Robert Farley

Jason Sigger has a good response to LTC John Nagl’s Washington Post op-ed on the future of counter-insurgency in Iraq: I am surprised that LTC Nagl can’t see the larger picture – that without a commitment to a regional strategy that includes getting Israel to work with the Palestinian Authority (instead of ignoring the illegal […]

This is nothing new, but it’s worth revisiting now and again. For the monthly cost of the war in Iraq, conservatively estimated for our purposes at $8 billion, the Pentagon could buy: 10 F-22A Raptors ($150 million each) 23 F-35 Lightning IIs ($100 million each) 4 Littoral Combat Ships ($650 million each) 1 Zumwalt Destroyer […]

David Axe highlights one bit of the new China military capabilities report; the Chinese continue to invest in developing a capacity to hit aircraft carriers with ballistic missiles. To be clear, this could portend a significant degradation of the ability of the United States to intervene usefully in a China-Taiwan conflict. Cold War thought on […]

As is being reported everywhere, Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who provided the basis for the Nicholas Cage character in the underrated Lord of War, has been arrested in Thailand. Most recently, Bout is alleged to have sold weapons to FARC, the Colombian insurgent group that is currently at the center of the Venezuela-Colombia-Ecudador […]

Via ThinkProgress, Thomas Barnett suggests that Admiral William Fallon may be on his way out as CENTCOM chief. [W]ell-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the […]

Via Armchair Generalist, STRATCOM Chief General Kevin Chilton is asking Congress to make a deal: But as U.S. officials look to the future, Chilton said, “What we need is a modernized nuclear weapon to go with our modernized delivery platforms that we’ve worked on and are working on, and a responsive infrastructure, one that can […]

This seems almost to have escaped notice in the United States, except in the fringe that believes Hugo Chavez is the second coming of Josef Stalin, but there is some significant tension right now between Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia. Colombia, it seems, crossed the border into Ecuador while hunting members of FARC, the drug-fueled leftist […]

Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, has secretly been in Afghanistan for the last ten weeks: Harry, 23, who is third in line to the throne, has spent the last 10 weeks serving in Helmand Province. “I finally get the chance to do the soldiering that I want to do,” the prince […]

John Sides at The Monkey Cage channels Brian Arbour on early voting trends in Texas: I measured the turnout increase from 2004 against demographic characteristics that have differentiated the two Democratic candidates to this point—% Hispanic, Black, Bachelor Degree, and Median Income. The numbers below measure the number of voters through February 25, 2008 (7 […]

It’s not just that the Air Force is requesting $112.5 million for PR; it could buy a little more than half of one of the F-22s it so deeply covets with that, but hey, that’s cool. What bothers me is that the campaign seems so obviously calibrated for embarrassment; for some reason, the Air Force […]