+Nuclear Weapons | February 22, 2012

Iran’s Nuclear Flashpoint

By Mark Thompson
institute for science and international security

Parchin is the Iranian nuclear site the the Tehran government barred IAEA inspectors from seeing this week. What could be there? There has been a cat-and-mouse game underway involving Parchin for several years, and the end game may be looming.

If this is the beginning of the end game, it has been a long time coming. “This huge complex is dedicated to research, development, and production of ammunition, rockets, and high explosives,” the independent, Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said seven years ago. “The site, owned by Iran’s military industry, has hundreds of buildings and test sites.”  Last November, the International Atomic Energy Agency spelled out why it was so interested in Parchin, some 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran:

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+Nuclear Weapons | February 22, 2012

IAEA = Iran Asking for Extreme Action

By Mark Thompson

Like it or not, the world just moved a big step closer to war with Iran over its nuclear program. It may only be the perception of war that’s a step closer, but sometimes that’s all that counts (and sometimes, the reality and the perception are the same thing). The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a grim statement Wednesday on its latest Iran team’s failure to see what it wanted to see during its just-concluded two-day visit to Tehran:

“During both the first and second round of discussions, the Agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place. Intensive efforts were made to reach agreement on a document facilitating the clarification of unresolved issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear programme, particularly those relating to possible military dimensions. Unfortunately, agreement was not reached on this document.”

The situation is becoming increasingly dire, Pentagon officials say.

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+Military Training | February 22, 2012
Army

Grambo!

By Mark Thompson

Army Sergeant Sandra Coast graduated from Basic Combat Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., last Friday at age 51. “Everybody in the world thinks I am a total nutcase,” she tells the post’s public-affairs officer. “I just want to support our troops. I love all of them.” The average age for an Army Reserve recruit is 23, making Coast 222% older than the average green reserve grunt.

Coast told Fort Leonard Wood’s Melissa K. Buckley that hand-to-hand combat training proved to be a challenge. “We had to slap each other in the face,” she said. “The poor guy that was up against me said, ‘I cannot do this. I cannot slap her.’ I told him I would pay for his counseling when we were done. I was slapping him — he finally slapped me.”

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+Military Justice | February 22, 2012

GAO: Pentagon Closing Whistleblower Reprisal Cases “Prematurely”

By Nick Schwellenbach

You’re in the military. You blew the whistle. Something bad happened to your career. You ask your military service Inspector General or the big Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) to investigate what you believe is reprisal. You’re in good hands, right? Well, maybe not.

There are numerous problems with how investigators are handling these cases, according to a draft Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that POGO has obtained. Although the main thrust of the report is on how it takes too long, on average, for members of the military alleging retaliation to get the results of an investigation, perhaps the most concerning finding is that unclear guidance “has resulted in investigators closing cases prematurely,” according to the draft. (UPDATE: GAO has moved up the release of the final version of the report to today; the final version is now out. There may be differences between the draft and the final.)

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+National Security | February 22, 2012
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images

Getting Serious About Syria

By Mark Thompson

If the U.S. has no appetite for military action against Iran, it has even less desire to engage kinetically with Syria. White House spokesman – and Battleland’s former boss – Jay Carney made that clear Tuesday. “We still believe that a political solution is what’s needed in Syria,” he said. “We don’t want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarization of Syria because that could take the country down a dangerous path.” So what options are available to the U.S. and its allies?

Just so happens that Daniel R. Depetris has come up with eight non-U.S.-military steps the U.S. (and its allies) might consider over at Small Wars Journal. They range from even more chat to real weapons. But arming the opposition isn’t a good one. “It is difficult to envision a loosely grouped bunch of fighters with questionable command-and-control driving back a fully equipped Syrian army without an assortment of heavy weapons, which at the moment is still politically sensitive in Washington,” Depetris writes (over at Abu Muqawama, Andrew Exum agrees, deriding any notion of outfitting a ragtag army to confront the Syrian military). It will be interesting to see which, if any, of these the Obama Administration elects to pursue. It opted for force against Libya, sanctions against Iran, and largely rhetoric so far against Syria.

+Veterans | February 22, 2012

33

…that’s how many cents U.S. taxpayers kick into the military’s retirement account for every dollar of basic pay earned by active-duty troops. In part, it’s because the U.S. military’s 2 million retirees outnumber the 1.4 million troops on active duty. “Perhaps the most politically sensitive, and often unspoken, competition within the budget,” defense-spending pro Todd Harrison says, “is the inter-generational struggle between funding for military retirees and those who currently serve.”

+Military Mental Health | February 22, 2012
Staff Sgt. Teddy Wade

Chiarelli: A True Model for Future Military Leaders

By Elspeth Cameron Ritchie

General Peter Chiarelli retired three weeks ago. He was the Vice Chief of Staff  (VCSA) of the U.S. Army, which means the service’s second most powerful general with four stars, his only boss being the Chief of Staff of the Army. In actuality his bosses included Congress, and the President, the Commander in Chief.

But Gen. Chiarelli considered his troops to be his most important mission. His clarion call for the last few years was to minimize suicide among Army Soldiers.

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+Video Afghanistan | February 22, 2012

Fueling the Fire

By Mark Thompson

It’s hard to believe that the U.S. troops involved in the reported near-torching of Korans at Bagram air base in Afghanistan didn’t know what they were doing.

After all, for close to a decade, the U.S. military has been issuing guidance like this to U.S. troops on how to treat the Muslim holy book:

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+Iran | February 22, 2012

Hardware Store

By Mark Thompson
Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class John Grandin
The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, its deck crammed with military hardware, transiting the Strait of Hormuz last week
+Military personnel | February 21, 2012

“OutServe is a gay activist group using provocative tactics to advance their agenda in the military, and to establish themselves as a special interest group pushing self-serving demands.”

- Elaine Donnelly, head of the independent Center for Military Readiness, in a statement from an article in the Washington Times on Monday. “Special interest advocacy groups, which are inherently divisive,” she added, “are not permitted for any other cohort in the military.”