Outside the Beltway

A truly weird story.

The NYT goes too far but not far enough.

A brilliant national security leader is gone too soon.

The Vietnam War hero and one-term Georgia Senator has died at 79.

Discussing the filibuster.

On the op/ed page of WaPo, the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense say things that shouldn’t have to be said.

Maybe it’s not going to be Michèle Flournoy after all.

Mark Esper has been confirmed and sworn in as the next Secretary of Defense, ending a period of nearly 100 days during which the Pentagon was headed by a succession of Acting Secretaries.

Just days after being named the next Acting Secretary of Defense, the President is appointing Mark Esper to be full Secretary of Defense.

Patrick Shanahan is out as nominee to be Secretary of Defense after questions were raised during his background investigation.

In what was basically a throwaway line, Joe Biden said something nice about Mike Pence. The reaction from his fellow Democrats says a lot about our current political culture, and none of it is good.

A bipartisan group of foreign policy luminaries says there is no factual basis for President Trump’s claim.

Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema will end up representing Arizona in the Senate together.

Michelle Obama can’t forgive Donald Trump for his role in spreading the racist birther conspiracy. I can’t say I blame her.

My latest for The National Interest has posted.

Americans support allowing Dreamers to stay in the country, and most of them also support allowing them to eventually become citizens.

In the immortal words of the Fonz, I was wr-wr-wr-wr . . . not exactly right.

Pressure is building on the Administration to send military aid to Ukraine, but it would be a very bad idea.

Some are criticizing the President for not going to Paris for yesterday’s rally.

The Army’s investigation of the disappearance five years ago of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been referred to a top General, who will decide if a court martial should be convened.

The abrupt departure of Chuck Hagel says much more about Administration policy than it does about Chuck Hagel.

A surprising change at the top of the military’s civilian chain of command.

Mission creep.

We’ve become aware of failures in how we’ve handled the Ebola situation. The response is to figure out what went wrong and do our best to fix it, not to panic.

A new report from the New York Times confirms the adage that, in war, the first casualty is the truth.

President Obama is still insisting that his war against ISIS will not require American ground troops. He’s not being honest with the American people.

As talk begins of expanding the war against ISIS into Syria, it is becoming long past time for Congress to exercise its Constitutional function.

President Obama doesn’t seem to have any idea what he wants to do in Iraq.

And odd report from Washington Post and Stars and Stripes.

My latest for War on the Rocks, “HAGEL: CLIMBING OUT FROM UNDER THE BUS,” has posted.

It’s good that Bowe Bergdahl is free, but questions remain about how he went missing that need to be answered.

It appears what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.

Barack Obama is no Jimmy Carter.

Russian invasion or legitimate secessionist movement? And does it matter?

My latest for The National Interest, “Hagel’s Defense Cuts: The Least Bad Choice,” is out.

Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a new security agreement may result in all U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Poking the eye of the institution that passes your budget is a bold choice.

Former Utah governor and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman succeeds Chuck Hagel.

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

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.