“Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to boost the size of the Navy by roughly 15 percent as part of a broader defense buildup. ‘Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917,’ he complained in Monday night’s debate. ‘That’s unacceptable to me.’
But for one of Romney’s most important advisers on Navy issues, a man who oversaw a massive naval expansion for Pres. Ronald Reagan, there’s more at stake than U.S. national security. John Lehman, an investment banker and former secretary of the Navy, has strong and complex personal financial ties to the naval shipbuilding industry. He has profited hugely from the Navy’s slow growth in recent years — raising the prospect that he could make even more if Romney takes his advice on expanding the fleet.”
–”Romney’s Big Navy Guru Made Millions From Building Ships,” David Axe, Wired Danger Room
The last convoy of United States troops left Iraq today, entering Kuwait and ending almost nine years of official military presence. Operation Iraqi Freedom lasted eight years, eight months and 25 days. 1.5 million troops served, 4,500 died, and 32,000 were wounded. Cost in Iraqi lives? Pick a number over 100,000.
American troops already withdrawn from Iraq are glad to be home for the holidays, though many will be re-deployed to Afghanistan. But at least Iraq is secure, right?
The U.S. Army might send pack mules to Afghanistan. The logistics of supplying patrols in that rugged terrain are complex and costly, and new experimental cargo robots aren’t working out.
The U.S. military is determined to prevail on the cyber-psycho-cultural field of battle, winning hearts, minds, and Facebook friends with global information operations. In accordance with Pentagon planning document Joint Vision 2020 (Department of Defense, Joint Vision 2020 [aka DOD JV 2020], 2000), the U.S. military will not rest until it achieves information domain dominance with tactical tweets and barrages of blog posts. The Web has been weaponized, and social media militarized. Sign up now for a career in Information Operations (IO).
The Washington Post is observing Veterans Day with a story previewing the Pentagon report on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy:
“More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.”
– “Sources: Pentagon group finds there is minimal risk to lifting gay ban during war,” Ed O’Keefe and Greg Jaffe,Washington Post.
The chief authors of the study are Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and the Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, General Carter Ham.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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In recognition of Banned Book Week, the Defense Department bought up nearly 10,000 copies of a memoir and destroyed them. The book, Operation Dark Heart, was written by former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Anthony A. Shaffer and covers his special operations experience in Afghanistan.
Truck convoys supply Forward Operating Bases throughout Afghanistan under DOD’s $2 billion Host Nation Trucking (HNT) program, and the contractors are responsible for providing their own security. They end up “hiring” the warlords and insurgents who would be prone to attacking them.
