That Hollywood advice to young reporters brought down a President, and now it’s going to keep China out of a second Korean war. In the just-published winter issue of the Air Force’s Strategic Studies Quarterly, a U.S. intelligence analyst specializing in northeast Asia and nuclear matters predicts that China’s reliance on world trade …
National Security
Pentagon Report Reinforces Push To End "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
What the Pentagon calls the FEBA — the “forward edge of the battle area” — shifted sharply Tuesday with the release of a comprehensive study showing that more than two of every three troops surveyed that believe letting gays serve openly will have no significant impact on U.S. military readiness and morale. But make no mistake about
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Pentagon: OK To Dump "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
The Pentagon has concluded, based on a nearly year-long study and a survey of troops, that jettisoning the policy that bars openly gay men and women from serving in uniform isn’t a big deal. Seventy percent of those polled said junking the 17-year old ban would be positive, neutral or of no consequence. We’ll have a broader look at …
About That Federal Pay Freeze…Exemption
The White House’s proposal to freeze federal pay announced Monday exempted the military. It would be DOA on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have been giving the troops an extra half-percentage-point pay hike above and beyond whatever the Pentagon requests for several years. The troops and their families have been doing great work for a …
Just In Time For The Holidays!
The once-Great British navy has put the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible up for sale on an eBay-like website. It’s a sad end for a proud 690-foot warship that sailed Her Majesty’s seas from 1980 to 2005, and took part in the Falklands, Balkans and Iraq campaigns. Its crew of more than 1,000 piloted the ship’s two-dozen aircraft up to …
"Don't Ask" Showdown Looms in Senate This Week
President Obama’s fight to let openly gay men and women serve in the U.S. military enters its political endgame this week. The Pentagon will release its report on Tuesday saying most troops don’t care, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, will tell the Senate Armed Services Committee on …
A Marine's `Black Friday'
In honor of Black Friday — when all good Americans demonstrate their profound sense of materialism and economic entitlement — it’s worth noting that the U.S. Marines have been doing their bit to boost the economy, too.
Prior to 9/11, it cost about $1,200 to outfit a Marine for war, and this is what he looked like.
These days, it …
North Korea Option: Lowest Common Diplomatic Denominator
Defense Secretary Robert Gates may be a crafty bureaucratic infighter and seasoned national-security pro, but he also knows the limits of his own considerable knowledge: “To any question beginning with ‘Why?’ with regards to North Korea, my answer is the same: `I don’t know.'”
While Gates made that remark shortly before North Korea …
North Korea's Greatest Hits
It’s important to keep in mind that North Korea isn’t a country in the western sense of the word. It’s a murderous cult. It is the bastard child of the Soviet Union, born in the days following World War II, and succored by China following the Soviets’ collapse. In 2007, a congressional researcher assembled a list of some of Pyongyang’s …
Everything's Not Coming Up Poppies
The Pentagon’s latest report on progress in Afghanistan, released late Wednesday afternoon, is mixed, but it starts out upbeat:
Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance, and development in operational priority areas. The deliberate application of our strategy is beginning to have cumulative
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How To Avoid Restarting The Korean War
Former Pentagon strategist Thomas P. M. Barnett urges the U.S. to avoid brinkmanship, act responsibly, curb the South Korean military, welcome Beijing into the next war game — and change the topic of conversation.
War-Game Guidance On The Korean Peninsula
It’s important to remember that the long-ago Korean war has never ended. Hostilities were terminated between the U.N.-backed South and the Chinese-backed North with an armistice on July 27, 1953. Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops remain in South Korea, sworn to defend the South from an attack from the North. The North alleges its latest …
Your Tax Rubles At Work
The ultimate arbiter of the fairness of U.S. government contracts — that would be the Government Accountability Office — has ruled against Sikorsky Helicopter of Connecticut in favor of the Navy’s decision to limit the purchase of new choppers for the Afghan air force to a Russian model. Its decision, dated November 5, has just been …