Yesterday I took a break from watching the Winter Olympics to read press accounts of a couple of Soviet Union ballistic missile tests conducted in the fall of 1987. According to a report in the October 2, 1987 Washington Post, the warheads of one of the missiles fell into the Pacific Ocean “about 500 miles […]
Last night I saw something I never thought I’d see, a televised war game. Last week a DC think tank, The Bipartisan Policy Center, staged a war game with former members of government simulating the President’s staff dealing with a massive cyber attack against the United States. CNN taped it and is televising it this […]
Last week I blogged about the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR); I thought this week I’d take a look at the Intelligence Community’s annual threat assessment. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair presented the report before Congress on February 2. I found it interesting that in spite of the spotlight focused on the […]
Last week there were two major events coming out of the Defense Department, the release of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and a recommendation by both the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy be repealed allowing gay men and lesbians to serve […]
Over the weekend several newspapers ran articles on U.S. efforts to accelerate deployment of missile defenses in the Persian Gulf region. According to the New York Times, the U.S. is providing 2 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) batteries each to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman. The U.S. is also maintaining a constant presence […]
Topic: Just a Typical Week in the World of Defense Issues Last week was interesting but pretty typical for those involved with monitoring national security issues. Osama Bin Laden crawled out from under whatever rock he’s been hiding under and claimed responsibility for the failed attack on Flight 253 on Christmas Day. While speaking […]
Reflections of a Retired Baby Boomer Topic: Haiti: U.S. Military Contributions While watching the excellent media coverage of the Haitian earthquake last night, I noticed that many people are beginning to wonder why it was taking so long for U.S. military units and other nations and relief groups involved in the effort to […]
Reflections of a retired Baby Boomer Topic: Obama and the Intelligence Community On Thursday, President Obama and his staff discussed the findings of their internal review of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack. They concluded there was not a failure to share information such as was seen in the pre 9/11 days; but […]
Note: I wrote this opinion piece last week but was unable to load on the web site due to problems with my travel computer. Reflections of a retired Baby Boomer Topic: Pregnant Soldiers When I woke up the day after Christmas and checked the morning news, I was very happy to hear, […]
Reflections of a retired Baby Boomer Topic: Flight 253, Intelligence Failure? In the aftermath of the recent failed Christmas day terrorist attack by a young Nigerian man, the airwaves and print media are once again filled with cries of “intelligence failure”. As I watched the talking heads give their “expert” analysis of […]
GailForce Reflections of a retired Baby Boomer On December 16, two days before scheduled UN talks on its nuclear program, and in a not so subtle warning to the U.S. and its allies, Iran test fired, the Sajjil-2, the latest variant of their ongoing missile development program. The missile is powered by solid […]
Over the course of its history, the U.S. Army has been called many things, but “democractic” is certainly not one of them. That however, maybe be changing. The NY Times reported over the weekend about a radical new approach the Army is taking to the writting of its manuals, which serve as the the basis […]
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