Outside the Beltway

CIA director Panetta to take over Pentagon; Petraeus to be nominated for CIA

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.

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

Paul Ryan unveiled an ambitious plan to cut the deficit today. The question is whether it will be the beginning of a debate, or an opportunity for Democratic demagoguery

The antiwar movement has been strangely silent despite the fact that U.S. foreign policy hasn’t really changed that much since Barack Obama became President.

America is about to enter a third war in the Muslim world with no clear idea of the end game.

With minor exceptions, all of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 seem to have accepted the idea that defense spending, and the Bush-era interventionist foreign policy, are off the table when it comes time to talk spending cuts.

The saga of accused Wikileaks conspirator Bradley Manning continues to get uglier, with the military acknowledging that he was forced to spend the day naked for, well, no apparent reason.

Pfc. Bradley Manning faces twenty-two new charges, including one that could put him before a firing squad, but investigators still can’t prove any direct links between him and Wikileaks.

The most likely cuts in federal spending are likely to actually increase the deficit over time.

The last American veteran of a conflict which ended nearly a century ago has died.

Did a unit in Afghanistan engage in an IO operation against U. S. senators?

Democratic Congresswoman Betty McCollum has received death threats after questioning the wisdom of the U.S. Army sponsoring a NASCAR Sprint Cup team to the tune of $7 million a year.

Thanks to the help of a group of Tea Party Freshman in the House. Congress has finally cut off funding for a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that the Pentagon never wanted.

How do the DC suburbs of Maryland and Virginia compare?

The post-Sputnik innovation wave was sparked by government investment, not the entrepreneurial spirit.

The GOP is facing a battle between its fiscal conservatism and i’s military adventurism.

State and AID budgets are a rounding error in the Defense budget.

Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

We won’t be able to solve our fiscal problems until the American people grow up. So far, there are no signs of that happening.

Yet more ridiculous political commentary arising out of the tragic shootings in Arizona.

The American military personnel system works against keeping the best and brightest officers in the service.

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.