Archive for March, 2012

Rules of engagement are only a small part of battlefield discipline

In January, during the final court-martial arising from the 2005 killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, a Los Angeles Times …

TO NAVY SECRETARY RAY MABUS for ignoring policy and tradition by naming a U.S. warship for former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. The Navy’s one-time taboo against naming ships for living people, generally …

It’s time to improve the service’s foreign-language programs

When I was an Air Force ROTC cadet, we were graced with a guest speaker and alumnus who had been lucky enough to find …

It’s often useful to look around and see how other services approach a problem. Army Maj. Jim Tierney went through the Marine Corps’ Foreign Weapons Instructor Course and emerged with the conviction …

TO THE MILITARY LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY COMMISSION for its women-in-combat-jobs report, which acknowledges that female troops have been serving in harm’s way for years, and recognizes that the military is hurting itself by …

TO DoD FOR INDULGING IN AN OLD HABIT: shifting known, predictable expenses from the base budget to the supplemental fund — er, overseas contingency operations account — to mask the true spending …

How to maintain global power in an age of austerity

The Defense Department faces cuts of at least $465 billion — and maybe twice that staggering sum — over the next decade. …

The Army needs to step up training on foreign arms

It’s time the Army started providing soldiers with formal training on the foreign weapons most commonly used either by the enemy or …

The U.S. must prepare to combat a fusion of terror and crime

On Jan. 16, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a 30-year-old Iranian medical student, was shot and killed while sitting in her car outside …

Retired officers can continue to serve the nation as teachers

In November’s Armed Forces Journal, Chris Rohlfs, in “What academia can do for DoD,” said the Defense Department would do well to …