Sitrep: Tensions are running high in Versailles on the Potomac as each of the military services girds itself for the real war…the budget war. A battle royal is being joined over how to carve up a Defense pie that will be growing more slowly, or possibly even shrinking slightly in the coming years.
Defense industry lobbyists, like …
TOKYO – For the second time since taking office this month, Prime Minister Yoshihoko Noda has warned about China’s military ambitions in the Far East.
“I am concerned about their reinforcement of national defense power, which lacks transparency, and their acceleration of maritime activities,” Noda said during debate in the …
Just how worn out are our troops because of non-stop combat since 9/11? To what degree has that contributed to problems like PTSD, family breakups and suicide in the ranks? This week, on Command Post, we discuss the tenacity of U.S. troops, as well as the cracks that can appear after a decade of fighting. Margaret Harrell, a
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Tony Cordesman, the resident military èminence grise at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, starts out riffing more optimistically than ex-DIA analyst John McCreary on what the Kabul attack means for Afghanistan. But then he details a daunting laundry list of things going wrong that must be reversed — soon — if …
The Senate Defense appropriators have made a good first step towards returning discipline to the defense budget in their mark for FY 2012. According to Sen. Inouye, DOD will have the same resources for FY 2012 they had for FY 2011, zero budget growth, or a flat line. This confirms what DOD still needs to acknowledge fully – we are in a …
Astute longtime DIA intelligence analyst John McCreary reviews what happened Tuesday in Kabul and doesn’t like what he sees:
Three major Taliban attacks have taken place in Kabul this summer…One such attack is a perhaps good fortune. A second might have been a coincidence, but three is a strategic trend. Violent instability is
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As the nation’s defense contractors pleaded with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Tuesday against deeper budget cuts, senators were eying a proposed bill from two of their colleagues that would urge the Obama Administration to sell F-16 jet fighters to Taiwan for pretty much the same reason. Given the dire economy, it shouldn’t come as …
Since reporting Monday on Rep. Judy Chu’s revelation that her nephew, Lance Corporal Harry Lew, killed himself after being hazed by fellow Marines in Afghanistan, we’ve spoken to several people about the tragic case. It turns out it wasn’t so much tragedy as torment; some might even call it torture. “LCPL Lew was identified …
Interesting chart from the Economist. I fear for national security if McDonald’s eclipses what the Britmag terms the US Department of Defence.
The National Guard has been fighting for years to get one of its own as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the nation’s senior council of military officers currently consists of the chiefs of staff of the Army and Air Force, the chief of naval operations, the Marine commandant, and a vice chairman and chairman from any service — …
The Taliban on Sunday drove a massive truck bomb into a U.S. combat outpost in the central-east province of Wardak, killing two Afghans and wounding 77 U.S. service members. CNN reported that, “Investigators are looking at the possibility that insurgents originally planned to use the bomb against a high-profile target in Kabul around the …
From a Q&A session following a talk Monday by Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., at the American Enterprise Institute:
Questioner: Back in the ’80s and ’90s, when the country was debating the size of the defense budget, a phrase was heard all the time — tooth-to-tail ratio — and it’s not heard at all now. And my question to you is: how
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