BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — You know what we’ve never had in Afghanistan? What ISAF has never claimed? What has never been the overriding metric here? That it’s sufficient to reduce ISAF-caused civilian casualties in the war. For one simple reason: it’s not! If you were Afghan, and the U.N. had just found that civilian [...]

Rarely has it been so eloquently put: I have created a heterosexual dating history to recite to fellow cadets when they inquire. I have endured unwanted approaches by male cadets for fear of being accused as a lesbian by rejecting or reporting these events. I have been coerced into ignoring derogatory comments towards homosexuals for [...]

Best news from Gates’ presser yesterday, as far as I’m concerned: Q     You’re not exactly working yourself out of a job by coming up with all of these initiatives.  Have you made a decision about how long you’re going to stay?  Because I think publicly you’re still only committed to the end of this year. [...]

If there’s one thing we Americans understand all too well, it’s that you don’t want to be a little guy, all alone in a rough neighborhood. Everybody wants your fealty and your support – the gangs, the outlaws, the cops, the clerics, the teachers and the mob. Because you’re small, and all alone, you have [...]

(Karaka beat me to this, but I still want to expand on it.) Today the Pentagon announced that it was eliminating the Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk. This is billed as a cost-saving measure. It certainly won’t be the last, as Gates looks to trim the massive defense budget. Gates gave a press briefing [...]

On August 1st, the Convention on Cluster Munitions went into force, with 108 nations as signatories and 38 that have completed ratification. Just as was the case with the Ottawa Treaty on Landmines, the US, out of excessive caution driven by military pragmatism, chose not to sign the treaty. A question well worth asking, however, [...]

When I was in the Navy, I loved me some TOP GUN, even though (or perhaps because) that movie was gay as all get-up. I even had me a call sign: At first, as the soberest guy in the unit, the one who always walked or drove the drunken shipmates back in time for taps, [...]

Speaking of the recession and Department of Defense, Secretary Robert Gates is just wrapping up a statement at the Pentagon dropping the news that (among other things) JFCOM is going the way of the dodo, along with a substantial number of defense contracts and contracting jobs. I have to say, I admire Gates for taking [...]

Here’s something I’ve been puzzling over. Five years ago, the U.S. military was having trouble meeting its recruitment quotas. In 2005, the GAO reported that “three of the eight active and reserve components missed their goals.” In 2006, the Army considered expanding the number of non-citizens who could serve in order to meet its goals. [...]

The Iraqis held their national election in March. None of the parties participating in that election came close to winning it outright, so it fell to the winner, Allawi’s Iraqiya Party and the powerful sitting Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki, to come together to form some kind of coalition government, an outcome not at all [...]