BattlelandMilitary Spending
Pollster Scott Rasmussen says the planets may be coming into alignment for deeper cuts in defense spending than are already being discussed. Writing in the latest issue of Reason, a libertarian magazine, he argues that it’s …
BattlelandSpecial Operations
The Pentagon’s top lawyer wrote a terse letter Thursday to “Mark Owen” – Jeh Johnson fastidiously put the author’s pseudonym in quotes – warning that “Owen” is in legal jeopardy for penning No East Day: The Firsthand Account …
BattlelandTroops
Checking out Pentagon paperwork sometimes leads to strange findings, like the pair of contract solicitations Battleland just came across. They seem especially apt given how the GOP basically drove by the war in Afghanistan at its convention Wednesday night in Tampa.
The American public wants nothing to do with the Afghan war. …
BattlelandPolitics
Wednesday night was supposed to be “foreign policy night” at the Republican convention in Tampa, and it was: the speeches were conventional.
Neither GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney nor his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan …
BattlelandVeterans
If you’re a U.S. military veteran living in Waco, Texas – not that far away from the Army’s Fort Hood – you’re out of luck. Veterans living there wait an average of 403 days – that’s more than 13 months — for the …
BattlelandMilitary Spending
Battleland has known the thrill of listening to enough military bands to recreate Fort Leonard Woodstock. In fact, he used to know his way around both a trumpet and a tuba. There is something bracing, and affirming, in martial …
BattlelandSpecial Operations
So this is what it comes down to: a former SEAL who participated in the mission to kill Osama bin Laden charges in his new book that the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people was simply killed when he …
BattlelandWeapons
Big-thought-thinker Martin Libicki has long focused his attention on cyber warfare. But now the Rand Corp. senior scientist is studying what he calls non-obvious warfare, of which cyberwar is only one part:
Innovations, both
…
BattlelandWar Story
Army Major Christopher Miller was in Afghanistan in 2006-2007 helping to train up its security forces. An infantryman, he was there as part of a four-man embedded tactical trainer – ETT – with the 41st Brigade Combat Team, …
BattlelandArms sales
The Congressional Research Service’s latest annual compendium of global arms sales shows the U.S. to be the behemoth when it comes to such commerce. Some highlights:
— Per the pie chart, the U.S. accounted for 79% of the
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BattlelandMilitary Justice
The U.S. military calls it “NJP” – non-judicial punishment. Civilians might liken it to a slap on the wrist, but it generally marks the end of the military career of anyone subject to it.
On Monday, the Pentagon announced …
BattlelandAfghanistan
…at least that’s Monday’s “green-on-blue” score per this latest press announcement from the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
The two soldiers killed in Laghman province were Americans.
This is …
BattlelandMilitary Health
Louis H. Smith IV has been an Army combat medic for a decade, and currently is serving in Afghanistan as the medical officer for the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment. He argues, in a recent post on Small Wars Journal, that …
