james cartwright

Chances are President Obama will announce a readjusted Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s very likely that strategy announcement will come paired with an announcement of a troop escalation. Before that happens, however, Obama will host one last all-hands-on-deck meeting with his national security team. Just added to the White House calendar is [...]

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told our own Dave Weigel that “those in the Pentagon who do answer to the commander in chief and have to answer for his policy decisions” aren’t “at a point of liberty where they can speak their minds” on the overhauled missile defense system. That sounded a lot like Huckabee [...]

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the defense budget, here’s the showdown you’ve been waiting for: Defense Secretary Bob Gates, who cut er, “completed” the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet order at 187 planes, versus Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a staunch advocate for the F-22, which is partially manufactured in his state. Chambliss [...]

The newest Website to terrify you into resisting Defense Secretary Bob Gates’ defense reorganizations: 33 Minutes, a missile-defense booster site set up recently by the Heritage Foundation, complete with documentary. The film’s trailer makes the following claim: “The longest times are typically around 30 to 33, 34 minutes, and that would be for a long-range [...]

Brian Beutler continues to bird-dog the “Obama is cutting spending” meme that’s both untrue and useful for rolling back Defense Secretary Bob Gates’ reforms. Here’s what Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told me yesterday (again):
“These are not cuts. This is a reshaping of our basic capability, and the capability [...]

Some more good stuff from yesterday’s conference call with Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Gen. James Cartwright, the Joint Chiefs vice chairman. Noah Shachtman from Danger Room asked a passel of good questions about why the new defense budget keeps certain troubled or criticized programs and cuts others, and in answering that, Cartwright made an [...]

I note without (much) comment the participants on today’s conference call with ” Internet national security writers” and Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Gen. James Cartwright, which I for one greatly appreciated:
Me
Wired’s Noah Shachtman
Politico’s David Cloud
Slate’s Fred Kaplan
CFR/Commentary’s Max Boot
American University’s Gordon Adams
The Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Matthew Yglesias
Interesting mix there. I would [...]

Pentagon chief Bob Gates and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, held a conference call to talk about their defense budget reforms. I asked whether and how they had secured consensus from the service chiefs for reductions or cancellations of programs that some of them had seriously desired.
Gates conceded [...]