The fate of Futenma Air Station on Okinawa remains a thorn between the U.S. military and its Japanese hosts. As the city of Ginowan has grown up around the base, locals have been pushing to have it moved. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, now in Japan, agrees, but the push has been underway for 16 years. Larry Shaughnessy over at CNN’s …
Foreign Policy
“Is All the Money The U.S. Is Pouring Into Afghanistan Doing More Harm Than Good?”
Some 90% of the money in and around Afghanistan is coming from the United States and its allies. Yet this tidal wave of cash is distorting the Afghan economy, breeding corruption, and creating a dependency that may be tough to break. Stephen Biddle, an Afghanistan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Brian Katulis, a …
Good Riddance x 2
First, Iraq makes it clear it doesn’t want U.S. troops hanging around. Then, over the weekend, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says:
If fighting starts between Pakistan and the U.S., we are beside Pakistan. If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.
Sure, he was …
Iraq: Tanks for the Memories
The U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003 without permission. But now that it no longer has approval from Baghdad’s post-Saddam government to stay beyond 2011, all U.S. forces will be pulling out by year’s end, President Obama said Friday. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said at the White House. …
Libya: After-Action Report
Now that Moammar Gaddafi has been consigned to history, it’s time to figure out who — other than the Libyan people, hopefully — wins from the seven-month fight that toppled his 42-year regime.
As we noted Thursday — and was echoed Friday in the New York Times and Washington Post, among other foghorns — President Obama gets …
Libya’s Lessons
Moammar Gaddafi’s death makes for an interesting punctuation mark in the ever-evolving U.S. approach to war. The key choice: should it be an exclamation point (“We got him! And not a single American died!) or a question mark (“Did we just get lucky? Is this a template for how the U.S. should wage future wars?”).
We shouldn’t …
“Is the U.S. Readying to Strike More Often Inside Pakistan?”
Relations between Washington and Islamabad may be at an all-time low. Was the daring SEAL raid into Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden nearly six months ago a one-off event? Or, if the U.S. is serious about Afghanistan, does it have to begin routinely attacking the Haqqani network and other trouble-makers inside their Pakistan …
“Are U.S. Troops Leaving Afghanistan Prematurely?”
Or is it about time? That all depends, of course, on what you think the U.S. mission in Afghanistan — now a decade old — actually is. We have booted the Taliban from power, and recently killed Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks from inside Afghanistan in a sanctuary the Taliban provided. Now President Obama has …
Africom to Work Lord’s Resistance Army Problem With Uganda
WAPO and NYT reporting over the weekend that the US will send around 100 armed advisers to help the Ugandan military work the stubborn problem of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a beyond-its-expiration-date insurgency that’s terrorized rural populations across four states for a couple of decades now. These guys really are the worst of …
Panetta Tells Super Committee to “Do the Right Thing”
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee today, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta directly challenged the Congressional “Super Committee” to “do the right thing.” In Panetta’s view, the “right thing” is to solve the debt crisis by going after the drivers of America’s bulging debt. That would be the Big 3 …
Mutually-Assured Economic Destruction
Confirming our report Friday that China is our next big enemy, the Rand Corp. has just issued a study entitled Conflict with China. It paints a pretty dire picture of U.S. military prospects in China’s ‘hood, and encourages the U.S. to keep developing weapons to keep China at bay. While the study says the prospect of war is …
China Syndrome
It’s plain China is our Next Big Enemy. All the experts say so. And even if it isn’t, we have to prepare for war with it in case it comes true. Yum! The self-licking ice cream cone never tasted so good.
So folks are marshalling arguments either to support or knock that notion. Here’s a handy list from the American Enterprise …
Iraq: Like a Serpent’s Tooth
We noted on Monday that there seem to be no plans for the Iraqi government to award U.S. troops a medal for ridding its nation of Saddam Hussein (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia did so following the 1991 Gulf War). Now comes word that Baghdad has decided not to give U.S. troops stationed in Iraq after this year the traditional immunity …