“Look at the current level of air defense and anti-missile defense -- these aircraft will not get anywhere. Not ours, not theirs.”
Pentagon
“Lights! Camera! GAO?”
Battleland recalls when Government Accountability Office reports were issued with light-blue covers, not the dark-blue ones they’ve been sporting for a couple of decades. And when G.A.O. stood for General Accounting Office, until Congress decided that sounded too meek (GAO works only for Congress; for years reporters called it the …
30,000
U.S. Military Suicides in 2012: 155 Days, 154 Dead
New Pentagon data show U.S. troops are killing themselves at the rate of nearly one a day so far in 2012, 18% above 2011’s corresponding toll. “The continual rise in the suicide rate has frustrated all in the military,” says …
“We are fighting a war in the FATA.”
Art Attack
Those Air Force guys – some of them, at least – are so uncouth. Now they’re complaining about the artwork gracing Air Force hallways inside the Pentagon. Take this painting, for example. “It looks like the F-16 just …
$400 million
Sequestration or Not, Defense Budget to Continue Its Decline
While many in Washington assume that Congress will solve sequestration by the end of the year–the problem Congress created when the Super Committee failed–recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicate …
Airborne Leap of Faith
“I were an Israeli leader, I think I’d have trouble coordinating with the United States government about something like [a military attack on Iran] for fear it would be leaked…The last thing you want to do is put your air forces in jeopardy by having it telegraphed that that’s something you’re doing. And if you tried to coordinate with this Administration, I would think that there is at least a reasonable chance that it would leak out, so I would anticipate that a responsible Israeli government, given the relationship, would very likely have to make a decision on their own and proceed.”
Drone Ops: Getting Better All the Time
The dust has settled near the North Waziristan village of Hassu Khel, where a U.S. Hellfire missile killed al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Abu Yahya al-Libi, on Monday. The recent flurry of unacknowledged U.S. drone attacks scored its biggest prize since Navy SEALs took out Osama bin Laden 13 months ago, leaving the White House to flex its might …
Phantom Eye in the Sky
Tuesday’s killing of al-Qaeda deputy Abu Yahya al-Libi proves that persistence pays when it comes to tracking down terrorists. Boeing has just completed the first autonomous flight of its Phantom Eye aircraft over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which blazes a new contrail in long-staring persistence.
This is a prototype of the …
