People always talk about The Washington Post’s Bob Kagan as the smart Kagan child, but even if his brother wasn’t Fred Kagan, this column would still be pretty egregious. It begins with the false premise that President Obama is going to cut defense spending and then proceeds to More…
Lara Jakes buries the lead in her story about all the money ex-Raytheon lobbyist Bill Lynn will make if he sells his company stock to take the No. 2 spot at the Pentagon:
Testifying before the Senate panel Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said stringent ethics rules are a
There are lots of things for Defense Secretary Bob Gates to tell the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning during his first round of testimony as President Obama’s Pentagon chief. What’s up with the Iraq troop drawdown and the Afghanistan strategy reviews? How can the United States responsibly More…
A trusted defense source emails me a report from the subscription-only Inside The Pentagon newsletter that seems to herald the first defense-budget chicanery of the Obama administration. The piece, by Christopher J. Castelli, is about how the services are starting to think that the forthcoming Fiscal Year 2010 defense budget, More…
Bill Gertz has kind of a breathless piece in today’s Washington Times about how Defense Secretary Bob Gates is asking many of the Pentagon’s political appointees to remain in their posts. Until such time, that is, as Barack Obama’s Pentagon transition team and defense aides replace them. See why More…
Chalk up another win for the counterinsurgents. The Washington Post reports today that one of the final acts of the Bush-era Gates Pentagon (as opposed to the Obama-era Gates Pentagon) is to elevate irregular warfare — stability operations, counterinsurgency, all that asymmetrical stuff that isn’t two mechanized armies clobbering More…
Clearing the way for an Obamanik, Gordon England, the deputy secretary of defense since 2005, is on his way out. From the official Pentagon announcement:
When last we left the question of who would staff a Gates Pentagon — GOP appointees or Obama’s people? — it looked pretty much like Obama would put his team in at the sub-cabinet level. Trusted defense adviser Richard Danzig would get the deputy secretary position and probably More…
I ask, Mike Allen answers. So long, Eric Edelman:
EXCLUSIVE: Secretary Gates’ deputy at the Pentagon is slated to be Richard Danzig, who was Navy secretary under President Clinton. The #3 (policy) will PROBABLY be Michelle Flournoy, a Clinton administration veteran who was dual-hatted as principal deputy assistant
With much of President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet still unnamed, it’s understandable that speculation should focus on who helms the different agencies. After all, running cabinet departments is a big job, and the personalities Obama has nominated so far — New York Fed President Timothy Geithner, for instance — are politically More…
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