Navy
Pork Ranger
As the defense-budget battles heat up – they’ll come to a boil later this week when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta heads to Capitol Hill to say where he thinks the ax should fall – you’ve got to be on the lookout for pyromaniacs in fields of straw men (credit: William F. Buckley via George Will). While a comprehensive review of …
Putting Women Aboard Subs…And Tweaking the Blueprints
I finally had the opportunity to tour a Trident-class submarine; you know, the large ballistic missile boats, four of which are soon to be home to several women officers. I was surprised at how big it was inside…yet not. Being a surface sailor, I was trying to visualize how this ship could be configured to accommodate enlisted …
Best Military Obits of the Weekend
Journalists tend to disparage obituaries because many of them had to churn them out as young reporters. But few forms of writing are so rewarding. After all, unlike many stories, obits have a beginning, middle and an end. They trace the arc of the subject’s life, and try to put it into some kind of frame and perspective. It was a great …
Special Forces Navy
You won’t learn much from the most interesting contract announcement the Pentagon made Thursday (click on it to enlarge). It’s for as much as $400 million to “develop, test, produce, field, and sustain a modern, clandestine, agile, adaptive, technically relevant, reliable, and operationally capable combatant craft system in support …
Report Examines “Worst Case” Scenario for the U.S. Military
The debt ceiling deal passed this summer contains a sequestration “trigger.” If the Super Committee fails to agree on a plan to meet its deficit reduction targets–or if Congress fails to approve the plan, the legislation stipulates that huge amounts of discretionary spending funds will be automatically sequestered–i.e., taken off …
Pilots’ Days Are Numbered
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On a day when a U.S. drone apparently sent Anwar al-Awlaki to his eternal reward, check out this Northrop Grumman video of the Navy’s X-47B UCAS — Unmanned Combat Air System. Sometime in the next year or two, these things are slated to start test flights off …
“Is China Getting Ready to Try and Kick the U.S. Out of the Western Pacific?”
Continuing this week on Command Post, our tour of the national-security challenges associated with the Middle Kingdom. John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and I ask if China, beginning to flex its military muscle, is readying to tell the Pentagon: the western Pacific is ours, so scram! We’re joined in the discussion …
The Navy’s Own Solyndra
Washington was buzzing last week with the news that Solyndra LLC, a California solar-energy firm with ties to the Obama White House, had gone belly up – after pocketing a half-billion loan from the federal government. Seems the Navy also has been suffering from fiscal sunstroke, to judge from a just-released Pentagon inspector …
The Death of Tradition?
Navy aviation is celebrating its 100 year anniversary this year, and there have been many celebrations throughout the aviation community. Women have been part of the naval aviation community since 1974. That’s 37 years, or more than a third of naval aviation’s history. They were restricted to so-called non-combat aircraft until …
Japan Worries About China Nukes
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 …
Japan Worries About China – Later
TOKYO – For the second time since taking office this month, Prime Minister Yoshihoko Noda has warned about China’s military ambitions in the Far East.
“I am concerned about their reinforcement of national defense power, which lacks transparency, and their acceleration of maritime activities,” Noda said during debate in the …
The Human Toll Taken by a Decade of War
Just how worn out are our troops because of non-stop combat since 9/11? To what degree has that contributed to problems like PTSD, family breakups and suicide in the ranks? This week, on Command Post, we discuss the tenacity of U.S. troops, as well as the cracks that can appear after a decade of fighting. Margaret Harrell, a
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