Outside the Beltway

My latest for The National Interest, “The U.S. Military’s Ethics Crisis,” has posted.

President Obama’s new rules for killing Americans with drones are proving inconvenient.

The US military needs to cull and standardize its bloated award system.

Former SecDef Robert Gates is among those who believes that the Iraq War unduly diverted attention from fighting the War On Terror.

A new book by former SecDef Robert Gates is making political waves in Washington power circles, but will it matter to ordinary Americans?

Nobody gets the airplane they wanted but at least they’re paying more for the one they’re getting.

The New York Times Benghazi report raises as many questions as it purports to answer.

Michelle Howard has become the highest ranking woman in the history of the US Navy–and the US military, period.

Does a determination that NSA data collection practices are likely unconstitutional mean that Edward Snowden’s actions were, in some sense, justified?

The defense authorization law requires the Defense Department to go back to a single camouflage pattern.

Last night, Speaker John Boehner showed that he can beat the Tea Party wing of the Caucus he heads. That has important consequences for the future.

A budget deal has been reached, now it has to get through both Chambers of Congress.

The Justice Department is reportedly not planning to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in connection with the Bradley Manning case.

China sends a message, and the U.S. responds. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

The juxtaposition of two stories in the Marine Times strikes me as odd.

Without hard choices on pay and benefits, the Pentagon will have to make big cuts in readiness.

For some same-sex couples with a military spouse, living together on base is proving difficult to implement quickly.

Fifty years after the Stand in the Schoolhouse door, there’s another standoff with recalcitrant states on civil rights.

A Pentagon Equal Opportunity training manual points out the obvious.

NSA Director General Keith Alexander really doesn’t like the idea of a free press.

My latest for The National Interest, “The Military and the Shutdown: Assessing the Damage,” is out.

90 percent of DoD civilians will go back to work soon. What message does that send?

The Pentagon is recalling up to 300,000 furloughed civilian employees on the same day that Congress voted to pay all furloughed employees when the government reopens.

The Defense Department might open for business while the rest of government remains shut down.

The NFL donates its game broadcasts to troops deployed in harm’s way but they still won’t get to see them during the shutdown.

Air Force lieutenant colonel (designate) Erik Brine is so unessential that it hurts.

Tom Clancy, author of dozens of bestselling military thriller novels, has died aged 66.

A shooting interrupts Washington D.C.’s Monday morning.

“No More Baby Steps,” my first piece for Defense News, has posted.

f Assad is eating Cheerios, we’re going to take away his spoon and give him a fork.

Is U.S. planning against Syria moving beyond just chemical weapons?

We’re almost certainly going to launch punitive strikes against Syria. They’ll almost certainly be ineffective.

Western military action in the Syrian civil war now appears likely.

As President Obama’s red line has been crossed more brazenly, he continues to sound reluctant to intervene in Syria while positioning forces to do just that.

Bradley Manning’s announcement that she wishes to begin living life as a woman poses some interesting legal questions.

The Army and Navy are finally doing something about brass bloat.

There’s a hearing at Gitmo so secret that even the people having the hearing aren’t allowed to know what it’s about.

Andrew Bacevich argues, persuasively, that “absence of leverage does not preclude options” with respect to Egypt.

Sailors will now be required to wait until 9 am to buy booze.

Until this year, being gay could get you kicked out of the military. Now, it comes with perks.

The Pentagon is considering doing away with two combatant commands—and no longer calling them combatant commands.

One of the nation’s papers of record is changing owners for the first time in 80 years.

The Pentagon is considering making military retirees ineligible for civil service pensions.

The Defense Department would like to get a handle on how it spends its money by 2017 but the Navy won’t go along.