Continuing our discussion this week on China, we’re tackling a corollary of Tom Friedman’s McDonald’s Rule — countries with McDonald’s restaurants generally don’t wage war on one another — as we weigh the impact of economic ties between Beijing and Washington. Does the immense commerce between the two nations reduce the …
He’s that young U.S. military pilot who has been blogging here on Battleland anonymously since May. Officer X – or Ox, as he’s known around here — has kept his identity hidden because under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” saying he was gay could have ended his military career. That formal ban had been in place for 17 years…ever since …
TOKYO – Never mind natural resources or national pride.
China’s rapid military modernization and aggressive territorial claims are rooted in the calculus of nuclear deterrence, according to defense analysts in Japan.
Sumihiko Kawamura, deputy director of the conservative Okazaki Institute in Tokyo, says China has claimed …
You know that the tussles over Pentagon spending were going to get interesting once Battleland‘s own Gordon Adams — who ran the Office of Management and Budget’s national-security shoppe when now-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ran OMB — started arguing math with his former boss. Gordon declaredMonday that the Obama …
As the Taliban — or somebody — was assassinating former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul on Tuesday, a top U.S. Air Force general was explaining what he called “an amazing success story” in that war-torn land. But one needs to be careful in drawing lessons from such successes. Especially given the fact that it …
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Even though the Obama Administration hasn’t officially declared Taiwan won’t be getting the new F-16s it craves, that hasn’t slowed down Taiwanese animators from commenting on the apparently crashed deal. In English, even. (h/t The Cable)
Sure, the Munchkins said it about the Wicked Witch of the East.
And the Pentagon personnel chief has finally and officially said it about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
That’s what Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told the Air Force Association’s annual gathering Monday. I’m sure his statement has nothing to do with the fact that his service owns two — bombers and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles — of the triad’s three legs (the Navy’s submarine-launched missiles being the third). …
Pity the poor grunt who comes back from war with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He goes online to learn how to cope and is overwhelmed. There’s the Real Warriors website, the My Army OneSource, and the Defense Centers of Excellence (as opposed to the military’s other centers of mediocrity) for Psychological Health & Traumatic Brain …
A repeal of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy takes effect on Tuesday, officially allowing gay and lesbian troops to serve openly for the first time in U.S. history. In the 18 years under the policy, nearly 14,000 gay and lesbian service members were discharged. A new book, Our Time: Breaking the Silence of …
The Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy dies today. It’s an obit I never thought I’d write. It hardly seems possible — as one who covered the debate for close to two decades — that the ban on openly gay men and women serving in uniform is passing into the pages of history. What will military reporters bored with hardware and …
The clock is ticking. If you are reading this, it means the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is no more. As of right now, I no longer have to hide in a web of lies about the details of my personal life. Throughout my time in service under DADT, a week hasn’t gone by where I haven’t been reminded of the policy. It …
This week on Command Post, John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and I probe the threat — or whatever it is — posed by China. We’re joined in the discussion by David Finkelstein, retired Army officer and director of China studies at the Pentagon-funded Center for Naval Analyses, and Patrick Cronin, CNAS’s director …
