Outside the Beltway

Rick Perry’s speech criticizing the President’s policies in the Middle East raised more questions than it answered.

The FBI has been using some odd materials to train its counterterrorism agents.

More pay for play at the White House?

Measuring our progress a decade after the 9/11 attacks

The Solyndra case is a classic example of what’s wrong with “government investment.”

DARPA has a revolving door that doesn’t revolve.

The defense spending lobby is already engaging in fear-mongering over very modest defense cuts.

The Defense Business Board wants to do away with the pension at 20 years.

A legendary American soldier, General John Shalikashvili, has died.

The ban on gays openly serving in the military will end in September, nine months after President Obama signed the repeal into law.

Can gay soldiers now get married and receive the same federal benefits as heterosexuals?

Pawlenty proposes the “Google test.”

Herman Cain says he wouldn’t sign any bill longer than three pages. It’s a line that will get him applause, but it’s totally impractical.

The selection process for the Joint Chiefs has been most odd.

Technology has saved the lives of countless American soldiers. But it’s made going to war easier.

The Navy is considering allowing its chaplains to perform same-sex marriages once “Dont ask, Don’t tell” ends.

The Pentagon is frustrated that the Obama administration doesn’t “seem to understand what military force can and cannot do.”

A Pentagon investigation was unable to verify some of the comments attributed to General Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone last year. That doesn’t mean he’s been cleared, though.

It may be time to change rules keeping women out of combat roles. But “fairness” isn’t the right question.

For the past day or so, America’s fighting men have been pawns in a cynical political game.

A government shutdown is not just a hypothetical in a debating contest. It will affect real people.

There are still three days left, but it’s looking less and less likely that a budget deal will be reached in time to avoid a government shutdown.

Department of Defense (DOD) employees moving into a new building this fall may start their days walking past a sculpture of a toad with a ten-foot fairy on its back.

Politico’s Matt Wuerker illustrates the funding disparity between the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Did President Obama pull off a diplomatic masterstroke? Or is he muddling through?

Yes, bureaucracies can be annoying, but they are also vital for modern society.

Several “correct” answers on the American citizenship test are technically incorrect.

LTC Michael Holmes, the fellow who accused LTG William Caldwell of ordering him to perform psychological operations on Members of Congress, is not trained in psyops.

The lawyer who argued The Pentagon Papers case points out how Julian Assange is not Daniel Ellsberg, and how prosecuting him could have disastrous results for press freedom in the United States.

Now that gays will be allowed to serve openly in the military, the command will have some new issues to address.

One of the most active American diplomats of the past twenty-five years has passed away.

Despite the Defense Department releasing its study showing that the effects of allowing gays to serve openly would be minimal, Senator John McCain isn’t convinced.

President Obama’s plan to free federal employee pay is getting praised by Republicans but is wildly unpopular among progressive activists.