WASHINGTON: The military is in for another eight years of tight budgets, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos predicted today. The good news is that the relationship between the four Joint Chiefs who craft their budgets and their chairman is “better than it ever has been.” In his public remarks, the commandant hammered home the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Hey, you want Special Forces? The Army’s got your back. Want air defense Missile defense? Communications? Intelligence? Logistical support? Joint Task Force headquarters? Go Army! Just — just please, don’t cut our budget any more, okay? That was the subtext when Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno spoke this morning at the Center… Keep reading →

The Obama administration’s highly touted “rebalancing” of U.S. military forces to the Asia-Pacific region attracted a barrage of flak during a briefing at an influential Washington think tank Monday. A group of former senior defense and State Department officials criticized the Pacific tilt at the Center for Strategic and International Studies saying the U.S. lacked… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Senate Armed Services Committee leaders released a 100-plus-page report on the administration’s Asia strategy today, including — perhaps inadvertently — four pages of comments from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Congress commissioned the study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the authorization bill for fiscal year 2012. SASC chairman Sen. Carl… Keep reading →

Call it Somalia on steroids. Call it Syria next week. Either way it’s a scenario the US military needs to prepare for: an intervention into a failing state where rival factions have looted a sophisticated arsenal, from tanks to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to weapons of mass destruction. There’s no political will in Washington to intervene… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Disaster relief, medical assistance, and other humanitarian missions can provide a low-cost way for the military to build US influence in Asia and elsewhere, a key part of the administration’s new national security strategy, but this “soft power” approach is complicated both by civilian aid groups’ suspicion of the military and by looming budget… Keep reading →

Washington: The White House’s top counterterrorism official expressed renewed worries today about terrorists getting their hands on sophisticated surface-to-air weapons as news reports confirmed mass looting of surface-air-missiles by Libya’s new transitional government. John Brennan, speaking at an intelligence conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Intelligence and National Security… Keep reading →

This piece first appeared in our sister publication, AOL Gov. The Department of Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace has attracted its share of attention and criticism since it was released last month. For instance, critics from outside the Department believe the document is written at such a high level, it offers little of new… Keep reading →

Washington: While China is still decades away from fielding an aircraft carrier, putting a domestically-built carrier in the water will be a huge political victory for the rising superpower, experts say. Steaming a Chinese aircraft carrier into naval bases in Italy, or conducting exercises off the west coast of the U.S. would send a strong… Keep reading →