The U.S. government’s inability to get its fiscal house in order has led to the prospect of sequestration, as last year’s Budget Control Act spells out here:
Military
Afghanistan: A Bleak Report from the Front
Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was here in Washington two weeks ago saying the U.S. and the Afghan government are making progress in their decade-long battle with the Taliban. “We remain on track to ensure that Afghanistan will no longer be a safe haven for al-Qaida and will no longer be terrorized by …
“We don't think the generals are giving us their true advice. We don't think the generals believe their budget is really the right budget.”
“When measured from their first full estimates, which have been put in place over a number of years, the growth in total acquisition cost for these [major defense acquisition] programs is $447 billion, or 40 percent.”
Afghan Massacre: Report from the Villages
Reporter Yalda Hakim of Australia’s SBS network has the first report from the villages where Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales allegedly killed 17 Afghan civilians on March 11. It includes interviews with some of the survivors, including an eight-year old girl. Kind of brings into focus the banality of evil that Hannah Arendt wrote …
Alleged
Resiliency, Inc.
“Resilience” has become the new buzzword inside the Pentagon. It’s shorthand for our Army’s too small to fight the wars we’ve been fighting. The fourth annual Warrior Resilience Conference (or, as the Pentagon calls it, Warrior Resilience Conference IV) begins Thursday.
Instead of raising an Army big enough to send …
If It’s Spring, Time to Wash…the F-18
North Korea: Launch or Lunch?
The Pentagon made it clear Wednesday: North Korea’s plan for a missile launch next month has led the U.S. to suspend its plans to provide food to North Korea’s starving millions.
“Our suspicions…were confirmed when North …
War’s Benefits: A Face-Saving Gift
There are ancillary upsides to waging war and the defense spending that fuels it. It happens in technology – think the Internet and GPS, for the two most recent significant Pentagon-sparked advances – and medicine, …
Irregular Math
Seth Jones, a counter-insurgency expert now at the Rand Corp., and before that at the Pentagon, testifying at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on Tuesday:
Us: “Today in Afghanistan we have about 432,000 counterinsurgency forces, we’ve spent over $100 billion per year…and deployed a range of sophisticated platforms …
The Rashomon Effect (Pentagon Cut)
Several ways to look at Tuesday’s announcement from Pentagon press secretary George Little:
1. It’s a push for Jewish votes in November’s presidential election.
2. It’s a carrot designed to convince Israel to keep its powder dry, and not attack Iran’s nuclear sites until after said election.
3. It’s a shield designed …
The U.S. in Vietnam…Today
Amid the troubles in Afghanistan, it’s worth thumbing through the State Department inspector general’s report on our embassy in Vietnam released Tuesday. Basically, the 835 folks there – fewer than 200 of them Americans – …