Members of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ghanzi province and Afghan national police walk up a hill Nov. 18 after their convoy became bogged down in the mud.
BattlelandThe U.S. Navy: Troubled Waters
Seasick
We’ve been reading Winslow Wheeler‘s analysis of military matters even before he wrapped up 30 years’ experience on Capitol Hill, working for both Rs and Ds, as well as the Government Accountability Office, in 2002.
Wheeler …
USMC: Under-utilized Superfluous Military Capability
Marine Commandant James Amos’ recent remarks on the future of the corps can be summed up as: nothing new.
In shorthand, “Rah, rah, the Marine Corps is awesome, and all we have to do is make sure they have the equipment & …
Waste or Haste? Electronic Health Record Payments Under Scrutiny
Big government sometimes moves too slowly and with too much red tape to be effective. A new highly critical report from the Inspector General of Health and Human Services shows just how difficult it is for the feds to move faster on spending programs and still look out for taxpayer dollars.
BattlelandNational Security
Sunday Funnies…
Sometimes the comics don’t appear back among all the advertising inserts in your Sunday paper: they also can hide in plain sight amid the news items:
— Take the lead story in the Washington Post, which begins:
The Pentagon
…
Raising Hispanic Kids in a ‘Build a Fence’ World
My daughters have never met Arizona Governor Jan Brewer — and it’s likely they have never even heard her name.
BattlelandMilitary Spending
Countdown to Sequestration: One Month to Go
Hardly seems like it was eight months ago today that Battleland began its monthly countdown to the pain of sequestration:
“That’s nine months from today,” we noted back on April 2. “Seems like a long time, but it’ll be …
BattlelandTerrorism
Parking Spaced Out
Somehow it seems a bit daft for the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., to issue a 25-page solicitation seeking to rent a single parking space in Seattle, Wash., for …
BattlelandR&D
This Drone Notion Is Starting to Get Serious
This looks, and sounds, like the first U.S. military drone to, well, look and sound like a warplane.
It was only two days ago that Battleland posted a photo of the Navy’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Aircraft System demonstrator “landing” gently on the flight deck of the USS Harry S Truman – with help from a crane.
Meanwhile, back …
With Echoes of Trayvon Martin, Florida Man Claims Self Defense in Shooting Death of Teen
Florida‘s judicial system is set to experience its second high profile case this year in which a person accused in a homicide may invoke the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense statute.
Is the Student-Loan Debt Crisis Worse than We Thought?
A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York delivers generally positive news about the economy with one glaring exception: student-loan debt.
“In our country, where a day of fully-fledged fighting costs $1.5 billion, just by shortening a war by five days, you ended up cover the whole investment in the system.”
— Israeli defense chief Ehud Barak, speaking at the Pentagon Thursday, on his country’s apparent $7.5 billion investment in missile defense, including the Iron Dome system that recently knocked down 85% of incoming threatening missiles from Gaza.
BattlelandIntelligence
Graphically Panetta
The heck with boring official oil-painting portraits of defense secretaries…Leon Panetta is blazing a new path by appearing in a graphic novel.
Killing Geronimo: The Hunt for Osama bin Laden is one of those grown-up comic …