The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction’s failure to come up with a dime – never mind $1.2 trillion – in deficit reduction over the coming decade has set the stage for both tragedy – if you’re a defense secretary given to supersonic flights of rhetoric – and farce, if you’re an American taxpayer.
That failure …
There is a rough correlation between the number of U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of turkeys sent there annually to help them celebrate Thanksgiving. Your Battleland math whiz has stuffed data provided by the Defense Logistics Agency’s troop support folks into his abacus to generate this chart and can …
This is one of those little stories that lights the bigger truth. A month ago today – October 22 — Army 1st Lieutenant Ashley White, 24, died in Afghanistan when her Joint Special Operations task force was hit by an IED. Two other soldiers also were killed in the blast. One, Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer B. Domeij, 29, of San Diego, …
U.S. forces will be out of Iraq by the end of next month, after a nearly nine-year stay. Just how permanent are the changes the U.S. military and diplomatic corps have tried to bring to a post-Saddam Hussein nation? John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and I discuss the likelihood of a lasting success in Iraq …
They say big agencies in Washington, ranging from the White House to the Pentagon, like to dump things they’d rather not have see the light of day late on a Friday. That way, they only appear as a blip in the thin Saturday morning papers, and by Sunday, we’re on to new news. That strikes me as way too cynical…until something like …
You can always tell the rookie Pentagon reporter. He, or she, is the one who whispers: “They told me they’re planning for war with Iran!” That’s when the vets around the building have to say: “They’ve been doing that for decades. Somewhere along these 17 miles of corridors, they have plans for everything.”
At least until last …
Pretty balanced look at Beijing’s military in the latest Aviation Week, which notes:
Before viewing a static display of the Chengdu J-10 fighter, Brig. Gen. Yan Feng, commander of the 24th airborne, said that over the next decade he would like aircraft “with the capacity to do what the pilot wants.”
OK….something may have …
Many mornings you can hear Boeing boasting over the Washington airwaves about how its ground-based missile system is protecting the United States. From what? There is no nation primed to attack the U.S. with I.C.B.M.s — or even close to it — in any military significant way. Yet we’re spending billions of dollars annually against …
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The Haqqani network in eastern Afghanistan is the biggest foe the U.S. and its allies face in that country. Manba al-Jihad, a media arm of the Taliban branch, just released a video of some of its forces in training (edited and posted to YouTube by the private …
Bizzaro is that D.C. Comics character whose every statement means the opposite. Got a two-fer on that score from the Pentagon on Wednesday. Inquiring reporters wanted to know if the planned basing of 2,500 Marines in Australia had anything at all to do with China. “It’s not about China,” Pentagon spokesman George Little …
This just in from the Pentagon, hypersonically, of course:
Department of Defense Announces Sucessful Test of Army Advanced Hypersonic Weapon Concept
Today the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command conducted the first test flight of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept. At 6:30 a.m. EST
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There are many different ways of measuring how much the nation spends on its military. Folks who think we spend enough, and think cuts can be safely made, talk about how it has nearby doubled since 9/11 and remains above the Cold War average. But those opposed to cuts prefer different yardsticks. They point out how an ever-shrinking …
