Defense and the National Interest

You may not know the Pentagon’s No. 2 officer, but he is shaking things up and is prepared to do even more under a new president.

Sat. May. 24, 2008
by Elaine M. Grossman
James Cartwright has a passion for Pop-Tarts. Not the fruity flavors, mind you: no blueberry and no strawberry. But [...]

Inside Washington
National Journal, Sat. Apr. 26, 2008
By Elaine M. Grossman
Can Army artillery units hit the side of a barn? Maybe not, according to a troubling internal memo sent this month to Army Chief of Staff George Casey by three former brigade commanders.
“The once-mighty ‘King of Battle’ ” is a “dead branch walking,” write the active-duty [...]

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
“The last thing the Middle East needs now is another war,” a senior Defense Department official recently said when asked about the prospect that President Bush might order airstrikes on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons facilities.
Were those [...]

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON - A top U.S. general is pressing Congress to accelerate plans for a study he said is crucial to the effort to field a new nuclear warhead (see GSN, Feb. 5).
Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of U.S. Strategic Command, told Global Security Newswire that without results from an [...]

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON - A top-ranking officer at the U.S. Defense Department said last week he believes that virtually no U.S. president would use a nuclear weapon in conflict, even if it were a bomb variant with very limited destructive power (see GSN, April 4, 2006).
In his first wide-ranging interview since becoming [...]

By Elaine M. Grossman, Global Security Newswire
© National Journal Group Inc.
In his testimony before House and Senate panels this week, Army Gen. David Petraeus urged a deliberative approach to shifting security responsibilities to the nascent Iraqi army, but it is not clear he will have the last word on timing.
Some top military and civilian officials [...]

Elaine M. Grossman
© National Journal Group, Inc.
The United States holds nearly 20,000 suspected insurgents in detention at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and, on long days in the desert sun, the inmates can get restless. On May 14, restlessness turned into a riot.
Detainees corralled inside huge compounds — where the only refuge from the sun [...]

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy has toyed for years with the idea of improving the accuracy of its Trident D-5 nuclear payload, with an eye toward giving the weapon greater utility against a wider range of targets, according to defense officials and outside experts (see GSN, Aug. 1).
However, Congress [...]

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON - Adm. William Fallon, head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, said late last month he is confident Pakistan would avoid ratcheting up tensions in its nuclear weapons standoff with India, despite some troubling signs (see GSN, June 25).
The top commander’s remarks, offered in an exclusive July 27 [...]