Will the Army and Marines take a big hit once the United States wiggles out of Iraq and Afghanistan? And after exiting, will the U.S. military continue on the road away from Fulda Gap and toward Tora Bora? These are some of the questions our Jeff Shear asked recently in pieces likes “An Army of Change” and “No Way Out: Exiting Afghanistan and Iraq,” and the dawn of 2012 provided crystal-clear answers as the Obama administration outlined the new, less-expensive look for defense, complete with sops toward soft power and development projects as well as hardware and troops. In a ... Read More
The Last Word on Wartime Contractors?
November 15, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
At the end of September, after three years of hearings, reports and deliberations, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan turned off its lights for the last time. It left behind a report that is arguably the most comprehensive examination yet of the fraud, waste, and abuse rife among contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Contractors are a reality,” says the commission’s co-chair, former nine-term Republican congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut. “You can’t go to war without contractors. The irony is that we went to war unprepared to use ... Read More
Thou Shall Not Covet Thy General’s Dollars
June 24, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
An unlikely collection of policy wonks made waves in Washington earlier this month when they released a report identifying nearly $1 trillion in spending cuts to the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade. The Sustainable Defense Task Force, corralled by the Project on Defense Alternatives and commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank, included analysts from the libertarian Cato Institute, the progressive Center for American Progress, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, among others. Their consensus across political ideology was straightforward: ... Read More
