Archives
Recent
Defense Strategy
What is the value to the United States of the Army? This is a question which the Chief of Staff, General Odierno, and senior uniformed and civilian leaders of this venerable organization are having trouble answering. They have experimented with a number of different arguments. For example, they
. . . Read more
Date:
4/18/2013
The fiscal 2014 proposed defense budget puts the Obama Administration’s money where its strategy is. The Air Force and the Navy are the clear beneficiaries in the new budget with virtually all their major programs emerging intact. The Navy will get funding for both the Gerald Ford (CVN-78) and the
. . . Read more
Date:
4/11/2013
Since the pivot to the Asia-Pacific region was first announced last year in the Obama Administration’s Defense Strategy, the defense community has struggled to figure out what was going to change in the way U.S. forces were postured, organized, equipped and deployed. The Navy offhandedly mentioned
. . . Read more
Date:
4/10/2013
The history of the U.S. Army is one of long periods of relative quiet punctuated by short episodes of massive engagement. When it was not engaged in major conflict the Army was doing all the so-called “Phase Zero” activities, partnering, capacity building, security assistance, etc. Most of this
. . . Read more
Date:
3/26/2013
Whether by sequestration or some other mechanism, defense spending is headed down. If we make cuts wisely, we will still have the best trained and best equipped force in the world. If we don't, we will squander a decade of investment and become more vulnerable. Having cancelled and delayed weapons
. . . Read more
Date:
3/22/2013
1941 was the last time the Army really was at home. After World War II, most soldiers came home but only to be demobilized. The remainder of the Army was doing occupation duty and patrolling the borders of the Free World. In the post-Cold War era the Army shifted its posture from one based on forward
. . . Read more
Date:
3/21/2013
There are good reasons to oppose the confirmation of Senator Chuck Hagel. His views on nuclear disarmament are out of the mainstream. His characterization of Jewish influence over Congress and the presence of a malevolent “Jewish lobby” in Washington are, at best, bizarre or, at worst, anti-Semitic.
. . . Read more
Date:
2/22/2013
There is a clear and growing negative tilt in the strategic military balance between the United States and its allies on the one side of the scales and rogue states and prospective adversaries on the other side. A combination of factors -- war weariness, financial crises, unfavorable demographics,
. . . Read more
Date:
2/13/2013
With the sequestration doomsday clock clicking ever closer to midnight, the Pentagon has weighed in with its apocalyptic predictions. As described in text and multi-colored charts, the services will respond to sequestration by, in part, furloughing hundreds of thousands of civilian employees, eliminating
. . . Read more
Date:
2/8/2013
Joseph Stalin is alleged to have remarked with respect to military power that “quantity has a quality all its own.” At another time, the Soviet tyrant is recorded as having interrupted a speech by Winston Churchill on the need to treat Poland well because of the relationship between it and the Vatican
. . . Read more
Date:
2/6/2013
The hallmark of the Obama Administration’s new defense strategy is the so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. The administration argued that such a move was necessitated by the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region economically and politically, the presence in the region of the only
. . . Read more
Date:
10/26/2012
In the months leading up to the attacks of September 11, the Department of Defense was working on a new defense strategy and associated force structure. Central to the new plan was a significant reduction in the size of the U.S. Army. The incoming Bush Administration had campaigned on a platform
. . . Read more
Date:
10/1/2012
There's a reason Mitt Romney didn't mention America's warfighters in his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination, and it isn't the economy. Eight years of errors by the Bush Administration squandered the Republican defense franchise. Bush's security team repeatedly misjudged the
. . . Read more
Date:
9/6/2012
The Pentagon's recently enunciated Asia-Pacific posture has focused attention on the military needs of U.S. friends and allies in the Western Pacific. Because the U.S. has relatively few bases there and is operating thousands of miles from home, it must rely on local partners to carry much of the
. . . Read more
Date:
5/25/2012
The U.S. Army sees itself as the service that had to pay the price to get the job done in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rightly so. Ten years of air interdiction of the former and a rapid, air-dominated operation in the latter were not enough to achieve U.S. objectives. Nor was the initial combined
. . . Read more
Date:
2/17/2012
The centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s new defense strategy is described as a “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region. It is remarkable that one of the most significant strategic decisions of the past quarter century, the decision to abandon a two ocean, two war approach in favor of a concentration
. . . Read more
Date:
2/16/2012
The U.S. defense budget is in danger of being swamped in a tsunami of debt and deficit reduction plans. Proposals for massive defense cuts are proliferating. There is the Simpson-Bowles Commission, the Paul-Frank proposal and, most recently, the plan put forward by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn that
. . . Read more
Date:
7/19/2011