The Navy keeps losing commanders over problems associated with sexual fraternization. A dozen COs have been relieved of command this year so far, many of them because of relationships they shouldn’t have been having. Over on the U.S. Naval Institute’s blog, CDR Salamander — a respected but anonymous former Navy officer — weighs in …
Why Businesses Lack a SEAL Team 6
Contrary to Stan McChrystal’s SEAL-hiring spree, there aren’t many businesses run like the famed special-forces team that killed Osama bin Laden last month. This piece from the Harvard Business Review explains why. “Most organizations can’t grow the professionalism of elite special forces units because they are constantly shifting …
Documents Like This…
…make you wonder just what the heck it is we are doing in Afghanistan. It’s a new, 33-page Army contract solicitation seeking Facebook and Twitter experts who can sell the U.S. message to the locals. Makes one wonder why we are investing our blood and treasure in a fight that has to be sold to the people whose lives we are supposedly …
Secret War in Yemen Goes into Overdrive, Along with Risks for Obama
The news that the Obama administration is stepping up the secret war in Yemen says a lot about the White House. The Obama administration, it is said, has a bit of an infatuation with special operations. According to some sources, Obama has unleashed the military’s special operations command even more aggressively than the Bush …
Panetta’s Challenge
CIA chief Leon Panetta goes before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday like one of those guys on the old Ed Sullivan show trying to keep all those plates spinning atop wooden poles, running from one to another to keep them from falling to the floor and smashing to bits.
These are his goals:
Up On the Net
Before I introduce myself, I want to thank all of the readers of this column for your kind words about my first post. David Self was a wonderful person and a dedicated NCO. Men and women like him are the backbone of our armed forces; they do the tough business in training and in combat. We lose them far too often and it’s always …
Progress: Women and Men Show Equal Mental Resilience in War Zones
Apparently war is an equal-opportunity destroyer, screwing up female troops’ minds as much — pretty much no more, no less — than those belonging to their male comrades. That’s the bottom line in a new study trying to contrast the mental wounds of war in both genders.
“Study findings suggest that both exposure to combat-related …
Post-`Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Stress
Recently there has been a lot of buzz in BattleLand about Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), like this first-hand account by Ron Capps, or any of Mark Thompson’s posts. Currently a huge campaign is going on in the United States urging those affected to seek assistance, complete with billboards, TV ads, and self-help …
Gates Sees “Decisive Blow” in Afghanistan, Again
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during his farewell tour in Afghanistan that troops there were poised to deliver a “decisive blow” against the Taliban.
I’m not sure why anybody would buy that kind of rhetoric at this late date, unless they had some reason to believe this decisive blow was somehow different from the “turning point” …
Delta Allegedly Bags Soldiers
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_borufk9RTc&feature=player_embedded]
So 34 troops flying home from Afghanistan via Delta on Tuesday say they were forced to fork over $2,800 of their own money because the airline said they were carrying too many bags home from combat. Made a nifty little video about it mid-flight, complete with …
Yet Another Afghanistan Report Shows U.S. Flushing Money Away
One of the worst things about these Afghanistan reports is the part where the authors document billions of our tax dollars flowing to contractors that might be crooked, don’t finish the job, payoff the Taliban, and generally dump money into the black hole that is Afghanistan.
The new report from Democrats on the Senate Foreign …
Can’t Buy Me Peace
The Senate Democrats on the foreign relations committee have just issued as report saying that the $18.8 billion — so far — U.S. effort to rebuild Afghanistan has had limited success and may not survive a U.S. troop pullout. U.S. development money — now some $10 million a day — is sucking Afghan workers into jobs with contractors …
Banning Nuclear Explosions: A Test-Ban Treaty Primer
When it was passed by the UN in 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was seen as a crucial step for nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Adding to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 that banned testing in the atmosphere, underwater or outer space, the CTBT prohibits all nuclear explosions in all environments. The …