Outside the Beltway

Did sending some of its workforce home without pay impact the work environment at the Defense Department? Duh.

Ahmed Abu Kattalah, the alleged ringleader of the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, has been arrested.

The Iraqi government seems to be panicking.

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

Once again, President Obama’s attempt to communicate a foreign policy vision falls short.

James Oliphant asks, “Why Hasn’t the GOP Treated Fort Hood Like Benghazi?”

Bureaucracy at its finest.

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

Thanks to Edward Snowden, the Washington Post and the Guardian are Pulitzer Prize winners.

Yesterday afternoon’s shooting spree at Fort Hood appears to be a related to post-traumatic stress.

The DOD says Walmart was violating its trademarks.

The Pentagon wants to continue receiving special war funding well into peacetime.

Barack Obama is no Jimmy Carter.

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.

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.