Robert Farley

IMMORAL. I’m glad that Peter Pace has made clear the reason he believes gays should be excluded from openly serving in the military. It’s so much more refreshing to hear this argument than the more nebulous “gays reduce unit cohesion” argument that’s been in vogue for the last fifteen years or so. According to this […]

QUANTIFYING GREEN LANTERN THEORY. Having apparently taken Green Lantern Theory to heart, the Pentagon is attempting to develop a series of presumably quantitative measures for “political will”: A capability to dynamically assess the impact of political will on national/military objectives would be of enormous value to USG planners in that it would allow for more […]

PLAN CV. A Chinese military official (there’s some dispute as to who, exactly) has, according to Reuters, said that Peoples Liberation Army Navy could build its first aircraft carrier by 2010. I’d say that’s staggeringly optimistic. Unless I’m terribly wrong, China has yet to lay the keel for a purpose-built domestically produced aircraft carrier. To […]

ISRAELIS ON IRANIAN NUKES. “Contra Iran”, Halevi and Oren’s article in The New Republic, purported to express Israeli alarm on the status of the Iranian nuclear program. In the midst of painting a dire picture, Halevi and Oren suggested that a Jewish state that allows itself to be threatened with nuclear weapons — by a […]

BREAKING PEOPLE. Jonathan Gitlin writes that interrogation practices: now aim to break down subjects through psychological means that leave no visible scars, and as a result they are far more palatable with the general public. Sleep deprivation, stress positions, sensory deprivation and the like are dismissed by pundits and defense lawyers as nothing like torture. […]

MORE ABOUT NAVAL AVIATION THAN YOU PROBABLY WANTED TO KNOW. One of the most promising elements of the F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter) is the capability that one variant will have for V/STOL, or vertical/short take off and landing. The gap in capability between conventional carrier aircraft and land based fighters closed a long time ago. […]

RECALCITRANT ABE. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expanded upon his refusal to further acknowledge strongly supported allegations that Imperial Japan forces thousands of women from all over Asia into sexual slavery. His remarks make it clear that, instead of simply wanting to look forward, he’s trying to cast doubt on whether the events actually […]

MORONS. WE HAVE MORONS ON OUR TEAM. I don’t have much to add to the very good analysis that Hilzoy and Josh Marshall give on the North Korea uranium situation. There have been questions floating around about the uranium enrichment process in North Korea for a while, but the New York Times article confirms that […]

STABBING BLINDLY.Max Boot blunders into an interesting point. In denouncing our allies for being insufficiently militaristic, he manages to ask an interesting question. Here’s the dreck: Britain is hardly alone in its unilateral disarmament. A similar trend can be discerned among virtually all of the major U.S. allies, aside from Japan. Canada is a particularly […]

PLA COUNTER-INSURGENCY. Over at Ezra’s place, Dymaxion John had an interesting post about the PLA and Islamic insurgents in Western China. The idea of the PLA developing counter-insurgency doctrine fascinates me from a military culture point of view, since the PLA originated as an insurgent organization, and its leaders developed much of the theoretical foundation […]