“Uttering the words `red line' should be a red line a President should never cross in any situation that depends on subjective assessments and analyses.”
— Pentagon official.
F-35 Bookkeeping
Numbers can get complicated pretty quickly. Especially at the Pentagon. Especially when it comes to paying – or not paying — contractors.
As defense secretary, Robert Gates withheld $614 million from Lockheed Martin in 2010 …
Repeating Hi$tory
MARINA DI RAGUSA, Sicily — Almost 23 years ago, I wrote a short pamphlet, Defense Power Games.
My aim then (as it is now) was to explain why the end of the Cold War would not produce a peace dividend in the form of reduced …
“All Ears on Deck!”
Rear Adm. Bill Lescher speaks to sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge in the Gulf of Oman, Apr. 23.
“We may be at the beginning of a fundamental shift in how our society allocates resources to the business of national security. And I'm not talking today about the immediate issues around sequestration…what I'm really talking about here are the fiscal pressures that could shape a different future over the coming years and decades…DARPA's in the silver-bullet business, but in fact even our most powerful capability will not single-handedly change the face of war for the next generation. That is possible, however, if we think about how to layer technologies together.”
— Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, speaking Wednesday on the challenges facing U.S. national security.
Weeding the Military
As I was working in my garden today, I was thinking how much like the realities of professional life it is.
You weed out the plants you don’t want; but sometimes if they don’t belong in one place, you can put them in another
…
U.S. Intelligence on Sarin…With a Grain of Salt
The U.S. intelligence community believes “with some degree of varying confidence” that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday.
“Some degree of …
IED Boom
The increase in IEDs has led to a growing corps of U.S. bomb-disposal troops. Click on chart to enlarge.
Japanese Invasion Fleet Heads For California — Then Where?
TOKYO – An unprecedented force of ships, troops and aircraft that Japan will send to southern California for amphibious warfare exercises next month represents only the first step in what leaders hope will be a transformation …
They’re Up for the Jobs
According to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, unemployment for post-9/11 veterans is 9.2%, but nearly four times that — 35% — for veterans age 20-24.
The picture is complicated, to be sure.
But it’s also …
“Thanks for Your Service, Soldier”
The Army’s top leaders visit Spc. Zac Gore, who lost an arm and leg to an IED in Afghanistan, and wife Susan, April 16.
Pentagon Medics Weigh in on the “Signature Scars of a Long War”
Sometimes, the doctors will tell you what the politicians won’t.
That’s the bottom line in a new Pentagon assessment of the human costs of the nation’s post-9/11 wars, which shows mental casualties growing far more …
“So we're kind of in an Orwellian situation here. All of us decry the effects of sequestration, and there's graphic testimony such has just been presented, and yet there's no request on the part of the President of the United States or the secretary of defense that we repeal sequester.”
— Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., at an armed services committee hearing into the Army budget Tuesday.