Archive for May, 2012

Curing military health care

From 2000 to 2010, the Defense Department’s health care costs rose from $17.8 billion to $43.5 billion — growing more than twice as fast as economywide medical inflation. As a share of …

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Don’t promote mediocrity

Today’s best junior officers, those with high talent and a strong calling to service, should become the admirals and generals who testify before Congress and serve as Joint Chiefs in 20 years. …

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Analyzing Afghanistan

The recent article by Lt. Col. Daniel Davis (“Truth, Lies and Afghanistan,” February), as well as Douglas Wissing’s article in Foreign Policy (“The Juice Ain’t Worth the Squeeze,” Feb. 23), provide interesting …

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The ‘Ocean’s 11’ of cyber strikes

Advanced persistent threats are rare, but sophisticated

There is perhaps no contemporary security policy issue that is as important, but so poorly understood, as cybersecurity. A major part of the problem is …

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The case for a stealthy airlifter

Current aircraft can’t handle the toughest SOF missions

As the Defense Department anticipates the changing face of warfare over the next several decades, the special operations community must ask itself what single …

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Air-Sea Battle: Clearing the Fog

The goal is to ensure all forces can get to the fight

Recent articles about Air-Sea Battle reflect misperceptions about this new operational concept. These may have been fostered by the fact …

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Secret weapons & cyberwar

or most people, the phrase “secret weapon” usually brings to mind some state-of-the-art gadget that wowed them in the last James Bond movie. In fact, the United States and other nations have …

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Budget triage

To Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the rest of the Pentagon budgeteers, who are at last taking steps to bring DoD’s health care spending under control.

The provisions advanced in the 2013 …

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Reforms don’t go far enough

Ordered to reduce spending by $487 billion over the next decade, the Defense Department responded with a 2013 budget proposal that would lower end strength, kill acquisition programs and adjust force postures. …

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In this Issue: May 2012

DoD’s annual spending is coming down, but the share spent on military compensation is not. Thanks largely to policies set by Congress, the amount the Pentagon spends on pay, health care and …

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