Niccolo Machiavelli

From Defense News: The U.S. Air Force wants to terminate the Block 30 Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned surveillance aircraft, breathing new life into the five-decade-old U-2 program, the Defense Department announced Jan. 26. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton

National Defense has an important analysis of where the US Army exactly stands in the era of Obama. They need to redefine their strategy in keeping with Obama’s plans to redirect its mission toward a greater focus on Asia. If

From the National Journal: The Justice Department indicted a high-profile former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, on charges that he knowingly provided classified information to journalists and tried to mislead the CIA while trying to get permission to publish a book

From the Army Times: A Chinese-based cyber attack is targeting the Defense Department’s Common Access Cards with technology that could steal information from military networks while troops and civilians work at their desks, researchers say. The new cyber weapon apparently

From the Associated Press: Afghan entrepreneurs hard at work… KABUL, Afghanistan — Revenue from opium production in Afghanistan soared by 133 percent last year to about $1.4 billion, or about one-tenth of the country’s GDP, according to a United Nations

This is a heroic story, and I applaud this young man. But is this really a good idea? From the Associated Press: ATHENS, Ohio — An Ohio ROTC cadet is pursuing his goal of becoming an Air Force pilot, despite

Clearly Putin remembers some of the techniques from his old days in the KGB: Readin’, writin’, and repression? The last-minute test thousands of Russian children were suddenly required to take on the day of the biggest anti-government rallies in years

From the UK’s Daily Mail: The Putins Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was described in German intelligence files as a ‘philanderer and a wifebeater’ when he was the deputy boss of the KGB. Germany’s BND spy agency compiled reports on

‘Coma’ headed to space Former U.S. Air Force test pilot Keith Colmer will begin flight training shortly for tests of Richard Branson’s private spacecraft: WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo. Colmer was the choice out of more than 500 applicants. “We selected the

If true, this makes Iran-contra look like a bake sale in comparison. From Ynet: Human currency? The Palestinian Maan news agency reported Thursday that the United States has agreed to sell Egypt several F-16 fighter jets in order to facilitate

An editorial from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung compares the European Union (EU) response to the debt crisis to the military situation in the waning days of World War II. As to the idea that the European Union can function as

The Marines are sending the first of two Lockheed Martin K-MAX unmanned helos to Afghanistan. They are going to be used to resupply front-line troops. The hope is they will reduce the number of convoys and thereby limit the effectiveness

National Defense Magazine looks at the reality of defense budget cuts and believes the transition is inevitable. If so, which leg should go? Air Force General Robert Kehler, the Stratcom Commander, gave this thoughts about where things should go. An

Islamic Revolution Guards Corps General Masoud Jazayeri counters charges his country was involved in a terror plot in the United States. He says that the charges are really about an Obama Administration effort “to begin talks with Iran, but the

From the Moscow Times: STAR CITY, Moscow Region — The United States may have put the first man on the moon, but Russian scientists and space explorers are now gazing at a new goal — setting up a colony on

From the Daily Mail: A New York City police inspector has been docked more than a third of his vacation time after he used pepper spray on anti-Wall Street protesters corralled by police on a sidewalk during an Occupy Wall

There’s a shocking new report out from the Texas Department of Agriculture (of all places) titled “Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment.” (You know things must be bad when the Ag people are issuing reports on strategic military matters.)

William Hague: control the internet? British Foreign Secretary Hague is organization an international conference in London titled the “London Conference on Cyberspace,” to be held on November 1-2. It’s going to include governments, NGOs, and corporations. Hague wants to address

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has issued a report co-authored by retired Army Lt.-General David Barno which comes to a startling conclusion: we can cut $550 billion from the Pentagon budget over the next ten years and

German economists (always looking at the bottom-line) are now warning that France may be the next country to see it’s AAA credit rating to go. Part of it is because France is helping to bailout Greece. “A new bailout package

The Western strategy towards Iran basically centers on using sanctions to weaken the Iranian economy. While the Iranian economy appears to be having difficulty because of the Islamist inspired socialism that dominates the country, sanctions appear to be having only

From the current National Interest, which looks at the foreign policy views of the GOP candidates: Is Romney GWB II on foreign policy? Is that a good thing? “The presumed frontrunner, Mitt Romney, seems particularly lacking in any coherent philosophical

Cut the budget, but ask more of our reserves? Does that sound like a recipe for success? That is precisely what is being cooked up by the U.S. Marine Corps. If you are member of the USMC reserves, you will

European leaders are it total reaction mode when it comes to the Euro financial crisis. (Sound familiar? Same thing happens in Washington.) That’s why we should be pessimistic that anything of substance will get done to effectively deal with the

So what happens when South America activists backed by Venezuela dictator Hugo Chavez get into a fight with organizers of a “peace project” in Berlin, Germany? Cynical me wants to sit back and watch the fight unfold. A German artist

General Harald Kujat, who was instrumental in planning the German mission in Afghanistan, has come out with a blunt assessment of what the future holds in Afghanistan. In short, he believes it has been a failure. “The mission fulfilled the

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) writes in today’s Washington Times: Putting us back on a path of national prosperity requires a dramatic change in trade policy. A weakened U.S. industrial base and a monstrous public debt also make it difficult to

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.S. officials this summer “secretly met with leaders of the deadly Haqqani network, the Afghan militant group closely tied to al Qaeda.” The goal was to “draw them into talks on winding down

In a brilliant lead editorial in Germany’s left-leaning Der Spiegel, Michael Sauga takes direct aim at President Obama’s economic message of spending more and more money. As he puts it, “the Obama administration is borrowing money at the same rate

What course will China chart in the future? The soon-to-be captain of the ship is Vice President Xi Jinping. And there is growing evidence that far from being a reformer, he will be aggressive leader who will resemble Mao more

Does French decadence have no bounds? From The Local, an English-language publication in France: Several hundred French schoolchildren went on the rampage on Friday after false rumours spread that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government wants to take away a large slice

Move over Saudi Arabia? With a series of amazing shale oil and natural gas finds in North America, it is now possible (if bureaucrats will allow it) for both Canada and the United States to become energy exporters in the

Berlin, which swooned over Barack Obama in 2008, is getting tired of the President’s lectures. On Monday, at a campaign fundraiser in California, Obama took aim at Europe declaring that their inaction over the debt crisis was “scaring the world.”