A debate over the military's budget is emerging between defense hawks on Capitol Hill and fiscal hawks in the Trump administration. The fiscal hawks, chief among them Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney, want the next annual defense budget set at $603 billion, a 3 percent…
A debate over the military's budget is emerging between defense hawks on Capitol Hill and fiscal hawks in the Trump administration. The fiscal hawks, chief among them Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney, want the next annual defense budget set at $603 billion, a 3 percent…
Foreign policy, Walter Lippmann wrote, entails "bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation's commitments and the nation's power." If a statesman fails to balance ends and means, he added, "he will follow a course that leads to disaster."
Foreign policy, Walter Lippmann wrote, entails “bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation's commitments and the nation's power." If a statesman fails to balance ends and means, he added, "he will follow a course that leads to disaster."
The late 1980s and early '90s were characterized by liberal optimism, if not triumphalism. The Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union had dissolved, marking the end of the Cold War. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama had written an influential article entitled "The End of History," which argued that…
The late 1980s and early ’90s were characterized by liberal optimism, if not triumphalism. The Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union had dissolved, marking the end of the Cold War. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama had written an influential article entitled "The End of History," which argued that…
During last year's budget deal (The Bipartisan Budget Act or BBA), Republicans secured more defense spending in a compromise measure for a trade of more general spending and a suspension of the debt limit. But things have grown more complicated, as the Foreign Policy Initiative's David Adesnik…
In the last five years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has spent over $130 million to store unused satellites from eight different satellite programs, and plans to spend another $206 million on storage over the next five years. Storage costs for individual pieces of equipment range from $40,000 up…
The government looks inward at times. The Office of the Inspector General recently posted a solicitation for credit card sized audio recorders to be disguised as Department of Defense (DoD) ID cards.
Back in the day when it was fashionable for the press to criticize the president and senior military officials for mismanaging a war--that is, from 2003 to 2009--such stories often focused on the colonels, majors, and captains who saw firsthand the practical problems with their superiors' approach…
The American Military Partner Association (AMPA) held its first National Gala Dinner in Washington Sunday, and the Department of Defense used the opportunity to tout the rapid advances the military is making in erasing gender distinctions in policies regarding military spouses and partners. As…
America’s chattering classes seem at last to have awoken to the fact that the U.S. military ain’t what it used to be. Even the New York Times allows that “the Pentagon’s proposals to reduce the Army to pre-World War II levels” could “seem unsettling to a nation that prides itself on having the…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with senior writer Stephen Hayes on Bob Gates and his new book, Benghazi, and Hillary Clinton.
A Request For Information by the defense department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in July 2011 culminated this month in contract awards to seven different companies worth up to $4 billion over the next ten years. The contract awards, posted in a notice entitled Combating Weapons of Mass…
The British launched the opening attack of the 3rd battle of Ypres on July 31, 1917. The objective was to destroy a rail junction on which the German army depended for Western Front supplies. The plan included British naval as well as amphibious assaults on the nearby Belgian coast. The naval…
Washington D.C. is big on tradition, and one of those traditions involves official portraits of top government officials. The Defense Department just awarded a $31,200 contract (frame included) to Portraits, Inc. for an official portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta:
Since 1914, the United States Army has published and periodically updated a Law of War Manual. Its purpose is to provide authoritative guidance to military personnel on the customary and treaty law of war.
The Defense Department announced that it's sponsoring anonymous Internet chat groups for sexual assault victims, according to Defense.gov. The announcement comes after a string of high-profile sexual assaults among military personnel.
The Senate confirmed Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of defense early Tuesday evening, with 58 senators supporting his nomination and 41, all Republicans, opposing. The boss, in his capacity as the chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel, responded in a statement:
On January 23, news broke that outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had issued a directive that the military's ban on women in combat would be lifted. The New York Times reported that his decision was in response to unanimous agreement among the Joint Chiefs of Staff as expressed in a letter to…
Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama's nominee to head the defense department, said in his confirmation hearing Thursday that he doesn't "know much" about military programs and technology. "I've said I don't know enough about it," Hagel said, in a response to Maine senator Angus King. "There are a lot of…
It's been a rough Thursday for former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, and lawmakers from both parties seem to recognize it. Members of the Senate's armed services committee say they are "shocked at how ill-prepared" Hagel was for his hearing to be confirmed as defense secretary. Dana Bash from CNN…
Former secretary of state Colin Powell, who served through George W. Bush's first term, will appear on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, January 13, to reportedly make the case for Chuck Hagel to head the defense department. Powell has been critical of Republicans in recent years and made…
It’s bad enough that the administration has repeatedly cut defense spending in the midst of fighting a war but it now appears it is also shirking its duty to make sure those serving in that war are able to vote and have their vote counted. At the end of last week, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas)…
In a report to Congress authored in April, and posted online earlier this week by Bloomberg News, the Defense Department has once again accused Iran of supporting the Taliban. The unclassified assessment, which is titled “Annual Report on Military Power of Iran,” makes it clear that the U.S.…
Nate Silver: "Perry, Perry, Quite Contrary"
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former House majority leader Dick Armey combines with his FreedomWorks partner Matt Kibbe to suggest “What Congress Should Cut” in order to reduce the deficit and debt.
The editors at Der Spiegel can’t contain themselves. Even before publication of the WikiLeaks documents, they’ve taken to their website to announce jubilantly that the leaking of these documents “is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.”
The world is once again anticipating a massive leak of classified documents by WikiLeaks. The U.S. State Department is so concerned that it has published a letter addressed to the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and his attorney, arguing that publication of the documents will “risk the lives of…