BattlelandNational Security
This is a word that crops up whenever a military coalition gets underway. It’s like making laws, sausage or journalism — messy up close. Generally, there’s a week or two of bumps, and then smooth sailing. Sometimes — like in Iraq, for example — it can take years, but that’s due more to inept U.S. planning and resourcing than any …
BattlelandNational Security
The Obama Administration is telling Capitol Hill we are “not at war” with Libya. Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon, they’ve just released a list of the non-war missions conducted over Libya, including 108 “strike sorties, meaning they encountered opposition from Muammar Gaddafi’s forces,” and that “Tomahawk missile launches numbered 162.” …
BattlelandNational Security
The Obama Administration is pushing back hard that it was women – specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, and National Security Council staffer Samantha Power – who exhorted the White House into war with Libya. But they can’t deny that it’s a woman – for the first time in U.S. …
BattlelandNational Security
Enough of Presidents and potentates and defence ministers and generals and admirals. Check out U.S. Africa Command’s Flickr feed on Operation Odyssey Dawn to see a good cross-section of young Americans who are actually waging this war. Be sure to click the slideshow button in the upper right to watch, and the show info button once …
BattlelandNational Security
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
BattlelandNational Security
John McCreary is a long-time Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who writes the well-read NightWatch blog now that he’s no longer working for the U.S. government. Today’s installment has this disconcerting prediction about Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh:
BattlelandNational Security
…when a military op gets its own letterhead. Thankfully, both pilots are safe. Pictures purportedly of their downed F-15E Strike Eagle here.
BattlelandNational Security
The Libya war is going just swimmingly, militarily. Unfortunately, it’s more of a political war than a military one. If military might were the sole arbiter of the outcome, any alliance led by the U.S. would triumph. No one comes close to matching our military strength. But as we have learned after a decade in Afghanistan, firepower is …
BattlelandNational Security
Soldiers love black and white. It is becoming increasingly clear that Libya is becoming increasingly grey. Mike Crowley just detailed how the White House is trying to separate Libyan rebels from Libyan civilians when it comes to trying to figure out whom to bomb. The Pentagon is neck-deep in this debate, as well.
Army General Carter …
BattlelandNational Security
Images like the one above were once the stuff of science fiction. You know, like 1911’s Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle. This is a picture of Libya’s Ghardabiya airfield that the U.S. military precisely demilitarized over the weekend. As Vice Adm. William Gortney explains:
These strikes were carried out last night, East Coast time, by
…
BattlelandNational Security
Remember how the late musician Frank Zappa named his kids Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen? Have you noticed how the Pentagon’s names for its wars have become more bizarre since the Mothers of Invention front man left us in 1993? Perhaps his spirit has touched the Defense Department. You can imagine …
BattlelandNational Security
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi concluded Sunday that 48 hours of bombing by allied warplanes and missiles are plenty, and called for a ceasefire – even as U.S. and allied leaders made it clear that removing him from the job he has held for 42 years isn’t a goal of Operation Odyssey Dawn.
Pentagon officials, noting that an earlier …
BattlelandNational Security
The familiar trajectory of establishing a no-fly zone was confirmed anew Sunday morning, as U.S. defense officials declared U.S. and allied forces have degraded Libya’s air-defense network, even as attacks continue against surviving pieces of his plane-killing apparatus.
Nineteen U.S. warplanes on Sunday morning followed up on …
