outside the Defense Budget: The Real Cost of Keeping China Our Enemy
Mark Thompson picks up on Chins’s cheeky advice to visiting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen regarding our coupling of world-class defense spending with our world-class national debt/faltering economy. We can brush it aside, of course, seeing that it’s coming from our #1 excuse for defense spending (Mustn’t let those …
BattlelandPresident Obama
Army not lucky, just desperate to avoid Leviathan supremacy over next decade
Picking up on Mark’s thread this morning, Galrahn, the eminent blogger at Information Dissemination, likewise sees a fight that’s getting nasty, arguing yesterday that the Army was “lucky” (in that, Will-no-one-rid-me-of-that-meddlesome-flag-officer! way) to see two of its great rivals for the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs …
BattlelandNational Security
The Defense Build-Down Is Here
President Obama’s latest announcement that he intends to seek $400 billion in reductions from his current security funding plans between FY 2012 and 2023 is only the latest signal that a defense build-down is under way. What is missing is a detailed plan for managing the build-down; that will be the responsibility of the next …
BattlelandNational Security
Obama Sharpens Pentagon Ax
It was only three months ago that Defense Secretary Robert Gates rolled out $78 billion in Pentagon spending cuts he said the nation could safely make over the next five years. His boss, President Obama, just announced that Gates’ trims are only a down payment on the cuts the Defense Department needs to make.
Over the last two years,
…
BattlelandNational Security
Your Tax Dollars At Play…
The Government Accountability Office issued a report Tuesday revealing that government procurement snafus added $70 billion to weapons costs over just the past two years. Fewer than half the Pentagon’s programs are meeting cost targets. And because the lousiest-run programs tend to be the most expensive, that means 72 cents out of …
BattlelandNational Security
A GOP-Pentagon Clash Looms Over Spending
There’s a game of chicken now under way in Congress — and the Pentagon is caught in the middle. House Republicans, eager to show they’re serious about cutting spending, are talking about a series of so-called “continuing resolutions” that will basically freeze government funding at 2010 levels unless Senate Democrats agree to deeper …
BattlelandNational Security
Getting to "Zero Threat"
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has wrapped up two days of testifying before armed services committee — perhaps his final appearance before both panels — and the House gave him a nice going-away present: it voted to kill the $3 billion second-engine line for the F-35 fighter. As the debate over the power plant showed, defense-budget …
BattlelandNational Security
Defense Spending Sacrosanct?
With the nation in two wars and faced with implacable Islamist foes, some argue that now is not the time to discuss cutting the defense budget. House Republican leaders barred spending cuts for the military, homeland security and veterans in their party’s “Pledge to America” campaign manifesto last fall. Last week, 165 members of the …