By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Top defense officials this week met with members of Congress to address sexual assault in the military — the fourth such meeting since September, a Pentagon spokesman said.
Military officers assigned to the Pentagon do not vote on who becomes secretary of defense, but if they did, former Sen. Chuck Hagel might finish in second place.
Tuesday's re-election of President Obama triggered immediate speculation about the future of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who will turn 75 in June. Mr. Panetta, defense secretary since June 2011, has had a long career in government and is said by associates to be ready to return to private life in Northern California, where he frequently visits and owns land.
President Obama's re-election campaign on Monday launched a pre-emptive strike ahead of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's planned foreign policy address, arguing that Mr. Romney has failed the the commander-in-chief test on the global stage — in part by staking out positions to the right of former President George W. Bush.
A former top Pentagon official urged Congress Tuesday to find a way to avoid $600 billion in "draconian" defense cuts that would begin next year if Congress fails to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal budget.
The Obama administration is preparing to begin talks with Iraq on defining a long-term defense relationship that may include expanded U.S. training help, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's chief policy aide.
The Obama administration is preparing to begin talks with Iraq on defining a long-term defense relationship that may include expanded U.S. training help, according to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta's chief policy aide.
At the recent U.S.-Chinese defense talks in Beijing, the subject of the Pentagon's new Air Sea Battle Concept, a program to counter China's growing anti-access and area denial weapons, was not discussed.
The Pentagon is engaged in a behind-the-scenes political fight over efforts to soften, or entirely block, a new military-approved program to bolster U.S. forces in Asia.
The United States has no "definitive evidence" that Pakistan knew Osama bin Laden had been living in the compound where Navy SEALs killed him, but the Pakistanis must now show convincingly their commitment to defeating the al Qaeda terrorist network, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.
The initial U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in July probably will include combat as well as support forces, the top U.S. commander there told a House committee on Wednesday.
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan told Congress Tuesday that his forces had made enough progress to justify starting a three-year withdrawal in July. But testimony from other officials made it clear that, even after 2014, U.S. troops will be in the country on an "enduring" basis.
In his first formal assessment of the war in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said Tuesday that much of the Taliban's battlefield momentum has been halted, putting the United States on course to begin pulling out troops in July and shifting security responsibility to the Afghans.
A U.S. commitment to provide India with top-of-the-line technology as India modernizes its armed forces and builds its own defense industry is likely to cause unease in Pakistan, which also wants U.S. equipment to prosecute its war against terrorists.
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, who watched the movie for the first time at the screening, told the audience that she didn't think sexual assault was given enough attention at the level it deserved during her time at the Pentagon.
Pentagon brass, Congress meet to end sexual assault in military →
However, the problem is systemic and has to do with the everyday climate military men and women work in, and will require cultural change as well as good military leadership, she told the audience.
Pentagon brass, Congress meet to end sexual assault in military →
