CHICAGO: With Pakistan continuing to send mixed signals about whether and when it would reopen supply routes to NATO, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta plans to meet tomorrow with representatives of five countries who make the so-called Northern Routes into and out of Afghanistan possible. Panetta “will meet tomorrow with five countries that support the… Keep reading →

CHICAGO: Where do we find the money to pay for defense in a time of austerity and how do we leave Afghanistan gracefully. That sums up the two main threads of the second NATO summit held in America. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters this morning that this is a “crucial summit at… Keep reading →

CHICAGO: Air shows and NATO summits deserve their own color coverage if only because they are often so much more interesting when viewed from the participant’s point of view, so here goes. First, in the interests of full disclosure, I am an unabashed Chicago lover and this summit looks, so far, to be good for… Keep reading →

We aren’t leaving Afghanistan — except, of course, to the extent we are. That’s the high-wire balancing act that the top commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, had to perform in his remarks today ahead of the upcoming NATO conference in Chicago. “We will say to the Afghan people with one voice, ‘we are… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: To squeeze the most it can out of every training dollar in an era of shrinking budgets, the Army Reserve will rely more on simulators and long-distance learning to replace traditional drill weekends, outgoing Chief of Army Reserve Lt. Gen. Jack Stulz said today. Those efficiencies, in turn, will free up funds for ambitious… Keep reading →

The Air Force will choose a winner in its troubled Light Air Support competition without actually flying the two contending planes, the Embraer Super Tucano and the Hawker-Beechcraft AT-6, and it will even disregard what it has data from the limited “flight demonstration” it conducted last year. That’s a disturbing departure from best practice in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: He may come to regret it, but Gen. Martin Dempsey today offered what may come to define his tenure as the president’s top military advisor, a doctrine that the United States should never send the military to war by itself. Here’s the phrase Dempsey uttered: “The military instrument should never be wielded alone.” Before… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Since 2001 America’s share of NATO’s budget has climbed steadily upwards from 50 percent to 75 percent. With the NATO summit coming to Chicago in less than three weeks and the Obama White House’s top NATO advisor speaking publicly about the alliance’s goals, it seemed a good time to ask when the enormous gap… Keep reading →

The Obama administration late Thursday announced yet another attempt to settle the prolonged and increasingly bitter clash with Japan over the controversial and expensive plan to relocate thousands of U.S. Marines off the crowded island of Okinawa. Senior defense and State Department officials said the revised agreement would strengthen the critical alliance between the U.S.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON MALL: The earliest tendrils of dawn were just stretching over the Washington Monument when we arrived here at 5:30 this morning. Why, you are doubtless wondering, were my wife, myself and a friend standing in front of the Korean War Memorial at that hour? My wife is Australian. So’s the friend. And I’m pretty… Keep reading →