Part Four of Five
One can easily see how South Korean leaders might be concerned when they hear American leaders say that sequestration would be “catastrophic” for the U.S. military and that “the gap between the U.S. …
Congress
A Case Study: East Asia
Part Three of Five
The U.S. may have global power and responsibilities, but in recent years, a strategic shift has occurred. China’s military has risen in conjunction with its driving economy, which has prompted a refocus on …
Walking Through an IED Minefield “On a Daily Basis”
Last Thursday the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee held a hearing on the Pentagon’s efforts to defeat improvised explosive devices, the homemade bombs that are now the leading cause of death among U.S. …
Comparing Defense Budgets, Apples to Apples
Part Two of Five
In the opening article, we saw how a massive and growing debt (as well as a dose of bad politics) has set America on a path towards sequestration, or, at the very least ,the potential of serious levels of …
Sequestration and What It Would Do to U.S. Military Power
Part One of Five
In recent months, concerns over sequestration and its impact on the U.S. military have reached a fever pitch in Washington.
Sequestration “would destroy the military” and cause an “inability to defend …
9.4%
Countdown to Sequestration: Four Months to Go
Gosh, we started this countdown five months ago, and darned if the nation’s “leaders” have made absolutely no progress toward dealing with the country’s fiscal mess. As you may recall, last year’s Budget Control Act set …
Sequester: Muster the Bluster
Many have predicted that the January 2, 2013 “sequester” of $55 billion out of the $620+ billion Pentagon budget for 2013 would cause a lot of noise, even hysteria, during the presidential and congressional elections.
How right they were. But as usual, the politicians, the advocates and the pundits are paying attention to themselves, …
A Congressional Insider on Why the U.S. Political System Is Broke
Mike Lofgren came to Washington to work on Capitol Hill 30 years ago, when Ronald Reagan was rebuilding America’s “hollow military” after its Vietnam hangover, and the Cold War was in its final throes – although we didn’t know it yet. He spent 28 years working for Congress, the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and …
“Rent-Seeking”
Rent-seeking is a phrase increasingly in vogue by folks without real jobs. Wikipedia defines it as “an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth.” Synonym: the U.S. defense industry and its allies, c. 2012.
Thomas …
Sequestration Countdown: Five Months to Go
It’s almost funny the way that Congress poured gasoline into its chambers last year, with each party convinced the other side would never light the match. Yet that is what is drawing closer every day.
Ash Carter, the …
What Defense Cuts?
The fear-mongering about impending defense cuts is becoming deafening. Yet even if sequestration happens in January, the Congressional Budget Office says the Pentagon will still be spending as much as it did in 2006. While the cuts may be crude – that is how Congress wrote the law imposing it – they are not draconian.
Here’s a …