Sixty-two legislators sit on the House Armed Services Committee, the largest committee in Congress. Since January, 2011, when Republicans took control of the House, the committee has been chaired by Howard P. McKeon, who goes by Buck. He has never served in the military, but this month he begins his third decade representing California’s Twenty-fifth […]
While the U.S.’s foreign wars wind down, the body count at home keeps rising. The Pentagon said this week there were 349 suicides by active-duty members of the armed services in 2012, as opposed to 311 combat deaths. Before you jump to conclusions about the plight of battle- traumatized veterans failing to readjust to life stateside, consider […]
Earlier this month the National Intelligence Council released its Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds report — a document that comes out once per presidential administration — mapping out likely geopolitical trends over the next two decades or so. As usual, it’s a must-read, offering comprehensive analysis of the disparate factors that will drive global politics through 2030. […]
The diplomatic wisdom of incoming US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to improve China-US relations, as the Obama administration seeks to rebalance its Asian strategy during the president’s second term. President Barack Obama on Saturday nominated Senator Kerry, the son of a diplomat, as his next secretary of state to replace Hillary Clinton, and […]
An Xinhua editorial that also appeared in the U.S. edition of the China Daily asserts that the impending premiership of Japan’s Shinzo Abe would “destabilize” East Asia. Yet the piece in reality makes a case for why Abe’s next term in office would be a good thing. To quote from the article: “…Abe has called for an increase in Japan’s defense spending, easing constitutional […]
A landslide victory for the Liberal Democratic Party in elections Sunday for the lower house of the Japanese legislature has given party leader Shinzo Abe something no other Japanese politician has achieved in the last half century: a second chance as prime minister. Abe had the job for a year in 2006-2007, part of a […]
On the small, spectacular island of Jeju, off the southern tip of Korea, indigenous villagers have been putting their bodies in the way of construction of a joint South Korean–US naval base that would be an environmental, cultural and political disaster. If completed, the base would hold more than 7,000 navy personnel, plus twenty warships […]
Egyptians will vote today in a referendum on a new constitution that has polarized the country, with opposition groups urging the rejection of a charter they say lays the ground for Islamist dominance. Cairo, Alexandria and eight other governorates will vote today, with polling stations opening at 8 a.m. local time. The rest of the […]
During the past decade, there have been notable shifts in Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, away from minimum deterrence to second strike capability and towards expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal to include both strategic and tactical weapons. Islamabad has described these developments as “consolidating Pakistan’s deterrence capability at all levels of the threat spectrum.” Read Here – […]
Russia’s T-50 stealth fighter prototype, the first radar-evading warplane outside the U.S. when it debuted in January 2010, is slightly less stealthy than the American F-22 and about equal to the smaller F-35. But in several other respects the new warplane from the Russian Sukhoi design bureau is actually superior to the American models. That’s the […]
looking beyond borders 