PENTAGON: In her first press conference as Air Force Secretary, Deborah Lee James had the sad duty of detailing the biggest cheating scandal in the history of Global Strike Command, involving 34 of the 190 officers who man the nuclear missile silos at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base. James said she met with Defense Secretary… Keep reading →

The war hasn’t started, yet. But unless the regular Army and the National Guard can resolve their differences behind closed doors before the president’s budget request is publicly submitted sometime in February — and prospects are dim — there will be open, brutal conflict on Capitol Hill on a scale not seen since the 1990s.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Two years ago, the Obama administration announced its “Pacific Pivot” (hastily renamed a “rebalance”), but crises keep yanking US attention back from a rising China to the unstable cradle of civilization (as we predicted at the time): Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic, Syria disintegrated into an increasingly sectarian… Keep reading →

Yesterday’s Senate passage of the budget deal took $20 billion worth of pressure off the Pentagon. But for the Army the deal just dials the pain back down from “agonizing” to “acute.” The largest service has more to lose in the post-war drawdown (which happens to have begun before the war is actually over). In… Keep reading →

As bitter as the budget battle has become, there’s no topic more toxic than pay and benefits for military personnel. Pentagon budgeteers and the top brass warn that increasing compensation costs, especially for health care, are growing at an unsustainable pace that threatens every other priority from weapons procurement to combat training. But personnel advocates… Keep reading →

There’s not much to say from the comfort of Washington about troops celebrating on the front lines around the world. They’re in Afghanistan battling the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Haqqani network, like the young man pictured in our top photo. They’re in the Philippines flying Ospreys, treating kids for wounds and getting food to… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Career soldiers can retire at 42, get a great deal on Tricare health insurance, take home a pension, and get paid a good private-sector salary on top of that. That can’t continue to be the norm for the military and Congress must create a two-tier pay system, says Rep. Duncan Hunter, Marine Corps reservist… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “It’s not his call,” the Army general said. The general was the Army’s director of strategy, plans, and policy, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow. “He” is the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. James Winnefeld, Snow’s superior by two stars and about three layers of bureaucracy. And “it”? “It” is all about how… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The military should soon deploy a new weapon in its efforts to keep troops fit and fed: foccaccia. That’s right, those tough folks who can live on snakes and water may soon get their hands on a Meal Ready To Eat filled with a pretty tasty Italian delicacy covered in Italian herbs and a… Keep reading →

….and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats…. -–  Matthew 25:32 (King James Version) The military’s personnel system does lots of stupid things, like sending Arabic speakers to Korea or forcing out skilled commanders at age 50. But of all our self-inflicted wounds, argues a forthcoming… Keep reading →