Accused Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is a centerpiece for the book Merchant of Death and the model for the Hollywood movie The Lord of War. He is the archetypal bad guy. Washington apparently traded military hardware to the Thais to get him extradited from a Bangkok jail.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated Wednesday that Mexico and Central America were facing an “insurgency” that requires the equivalent of a Plan Colombia in the region. Her comments immediately raised the ire of the Mexican government and sparked fears of expanded U.S. military intervention.
Quiz: Who said this? “Is it a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China.”
Somewhere on the list of 2010 milestones should be this: It was the year that unified security budgeting won the endorsement of the U.S. executive branch’s top leadership. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first made this endorsement in May, during the Q&A following her speech supporting the new National Security Strategy. Joining her in the endorsement, she said, were Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Adm. Mike Mullen, who both “wrote really strong letters to the House and Senate leadership and the appropriators and the budgeteers to make the case that we have to start looking at a national security budget.”
In the two weeks since President Obama appointed Retired Air Force Lt. General James R. Clapper, to be director of national intelligence (DNI), there’s been a slew of speculation about his long record in U.S. intelligence and how it might affect his chances for confirmation.
With his decision to boost defense spending, President Obama is continuing the process of re-inflating the Pentagon that began in late 1998 — fully three years before the 9/11 attacks on America. The FY 2011 budget marks a milestone, however: The inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100 percent in real terms by the end of the fiscal year. Taking the new budget into account, the Defense Department has been granted about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended.
After the first 100 days of the Obama administration, the Institute for Policy Studies introduced our Change Index to evaluate the policies and performance of the new president. Did the candidate who promised change deliver on his promises?
Thought the Bush years were over? Not so fast.
These pieces are part of a strategic dialogue on Afghanistan, as part of our new South Asia focus. You can read Ed Corcoran’s piece here and Erik Leaver’s piece here.
We’re close to our spending limit on the nation’s credit card. The bank bailout, the stimulus package, the Iraq War and the overall military budget: each is costing more than $500 billion.