Robert Farley

APPARENTLY SERIOUS… The Navy appears to be serious about challenging cost overrruns on the Littoral Combat Ship project: The LCS program manager was canned; the admiral in charge of ship-building was reassigned; work on the ship was suspended. Winter demanded that the second LCS contract be renegotiated. The old one was a “cost-plus” deal that […]

WORKING FOR THE MAN. Naresh at Asia Burning has an interesting post about the Afghan government, pointing out that it seems to understand that its primary responsibility is to its foreign backers, rather than to the Afghan people. This is hardly surprising, given that the Karzai government is utterly dependent on international backing for its […]

MMM… MINIMAL CREDIBLE DETERRENT. Via Defense News (subscription required), India just carried out the first successful test of an intermediate range ballistic missile capable of hitting Shanghai and Beijing. It’ll be some time, of course, before India really does achieve minimal credible deterrence against China, as it will need enough missiles (and enough nuclear weapons) […]

CZAR? What’s the deal with this “War on Terror Czar” nonsense? Drum: The other brainchild of the surge, Frederick Kagan, thinks the czar idea is a dandy one: “Hope they do it, and hope they do it soon. And I hope they pick the right guy. It’s a real problem that we don’t have a […]

SCORCHING THE EARTH. Peter Howard has a sober appraisal of the the North Korean-weapons-to-Ethiopia deal: The Administration has identified both counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation as vital national security interests. But when they happen to conflict, as in when fighting terrorists requires looking the other way on a major North Korean arms deal, we see where the […]

OH BLACKWATER, KEEP ON ROLLIN’ Nathan Hodge of Danger Zone visited the Blackwater training facility in North Carolina. Blackwater is at the forefront of military privatization: It’s like a military base — without the golf course. And more construction was underway. Earth movers and dumptrucks rumbled around the property, where a new runway and hangars […]

RULES OF THE GAME. Matt refers to a Richard Bush and Michael O’Hanlon discussion of the potential “rules” for a war between China and the United States over Taiwan. I think that this is a really interesting idea; antagonists often agree, if only informally, to limit forceful interactions to particular channels that avoid the possibility […]

THE AHMADINEJAD LOOK. Much was made of British captive Faye Turney’s earlier appearance on Iranian TV, in which she wore a headscarf. Take a look at this picture; not one of the British sailors or marines is wearing a tie. Weird, huh? I wonder if they get to keep those spiffy new suits… –Robert Farley

EXCEPT WHEN YOU DON’T… I’m pretty unconvinced; not to dispute Garance’ post title, but military organizations prep for any number of different scenarios that they don’t actually execute. Given that the United States and Israel are the largest potential military threats to Syria and Iran, it’s hardly surprising that they’re “preparing” for war; indeed, the […]

CVN 2020. It’s not quite a scoop, but a Korean newspaper reported last week that China is planning to commission a 93,000 ton nuclear powered aircraft carrier by 2020. This is in addition to the 50,000-ish ton conventionally powered aircraft carrier that the PLAN is supposed to have available by 2010. While the latter seems […]