+Pentagon | April 28, 2011

Skunk at the Garden Party, Sir!

By Mark Thompson
Incoming!

Retired Army colonel Douglas Macgregor has always been a bomb-thrower. His 1997 book on the future of the U.S. Army, Breaking the Phalanx, was equally loved and hated by those inside the service. An innovative battle tactician who some saw as arrogant, he’s one of those guys who colors just a little too much outside the lines for the Army’s liking. But given his skill set, his latest offering in Foreign Policy magazine — where he recommends cutting some $275 billion a year from the Pentagon’s budget (about 50%) — is well worth a look. Makes my recent piece on saving $1 trillion over a decade — $100 billion a year, in other words — look pretty darned hawkish.

+Weapons | April 28, 2011

CBO Defense Option #5

By Mark Thompson

The Congressional Budget Office says killing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in favor of buying more F-16s and F-18s would save $26.9 billion in outlays over the next five years. The F-35 is the biggest Pentagon procurement program in history, slated to buy some 2,500 planes for $382 billion over the next 25 years or so.

+Veterans | April 28, 2011

Purple Heart Clarity

By Mark Thompson

Troops suffering from traumatic brain injury — one of the signature wounds of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — have long been eligible for the Purple Heart. But now the Pentagon is clarifying the rules:

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+Troops | April 28, 2011

Sgt. Castro Comes Home Today

By Mark Thompson
Army comrades remember Sgt. John Castro at a memorial service on Tuesday at Forward Operating Base Sharana, Afghanistan / DoD photo by Karen Parrish

Insurgents killed Army Sgt. John Paul Castro April 22 in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. He was on his third combat tour — one to Iraq, two to Afghanistan — in his less-than-seven-year career. Castro’s last mission was “a fight that occurred at distances measured in hand-grenade range, within a complex environment of walled mazes and collapsed structures during the hours of darkness,” Army Maj. Justin Reese, his battalion commander, said Tuesday. “It was within this context — closing with and destroying a determined enemy force — that Sergeant Castro gave his life.”

Castro’s company commander, Army 1st Lt. William Weber, said that while Castro knew he had been wounded in what turned out to be his final firefight, he reported he was fine. “Unbeknownst to Sergeant Castro, the injuries he sustained were more severe than he realized,” Weber said, in an American Forces Press Service dispatch. “Sergeant Castro lost his life before he realized he needed help.”

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+National Security | April 28, 2011

Collateral Damage on that Indian Fighter Non-Deal

By Mark Thompson
Tim Roemer

Colleague Jyoti Thottam reports from New Delhi on Time‘s Global Spin blog that U.S. ambassador to India Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, has quit following India’s scratching of both U.S. warplanes from its shopping list:

We are…deeply disappointed by this news.  We look forward to continuing to grow and develop our defense partnership with India and remain convinced that the United States offers our defense partners around the globe the world’s most advanced and reliable technology.  I have been personally assured at the highest levels of the Indian government that the procurement process for this aircraft has been and will be transparent and fair.

Have to admire his use of the phrase “will be transparent and fair.” Very diplomatic.

+Weapons | April 28, 2011

End of the Line for the F-16?

By Mark Thompson

There are reports from the subcontinent that India has eliminated the two U.S.-built planes from its $10 billion competition to buy about 126 fighters. Both the Lockheed F-16 and Boeing F-18 have reportedly been scratched from the list of candidates, in favor of a pair of European-built planes. The F-16 is built in Fort Worth. I was working in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram‘s Washington bureau when the first of them rolled off the line at the huge Air Force Plant No. 4 and went operational in 1980.

We covered every hiccup, every bid, every sale and every crash in the program’s early days. My neck still aches when I think of the 9 Gs I pulled in the back seat during a flight in the early ’80s. Back then, it seemed every nation in the world wanted to buy the plane, and 25 ultimately did. Bob Cox of the Startlegram reports that absent an Indian contract, the last F-16 of more than 4,400 could roll off the line in 2013. The lack of an American fighter in the finals could signal something important — dated old designs, too costly new designs — or it could simply be a negotiating ploy. In any event, the end of an era — of building a cheap, nimble lightweight fighter — seems like it’s approaching.

+National Security | April 28, 2011

This Is a Royal Wedding-Free Zone

By Mark Thompson

…in case you were wondering…

+Pentagon | April 27, 2011

Panetta’s Pentagon Challenge

By Mark Thompson
Leon Panetta

Over the past decade, the Pentagon has been run by a bully, a bureaucrat and, soon, a budget-cutter. Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and incumbent Robert Gates had their pluses and minuses, but neither could wield a budget scalpel like Leon Panetta, who President Obama is slated to nominate as the nation’s 23rd defense secretary on Thursday.

He’s showing up – Gates is slated to step down June 30 — just in time. Two weeks ago, Obama ordered $400 billion in additional defense spending cuts. That stung Gates, who has worked long and hard over the past two years to head off such chops by taking the initiative and trying to slow down the growth in Pentagon spending on his own. Given the mood in the country, and on Capitol Hill, Panetta’s marching orders are tough: wrap up Iraq, finish Libya, and prevail in Afghanistan – all while cutting military spending.

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+National Security | April 27, 2011

Afghan Body — Make That B-day — Count

By Mark Thompson
Major General Richard Mills in Afghanistan in January / Marine photo by Timothy Chesnavage
U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills, center, the commander of Regional Command Southwest (RC SW), along with Sgt. Maj. Michael Barrett, the sergeant major of RC SW, travels to Maiwand, Afghanistan, Jan. 26, 2011, to receive updates on road construction and security operations. They also traveled to Lashkar Gah in Helmand province to meet with Helmand province Gov. Gulab Mangal and other Afghan leaders in support of the International Security Assistance Force. (U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Timothy P. Chesnavage/Released)

The U.S. military has shied away from body counts of enemy killed since the numbers proved near worthless in Vietnam. But they’re apparently using birthday counts as a yardstick for measuring progress in Afghanistan. Marine Major Gen. Richard Mills, who just returned from a year-long tour in the country’s violent Helmand Province, cited a couple such numbers Wednesday during a talk at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“When we got there, it was estimated the average regimental or battalion commander — whatever you want to call him — in the insurgency was about 35 years old,” he said, referring to units of about 500 men. “When we left, he was 23. Why? Because the rest of them are dead. What does that mean? It means they’re promoting younger and younger men — less-experienced men — into greater responsibility, and that’s a weakness.”

Math isn’t my strong suit, but this suggests by this time next year the average Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan will be 11.

+Troops | April 27, 2011

Chilling Tale from Afghanistan…

By Mark Thompson

…will be on the cover of this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine:

 “Ask them, ‘Do they understand why we shot this dude?’ ” the lieutenant told his interpreter. During their last patrol to Qualaday, soldiers in the platoon had attacked Mullah Allah Dad with rifles and a fragmentation grenade that blew off the lower halves of his legs and badly disfigured his face. The soldiers claimed that Allah Dad was trying to throw a grenade at them. Two days after the killing, however, a company commander attended a council during which the district leader announced that people believed the incident had been staged and that the Americans had planted the grenade in order to justify a murder.

It’s a deeper look into what went wrong inside the Fifth Stryker Brigade out of Fort Lewis, Wash., which ended in a confessional court martial last month. Read it here (registration may be required).