UPDATED: Adds Trump Riposte WASHINGTON: When a group of Republican national security experts signed a letter denouncing Donald Trump during the primaries, we didn’t report it because it was still intramural politics. Today, some of the most respected Republican experts in national security released a letter saying Trump “would be a dangerous President and would put… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Dov Zakheim and Roger Zakheim, the father-and-son team of national security advisors to the Romney campaign, fenced with skeptical reporters this morning about what their candidate would actually do differently from the Obama administration. The big things, in brief: boost Navy shipbuilding by 66 percent; slash the civil service workforce at the Defense Department;… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: “It’s perfectly acceptable to say ‘beat Army,’” the Chief of Naval Operations began, and the assembled sailors laughed. Adm. Jonathan Greenert was making a football joke, but there’s a serious strategic point beneath the smiles. At this morning’s celebration of the Navy’s 237th birthday, the service’s normal pride on such occasions was redoubled by… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The United States is still the world’s indispensable nation and we’ll probably avoid sequestration, albeit by the skin of our teeth. That’s the modestly reassuring message from the unlikely duo of Michèle Flournoy, who recently left her job as under secretary of defense for policy, and Dov Zakheim, Pentagon comptroller under George W. Bush.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Companies that do business with the federal government will have to announce “hundreds of thousands” of lay-offs just days before the November election, predicted the former Pentagon comptroller for George W. Bush. As sequestration approaches, said Dov Zakheim, the former comptroller, companies large and small will be faced with layoffs, which by law —… Keep reading →