The last time I heard Gen. David Petraeus, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, talk about Afghanistan, he was endorsing the Karzai government’s efforts to explore negotiations with reconcilable elements of the Taliban. Now the Central Command chief is putting together a massive strategy review for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, [...]
Remember how I said in my piece this morning that the Center for American Progress’s new defense report “largely embraces the tenets about the future of warfare put forth by a rising generation of counterinsurgency theorist-practitioners emerging from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars”? Or how on Tuesday afternoon, I was like, “I have a feeling [...]
In my piece on Friday about Bob Gates’ agenda in the Obama administration, Larry Korb raised the question of what outmoded programs he’s going to ax. After all, anyone can posture about defense reform. Budgetary priorities are where the adults distinguish themselves from the children.
So it’s fortuitous that Julian Barnes — no, not the novelist, [...]
So let’s just say for the sake of argument that you’ve got a military severely overtaxed by multiple combat deployments and practically certain to experience at least some degree of imposed budgetary constraint as the result of economic upheaval. Add to that the pressures of leaving one occupied country over the next three years and [...]
I suppose it’s not really surprising that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — technically a two-year appointment, though frequently re-upp’d — would say nice things on the record about his incoming commander-in-chief, but Karen DeYoung’s Washington Post piece displays a noteworthy calm among the brass about Obama. (I wrote about the difficulties [...]
So later today I’ll have a piece up about Obama’s relationship with the military and the challenges and opportunities it presents. But, like R. Kelly, I want to break you off with a little taste of the remix.
The GOP nominee would send troops to Wall Street, to national forests to protect oil drilling and to Chicago to guard against Obama’s terrorist cronies.

Peter Spiegel has a really good piece in The Los Angeles Times today about Special Forces in the Philippines:
Blink and you’ll miss Secretary of Defense Bob Gates giving the back of his hand to Vice President Dick Cheney during a Q&A session yesterday at the National Defense University:
Q: Captain Stevewright (ph), United States Navy. Do you think that the mid- and long-term economic challenges, domestic economic challenges, will result in significant downward pressure [...]
Just announced by the Pentagon. The following units will head to Iraq beginning this winter: