The July nuclear deal concedes far too much to Iran and will increase its capacity to terrorize the Middle East and American interests and allies there. There are at least two diplomatic alternatives to the July deal on Iranian nuclear activity. We can stick with the interim agreement — just extend it — which is… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: What would World War III look like? Ask a Ukrainian. In their war against Russia, Ukrainian troops have endured artillery bombardments like nothing Americans have seen since World War II. Russian electronic attacks against radio communications are like nothing the US has seen — ever. So even as Washington debates further training — and perhaps arming — the… Keep reading →

In his 1940 book, The New World Order, H.G. Wells wrote, “I think that in the decades before 1914 not only I but most of my generation – in the British Empire, America, France, and indeed throughout most of the civilized world – thought that war was dying out.” That assertion now seems naïve, even childish.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is painfully aware the world is changing. What the military’s clearly still struggling with is how we should change to cope. That’s the less-than-reassuring implication of the new National Military Strategy, released a week ago by the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. (I discuss the strategy and its… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The presumptive Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the most pressing areas of concern for the US military are its cyber and space capabilities; modernizing its nuclear weapons and their delivery systems; and assuring that American forces can penetrate any set of defenses anywhere in the world. He also… Keep reading →

Mitt Romney recently offered a PowerPoint presentation at his annual ideas festival in Park City, Utah to highlight President Barack Obama’s 20 worst foreign policy mistakes, grist for his argument that Obama is “the worst foreign policy president in history,” and Hillary Clinton a well-traveled but mistake-prone former “Secretary of Schlep.” In this election season… Keep reading →

GEOINT: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper identified China today as “the leading suspect” in the two sweeping hacks of the Office of Personnel Management, one day after NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers dodged the issue. In Clapper’s first answer to a question about who is responsible for the OPM hacks, he laid the blame squarely on China. “On the… Keep reading →

GEOINT: For the first time, all the nation’s spy satellites and the military’s satellites will be tracked from a single   location, allowing the two communities to develop tactics, techniques and procedures together, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said here today. “But the thing we need most is a space operations center, and we are intent… Keep reading →

  WASHINGTON: “What is modern warfare going to look like in the 21st century?” asked Adm. Paul Zukunft. “Not that long ago,” he said, workers aboard a mobile offshore drilling unit unwittingly downloaded malware that scrambled the system that kept the floating platform stable. “They drifted off the well site,” the Coast Guard commandant said… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The US military spends too much time acting as the FAA of space and not enough watching for potential threats, the deputy chief of Strategic Command said today. That has to change as outer space becomes increasingly contested and increasingly intertwined with cyberspace, Lt. Gen. James Kowalski told a Peter Huessy breakfast here.… Keep reading →