Archive for November, 2010

New doctrine and aircraft are needed for COIN warfare

When Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal took command of Afghanistan, one of his first orders severely restricted the use of fixed-wing strike assets in …

TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION for its confused and confusing response to court actions overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

After California District Court Judge Virginia Phillips overturned the ban on gays serving openly …

U.S. efforts focus too much on Kabul and too little on potential rivals

Much of the U.S. government’s approach to dealing with Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been uneven, often moving between …

TO THE AIR FORCE for spending $400,000 and taking eight months to come up with a new motto that’s really just two recruiting slogans slapped together.

“Aim High … Fly-Fight-Win” is hardly …

In “Robot Revolution,” [July/Aug AFJ] Col. Christopher Carlile and Lt. Col. Glenn Rizzi write, “The bad autonomy is the type where robotics begins to make life-or-death decisions. … How much self-sufficiency or …

Lt. Cmdr. Perry Solomon, [“Hovering at a precipice”, July/Aug AFJ] missed the mark in his criticism of the Marine Corps’ all-in selection of the F-35B STOVL as being unnecessary and the wrong …

Afghanistan Study Group report falls short

If councils of war can breed timidity, councils of scholars and pundits can generate fog. The unofficial Afghanistan Study Group brought together a group of great …

America consumes more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but has less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. The Defense Department spends approximately $20 billion — and the overall …

To guarantee that we can fuel the armed forces for tomorrow’s challenges, the Defense Department must design a strategy now to ensure that it can operate all of its systems on nonpetroleum …

Strategic deterrence is different in the 21st century

Strategic deterrence has traditionally been associated with a nation’s fear of retribution for its errant acts, (especially those involving nuclear weapons) and is seen …