The Trump administration is revving up an effort to counter foreign state propaganda and disinformation, including from Russia, after a months-long funding lag and criticism from lawmakers.
Last month, the New York Times reported what appeared to be a bombshell: The United States Department of Defense had squirreled away $22 million to fund the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. This “shadowy” program—run from “the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze,” as…
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Friday that U.S. global counter-terrorism operations are set to expand and become more aggressive following a meeting with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about troop deaths in Niger.
Two key members of President Donald Trump's national security apparatus sailed through Senate confirmation votes Friday afternoon, as retired Marine Gens. James Mattis and John Kelly earned overwhelming support in the upper chamber to become the first cabinet picks of the new administration to win…
The House voted 268-151 Friday afternoon to waive retired Marine Gen. James Mattis from a restriction that would prevent him as serving as secretary of defense, sending the bill to the president's desk.
The Senate easily cleared a waiver Thursday afternoon allowing retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to serve as secretary of defense, teeing up similar action from the House as Democrats in the lower chamber threatened to protest the measure.
Character is often revealed in seemingly small gestures. Amid all the speculation about how retired Marine general James Mattis will manage to lead the behemoth called the Department of Defense, one personal experience I had a decade ago as a young staffer in the office of the Secretary of Defense…
In 2014, retired Army general Jack Keane joined Conversations with Bill Kristol to discuss his career, the war on terrorism, and 9/11.
The politics of funding a divided federal government has always pitted administrations against Congress, but according to House speaker Paul Ryan, the Obama administration is taking it to new levels.
This week Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump made the obligatory campaign stop to address the American Legion. Despite the rhetoric, which at times made both candidates sound like Reagan defense hawks, the reality is that the two presidential campaigns offer conflicting narratives over the state of…
The Defense Department has transferred 15 detainees—12 Yemenis and 3 Afghan citizens—from Guantanamo to the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon's web page says nothing about the risks the detainees pose beyond the fact that the transfers supposedly "took place consistent with appropriate security…
Defense secretary Ash Carter announced a new policy last week to lift the ban on transgender people openly serving in the military. The chairman of the House Armed Services committee blasted the decision Thursday, calling it the "latest example of the Pentagon and the President prioritizing…
The Pentagon announced it was lifting a ban on transgender individuals serving openly in the military Thursday, permitting them to enlist and banning dismissals based on their gender identity.
The Pentagon Friday announced the death of Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, a soldier who had been serving in Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. He died of wounds received during a hostage rescue mission. But in keeping with the Obama administration's insistence that the president ended combat…
Earlier this summer, we learned the Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating allegations that the intelligence on ISIS was manipulated. Analysts at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, formally complained to the IG that analysis contradicting the Obama administration’s narrative on ISIS was…
Disputes between the political appointees who run the Pentagon and the military officers who serve there are not unheard of, but the nastiness and public nature of the fight over women in combat being waged between Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and the Marines who answer to him is unprecedented…
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has released its latest statistics on the number of former Guantanamo detainees who are either confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight. As expected, there has been a slight increase in the number of ex-detainees who have rejoined…
“We have already cut defense … about 30 percent over the last 10 years, and we’re still at war. We’re actively involved on multiple continents in real combat operations. We should not be drastically reducing our troop levels.” That, as Bradford Richardson of The Hill reports, is the position taken…
Buried deep in the House version of this year’s defense authorization is a brief provision that has great potential to improve and accelerate the way the armed services buy weapons—yes, an actual reform of Pentagon procurement. The irony is that this reform would mark a reversal of past “reforms”…
A DoD News story, published on Defense.gov, claims that the "Strategy to Defeat ISIL is Working, Military Official Says."
Meghann Myers of Navy Times reports that:
At an event today at Howard University in Washington, D.C., President Obama warned of the public health risks assocaited with global warming.
A fact sheet on the Defense budget from the Foreign Policy Initiative:
Lost in much of the reporting about CPAC is that almost all of the likely presidential candidates—really, all of them, with the exception of Rand Paul—seemed to place themselves at the Reaganite hawkish-internationalist end of the foreign policy spectrum. The much-heralded return of Republican…
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) suspended participation in coalition airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State in December after a Jordanian pilot was shot down and captured, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The Defense Department, however, continues to include the UAE in its daily report on…
President Obama's proposed defense budget is well below what former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates proposed.
Ever since March 2014 when President Obama referred to Russian aggression against Ukraine as an "invasion," administration officials have avoided that word in conjunction with the ongoing conflict. In fact, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt's declared on April 29, 2014, that "Russian…
Obama administration officials have been effusive in their praise for late Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz who died last week at the age of 90. Now comes word that chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey is establishing a "research and essay competition" at the US…
The Pentagon called the hacking of the Central Command's (CENTCOM) YouTube and Twitter accounts Monday "cyber vandalism" in a letter to service members and their families to allay concerns about the incident. General Lloyd Austin said that the FBI is investigating the "alleged breach" of the two…
Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, when asked Tuesday about the number of Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) fighters killed in ongoing coalition strikes in Iraq and Syria, gave a rather colorful response: "[W]e don't have the ability to -- to count every nose that we schwack." Kirby said…
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…
General David M. Rodriguez of the U.S. Africa Command updated reporters Wednesday on the Defense Department's efforts to assist the response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. However, later in the briefing, the general addressed questions on other topics as well. Several reporters inquired about…
So Chuck Hagel has been fired as defense secretary. We were critical of his appointment, and opposed his confirmation by the Senate. But let's be clear: Hagel has done what he was asked and what was expected of him at the Pentagon. To the degree he has deviated from the Obama White House line, he's…
During the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, the U.S. military used a new generation of technological weapons that left the rest of the world far behind. But according the Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for acquisitions, technology, and logistics, that advantage is…
The New York Times has a news article today that's ostensibly about concerns the Pentagon is engaged in historical revisionism in a recent attempt to honor Vietnam veterans. Any legitimate concerns, however, are outweighed by the fact the article gives a prominent megaphone to radical liberal…
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…
This week senior officials from the Pentagon will testify before Congress on their request for emergency appropriations, known as the Overseas Contingency Operations funding (OCO in military speak). A decision to maintain troop presence in Afghanistan, a resurgence of radical Sunni terrorism…
News broke this week that under a plan released by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the United States Army will be reduced to its smallest force since before World War II. Though not directly related to that plan, another announcement this week by the Defense Department gives, perhaps, a taste of…
It's been almost a year since THE WEEKLY STANDARD quoted Philip Larkin’s great 1969 poem, “Homage to a Government." Yesterday the Obama administration released its 2015 defense budget, shrinking the Army to its lowest size since 1940 and reducing base defense spending to less than 3 percent of GDP.…
The Republican chairman of the House Budget committee criticized the Obama administration's plans to shrink the defense budget in a statement.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has just announced that the public will be invited to vote in a video competition called "Fight the Enemy." In this case, the enemy is tobacco. The innovation office of the military's assistant secretary of defense for health affairs is sponsoring the competition…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with senior writer Stephen Hayes on Bob Gates and his new book, Benghazi, and Hillary Clinton.
Andrew Marshall, the longtime director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, has had a number of titles conferred on him over the years. A 1999 profile in Washingtonian magazine dubbed him “the most influential policy maker you have never heard of.” Others of us who have known him over the…
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…
The Department of Defense is looking at some serious cutbacks in its civilian workforce, as Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg writes:
"When word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it's no accident that
The Washington Post editorial board criticizes the Obama administration's dereliction of duty on defense spending:
Mackenzie Eaglen, writing about the weakening of the military:
While furloughs of civilian employees of the Defense Department have not lived up to the pre-sequester billing, the Pentagon is doing what it can to ease the pain for those who will be taking involuntary time off. The American Forces Press Service is reporting that the director of the Pentagon's…
When Congress was debating implementation of the sequester, the Pentagon released a report saying that if the cuts were to kick in, civilian personnel could be furloughed for 22 days -- nearly a month's worth of work. But now that the sequester has kicked in, those furlough days appear to have been…
House Armed Services Committee chair Buck McKeon asks the Department of Defense to release more Benghazi-related details:
In what may be just an eerie coincidence, the Defense Department posted a contract award notice today to Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts for research into "Methods for Explosive Detection at Standoff." Of particular concern are Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that have become a…
Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman representing Hawaii's Second Congressional District, responds to President Obama's proposed budget by expressing concern over missile defense cuts. "It would also cut our missile defense budget, even as Hawai‘i and the rest of the country face direct and heightened…
The U.S. will be spending less, in the coming months and years, on defending itself from missile attacks. As Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg reports:
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s address to the National Defense University today, hyped by the administration as a “strong message that the time has come for [the Department of Defense] to consider fundamental change in how it is organized and how it operates to better reflect 21st century…
John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post:
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:
Adam Kredo reports that the Indian embassy in Washington says Chuck Hagel's views are not based in reality:
On Meet the Press, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal said that President Obama should delay Obamacare to cancel sequestration:
Quin Hillyer, writing at the Center for Individual Freedom, explains why Senate Republicans should continue filibustering Chuck Hagel's nomination for defense secretary:
A group of 15 Republican senators have sent the following letter to President Obama asking for Chuck Hagel's nomination as secretary of defense to be withdrawn:
Omaha, Nebraska
Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama's defense secretary nominee and a former Nebraska senator, said in a 2008 interview that he agreed that the United States has not been a "fair or credible peace broker" in the Middle East, specifically with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Omaha, Nebraska
At a 2010 appearance at Rutgers University, former Nebraska senator and current defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel reportedly said that the state of Israel risks "becoming an apartheid state if it didn't allow the Palestinians to form a state." Hagel also referred to current Israeli prime…
Two U.S. senators have written a letter to Chuck Hagel to ask the defense secretary nominee to explain his assertion that "the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Ministry." Hagel, the Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday, made the comment in 2007.
Former Defense Secretary William Cohen says that Hagel is now "in a difficult position." Politico reports:
The Emergency Committee for Israel releases this statement from Bill Kristol on the Senate's decision to delay the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense:
Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said on the floor this morning that it's "tragic" Republicans are refusing immediately to accept Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of defense. Some Republicans contend that they need more information on Hagel before voting on his nomination.
What is Harry Reid talking about?
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:
The newly discovered 2008 video of Chuck Hagel has drawn attention, as it should, for his comments dismissing the U.S. even “thinking” about acting militarily against Iran, and for his seeming to be more concerned about Israel's nuclear weapons than Iran's.
At a 2008 event to promote his then-recently published book, Chuck Hagel expresses more concern over Israel's nuclear weapons than Iran's and advocates the U.S. engage with Iran and Syria:
It can be tempting, if you are not a Washington insider or intimate, to put the Chuck Hagel business out of mind. Or try, anyway. He did so badly in the confirmation hearings that, as Stephen Hayes writes, “any senator who takes the advise-and-consent role seriously had to have real concerns about…
Thomas E. Ricks, who is well-sourced in Democratic national security policy circles, says there's a "50-50" chance Chuck Hagel withdraws from consideration for the secretary of defense job.
The Emergency Committee for Israel has a new ad focusing on the Senate testimony from Barack Obama's defense secretary nominee, Chuck Hagel. "Today the Emergency Committee for Israel released 'Endorsed,' a 30-second TV ad that will begin airing tomorrow in Washington DC and New York," said ECI…
At a hearing today on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that sequestration will lead to America becoming a "second-rate power":
Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tells Politico reporter Manu Raju that the committee will not vote on the nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense on Thursday, as planned:
BuzzFeed reports that Chuck Hagel is refusing to detail foreign funders and disclose other necessary financial information to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The editors of Barack Obama's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, urge the president to drop the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense. The paper endorsed Obama in two presidential elections.
Chuck Hagel is "the mediocre man," writes Bret Stephens:
The woman who still could be the next defense secretary, Michele Flournoy, has an intelligent op-ed, well worth reading, in today’s Wall Street Journal, on "The Right Way to Cut Pentagon Spending." If we're to have a defense secretary who acquiesces in cutting defense (and we will while Barack…
The Emergency Committee for Israel has released a new ad called "confusion," which highlights Chuck Hagel's rocky performance in last week's Senate hearing:
Dorothy Rabinowitz writes:
The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said over the weekend that opposition to the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense is "intensifying." The second highest ranking Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn of Texas, has been leading the charge against Hagel.
Chuck Hagel, who has been nominated by President Obama to be the secretary of defense, does not understand the defense budget. Gary Schmitt explains:
In a statement to the press, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois opposes the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense:
An advisor to President Obama describes Chuck Hagel's hearing as, "somewhere between baffling and incomprehensible." The advisor made the comment to the New York Times.
On October 3, 2005, President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate his White House counsel, Harriet Miers, to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. On October 27, after vigorous statements of opposition from conservatives and quiet expressions of…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Steve Hayes hosted by Michael Graham:
Florida senator Marco Rubio says that he will oppose the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense:
Senator Jim Inhofe asked Chuck Hagel why the Iranians had endorsed his nomination for secretary of defense:
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina pledged last night on Fox News to block President Obama's secretary of defense nominee, Chuck Hagel, until Leon Panetta testifies on the Benghazi terror attack:
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Smith, a retired Marine infantryman who fought in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, urges caution about the Pentagon's new directive to allow woment to fight as combat infantry. Smith describes his experience in 2003:
It seems clear that American civil-military relations have been healthiest when there is a high level of trust between civilian and military leaders, i.e. when there is mutual respect and understanding between them that leads to the exchange of candid views and perspectives between the two parties…
Former senator Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be the next secretary of defense, has drawn sharp criticism for championing even deeper cuts to military spending, making statements hostile or indifferent to Israel, denigrating pro-Israel groups in the United States as “the Jewish lobby,”…
Roger Wicker, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is "deeply concerned" that Chuck Hagel's "views on Iran sanctions have changed multiple times based on public reaction and criticism of his record."
Senator James Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Service Committee, released this statement in opposition to Chuck Hagel's nomination as secretary of defense:
In a private meeting Monday—not just any old private meeting, but a 90 minutes long private meeting!—New York senator Chuck Schumer was reassured by secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel that he didn't mean the many things he's said over the years and didn't stand by the many votes he's cast…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:
Charles Krauthammer writes:
The number two Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn, explains in an opinion piece why he is unable to support Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense:
In today’s New York Times, David Brooks argues persuasively that Chuck Hagel has been nominated to help Barack Obama dramatically cut defense spending.
The pro-Chuck Hagel forces, having failed to pick up momentum from the president's announcement today, seem to be getting desperate. Why else would the following bombshell magically appear on BuzzFeed's website?
Ohio senator Rob Portman, a Republican, expressed his disappointment in President Obama choosing Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense in a statement released to the press:
Here's an exchange from MSNBC this morning between Steve Clemons, a close friend and ardent supporter of Chuck Hagel, and Dan Senor:
The Emergency Committee for Israel sends out the following press release:
Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, a Republican, released this statement, opposing Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense:
NBC's Chuck Todd reported this morning that "as many as 10 Democratic senators could vote against Hagel":
Democratic senator Ben Cardin said this morning that he has serious "questions" about Chuck Hagel, who today will be nominated to be the next secretary of defense:
During the hearings on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be secretary of defense, it’s clear that the views of gay rights organizations will be heard. There the issue seems to be whether Hagel’s apology for previous remarks and beliefs was sincere, or motivated solely by self-interest. He had years to…
CNN, reporting on the possibility that President Barack Obama will nominate Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, said that the former senator has "been against sanction for iran ... and for talking to Hamas." Watch here:
Chuck Todd said this morning he believes the Obama administration will "yank" the possible nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense:
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Senator Tom Coburn said Sunday that he would not vote for Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense:
Senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox today that Chuck Hagel has "very little Republican support" to be the next secretary of defense:
In an odd column in Wednesday's New York Times, Tom Friedman praises Chuck Hagel. Friedman doesn't actually praise anything Hagel has ever said or done. He never quotes Hagel nor cites any of Hagel's votes. Indeed, Friedman acknowledges Hagel is "out of the mainstream" on national security issues…
In response to reports that Barack Obama is likely to choose Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense, a top Republican Senate aide emails, "Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."
From a left-wing bumper sticker seeking to make its point with an absurdity: "It'll be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
The Foreign Policy Initiative provides this fact-sheet to debunk President Obama's false defense spending claims:
Yesterday, the CIA insisted that "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate." The denial is in reference to the report that the CIA held back forces from helping the Americans who were under attack in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11.
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)…
President Barack Obama asserted at Wednesday’s presidential debate that Governor Mitt Romney wants to spend “$2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for.” Obama’s assertion echoes his earlier claim at the Democratic National Convention that Romney wants to “spend more…
Defending Defense, a group made up of the Foreign Policy Initiative, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, just published “Sequester’s Shadow on the Defense Industrial Base,” a joint paper that examines how the looming threat of even deeper defense cuts is already starting…
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.…
Colorado's wildfire has exploded into an "epic firestorm," in the words of Colorado Springs fire chief Richard Brown. Over 30,000 people have evacuated, and already hundreds of homes have been consumed. Ironically, the U.S. Air Force Academy has also been evacuated, at the very time that Colorado…
Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire, took to the Senate floor—along with Senators John McCain and John Thune—to warn against looming Department of Defense cuts.
Earlier this week we wrote that the chairman of the Joints of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, had “provoked a public confrontation” with House Budget Committee leader Rep. Paul Ryan. It appeared that Dempsey had made a grievous error by claiming that Ryan had “called [the JCS], collectively, liars.”
President Obama's explanation today of his private request yesterday, captured on an open microphone, of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for some "space" and "flexibility" until after November's election, simply compounds the problem.
The Associated Press reports:
President Obama is cutting future defense spending. It is both a conscious choice to divert funds elsewhere, away from the military, and a consequence of last year’s congressional budget agreement, which alone will likely result in an automatic sequestration of at least $500 billion from future…
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced a new timeline for American combat operations in Afghanistan—or did he? He said, “Hopefully, by mid- to the latter part of 2013, we’ll be able to make, you know, to make a transition from a combat role to a training advice, and assist role…” Pressed once,…
There's a very curious op-ed in The Los Angeles Times today by Rosa Brooks, who is identified as "a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and a fellow at the New America Foundation." She has a curious and disagreeable premise:
Liz Cheney appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss President Obama's cuts to the military:
Earlier this month, the Obama administration came out with a plan for the country’s defense and its military needs. It is a bold, even radical, plan that dramatically alters the nation’s strategic outlook. So of course it received almost as much media attention as the shouting matches between…
House Armed Services Committee chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon:
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper is reporting that the Japanese government is close to settling on the F-35 Lightning as the much-needed replacement for its F-15 fighter. That’s exceptionally good news for a program that’s both key to preserving American military preeminence and at a lot of risk due…
Even the Washington Post is beginning to worry about the defense cuts that might come out of the supercommittee. In a recent editorial, the Post writes:
“Concurrency” in defense programs – that is, overlapping development and production of weapons systems – has long been a controversial Pentagon practice. Not surprisingly, inventing something while beginning to build it, particularly something as complex as a modern warship, aircraft, or combat…
Recent Republican presidential candidate debates have featured a 30-second ad sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in support of more cuts to defense spending. The commercial, however, is misleading.
Unless Congress passes a law to reduce the long-term federal deficit by more than $1.2 trillion by January 2012, the debt limit deal, agreed upon last month, will result in two major cuts to the military budget.
Congressman Mike Rogers delivered this coherent, Reaganesque defense of defense this morning at the American Enterprise Institute:
The American Enterprise Institute, the Foreign Policy Initiative, and the Heritage Foundation are holding an event on Capitol Hill tomorrow called "Defense Spending and the Super Committee." The all star lineup includes the boss, Tom Donnelly, Senator Kelly Ayotte, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator…
General David Petraeus, at his military retirement ceremony, said "that the nation’s leaders, faced with tough budget decisions, should be careful not to cut the military’s budget too deeply in the years ahead," the Washington Post reports.
House Budget chair Paul Ryan, along with House Committee on Armed Services chair Buck McKeon and Bill Young, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, have written a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and OMB director Jack Lew, urging the Obama administration officials not to…
In today's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson argues that it was liberal protectors of the entitlements, not the Tea Party, that "won" the most in last week's debt deal. The military, he says, was the real loser:
The Heritage Foundation has created a useful chart, showing that even if military spending were completely eliminated, the U.S. would still face major financial problems:
“Extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.” That’s how General Martin Dempsey, the Army’s chief of staff and Obama’s pick to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly described proposals by the president and certain lawmakers to cut national security spending by anywhere from $400 billion to $1…
Jamie Fly, writing at National Review Online:
House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon has just sent around a memo to fellow Republicans on his committee, warning that Harry Reid's debt ceiling budget plan (which has been endorsed by President Obama) drastically and dangerously slashes defense spending.
At a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing, titled “Total Force Readiness,” Congressman Randy Forbes just delivered the following opening statement:
“Be afraid,” Max Boot warns about the so-called Gang of Six budget proposal. “Be very afraid.” Boot is here referring, specifically, to the drastic budget cuts in the proposal, and what that might mean for America’s future role in the world: “If, like me, you care about the future of American…
The foremost obligation of the federal government is to provide for the safety of the American people. Yet as the budget debate continues, it’s becoming increasingly clear that certain politicians want to trim the defense budget in order to repurpose money for social entitlement programs, such as…
One of the least covered aspects of the debt limit negotiations has been defense spending. Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats have indicated that the White House would like to include significant defense cuts as part of an eventual deal, even beyond the $400 billion in cuts…
Dave Weigel reports that Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty argued against cutting the military earlier today at a speech and press gathering at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.:
With government looking to cut spending, many are turning a watchful eye to the Department of Defense. The problem is, as Michael Goldfarb explains to Reuters, it's hard to make the argument, especially after the military's successful killing of Osama bin Laden, that there's a more effective…
The Washington Post reports that Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq, will likely be nominated to be the next ambassador to Afghanistan :
Last week, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) unveiled its own budget proposal, which cuts over $3 trillion more than Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan over the next ten years. Despite all the media commentary about a divide within the Republican Party on the defense budget, the RSC proposal, like Paul…
Mike Flynn at Big Government asks if military paychecks will be held in a possible government shutdown. Flynn fears the answer is yes, based on a draft guidance document from the Pentagon released last month, and he notes that this would differ from what happened under the Clinton administration…
When there’s nothing better to do (and even when there is), folks in Washington gossip about the human parade passing through the world’s most powerful jobs. For years, the departure date and replacement for Defense secretary Robert Gates has been a prime source of speculative entertainment, but…
One of the reactions to Paul Ryan’s budget from the left and the press has been the canard that it doesn’t address the real elephant in the room – a supposedly bloated Pentagon. Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin said today that “When he doesn’t address savings in the Department of Defense and…
The American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, and Heritage Foundation have teamed up to study China -- and how the Pentagon should respond. The result is a white paper, titled, "China's Military Build-up: Implications for U.S. Defense Spending." Here's the conclusion:
“The Department of Defense is a government bureaucracy, cousin to the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the rest. That means it has the same Dawn of the Dead–zombie instincts.”
Scrambling for a simple standard to measure events in Egypt and across the Arab world, the blogosphere and the airwaves have been full of references to 1979. That point of reference is probably more apt than imagined, for much more happened that year than just the Iranian revolution. It was also…
Most of the press accounts of China’s test flight of its new J-20 “stealth fighter” took their spin either by gauging whether it was a middle-finger welcome salute to Defense Secretary Robert Gates during his trip to Beijing, or whether Chinese leader Hu Jintao knew about the insult beforehand.
As Politico reports, today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will step forward to offer a list of procurement programs the administration is putting on the chopping block in the coming year. It won’t be the first time that Secretary Gates has moved to cut high profile programs that, in his…
For those of us who have been arguing against cutting the U.S. defense budget and, indeed, arguing instead that it’s too low as is, we’re used to our critics saying that we never have met a defense expenditure we don’t like, that we have no ideas for how defense monies can be better utilized, or…
WikiLeaks is now promising to release the remaining 15,000 classified Afghan war documents it has in its possession. The Pentagon is asserting that grave harm will result. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell is calling the prospective publication the "height of irresponsibility."