PENTAGON: In what may come to be called the dawn of the 21st century drawdown of the American military, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today unveiled a budget he hopes balances smaller forces with sustained and far reaching threats. Panetta said the force that will result from the $525 billion budget request for fiscal 2013 will… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The complexities of the United States diplomatic and military relationships with the People’s Republic of China were on full view today as the U.S. Navy’s leader said he does not need a bigger force to manage our presence in the western Pacific. Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, told several hundred people that… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The United States will police the globe, respond to disasters and shape the international environment much as it has –though our sharpest focus will be on China and the western Pacific — but it will do all that with a significantly smaller land force than it currently has. That was the essential message offered… Keep reading →

Elections, as President Barack Obama knows, are a time of big ideas. So it would seem fitting that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will roll out a new Pentagon national defense strategy just a few days into a make-or-break election year for the White House. [Panetta is expected to formally unveil the new strategy tomorrow and… Keep reading →

My vote in the 2012 presidential election will go to the candidate who most resists pandering to the American electorate. I say “most resist,” as all candidates pander, but hopefully at least one of the presidential candidates will believe and act as if there should be a limit. Given the campaigns so far, perhaps there… Keep reading →

The problem with military planners is that all they know is military stuff. The Pentagon may harbor some of the best strategists who ever gazed at a globe, but they seldom have much grasp of economics or demographics or cultural trends. So when a new threat arises, their natural inclination is to figure out how… Keep reading →

Through the last year the defense industries and their supporters in Congress worked overtime to ensure the federal government kept the armed forces in a perpetual procurement cycle. Inside the Pentagon, the generals and admirals who lead thedefense bureaucracies worked to minimize procurement costs. This was not altruistic behavior. It’s the only way to protect… Keep reading →

With budgets falling and China rising, the U.S. Army wants in on the one theater where President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have promised to keep investing: the Pacific. The world’s largest ocean is not an obvious fit for America’s land forces. So far, it is the Air Force and the Navy that have… Keep reading →

Contrary to what some say, applying smart power to our most challenging national security issues makes even more sense today amid the severe budget pressures facing the Pentagon and the State Department. Today’s military and Foreign Service officers will tell you that collaboration and coordination among State, DoD and USAID is more common than one… Keep reading →

Before designing and articulating a new defense strategy, DoD officials must answer an important question: Will the most dangerous twenty-first century threats emerge more from unfavorable order or unacceptable disorder? Unfavorable order is rooted in military competition with rising powers like China or Iran and conforms well to emerging concepts like Air-Sea Battle. Unacceptable disorder… Keep reading →