Battleland Battleland

Deployment Wavers

Some Army families think their soldiers deploy too much. Some Army families have it tougher, in some ways: their soldier has never deployed. Army spouse Jenny Williams writes about it in Sunday’s New York Times’ “Modern Love” …

Battleland Battleland

This Week: North Korean Fireworks?

As Kim Jong-un’s minions ready a rocket for takeoff – likely within this week – his neighbors are marshalling their missile-defense shields in the East Asia Sea and around cities that might be hit by an errant booster or …

Battleland Battleland

Collateral Damage: F-18 Crash Could Hurt Base’s Future

The crash of a Navy F-18D Hornet into an apartment complex in Virginia Beach, Virginia, could seal the fate of the Oceana Naval Air Station there. The Navy has been trying for more than a decade to build a practice jet airfield in North Carolina or Virginia to practice simulated carrier landings with Oceana-based aircraft. But local …

Battleland Battleland

Axis of Excess




There are two ways to delay the dilemma highlighted in this chart from Republican members of the Senate Budget Committee: cut the debt or increase defense spending. Either seems unlikely to happen, in any significant way, any time soon — absent world war or economic cataclysm. The country lacks the will to change the status quo. …

Battleland Battleland

“Disruptive Thinkers”

The military embraces the status quo. That may increasingly become an unaffordable luxury, which means new ways of thinking about defense are needed. Marine Lieutenant Benjamin Kohlmann, an F-18 flight instructor in San Diego, thinks it’s time to shake things up:

…the one thing a vertically integrated organization like the military

Battleland Battleland

21st Century Fragging: Sexual Assault

Navy Times reports this week that “Navy leaders are calling for educational standdowns in April to communicate the service’s policy of zero tolerance for sexual assault while encouraging sailors to work harder to prevent attacks.” It’s part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, an effort to raise awareness of the issue and what can be …

Battleland Battleland

Non-Citizens Make Better U.S. Soldiers*

Well, there’s a kick in the teeth to all you red-blooded Americans wearing your country’s uniform: It turns out non-Americans donning U.S. military garb have more stick-to-itiveness than you, as well as having vital skills the U.S. military needs that you don’t have, to boot.

Non-citizens are “a potential source of …

Battleland Battleland

“Can We Win?”

The Council on Foreign Relations asked a squad of national-security heavyweights that question. You can read their hemming and hawing here, but Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security takes the cake for clarity:

I may lose my think-tanking license for writing this, but my honest answer to the question is that I simply do not know.

Battleland Battleland

“Black-on-Black”

We’ve had months of depressing news about so-called “green-on-blue” killings in Afghanistan – where Afghan troops kill their purported allies, American and otherwise. Such perfidy has accounted for about a quarter of the …

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