Marines work on their shooting skills at Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, on Oct. 17.
Affording the “Pacific Pivot”
Former governor Mitt Romney’s drumbeat for $2 trillion in additional defense spending, together with President Obama’s Pacific pivot – the reallocation of American military resources to contain China – turned out to be a …
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A Modest Proposal for Defending Japan’s Remote Islands
“A More Hopeful Future for North Korea”?
North Korea remains a bleak place, and Melanie Kirkpatrick’s new book, Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad, helps explain why. A nuclear-armed family communist dictatorship – who knew the …
Afghan Dawn
U.S., allied and Afghan troops greet the new day as they prepare to conduct “village stability operations” in Farah province’s Khak-E-Safed village on Oct. 20.
“Three Minutes Out”
Army Major Nathan Strohm, a logistician, has deployed four times in support of the global war on terror: to Uzbekistan for most of 2003, to Iraq for most of 2005, and twice to Afghanistan – first from February 2007 to April …
Marksmanship, NoKo Style
A South Korean newspaper reports Thursday that the Pyongyang government executed several North Korean senior officers by firing squad earlier this year for “drinking liquor during the mourning period [following the death of leader Kim Jong-il] or being involved in sex scandals.”
Note that “or.” Apparently, alcohol and adultery …
The Picasso of Procurement
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel – and occasional Battleland contributor – Dan Ward not only has a way with words. He is, according to his new The Comic Guide to Improving Defense Acquisitions, also the Picasso of …
With War Ending, When Should We Look for a Peace Dividend?
The defense budget has become such a pampered darling of the American political system that the most stringent budget scenario that most Republicans and Democrats are currently contemplating — the so-called “Doomsday” …
Kinder, Gentler War
In the Pentagon’s continuing quest to destroy without hurting, Boeing announced this week that its CHAMP microwave-burst weapon successfully rendered electronic targets useless without wounding anyone.
“We turned science …
Night Time on the Flight Line
Sky King
Retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Dan Hampton flew nearly 4,000 hours – including 726 in combat – in an F-16 during his 20 years in the Air Force. (Battleland has flown about, um, one, including none in combat. Final brave …