Archives
Recent
National Security
On March 1 the sixty-five year consensus in American politics on national security will be dead. On that day, sequestration goes into effect imposing what every senior military leader describes as catastrophic cuts on our military. While it is true that U.S. defense spending has gone through repetitive
. . . Read more
Date:
2/14/2013
Trade with China was an issue that got a lot of attention during the recent presidential campaign. Each of the candidates claimed that he would be the one to “stand up” to China, prevent U.S. jobs and know-how from being shipped across the Pacific, protect critical technologies and improve the terms
. . . Read more
Date:
11/7/2012
Need plumbing supplies, lighting fixtures, tools, building materials, paints and even ornamental plants, go to Home Depot. Need heavy, medium or light combat forces, medical, intelligence, transportation, logistical and signal units, call the U.S. Army. No job too small or too big; overseas or at
. . . Read more
Date:
11/2/2012
In some ways, the first four years of the Obama Administration were not that bad for U.S. national security. Defense budgets for the past three years have remained higher than anyone would have imagined. The President ended the U.S. involvement in Iraq, albeit without gaining an agreement with Baghdad
. . . Read more
Date:
10/29/2012
Even as the Transportation Security Administration improves its techniques for patting down airline passengers and ferreting out blue-haired, little old lady terrorists the danger to the United States, its citizens and its international commerce as a result of unscreened cargo containers grows.
. . . Read more
Date:
6/29/2012
For the past three and a half years I have been trying to figure out why the Department of Defense has exhibited an increasingly hostile attitude towards the private sector. What President Eisenhower had once referred to as the "military-industrial complex" has rapidly become the Hatfields and
. . . Read more
Date:
6/28/2012
When the people flying aircraft are incapacitated, one option is to put the plane on autopilot. It keeps the plane aloft for a while -- as long as there are no mountains dead ahead -- but it can't land the plane. That requires having a real person in charge.
It appears that the debt agreement
. . . Read more
Date:
8/4/2011
The debate over how to deal with the deficit is not, as many pundits have argued, a fight between a strong defense and a strong economy. At its core this debate over the deficit and spending reductions is a fight between national security and human security. National security spending is almost
. . . Read more
Date:
8/1/2011
The American people and their elected representatives appear to be suffering from “wars fatigue,” which I define as the inevitable exhaustion that occurs when the nation suffers through multiple, protracted and not too successful conflicts. Not since World War Two have U.S. military forces been
. . . Read more
Date:
6/9/2011
All the pundits are certain that the dominant issue in the upcoming 2012 election will be the state of the economy. No doubt this will be a key determinant of winners and losers. But a sleeper issue that may come to the fore is the role of the United States in the world and our willingness to maintain
. . . Read more
Date:
5/25/2011
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has shown himself to be the most thoughtful leader of the Department of Defense in at least a generation. He challenged each of the military services to rethink the value of their most sacred totems -- aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, main battle tanks and
. . . Read more
Date:
5/23/2011