Waging and preventing war are the foundations of national security. Innovative companies across the country are working on products for tomorrow’s fight. Here’s Battleland’s continuing look at what looms on technology’s …
Revisiting 7th Fleet’s Liberty Policy…
Last December, I weighed in on the liberty policies 7th Fleet imposed after several high-profile incidents in Japan:
While the Japanese are growing less tolerant of American shenanigans on its soil, and rightfully so, punishing
…
Despite Rhetoric, VA Claims Backlog Continues to Ebb
Thrustworthy
Senior Airman Nate Hall inspects an F-16 July 5 at Kandahar Airfield.
“I don't have a zero option. No one has asked me to prepare a zero option. I don't recommend a zero option. So there is no zero option, but there could be a zero outcome because we can only stay here if we're invited to do so.”
— Army General Martin Dempsey, speaking July 22 in Kabul, on the wisdom of leaving zero U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2015, a possibility the White House has suggested may occur.
Why General Sinclair’s Lawyer Wants the Chain of Command Delinked
Last week, support continued to build for legislation sponsored by Senator Kirstin Gillibrand, D-N.Y., aimed at improving the military’s approach to addressing allegations of sexual assault. Gillibrand’s bill would grant …
Why Weapon Programs Get Killed
The Pentagon has long had a problem launching $10 worth of weapons when it only has $5 to pay for them. That leads to lots of fiscal fratricide inside the U.S. military, and it doesn’t do the taxpayers any favors, …
Hand-Grenading It Back to the Stone Age
Army Lt. Charles Morgan lobs a M67 fragmentation grenade during training in Kunduz province, July 3.
94
— The number of children allegedly killed in Pakistan by CIA and allied drone strikes, among 147 civilian and 746 total deaths, between 2006 and 2009, according to “Details of Attacks by Nato Forces/Predators in FATA” prepared by government officials in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), available here.
Are Private Contractors Really Cheaper?
Those who support using private military and security contractors often claim that a major reason for doing so is that it is more cost-effective than using regular military forces.
While there hasn’t been a whole lot of …
Listen to the Kids
A decade of war does a lot to parents serving in the military…and even more to their children left behind at home.
Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center, has issued a report on the risks facing young …
$31,200
— Cost of a "required" oil painting of former defense secretary Leon Panetta to hang in the Pentagon, here. h/t Weekly Standard
“Regretfully, many of the early administrative records for Fort Myer were consumed in celebratory bonfires following the Allied victories over Germany and Japan in 1945.”
— From the official history, here, of Quarters Six, the home on Virginia’s Fort Myer of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.