DOD

Has the Department of Defense finally gotten it right with respect to the Fort Hood Shooting? In January, you may recall, the DoD released a pathetic whitewash of the events of November 5, 2009. The report ("Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood") said nothing of consequence about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, what led him to open fire on his fellow Americans (e.g., his radical jihadist beliefs), or the many warning signs the DoD and others missed.  The report did not even mention the fact that Hasan had been in contact with a known al Qaeda cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, who has repeatedly called on Muslims serving in America and elsewhere to turn on their “infidel” compatriots.

With healthcare reform behind him, President Obama has turned his attention to what is perhaps his number one foreign policy priority: nuclear disarmament. On April 6, the Obama administration released a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report, outlining U.S. nuclear weapons strategy. The NPR is not the dramatic document that some on the left had hoped for, but in a sop to Obama's base, does revise U.S. declaratory policy to limit the instances in which the United States will use nuclear weapons. The NPR also fails to outline a clear path to warhead modernization, something that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said is essential to ensuring the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile in the coming decades.

The Obama administration was never much bothered by the fact that a NATO ally, France, is selling offensive weapons to a NATO adversary, Russia. Never mind that Russia remains in clear violation of the French-brokered cease-fire to the 2008 war in Georgia – after all, if that doesn’t bother the French, why should it bother us? This administration has made clear that Georgia, and America’s other allies in Eastern Europe (the Czechs and the Poles in particular), will be sacrificed on the altar of ‘reset’ if necessary. Still, as the Obama administration has learned over the last year, dealing with the Russians is a tricky business – you never have a deal until you have a deal, and even then you may not have a deal.

One of the most dangerous aspects of today's nuclear debate is the deeply skewed ratio of fact versus opinion. Disarmament advocates, many with a poor understanding of nuclear game theory, operational concepts, even basic weapon capabilities, too often posture themselves as experts in a debate that's clearly over their heads.

To date, President Obama's nominations to key defense postings have been mostly pragmatic, starting at the top with the retention of Secretary Gates. However, in the instance of Philip Coyle -- nominated to fill the associate director of national security and international affairs spot in the Office of Science and Technology Policy-- the administration whiffed. Coyle, a long time opponent of ballistic missile defense (dating back to Reagan's SDI days), is an ideologue whose appointment could prove harmful to U.S. security. 

Bill Sweetman, the veritable godfather of aviation reporting, has an interesting story up on efforts to push the Joint Strike Fighter out the door on time.

If February was a bad news month for the Joint Strike Fighter, with the program boss fired, a 13-month delay in test and a two-year slip in Air Force initial operational capability, look out for March. A Government Accountability Office report is rolling down the tracks, along with a Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) which, as we told you in Defense Technology International a month ago, is almost certainly going to record a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach...

Last week was a big one for nuclear news.  First, the Obama administration submitted its proposed budget for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (that’s the agency that, among other things, maintains our warheads).  Second, an unnamed administration official announced an “agreement in principle” with the Russians for the START follow-on treaty. 

These two things are connected beyond the obvious point of contact.  The former is meant to be a down payment on the latter.  The administration has been put on notice that it faces substantial opposition in the Senate, not only to the ratification of this new treaty (whatever it ends up being called), but to its other arms control priorities as well.  The price, say a coalition of 41 mostly (but not entirely) Republican senators, is a serious commitment to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

In the cover story in the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Walter Russell Mead argues that Barack Obama’s foreign policy should be understood as a channeling of Thomas Jefferson via Jimmy Carter. The cover picture makes the point more bluntly. It shows two men linked by a boldface equals sign: Barack Obama = Jimmy Carter.

According to a draft copy of the Quadrennial Defense Review, DoD wonks are planning to mold an already over-tasked military to meet rising challenges associated with global warming climate change.

Consider how drastically the Pentagon has been forced to adapt since the end of the Cold War. Forces have shifted from hulking divisions pointed at the Fulda Gap to a lighter, stability and stabilization model. They've had to adapt to a rising role in humanitarian relief efforts, most evident during Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and now in Haiti. Further, the Armed Forces experienced a volatile 1990s, as the Clinton administration's various social experimentations with military culture dislodged 200 years of tradition and courtesies. All this while they've suffered through two decades of unchecked defense cuts, leaving our men and women in uniform with triple the number of missions with a fraction of the resources.