The Pentagon's intense public relations campaign is designed to sell Congress and the public on how the first year of "sequester" budget cuts is leaving the U.S. military unable to train or deploy overseas. Public warnings generally have garnered media sympathy, but there have been signs in recent weeks of a backlash from the Washington press corps.
The Obama administration is putting attention-getting Pentagon projects on the chopping block in a bid to pressure Congress into making a deal that avoids $46 billion in military budget cuts March 1, analysts and congressional officials say.
As the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry denounced the war in Iraq as a "profound diversion" and asserted that without a serious change of course, America faced "the prospect of a war with no end in sight."
To hear the Obama administration tell it, the motivations behind the current U.S. foreign policy pivot to Asia couldn't be more obvious.
Mitt Romney vowed Monday to "recommit" the United States to a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians, to put "clear conditions" on U.S. assistance to Egypt and to ensure Syrian opponents get access to needed weapons as he sought to define key foreign policy differences with President Obama.
The Pentagon could hold on to its crown-jewel weapon systems even though looming automatic federal spending cuts would inflict a $54 billion gash in the 2013 defense budget, military budget analysts say.
The Pentagon could hold onto its crown jewel weapon systems even though looming automatic federal spending cuts would inflict a $54 billion gash in the 2013 defense budget, military budget analysts say.
The nation's military leaders warned a House panel on Wednesday that cuts in defense spending beyond those already planned would deeply wound the armed services and jeopardize U.S. global influence.
A day after stepping down as CIA director, Leon Panetta was sworn in Friday as secretary of defense. He began settling into the job by telling members of the military and their families they are "at the top of my agenda."
"So all the services merrily went along at the burn rate on operational accounts," he said.
"The press corps finally realized that the 'back office' is the problem," said Gordon Adams, a White House budget official in the Clinton administration.
