“The United States will request from our Congress assistance for Afghanistan at or near the levels of the past decade through the year 2017.”
Foreign Policy
Kiwis’ Hawaii Adventure: Not So Bad, After All
The U.S. Navy ordered a pair of New Zealand navy vessels to dock in Honolulu’s commercial port last week, instead of Pearl Harbor, where the other navies participating in the RIMPAC naval exercise were at anchor. Kiwi politicians were upset, and saw the basing of their ships away from Pearl as a Yankee snub, as Kirk Spitzer reported …
Persian Gulf Fireworks?
Lede story in Wednesday’s New York Times has the U.S. military as a confident boxer, warily eyeing Iran tucked into the far corner of the ring:
The United States has quietly moved significant military reinforcements into the
…
The “Second Apology” Tour
Rajiv Chanrasekaran’s new book, Little America, is making a splash with a pair of lengthy excerpts in the Washington Post (first one here, second here), ForeignPolicy.com, and Slate.
Several reviewers, bloggers and tweets …
Afdanistan: After Action Report #1
“Watch this,” said my Irish Army friend “Seamus” as a stream of Afghan government officials left the International Security Assistance Force Headquarters building and walked through the Kabul night towards their armored Toyota Land Cruisers. They had just concluded a dinner meeting with International Security Assistance Force …
The Perfectly Ironic Chinese Foreign Direct Investment
Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal story of how Chinese state bank (China Development Bank) is pumping $1.7 billion into two long-stalled redevelopment projects in the San Francisco Bay area – namely, Hunter’s Point (a Navy base until …
Cyber Warfare Treaty: DOA, Thanks to President and Pentagon
Misha Glenny making a smart case in the New York Times for a cyber arms control treaty, but it won’t happen.
Why?
For the same reason why the U.S. has refused – for many years now – to engage other great powers on a treaty …
U.S. Gets Its Asian Allies Together — Finally
TOKYO – For the first time ever, warships from the United States and its two closest Asian allies have come together in a joint military training exercise. But if the Americans can just keep the South Koreans and Japanese from …
Bad News All Around
What’s worse – apparently cheating on your wife while based in Iraq as a key U.S. diplomat, or purportedly using your State Department email account to facilitate your alleged assignations with your paramour, supposedly a reporter for a top newspaper? Can’t decide? How about this: having those emails surface after the Obama …
George Orwell, Call Your Office
Tokyo Puts a Pro in Charge — for a Change
TOKYO – Japan finally has a defense minister who knows what he’s doing – and it couldn’t come at a worse time. Satoshi Morimoto, a prominent national security analyst and government advisor who served in both the Japan …
More Suspect Reports from Both Sides of the DMZ
We’ve learned that U.S. Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley is being rotated from his post as head of U.S. Special Forces in South Korea days after he ignited a controversy by declaring that U.S. and South Korean special forces …
Drone Worrier
On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War – as hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops streamed toward Iraq-occupied Kuwait – a U.S. Army officer remarked how much easier all this would be if someone – a Saddam Hussein turncoat, …