Will Inboden thinks the forthcoming National Security Strategy is going to reveal greater continuities with the Bush administration than Obama’s campaign rhetoric suggested. Not having seen the document myself, I’m not really in a position to weigh in on that judgment, so we’ll just wait and see. But there’s a sense at 30,000 feet in [...]

“Secretary Gates continues to believe that ideally the DOD review should be completed before there is any legislation to repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law. With Congress having indicated that is not possible, the Secretary can accept the language in the proposed amendment.” That’s from a statement Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, sent around to [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 431-10 May 25, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Staff Sgt. Amilcar H. Gonzalez, 26, of Miami, Fla., died May 21 in Ash Shura, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms [...]

Here’s my morning sum-up (written, uh, at 7:30 p.m.) of What Happened Yesterday on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I’ll have the text of the Lieberman amendment available for linkage imminently. Until then, I think it’s important to remember two things. First: the press is kind of going nuts with the White House acquiescence on letting [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 429-10 May 24, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Spc. Stanley J. Sokolowski, III, 26, of Ocean, N.J. died May 20 in Kirkuk, Iraq, in a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to Special Troops Battalion, [...]

Because despite every evident intention, this creates a dangerous incentive for security services to harass them or extremists to target them. … General Petraeus’s September order is focused on intelligence gathering — by American troops, foreign businesspeople, academics or others — to identify militants and provide “persistent situational awareness,” while forging ties to local indigenous [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 428-10 May 24, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Jason D. Fingar, 24, of Columbia, Mo., died May 22 in Durai, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his military vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He [...]

Life is weird and unexpected. As I write this, the Red Sox are beating the Rays 6-1. It would be more emotionally satisfying for me to lament the triumphs of the team I find most repellent of all sports franchises. But this is a situation in which my weaker enemy has the upper hand over [...]

Welcome to the Kandahar “rising tide” of security. David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times sits in on a Kandahar city shura and turns in a fantastic piece of reporting. An Army captain expected everyone to talk about governance. Instead, the ten local notables who attended talk about security — which they want, but not [...]

But Gary Schaub Jr. and James Forsyth Jr. are just the nuclear-wonks to put me to the test. They argue that we need a nuclear arsenal of exactly 311 weapons, as opposed to the 4,802 we currently have.