Archives
Recent
December 2011
Thirty five years ago I came to Washington ostensibly to work on a graduate degree. This was at the height of the Cold War. With a degree in political science and an interest in national security issues, I was steeped in the writings of the theorists and leaders who had shaped the age: Kennan, Brodie,
. . . Read more
Date:
12/30/2011
My favorite book of 2011 was a re-reading of "The Making of the President 1968" by Theodore H. White. If you love politics, and are revving up for the 2012 spectacle, get your trembling hands on this classic.
White wrote a series of books on presidential campaigns, but 1968 was his apex, since
. . . Read more
Date:
12/28/2011
The best book I read in 2011 wasn't actually one book but three -- a trilogy entitled Menlo Park Reminiscences by Francis Jehl. It was published between 1937 and 1941 by the Edison Institute of Dearborn, Michigan, a foundation established by car maker Henry Ford to honor and preserve the achievements
. . . Read more
Date:
12/27/2011
It is tempting to breathe a sigh of relief that 2011 is almost behind us. In many ways, it will be remembered for the things that did not happen, the catastrophes that were avoided. The U.S. economy did not slide back into recession; in fact it is even showing some signs of life. Greece avoided
. . . Read more
Date:
12/23/2011
Even as the scale and intensity of China's cyber-assault on U.S. information networks reaches unprecedented levels, the intelligence community is closing in on which organizations and individuals are the key perpetrators. Forward-thinking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense William
. . . Read more
Date:
12/22/2011
In the original Karate Kid movie, the aging instructor or sensei, Mr. Miyagi, played by the great character actor Pat Morita, trains his young student by having him perform menial repetitive tasks. These, the student learns, are surrogates for basic karate moves. One such task is to wax his
. . . Read more
Date:
12/22/2011
At one time, the Airborne Laser (ABL) was considered to be on the leading edge of the revolution in military affairs. The ABL was one of a host of programs initiated or given additional impetus by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld under the banner of defense transformation. The combination
. . . Read more
Date:
12/21/2011
Over the last two weeks, the Iranian government's campaign to convince outsiders that it cleverly downed a secret U.S. spy drone has surpassed the production values of Ashton Kutcher's 2000 stoner comedy, Dude, Where's My Car? The Iranians apparently reassembled and repainted the damaged
. . . Read more
Date:
12/21/2011
The death of Kim Jong Il has triggered the beginning of what may be a protracted filial succession crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Were it not for that country’s possession of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles the death of one petty dictator and the prospective
. . . Read more
Date:
12/20/2011
Japan's government announced today that it has decided to buy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as its next top-of-the-line tactical aircraft, handing the stealthy plane a key endorsement in its first head-to-head competition with other fighters. The Clinton Administration conceived the F-35 as an
. . . Read more
Date:
12/20/2011
This weekend two very different men died. This in itself is not an uncommon occurrence although it is ironic that these two should both pass away on the same day. Both had been leaders, albeit of rather small nations. Both exerted influence in the world far greater than the size or power of their
. . . Read more
Date:
12/19/2011
One of the worst facets of the federal management culture is the way that politicians and policymakers devalue past investments. That's especially true with regard to Pentagon technology accounts, where every program termination is considered "savings" regardless of how much money was spent on
. . . Read more
Date:
12/19/2011
America's environmental movement has become so big and diverse that it is tripping over its own goals -- so much so that the resulting confusion is slowing efforts to deal with global warming. For instance, many environmentalists want to tear down climate-friendly hydro-electric dams because they
. . . Read more
Date:
12/16/2011
There was a time when the Vietnam War was widely regarded as the biggest mistake in American military history, but Washington's nine-year occupation of Iraq may end up looking worse. Unlike Vietnam, where the United States was pursuing a bipartisan strategy of containing communist aggression, the
. . . Read more
Date:
12/15/2011
The mission in Iraq is over. Some 500 U.S. bases and facilities have been closed and virtually all U.S. troops have been withdrawn. There were almost no incidents of any kind associated with the withdrawal. It seems that getting out was a lot easier than getting in.
Or was it? Operation Iraqi
. . . Read more
Date:
12/15/2011
There seems to be only two topics of conversation in Washington defense circles today. One is sequestration. Regarding sequestration, there is little more that needs to be said. It will be a catastrophe not only due to the magnitude of the reductions in defense spending, around $1 trillion over
. . . Read more
Date:
12/14/2011
InsideDefense.com blogger John Liang reports that Montana's two Democratic senators are up in arms over the prospect that intercontinental ballistic missiles based in their state might be retired. Liang revealed on December 9 that Max Baucus and Jon Tester had sent a letter to defense secretary
. . . Read more
Date:
12/13/2011
Last week, Airbus rival Boeing won a long-sought victory against the European plane maker company when the U.S. Trade Representative disclosed plans to impose huge trade penalties to compensate for the damage done by illegal subsidies. The World Trade Organization has ruled that Airbus deprived
. . . Read more
Date:
12/12/2011
In a recent conversation with David Ignatius before a prestigious audience at the Atlantic Council, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), General Martin Dempsey, spoke at length about defense budget issues, international partnerships and future military requirements.* Among the topics
. . . Read more
Date:
12/12/2011
After seven years of pressing Airbus and the European Union to comply with trade-treaty obligations concerning improper commercial-aircraft subsidies, the U.S. Trade Representative signaled today that the time for talking is nearly over. In a bluntly-worded statement, trade representative Ron Kirk
. . . Read more
Date:
12/9/2011
Over the past several years, the relationship between the Department of Defense (DoD) and private industry has grown increasingly strained. In part, this is a consequence of efforts by the Pentagon to control the rising costs associated with the acquisition of new weapons systems and the sustainment
. . . Read more
Date:
12/9/2011
Former senator, governor, chairman of Goldman Sachs and self-proclaimed smartest man in the room, John Corzine, appeared today before a Congressional panel to answer questions about the events surrounding the bankruptcy of his brokerage firm, MF Global. To use a colloquial expression, the company
. . . Read more
Date:
12/8/2011
Iran isn't likely to learn much from the loss of a top-secret U.S. spy drone over its territory, even though pictures shown on Iranian television indicate the Iranians actually are in possession of the intact drone. The basic principles of stealth aircraft design are well known, and designers would
. . . Read more
Date:
12/8/2011
Last week, the United States lost one of its most prized intelligence platforms. An RQ-170 Sentinel, a bat-winged, stealthy unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) reportedly landed in Iran after contact with ground control was lost. There were unconfirmed reports that an RQ-170 was overhead during the raid
. . . Read more
Date:
12/7/2011
Missile defense is coming to Europe. The initial pieces of the Obama Administration’s European Phased Adaptive Architecture (EPAA) are in place. The USS Monterey (CG-61), with the Aegis ballistic missile defense 3.6.1 weapon system and the SM-3 Block IA missile, is currently in theater. This is
. . . Read more
Date:
12/6/2011
Last week, Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners put out a note questioning the widely-held belief among defense analysts that U.S. military spending occurs in cycles. He suggested that some analysts are too tightly focused on the postwar period, and provided charts from other periods and countries
. . . Read more
Date:
12/6/2011
Until recently, it seemed as if the Obama Administration had dug itself out of the hole it created early on in its tenure with respect to national security and foreign policy. Osama bin Laden was dead. Expanded drone strikes against Al Qaeda targets in half a dozen countries had decimated that organization.
. . . Read more
Date:
12/5/2011
Last week was a tough one for the tri-service F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, with program manager Vice Admiral David Venlet expressing concern to AOL Defense about problems being found in developmental testing. They're the kinds of problems that crop up in every new military aircraft program
. . . Read more
Date:
12/5/2011
Most Americans are unaware that the United States has two defense industrial bases. The one they hear about most, partly because it advertises its wares, is the private defense industrial base. This consists not only of large defense contractors, the so-called primes such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin,
. . . Read more
Date:
12/2/2011
You don't need to look at big-ticket weapon systems like aircraft carriers and fighters to see what budget sequestration might mean for America's military capabilities. In fact, you don't need to look at Pentagon programs at all. Consider the Coast Guard, the modestly-funded maritime force located
. . . Read more
Date:
12/2/2011
The mantra of the day around Washington is that the Pentagon will have to make hard choices when it comes to allocating increasingly scarce defense dollars. In truth, the Defense Department has made a lot of hard choices over the years, some willingly and others under the pressure of changes in
. . . Read more
Date:
12/2/2011