By the time you read this, Gen. Stanley McChrystal may very well have lost his command in Afghanistan. McChrystal is headed to a White House Situation Room meeting with President Obama on Wednesday; Time’s Joe Klein reported Tuesday afternoon that the general offered to resign after making disrespectful comments More…
Almost as soon as Gen. McChrystal’s Rolling Stone comments went into the internet ether, speculation started about a replacement as commander of the Afghanistan war. And quickly there came, in email debates and blog posts and on Twitter, a frontrunner, at least in the minds of wags, speculators and analysts: More…
So the rumors were true. Moments ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates officially announced that Marine Gen. James Amos, the assistant commandant, will replace the retiring Gen. James Conway as the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Amos is the first aviator to lead the corps, and was a leading More…
Check out this bit of inside baseball in this excellent Greg Jaffe piece about gay servicemembers waiting patiently for a final and to-be-determined end to the military’s ban on open gay service:
Even President Obama, set to name a new Marine Corps commandant in the coming weeks, is likely to
What was reported a few months ago is now official: Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, will head up the Joint Forces Command, pending (a certain) Senate confirmation. In the language of JFCOM’s press release, Odierno will “oversee UFJFCOM’s roles in joint concept development and More…
About a week ago, I speculated on Gen. James Mattis’ future in the military, now that Gen. Ray Odierno is set to take over for him at Joint Forces Command. Mattis is a four-star Marine general. He’s leaving a major command. The military is an up-and-out system — you More…
The AP reports that Gen. Ray Odierno, who’s been commanding U.S. Forces-Iraq since mid-2008, when it was called Multinational Force-Iraq, will be succeeded by Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, who used to helm the corps-level command in that war. Odierno will go to the Joint Forces Command, the equivalent More…
My pseudonymous friend Charlie has been AWOL from her perch at Abu Muqawama for so long that I thought Undersecretary of Defense for Policy-designate Michele Flournoy might have offered her a job. Alas, she’s just had to endure an extended jury duty stint, but now she’s sort-of back, and More…
rss