I'm going to introduce you to a different kind of film. This isn't an action film, no sci-fi in it, but I really enjoyed "Away We Go." Now, you watch the trailer and you'll say, "hmmm - John Krasinski aka Jim of The Office and his pregnant girlfriend played by Maya Rudolph from Saturday Night Live - ahhhh, no thanks. Chick flick."

I am SO glad that the Marines are in Afghanistan, spreading our good name around.

People who want to lock in the defense budget as a percentage of GDP are liars, morons, or both.

“The military requirement right now is associated with the strategy that we are laying out in the QDR, and it is a departure from the two major theater war construct that we have adhered to in the past and in which this aircraft grew up. I mean it grew up in that construct of two major theater wars, and both of them being of a peer competitor quality,” Cartwright said.

“The strategy that we are moving towards is one that is acknowledging of the fact that we are not in that type of conflict, that the more likely conflicts are going to be the ones that we—similar to the ones that we are in in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that we do need to have a capability against a major peer competitor and that we believe that the sizing construct, one, demands that we have fifth generation fighters across all three services rather than just one and that the number of those fighters probably does not need to be sufficient to take on two simultaneous peer competitors, that we don’t see that as the likely. We see that as the extreme,” he told Chambliss.

This is a Great Thing. As the DOD Buzz article notes, many analysts agree that this was never a realistic planning assumption - we never had the force structure or resources to effectively execute two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts. It was a political gambit to warn North Korea not to cause trouble when we were in the Middle East, and a convenient excuse for the services to inflate their force requirements above what they really needed. Setting a lower requirement doesn't mean that US forces cannot deploy and be effective in two or more theaters - hell, we've been doing that for the past decade despite lacking the necessary manpower and equipment to meet the mythical 2-MTW requirements (see here for pro and con discussion).

There will be those neocons out there screaming about how this decision will "weaken" the US military to a point where it cannot police the entire world 24-7, pushing back evil "rogue states" and other near-peer adversaries to "promote democracy." They need to step out of the Cold War - this day and age, we need "smart power" and allies to get things done, and that's not a bad thing. It's - dare I say - more realistic to focus on one major conflict while managing other smaller contingencies. If carried through, this has a real chance of getting our military forces into the right posture that they need. It will be very interesting to see this QDR report's language - when it comes out in February 2010 - and more interesting to see how the Obama administration intends to change our military to that much-desired post-Cold War strategy.

On May 27, Afghan Mi-35 attack helicopters fired 12.7 mm rounds and 57 mm rockets near Bagram Air Base. Each partnered Afghan and Czech Republic crew fired 200 rounds of ball ammunition and 16 rockets while practicing gunnery on the East River Range Complex. The practice session was the culmination of more than a year’s work to rebuild the Mi-35 program, which gives the Afghan National Army dedicated, armed aircraft for the first time in eight years.

The seven-hour training was supported by personnel and equipment from the ANAAC, the Czech Republic Operational Mentor and Liaison Team, Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan mentors and personnel from Task Force Thunder at Bagram Air Base. After the completion of the live-fire training, the lead pilot from the Czech team, Major Juracka, commented, “The Afghan shooting was perfect.”

I suppose this is a good thing - I just can't stop thinking about the "Red Dawn" movie where the Hinds come in on the US "terrorists." The helicopter has such a distinguished, dare I say, iconic, profile. I hope the Afghai civilians who once were attacked by Russian Hinds in the 1980s know that these are "friendly" helos. Thanks for the tip, Ray.

“[To] anybody who wants to cherry-pick and change one piece of the defense program or another I would say, ‘You tell me what you want to cut in order to save something that the department has ended and why that choice is better for the warfighter than the choice we have made,’ ’’ Carter, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, told the Globe in his Pentagon office.

“I think we have a good analytical basis for the decisions we make,’’ Carter said, “and that is the test that somebody should be put to who wants to change this piece or that piece because they have some particular program or issue that they favor.’’

Well of course there's an analytical, logical process by which the DOD makes its acquisition decisions. Thanks to Bob McNamara, that process is in place (excepting the inevitable games that the services practice to get their bloated programs around tough scrutiny by OSD). The question is if Congress wants to be logical, or whether Congress will just say "screw you, I control the purse, this is what I want." Yes, I know it's hard to believe there are people like that acting as our elected representatives, but it's true.

Still, Carter made it clear that he believes the Pentagon must make more choices that the industry won’t like, particularly when it comes to what he called “a lot of troubled programs’’ whose capabilities have been oversold, or are no longer needed.

First, he said the Pentagon and its contractors have “to start programs so that they are begun in a realistic manner, with eyes open’’ about the cost and technology.

Just as important, he continued, is “having the discipline to stop doing things that aren’t working or aren’t needed any longer. . . .

“That is what the taxpayer expects us to do with their money and that is what the warfighter expects.’’

Ahhhhh. Isn't that cute? Seriously, has he been in this city for long? Maybe he missed the many GAO reports noting that defense program managers really don't keep their eyes open as they develop their schedules and cost estimates. I don't think anything has changed - maybe he's making the case for changing "business as usual," but that's an awfully difficult thing to do. And Congress is still going to tell you what they think the taxpayers expect - it's something along the lines of "federal job program." 

This operation has the feel of Afghanistan and the terrain is strikingly similar. But it is not on Afghan soil - it's thousands of miles away in the middle of the Utah desert on a special forces training mission. 

The enemy here is a paper target. But these soldiers know from experience that the targets and the dangers they'll face in Afghanistan are very real. 

That's why they've chosen the remote mountains at the Dugway Proving Ground for their training. This military facility is the size of Rhode Island and the closest you can get inside the U.S. to the conditions these soldiers face in Afghanistan. CBS News can't identify any of them for security reasons. 

They execute mock assaults on enemy compounds, and work through an interpreter to treat Afghan civilians - practicing the strategy to win over the people. 

I hope they have their pro masks - you know, just in case they hit some buried chemical munition out there. Just kidding, guys, I'm sure all those rounds are chemically inert by now (forty years after the last open-air tests). If you want to see the lovely Lara Logan narrate the story, check out the video at the link.

As the fate of the Department of State’s China hands in the middle of the 20th Century famously attests, sustaining objectivity against the pressures of political correctness has never been easy. The China hands have been far from alone; others with unwelcome expertise and insight into foreign events have met similar punishment and ostracism. To be right when what you say is politically wrong is to invite punishment from the guardians of political correctness. No surprise there. But the very notion that analysis should be wertfrei – value-free – has come under strong attack in recent years. Three months ago, for example, an op-ed in the now mostly neo-con editorial pages of the Washington Post charged me with the epistemological sin of “realism,” arguing that my lack of a passionate attachment to Israel rendered me incapable of correctly assessing the impact of its policies on U.S. interests. It is clear that, in the view of some, selective apology or denunciation of foreign behavior, not the prediction of it or its effects on our country and its interests, are what intelligence work should be all about. 

For such polemicists, politically correct delusion is preferable to a realistic view of the external world as the basis of policy. The splendid results of the approach they have advocated are visible around the globe but nowhere more than in the stable, secular democracy that has emerged in Iraq, the shriveling of Islamic extremism our invasion and occupation of Muslim lands has catalyzed, the peace and development we have brought to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the concord that the suspension of independent American judgment has caused to flower in the Holy Land. You don’t have to be a realist to notice discrepancies between the predicted results of policies and their actual catastrophic consequences. And yet, unchastened by empiricism, those who insisted on these policies continue to advocate more of the same. 

The concept of analysis as polemic finds its major expression in the myriad of “think tanks” – perhaps, more accurately, “belief tanks” – established in recent decades to spin trends and events to promote the ideological or other theses of their founders and supporters. It is also a key characteristic of the cliquish dialogue of the blogosphere, in which partisan commentary reinforces parochial views and fact-checking or skeptical questioning more often elicit obscene ad hominem attacks than serious reflection. Paradoxically, those obsessed with particular issues have more information than ever before to draw upon, even as general civic literacy on foreign affairs and the space for civil debate on public policy issues continue to contract. 

"Belief tanks" - isn't it true? Doesn't matter if you're talking about the AEI or CNAS, they have their philosophies and intent to support particular political persons, whether right or wrong. Read the rest of the article - you'll enjoy it.

As I mentioned awhile back, I devoted a good chunk of my vacation out west reading Piers Brendon's "The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997." As you might imagine, I spent a lot of time thinking about possible parallels and lessons for America's current global position, just as English imperialists spent a lot of time pondering the Roman experience (ably documented by Edward Gibbon).

In a tapestry this rich and varied, it is easy to read into it just about any "lesson" one wants to draw. With that caveat in mind, here are the top ten lessons on empire that I drew from Brendon's book. Even if you don't agree with them, you should still read the book.  

1. There is no such thing as a "benevolent" Empire.

2. All Empires depend on self-justifying ideology and rhetoric that is often at odds with reality.

3. Successful empires require ample "hard power."

4. As Empires decline, they become more opulent, and they obsess about their own glory.

5. Great Empires are heterogeneous.

6. When building an empire, it's hard to know where to stop.

7. It takes a lot of incompetent people to run an empire.

8. Great Powers defend perceived interests with any means at their disposal.

9. Nationalism and other forms of local identity remain a potent obstacle to long-term imperial control.

10. "Imperial Prestige" is both an asset and a trap.

There are undoubtedly other morals one can draw from Brendon's account, and other historical treatments would undoubtedly suggest a somewhat different set of lessons. I wouldn't want to overplay the parallels between Britain and the United States, if only because the U.S. empire is mostly ad hoc and informal rather than a network of formal colonies. But there is one final moral one could also draw from Brendan's fine work: there is life after Empire. 

Interesting food for thought.

We cannot allow President Obama to axe defense programs. Developing new technology is essential to maintaining America's military advantage.

The test consists of the release of a powder simulating a biological attack at the Pentagon South Parking Lot and the subsequent clean-up.  Some 200 volunteers are expected to participate.  Key to this test is the use of helicopters landing and taking off from the Pentagn South Parking Lot, and a decontamination unit at the Navy Annex.  The simulant powder contains a harmless inert bacterium found in soil, water, and air.  A similar test was conducted in 2007.

I covered the 2007 event as well. Then, as they did now, PFPA declined to address what the "harmless inert bacterium"' was. Based on the description, I continue to believe that it was Bacillus subtilis, or B. globigii (BG), commonly used to simulate the physical characteristics of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax). The reason you don't find it named in the press release is that there is a bit of controversy as to whether BG spores can aggravate respiratory problems such as asthma. BG spores still, however, represent the best simulant to mimic how anthrax spores would move around in the atmosphere. I didn't find any news agencies covering this event other than the Washington Examiner, which discusses the test in more detail.

A stream of harmless garden powder used for crop dusting was released at about 8 a.m. at the Pentagon South Parking Lot. Volunteers were exposed to the powder and decontaminated close to the nearby Navy Annex. A helicopter also landed and departed from the other side of the lot to measure the amount of powder that the chopper kicked up into the air.

The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, in cooperation with Arlington County and other federal and local agencies, conducted the test. Similar tests were held in 2005 and 2007. Contaminant samples were taken from volunteers' heads, shoulders, hands, and rings they were assigned to wear. A subset of volunteers were also issued watches, glasses and car keys to test the powder's effect on those items. They were then decontaminated and re-sampled.

It's good, in a way, to see this kind of experimentation take place. If (not when) such a bioterrorist incident were to occur, at the least there are some experienced persons who know what to expect - assuming that the attack was conducted with anthrax. Because of the environmental hardiness of anthrax spores, they pose a persistent hazard and decontamination would be necessary. If the bioterrorist incident used a virus or less hardy bacteria, decontamination might not be required. Extending that thought, these tests don't do much to clarify the physical behavior of the majority of potential bio threats that might be employed. But it's our nature to plan for the worst case scenario, isn't it?

Republicans and some former high-ranking intelligence officials question whether the CIA was ever obliged to brief Congress on the program. Former agency officials have described it as a technically oriented intelligence-collection effort unrelated to terrorism suspects or the terrorist-surveillance program that came to light in 2005.

The program began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was authorized by Bush as part of a highly classified directive on Sept. 26 of that year. The directive granted the CIA blanket authority to attempt to kill or capture al-Qaeda operatives.

Former intelligence officials said the program was aimed at enhancing the agency's ability to carry out the goals of the directive. The Wall Street Journal reported that the initiative was intended to help the CIA capture or kill al-Qaeda operatives.

Now the Republican politicians have been complete asses about this issue. There's no question that the CIA should have briefed Congress on every covert initiative they have ongoing - at least to the chairs of the intel committees. They didn't do that. But that's not the weird thing to me - if I had a covert program where the CIA was taking out al Qaeda terrorists, I wouldn't be hiding it. I'd be boasting about it, and daring the Dems to say anything about it.

Dr Richard Stephens, who conducted the study at the university's school of psychology, believes it may explain why swearing is still common place in languages around the world.

He suggests that swearing could have evolved as a way of raising aggression levels and reducing the feeling of pain to allow our ancestors to flee or fight back when attacked by predators.

He said: "We think it could be part of the flight or fight response. In the volunteers who swore, we also found they had an elevated heart rate, so it could be increasing their aggression levels.

"Increased aggression has been shown to reduce people's sensitivity to pain, so it could be swearing is helping this process."

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama’s announcement that he will host a nuclear security summit next March reflects his conviction that nuclear terrorism is not only the most immediate and extreme threat to global security, but one that must be addressed multilaterally.

Mr Obama hopes the summit will galvanise an international effort to secure loose nuclear materials by 2012, break up black markets in nuclear materials, detect and intercept materials in transit, and disrupt the trade in these materials.

National Security Council chief of staff Mark Lippert said the list of participants had yet to be finalised, but he expected between 25 and 30 countries to be represented.

“Essentially what we want to do is develop steps that really we can work together on to secure vulnerable materials and combat nuclear smuggling. The other piece is, I think, sort of a communique on best practices that we want to get everybody up to a certain standard,” he said.

Nuclear terrorism has not been a new topic of this president. Multilateral talks are always a good thing. I'm not convinced that terrorists can develop improvised nuclear devices or get their hands on actual nukes, but whatever. I've heard all the arguments before, but they all end up sounding like Darth Cheney's "one-percent" solutions. The fact is that PSI hasn't interdicted any nukes, all the smuggled nuclear material hasn't shown up in radiological dispersal devices, and we still are dealing with hundreds of civilian radiological material storage sites - instead of one nuclear repository - here in the United States. 

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama's strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials.

Such an expansion would require spending billions more than the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.
---------------
McChrystal has not yet completed a 60-day assessment of the war due next month. But Defense Department officials here and in Kabul, the Afghan capital, said he has informed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in weekly updates, of the need to increase the Afghan force substantially, as was first reported yesterday on washingtonpost.com. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss findings that have not yet been made public.

About 4,000 troops -- most of them U.S. Marines -- descended upon Nawa and other towns along the lower Helmand River valley 10 days ago in a massive operation to root out the Taliban. Their aim is to combat the insurgency in a new way: Instead of targeting extremist strongholds, they will aim to protect communities from the Taliban.

In Nawa, that means getting life back to normal. If that occurs, military commanders reason, it will be much more difficult for the insurgents to hold sway here.

"We'll be successful when we can walk up and down that street and most shops will be open, there will be a flow of commerce, there will be a recognizable and functioning government, there will be kids in school and doctors in the clinic," said Capt. Frank "Gus" Biggio, a Marine reservist who is on leave from the Washington law firm Patton Boggs to lead a civil-affairs unit in Nawa.

That's a pretty amazingly loose set of metrics that count on a lot of things happening. You read the article, and there is absolutely no chance that the Afghan forces will be ready or willing in a few years, in a decade, or in a few decades. It's insane to think that we're expected to baby-sit this nation for that long, paying billions every month into a money pit. Our strategic goals ought to be focused on the enemy - al Qaeda. The Taliban aren't the target, and now that there is a functional government in Kabul that has elections, well, it's really that government's problem now.

Just one other thing - for all the focus on the Marines in Helmand province, let's not forget that the US Army and British armed forces have been working this for a few years now. The Marines aren't going to be any more successful, unfortunately. How can they? They're working on the same populace with the same "COIN" tactics, and without any guiding strategy.

 A new season of "Leverage" starts on Wednesday. Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) will be guest-starring this season. Set your recording devices appropriately. That is all.

Under the new plan, space and cyber issues were paired, as were the nuclear and missile defense portfolios. Each set of issues was given its own deputy assistant secretary, who answers to the assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs - a post that had previously been called global security affairs, with a different policy portfolio. Michael Nacht now holds that job, which also oversees Pentagon efforts to set policies to counter weapons of mass destruction.

"We needed to place greater emphasis on strategic issues. We took an ASD that had been called global security affairs and called that global strategic affairs," Verga explained. "Under that went classic strategic issues."

Oh, well, that makes ALL the difference. And the best part is that you don't have to change the stationary, since the letters GSA are still the same.

The assistant secretary of defense for special operations, low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, Michael Vickers, now oversees special operations and counterterrorism, the partnership strategy and stability operations portfolio; and the global threats and counternarcotics portfolio - the latter known as "drugs and thugs," Verga said.

It was one of the stranger things the Bush administration did in defense policy - to put counterproliferation of WMDs in with the "drugs and thugs" group. The idea was that narcoterrorists and terrorists seeking WMDs all ran in the same circles - the reality was that the daily focus remained on "drugs and thugs" and WMD issues went no where for the past four years.

Aiming to give the policy outfit "more muscle," as Verga said, in the Pentagon's annual programming, planning and budgeting process, Flournoy created a deputy undersecretary of defense post for strategy, plans and forces, now Kathleen Hicks. Part of her charge is running the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.

The QDR teams are very, very busy. Some days it's hard to get the action officers on the phone because of all the meetings. It will be interesting to see what they come out with. Hopefully it's not just more changing of names and titles.

"Eureka" is a great show - go watch it tonight and every Friday. Don't let SyFy have an excuse to cancel it.

But [BGen Lawrence] Nicholson said many more Afghan troops were needed to build relations with local leaders and identify Taliban members believed hiding among residents.

"What I need is Afghan troops," Nicholson said in an audio link from Afghanistan. "I've got 4,000 Marines in the field and about 600, 650 Afghans. You can do the math."

"They understand those cultural sensitivities that we're just never going to get," he added.

On top of that, we still don't have civilian specialists in Afghanistan - those people who are supposed to assist in rebuilding Afghanistan's infrastructure and get the government functional.

The Obama strategy also calls for U.S. civilian government employees to help orchestrate humanitarian and other assistance in areas cleared of Taliban influence to help reconcile local Afghans with the Kabul government.

But only four U.S. civilians are with the Marines in Helmand, according to officials. They plan to increase that number to 10 by September.

"I don't think you're every going to get 'enough' as far as the ratio with uniforms to civilians," acknowledged Kael Weston, a U.S. State Department official who joined Nicholson.

"But ... it's not about sending platoons of civilians out to talk to poppy farmers. We've got a strategy. We're here to implement it."

Yeah, sure. I'm not impressed. We've been there for going on eight years, and now we're supposed to stay for "the long haul" - however long that takes, years, a decade? Maybe the Obama administration will surprise us and actually tell the rest of America what its new strategy in Afghanistan is. I don't think it's clear at all what our interests are in Afghanistan, what our goals are (is it stabilizing the corrupt government, protecting hamlets, killing Taliban, routing the AQ), and why it will take billions more and tens of thousands of US troops more to achieve those goals. 

There will come a time where we will have to repeat our "learning" from Iraq and tell Afghanistan's government, hey, it's really been fun, but it's time for you to stand on your own. I don't think its army will be ready, but that's going to be Kabul's problem, not ours. We ought to be focusing on the target - al Qaeda - and not this endless and thankless job of nation-building throughout "The Gap."

These developing challenges in the global commons also offer the United States a profound opportunity to reassert a leadership role in an area that will only grow in importance. Because stability on and within the global commons is a public good, others have powerful incentives to work with us on issues involving governance of cyberspace, ensuring peace in space, and settling contentious maritime issues. Protecting and sustaining stability throughout the global commons cannot be achieved by America alone.

We must lead in the creation of international norms and standards that can help advance the common good and expand the rule of law in these domains of growing importance. Helping to build the capacity of our partners and allies and working toward a common agenda on these increasingly complex issues should be a critical pillar of America's national security and defense strategy.

The article refers to "global commons" about twenty times - somehow, I overlooked the main theme of the article. I think the authors refer to the "global commons" as if it were Barnett's "Gap" where there are either limited, ineffective governments or areas of ungoverned space. That's different than the common definition of "global commons," which refers instead to geographical areas where the natural resources are not covered by any national jurisdictions.

Earlier reports noted that the first responders had ruled out anthrax, bot tox, and ricin, but still sent the material to the state laboratory and kept four people in isolation while the tests were run. It's somewhat encouraging - maybe the first responder community is finally learning how to deal with these many, many white powder hoaxes.

First, the Long War may be long, but it should not get any bigger. The regime-change approach -- invade and occupy to transform -- hasn't worked; simply trying harder in some other venue (Somalia? Sudan?) won't produce different results. In short, no more Iraqs.

Second, forget the Bush Doctrine of preventive war: no more wars of choice; henceforth only wars of necessity. The United States will use force only as a last resort and even then only when genuinely vital interests are at stake.

Third, no more crusades unless the American people buy in; expecting a relative handful of soldiers to carry the load while the rest of the country binges on consumption is unconscionable. At a minimum, the generation that opts for war should pay for it through higher taxes rather than foisting a burden of debt onto their grandchildren.

Fourth, the key to keeping America safe is to defend it, not to project American muscle to obscure places around the world. It may or may not be true that a "mighty fortress is our God"; had the United States been a mighty fortress on 9/11, however, the 19 hijackers would have gotten nowhere.

Fifth, by all means let the United States promote the spread of freedom and democracy. Yet we're more likely to enjoy success by modeling freedom rather than trying to impose it. To provide a suitable model, we've considerable work to do here at home. Meanwhile, let's not deny others the prerogative of defining for themselves exactly what it means to be free.

It's much better than the neocon tripe that Lt Gen (ret) Trey Obering and former Cheney deputy and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman lay out for going after Iran. Why Fred Hiatt lets these people - whose theories ought to be laughed at since their repeated failures over the past eight years - propose these arguments is beyond me. It;s amusing to me how politicians can lecture us about the behavior of "rogue nations" while studiously ignoring the irresponsible behavior of other nations.

What I'm hoping for, in all seriousness, is an end to the term "rogue nations." As I see it, this was a phrase that would allow the Bush administration to invade or attack any nations that were not "democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system." That's a quote from the 2006 National Security Strategy. I don't think that description really fits the US government between 2002-2008, but then again, consistency was never a strong point of the former administration.

While this article focuses on security, it would be unwise to react to the emergence of tensions in the global commons by simply altering the mix of military investments and adapting America's global network of defense alliances and relationships. They are necessary but insufficient responses to what will be a lasting shift in international affairs. The task for the United States is to respond to these challenges with a whole-of-government approach that advances our interests while legitimizing our power in the eyes of others.

One way the United States could respond would be to (re)embrace a grand strategy that focuses on sustaining a healthy international system, the maintenance of which is not only central to our national interests but is also a global public good-something everyone can consume without diminishing its availability to others. Such a strategy would essentially update and make explicit what had been a consistent theme in U.S. grand strategy since the early years of the Cold War, but has been underemphasized in the post-Cold War period.

These developing challenges in the global commons also offer the United States a profound opportunity to reassert a leadership role in an area that will only grow in importance. Because stability on and within the global commons is a public good, others have powerful incentives to work with us on issues involving governance of cyberspace, ensuring peace in space, and settling contentious maritime issues. Protecting and sustaining stability throughout the global commons cannot be achieved by America alone.

We must lead in the creation of international norms and standards that can help advance the common good and expand the rule of law in these domains of growing importance. Helping to build the capacity of our partners and allies and working toward a common agenda on these increasingly complex issues should be a critical pillar of America's national security and defense strategy.

If I didn't know better, I'd think that Ms. Flournoy was trying to make a statement about the contrasts between the Bush and Obama administrations... but nah, that's crazy talk, right?

Anniston Chemical Activity (ANCA) employees safely moved the first containers with 4.2-inch mustard-filled munitions Monday, June 29. Large, sealed metal containers, called Enhanced Onsite Containers, are
used to move chemical munitions from storage igloos to the ANCDF to ensure the safety of the work force and environment.

Conrad F. Whyne, CMA director, said, "We reviewed the efforts the Anniston team accomplished prior to their beginning operations. And we also reviewed the pre-operational reviews. We have concluded ANCA and ANCDF employees are ready and prepared to resume safe demilitarization operations."

ANCA Commander Lt. Col. Andrew M. Herbst said, "The ANCA Team is dedicated, skilled, and well trained. The team is eager to get back to the business of safely moving mustard munitions.  Like the successful nerve agent campaign, the ANCA Team is well prepared to step up and support the final ANCDF disposal campaign."

The Army's incineration sites are on track to complete their operations by 2012. That'll leave the two sites looking for neutralization at Colorado and Kentucky hanging in the wind for another decade.

"All of a sudden, it was just all happening, and the general counsel's office in the Pentagon had the lead," Rumsfeld told former Washington Post journalist Bradley Graham, as quoted in By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld. "It never registered in my mind in this particular instance--it did in almost every other case--that these issues ought to be in a policy development or management posture. Looking back at it now, I have a feeling that was a mistake. In retrospect, it would have been better to take all of those issues and put them in the hands of policy or management."

Yeah, you think? What I saw in the Rumsfeld years was a very busy Policy shop who had no time to think about policy development. They were all too occupied with current events. Hopefully the Flournoy shop will avoid that preoccupation with current events and focus on good policy development. One can hope.

Mr. McNamara spent countless hours as secretary of defense trying to fine-tune American plans for nuclear war, turning what had been a hair-trigger, all-or-nothing strategy into a series of more limited options. The underlying principle of nuclear deterrence became known as “mutual assured destruction” — meaning that Washington and Moscow each knew it could destroy the other even if the other struck first.

In retirement, Mr. McNamara argued that planning for nuclear war was futile. “Nuclear weapons serve no military purposes whatsoever,” he wrote. “They are totally useless — except only to deter one’s opponent from using them.”

Which to me still seems like a pretty important rationale for keeping them around. But let it not be forgotten that he was an intellectual giant in his time and was unafraid to challenge the services on the important issues of the day. Rest in peace, sir.