Kyle Mizokami, “The Independent Air Force Is a Mistake,” War is Boring
… In Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force, Farley argues that the Air Force is redundant. And, he claims, its existence actually hurts American national security.
Now, Farley doesn’t suggest getting rid of air power. Instead, he recommends the Pentagon dismantle the Air Force and hand its missions—and aircraft—over to the Army and Navy. …
Continue reading
Micah Zenko, “The True Forever War,” 24 January 2014, Foreign Policy
Technology, not policy, will make it easier for U.S. leaders to kill people, blow things up, and disrupt computer networks around the world.
… Many correctly highlight that the AUMF does not reflect the scope of the conflict that the United States is now engaged in, and that its elasticity assures that America will remain on a war footing in perpetuity. However, those concerned with the prospects of a “forever war” should be concerned less about the irrelevant post-9/11 legislative mandate, and more about the revolutionary expansion of military assets that have been made available to the president since then. These technologies and processes that have reduced the costs and risks of using force have permanently changed how Americans conceive of military operations. As killing people, blowing things up, and disrupting computer networks will only get easier, it is worthwhile to take stock of where we are today.
Continue reading
Eduardo Porter, “A Relentless Widening of Disparity in Wealth,” 11 March 2014,
Source: “Capital in the 21st Century,” by Thomas Piketty.
Tom Ackerman, “The Pentagon’s war on words,” 12 March 2014, Al Jazeera English
He calls the treatment of hunger-striking prisoners at Guantanamo “force-feeding”.
But in a just declassified Pentagon document, many of the detainees are described as engaging in “long term non-religious fasting”.
It’s the latest linguistic leavening from the US Department of Defence, a title in itself emblematic of the culture of euphemism at an agency that for 150 years proudly called itself the Department of War. …
Continue reading
Robert Windrem, “Japan Has Nuclear ‘Bomb in the Basement,’ and China Isn’t Happy,” 12 March 2014, NBC News
… But government officials and proliferation experts say Japan is happy to let neighbors like China and North Korea believe it is part of the nuclear club, because it has a “bomb in the basement” -– the material and the means to produce nuclear weapons within six months, according to some estimates. And with tensions rising in the region, China’s belief in the “bomb in the basement” is strong enough that it has demanded Japan get rid of its massive stockpile of plutonium and drop plans to open a new breeder reactor this fall. …
Continue reading
“Worldwide, Many See Belief in God as Essential to Morality,” 13 March 2014, Pew Research Center
Lee Fang, “Where Have All the Lobbyists Gone?,” 19 February 2014, The Nation
Ukraine is now divided and Russia has occupied Crimea. The following information and analyses were quite helpful for me to understand the situation and shape my thoughts.
Continue reading
Bill Moyers, “The Surrender of America’s Liberals,” Moyers & Company, 25 February 2014
Yuri Skidanov, “240 Wars in 237 Years: USA Wages War More Often than Just Annually,” RINF Alternative News, 21 January 2014
The United States, an example of public and social order for the countries of the “golden billion,” has a unique history. In the 237 years of its existence, it has been either at war, or preparing for a new attack, looking for victims. During the period from 1798 to 2012 Washington used military force abroad 240 times, more frequently than annually.
Continue reading
Pat Garofalo, “The F-35: Mo’ Money, Fewer Jobs,” U.S. News & World Report , 23 January 2014
If there were a Congressional Boondoggle Hall of Fame, the F-35 fighter jet program would surely merit entry. Officially the most expensive weapons system in history, the cost of manufacturing the jets has increased a whopping 75 percent from its original estimate, and is now closing in on $400 billion. Over its lifetime, the F-35 program is expected to cost U.S. taxpayers $1.5 trillion, between construction and maintenance of the jets, if they ever all materialize.
Oh, and did I mention that the plane doesn’t really work?
Continue reading
“Bombs away: Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter can’t escape software problems,” RT, 24 January 2014
The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, Michael Gilmore, provided an in-depth look at the F-35’s technical features, emphasizing what he calls the “unacceptable” characteristics of the aircraft’s software, according to a draft obtained by Reuters. …
Continue reading
John Feffer, “The Sun Also Rises: Resisting Militarism in Japan,” Truthout, 20 January 2014
… Japan’s current prime minister, however, is not big on apologies. Shinzo Abe is a right-wing nationalist who wants to revive Japan as a “normal” military power. He has been brusque in his rhetoric and his actions. At the end of December, his government announced a major increase in military spending of 5 percent over the next five years, which will include purchases of 28 U.S. F-35s and two Aegis-equipped destroyers. Japan under Abe has more aggressively asserted sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands that China also claims, pledging to use force against Chinese patrols and rejecting any compromise on the islands’ status. On the home front, his administration has pushed through textbook revisions that offer the same airbrushed treatment of Japanese history that the Yushukan displays. …
Continue reading
Robert Burns, “When do nuclear missteps put security in jeopardy?,” AP, 18 January 2014
The disclosures of disturbing behavior by nuclear missile officers are mounting and now include alleged drug use and exam cheating. Yet Air Force leaders insist the trouble is episodic, correctible and not cause for public worry. …
Continue reading
Dinah Walker, “Trends in U.S. Military Spending,” Council on Foreign Relations, 30 July 2013
The following charts present historical trends in U.S. military spending and analyze the forces that may drive it lower.
These charts draw on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Both data sets include spending on overseas contingency operations as well as defense. This distinguishes them from data used in the U.S. budget, which separates defense spending from spending on overseas operations.
Download Trends in US Military Spending 2013 [pdf].
Dylan Matthews, “Defense spending in the U.S., in four charts,” The Washington Post, 28 August 2012
Source: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
Continue reading
Brad Plumer, “America’s staggering defense budget, in charts,” The Washington Post, 7 January 2013
The United States spends far more than any other country on defense and security. Since 2001, the base defense budget has soared from $287 billion to $530 billion — and that’s before accounting for the primary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
1) The United States spent 20 percent of the federal budget on defense in 2011.
Timothy McGrath, “7 incredible ways the Pentagon mismanages its massive budget,” GlobalPost, 19 November 2013
In November, Reuters published the second part of its series on the Pentagon’s management (or lack thereof) of its $565.8 billion budget. And it’s a doozy. …
1) The Pentagon cooks the books
The agency in charge of the Pentagon’s accounting is called the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). It seems that a lot of what they do is make things up. The official mechanism for making things up is called an “unsubstantiated change action,” more commonly known as a “plug.” …
2) Those “plugs” add up to a lot of money
Continue reading
Jonathan Turley, “Big money behind war: the military-industrial complex,” Al Jazeera, 11 January 2014
Eisenhower warned that “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” had emerged as a hidden force in US politics and that Americans “must not fail to comprehend its grave implications”. The speech may have been Eisenhower’s most courageous and prophetic moment. Fifty years and some later, Americans find themselves in what seems like perpetual war. No sooner do we draw down on operations in Iraq than leaders demand an intervention in Libya or Syria or Iran. While perpetual war constitutes perpetual losses for families, and ever expanding budgets, it also represents perpetual profits for a new and larger complex of business and government interests.
Continue reading
Jacob Kushner, “China’s Congo Plan,” The American Interest, 10 January 2014
The Chinese are by no means the world’s first to seek their fortunes in Congo. But unlike the Western powers whose legacy is burdened to this day by colonialism, China’s footprints in Africa have been relatively “conflict-free.” During the first decade of the 21st century, at least 230,000 Chinese immigrated to Africa—as many as one million by some estimates. They opened import businesses, electronics shops, pharmacies and restaurants. Chinese trade with Africa blossomed, and China began looking for ways to help some of its state-owned companies to do more business across the continent than ever before. Two Chinese state banks began loaning money to companies willing to make bold investments. China’s Export-Import Bank, the smaller of the two, now provides more loans to sub-Saharan Africa than the World Bank, loans increasingly used to develop African infrastructure. By 2006, Chinese companies were investing more than $6 billion per year in roads, railways and other public infrastructure projects across Africa. By 2015, the figure is expected reach $50 billion. …
Continue reading
Tipping Point North South 