As the Pentagon’s “efficiencies review” unfolds, one Cold War mainstay of the US military posture is inevitably going to be retired – namely, the land-based portion of the strategic missile triad. The Pentagon is tasked with coming up with $400 billion in savings over the next decade, and so this long-discussed option (and old Mark …
National Security
Signs of a Changing World…Or Not
Every once in awhile, a spate of stories makes you sit up and pay attention. A trio just flitted across my screen:
— Vietnam wants U.S. help in defusing its growing tensions with China over Beijing’s encroachment into the resource-rich South China Sea, the Financial Times reports.
— Great Britain no longer has a navy capable of …
Haunted by Homicide: Federal Grand Jury Investigates War Crimes and Torture in Death of ‘the Iceman’ at Abu Ghraib, Plus Other Alleged CIA Abuses
Former colleague and TIME contributor Adam Zagorin breaks news here on Battleland with exclusive reporting on the latest federal action over the infamous death of “the Iceman” at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003:
By Adam Zagorin
It has been nearly a decade since Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner known as “the Iceman” — for …
Apparently, All’s Not Fair in Love and War
The one-time head of the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade — one of the service’s most celebrated units — had an “inappropriate relationship” with the wife of his Iraqi cultural adviser, an Army investigation has concluded. The probe, obtained by Stars and Stripes, concludes Colonel James H. Johnson III was infatuated with the woman, …
America Openly Wages Cyber-Warfare Around the Planet
NYT story describing how Obama administration is funding all sorts of shadow networks to thwart government censorship overseas. I think this is fine. [Blank] ’em if they can’t take the Web – a Defense Department creation, BTW.
But understand this: we get all jacked about cyber warfare against our infrastructure (How dare people …
Panetta: `Blizzard’…or Snow Job?
“We are no longer in the Cold War,” Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing Thursday. “This is more like the blizzard war, a blizzard of challenges that draw speed and intensity from terrorism, from rapidly developing technologies and the rising number of powers on the world stage.”
USA …
“You Get Any Closer I’ll Have to Shoot”
Not New NATO News
A hat-tip to Defense Secretary Robert Gates for warning of NATO’s “dim, if not dismal future” unless its non-U.S. members starting funding their defenses more robustly. After 11 weeks of attacks on Libya, he noted, the allies are running short on bombs. “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the …
Battleland `Clash of the Titans’ on PBS Newshour
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Battleland comrades Mackenzie Eaglen (defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation) and Gordon Adams (former defense chief at the Office of Management and Budget, …
The Gearbox
The U.S. military is the world’s pre-eminent military force — by far — and most of that is because of its people and the way they train and led. But they’re none to shabby on the hardware side of the house, either. I just cobbled together a menu of the weapons systems used in recent U.S. military actions for Time.com and it has …
Kissinger on the sad strategic reality of US engagement in Afghanistan
Henry Kissinger had a sobering op-ed in the Washington Post Tuesday that laid out the reality of the US position in Afghanistan.
First, the fundamental conundrum of “nation building” in a fake state:
But nation-building ran up against the irony that the Afghan nation comes into being primarily in opposition to occupying forces.
…
Be Very Ashamed
Megan McCloskey at Stars and Stripes has just run the first of a two part piece on suicide in the army and it’s a ripper. In it, she details what drove Army Specialist Brushaun Anderson to kill himself at a remote firebase in Iraq on New Year’s Day, 2010. I think it should be required reading for leaders at all levels of the Army.
A …
Zippers Ahoy!
The Navy keeps losing commanders over problems associated with sexual fraternization. A dozen COs have been relieved of command this year so far, many of them because of relationships they shouldn’t have been having. Over on the U.S. Naval Institute’s blog, CDR Salamander — a respected but anonymous former Navy officer — weighs in …