It’s called Question Time in Britain, where members of Parliament ask questions of government ministers.
Here at Battleland, we’re launching Sequestion Time. It’s going to be a series of periodic posts – lasting as …
National
Not the Navy’s Favorite Artist Rendering
Navy gospel — as well as U.S. naval fleets and strategy — are built around $15 billion aircraft carriers, outfitted with dozens of $150 million airplanes.
Only one thing worse than someone criticizing the backbone of the …
The Veterans’ Jobless Crisis That Isn’t
Whole Lotta Snipin’ Goin’ On
U.S. Special Operations Command is buying up to 5,150 Remington precision sniper rifles for $80 million, according to a decade-long contract announced Monday, here. That works out to $15,500 per rifle. Rounds – up to 912 per …
Good Cop? Bad Cop? Nope…Traffic Cop.
U.S. Army Spc. Bryan Gonzalez records Afghan traffic patterns at Feb. 26 near Takhteh Pol.
War Drums Along the 38th Parallel
From the Pentagon to Panmunjom, U.S. defense officials conceded on Monday they are perplexed, and pondering, what Pyongyang will do next. American and South Korean defense officials are used to strange words and deeds from North …
“Once acquired, the current forecasts of life-cycle sustainment costs for the F-35 fleet are considered unaffordable by defense officials.”
— From the latest Government Accountability Office report, here, “Current Outlook Is Improved, but Long-Term Affordability Is a Major Concern,” into the tri-service $400 billion F-35 program, released Monday.
Semper IFFi: Identifying Friend from Foe
Nearly two weeks into the sequester, there’s no sign of compromise on the horizon. This could stick for a while, apparently. The Marines, for example, are slated to lose $1.4 billion out of their planned spending through …
Mind Games
Grappling with the challenges of soldiers back from war is a challenge. Nothing makes that more clear than the up-and-down year that an Army doctor, Colonel Dallas Homas, the top doc at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base …
“The bombs that went off in Kabul and Khost [Saturday] were not a show of power to America, but were in service to America...It was in the service of foreigners not withdrawing from Afghanistan.”
— Afghan President Hamid Karzi claiming Sunday that the Taliban suicide bombings, which killed at least 18 people, are part of a joint U.S.-Taliban plot so that U.S. combat forces can stay in the country beyond their 2014 deadline for pulling out. U.S. officials denounced the claim as "totally false."
Avoiding Armageddon on the Sub-Continent
“I don't think it quite yet rises to that level, but it certainly is trending in that direction.”
— Army General Carter Ham, outgoing chief of U.S. Africa Command, when asked at a Senate hearing March 7 if Africa is becoming as central a haven for terrorists as U.S. Central Command – which oversees both Afghanistan and Iraq – has been in recent decades.
North Korea Under Kim Jong Un: Old Threats, New Worries
In 17 years under Kim Jong Il, North Korea grabbed the world’s attention with several missile tests, a pair of nuclear detonations and a big helping of threats.
Kim’s youngest son and successor has hit all those highlights …