Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday ordered the military to recertify every person involved in programs designed to …
Pentagon
TIME’s Mark Thompson on Obama’s Defense Secretary Debacle
PBS NewsHour invites TIME’s Mark Thompson to explain the debacle surrounding Chuck Hagel, Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary.
With GOP Filibuster, Chuck Hagel’s Rocky Road Continues
It is the third time in Senate history a Cabinet nominee has been filibustered. But Hagel still has a chance to become the next Defense Secretary.
Both Barrels
With sequestration three weeks away, Pentagon nerves are fraying.
COIN and Change
My latest print column: John McCain’s ugly cross-examination of Chuck Hagel raised some larger questions about US policy.
Whatever Floats Your Bloat By George!
On Thursday, George Will of the Washington Post asked Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel how the Pentagon is bloated on the same day the Government Accountability Office provides the evidence.
Defense Secretary Panetta Sounds Alarm on Cyberwar Threat
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued what he said is a “clarion call” Thursday for Americans to wake up to the growing threat posed by cyber war.
“The whole point of this is that we simply don’t just sit back and wait for a goddamn crisis to happen,” Panetta told Time. “In this country we tend to do that, and that’s a …
Grim Record: Soldier Suicides Reach New High
A record number of soldiers – 38 – are suspected of killing themselves in July, the Pentagon said Thursday. It marks a startling jump in the suicide epidemic that has been frustrating Army leaders for years.
Are We at a ‘Tipping Point’ in Afghanistan?
So just how close to the tipping point – that’s the phase heard most over the past several days – is the U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan? Not close, according to the Obama Administration. Remember, this was the “good war” – justifiable in 9/11′s wake, unlike the invasion of Iraq two years later. So Administration …
‘Leon the Lip’: Defense Secretary Panetta’s Candid Approach to Politics
Leon Panetta first ran afoul of a president when he was a lowly federal staffer more than 40 years ago. The president was Richard Nixon, who didn’t like the way Panetta, then a civil-rights advocate at the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare, pressed the Administration to speed up school integration. Panetta resigned, moved …
The Proposed 2013 Defense Budget: ‘Shaving the Balloon’
The Obama Administration came to a fork in the road this year on military spending: given the financial pressures facing the nation, it could have fundamentally set U.S. defense policy on a new path. Or it could have kept pretty much everything and just sucked it in as it tightened its belt. It has elected to do the latter, and that’s …
Reduced U.S. Role in Afghanistan: Politics, By Other Means
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s statement Wednesday that the U.S. plans to hand off all combat missions in Afghanistan sometime in 2013 has triggered howls from hawks who maintain it’s a step down a slippery slope headed to defeat. They may have a point. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration has plainly decided that its goals are
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New Defense Strategy: Why Wait for the Details?
You may recall Battleland’s advisory last week that it was too early to conclude whether the Obama Administration’s new Pentagon strategy makes sense. That’s because the devil is in the details, and they won’t be known for another month – when the Defense Department unveils its 2013 budget.
But when you’re an editorial …
