The military's porn problem: A national security threat. The Pentagon Pathology. The allocation of money within the American military system is reflected in which weapons are chosen—and why. What is at stake are rivalries among military branches, which have influence and connections with arms producers, the Congress, and the entire complex matrix of factors that determine who wins and loses in the Pentagon budget process. The United States has, by far, the largest military budget of any nation on earth but it also loses wars, cannot procure everything the military services dream up, and ultimately it too must choose between weapons at the expense of the priorities and demands of other services.
In plain English, if the Air Force gets an ultra-modern aircraft which may cost many billions, even trillions, and takes years to iron out the technology (and may ultimately even never operate) there will be less money for the Army and Navy to attain its dreams—or visa versa. Here some historical background is in order. In April 1950 the U. Decentralized subsistence economies. Hyper Velocity Projectile Program: Navy’s Electrically-fired 5,600 mph GPS-guided Bullet. The Office of Naval Research – the same entity which runs the Naval Research Laboratory, developers of the unbelievable Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR) – apparently was not satisfied with their already astounding Electromagnetic Rail Gun.
A 5,600 mph electrically fired bullet apparently wasn’t enough, thus forcing the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to create one which also can be guided by Global Positioning System (GPS). To set the bar even higher, if such a thing is possible, the United States Navy also wants to make this technology compatible with all of the Navy’s current artillery guns. This technology apparently has so much promise that Admiral Gary Roughead, former top officer in the Navy, said of technology like this as well as lasers (which have already cost the taxpayer billions), “You’re beginning, maybe, to see the end of the dominance of the missile.” Elsewhere they refer to the “guided” aspect of the weapon as “potential in-flight retargeting.” The Pentagon has created a database of every bomb they've dropped since the First World War. U.S. Air Force looks to train pilots for hi-tech threats. By Agence France-PresseSunday, July 29, 2012 10:15 EDT NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada — For over a decade US fighter pilots have become accustomed to “owning the sky” in wars against insurgents who have no air defenses, but now the air force is trying to get back to basics reminding pilots how to fly against a sophisticated enemy.
In the desert outside Las Vegas, the US Air Force is reminding pilots how to fly against an enemy with fighter jets, surface-to-air missiles and satellite jammers. Traditional combat skills have gotten “a little rusty,” said Steve Imonti, a former fighter pilot who helps oversee simulated air battles out of Nellis Air Force Base. If a pilot goes three years or more without attending the “red flag” mock battles at Nellis, “then you see that rust really start to build up,” said Imonti, director of programs and evaluation for the 414th Combat Training Squadron.
“So that when it actually happens in combat, you’re saying, ‘I’ve been there and done this,’” he said. The Pentagon's New Generation of Secret Military Bases. "Where in Africa? " I asked. He said he didn't know exactly, but generally from the Horn, often with critical injuries. "A lot out of Djibouti," he added, referring to Camp Lemonnier, the main US military base in Africa, but from "elsewhere" in the region, too. Since the "Black Hawk Down" deaths in Somalia almost 20 years ago, we've heard little, if anything, about American military casualties in Africa (other than a strange report last week about three special operations commandos killed, along with three women identified by US military sources as "Moroccan prostitutes," in a mysterious car accident in Mali). These casualties are likely to be the vanguard of growing numbers of wounded troops coming from places far removed from Afghanistan or Iraq.
Disappearing are the days when Ramstein was the signature US base, an American-town-sized behemoth filled with thousands or tens of thousands of Americans, PXs, Pizza Huts, and other amenities of home. Transforming the Base Empire. Www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/attp3-37-31.pdf. Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL33745.pdf. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R41526.pdf. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS22907.pdf. Blogs.defensenews.com/saxotech-access/pdfs/decade-of-war-lessons-learned.pdf. 13 Weapons for Cubicle Warfare. Staying sane while spending hours in a cubicle is difficult. You’re constantly at war with claustrophobia, aching kneecaps and, at times, the guy sitting next to you. Whether mean-spirited or not, an office war requires the right arsenal of weapons, and you don’t want to show up unprepared for any workplace shenanigans. Here are some devious little items to get you started. 1.
Airzooka Air Gun – $13 2. Executive Elite Marshmallow Blaster – $55 3. Monitor Rear-view Mirror – $10 4. Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22373.pdf. DOD Leaders Strongly Urge Congress to Preserve Budget Request. By Karen Parrish American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, June 13, 2012 – Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta cautioned Congress today against dismantling the strategic framework that supports the 2013 defense budget request. Testifying along with Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, the secretary said some changes to the request could undermine the careful balance department leaders built into military spending projections.
“Some of the [congressional] committees have … made changes with regard to our recommendations that we're concerned about,” Panetta said. He listed three areas DOD leaders have targeted for cuts, and which some members of Congress have challenged during defense budget consideration. “Some of the bills seek to reverse the decisions to eliminate aging and lower-priority ships and aircraft,” the secretary noted. “That's it. America's Last Prisoner of War | Politics News. In June 2012, fearless Rolling Stone contributing editor Michael Hastings wrote the definitive first account of Bowe Bergdahl — the young American soldier who was captured by the Taliban and became the last American prisoner of war. Hastings, the journalist who brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal in these pages, died in a car accident one year later.
Bergdahl was freed this weekend. Hastings' incredible story is available in full here: The mother and father sit at the kitchen table in their Idaho farmhouse, watching their son on YouTube plead for his life. The Taliban captured 26-year-old Bowe Bergdahl almost three years ago, on June 30th, 2009, and since that day, his parents, Jani and Bob, have had no contact with him. Like the rest of the world, their lone glimpses of Bowe – the only American prisoner of war left in either Iraq or Afghanistan – have come through a series of propaganda videos, filmed while he's been in captivity.
"Release me, please! " Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin. Apr 23, 2012 11:22am It turns out that tearing through the atmosphere at 20 times the speed of sound is bad for the skin, even if you’re a super high-tech aircraft developed by the government’s best engineers at its far-out research agency. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, has made public its best guess about what might have caused its unmanned arrowhead-shaped Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2) to suddenly lose contact and crash in the Pacific just a few minutes after slicing through the sky at Mach 20 last August: it was going so fast its skin peeled off.
After an eight-month investigation, DARPA concluded that even though the HTV-2 was expected to lose some of its skin mid-flight, “larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle’s skin peeled from the aerostructure,” the agency said in a statement Friday. While the test was very public, the details of the HTV-2′s design, stability system and potential purpose remain highly classified. Battleship Earth - By Cara Parks and Joshua E. Keating. As summer blockbuster season kicks into high gear, big-budget action movies like The Avengers, Battleship, and Prometheus remind us that there's one thing that unites Americans: Our shared fear of an alien attack.
They also remind us that when the invading space fleet arrives, humanity is not going to surrender without a fight to our intergalactic invaders. Instead, we will band together to fight off their incredibly advanced weaponry with our ... well, with what, exactly? Are we really ready to battle our would-be alien overlords?
Luckily, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA, as well as some of the world's largest weapons manufacturers, are dreaming up the weapons of the future today. With the help of everything from lasers on jets to hypersonic planes to invisibility cloaks, we just might be able to make the battle for Earth a fair fight. The official title sounds rather subdued, but don't be fooled -- this is an awesome laser beam. Darpa Bae. At West Point, Asking if a War Doctrine Was Worth It.
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Members of the class of 2013 at the United States Military Academy practice for coming military maneuvers in the field. Now at another critical moment in American military history, the faculty here on the commanding bend in the Hudson River is deep in its own existential debate. Narrowly, the argument is whether the counterinsurgency strategy used in Iraq and Afghanistan — the troop-heavy, time-intensive, expensive doctrine of trying to win over the locals by building roads, schools and government — is dead. Broadly, the question is what the United States gained after a decade in two wars. “Not much,” Col. Colonel Gentile, long a critic of counterinsurgency, represents one side of the divide at West Point. “Nobody should ever underestimate the costs and the risks involved with counterinsurgency, but neither should you take that off the table,” Colonel Meese said, also in an interview last week.
For Each Death, A Hole In The World. First flight of LEMV military blimp scheduled for next month. Northrop Grumman’s Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) is scheduled to make its first flight next month Next-generation airships are notorious for always being just around the corner, almost but not-quite ready to take to the skies. According to a report in Wired, however, Northrop Grumman’s military Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) has been scheduled to make its maiden flight early next month.
The announcement was reportedly made at a special forces industry conference in Tampa, Florida, by Northrop Grumman’s director of Army programs, K.C. Brown, Jr. Apparently the LEMV should begin test flights at Lakehurst, New Jersey, sometime between June 6 and 10. Northrop Grumman is building the LEMV for the U.S. Source: Wired About the Author Post a CommentRelated Articles Just enter your friends and your email address into the form below For multiple addresses, separate each with a comma Privacy is safe with us because we have a strict privacy policy. FBI’s New Secretive Surveillance Unit Can Spy on Skype and Wireless Communications. Www.afa.org/professionaldevelopment/issuebriefs/F-22_v_F-35_Comparison.pdf. Panetta Presses Brazil to Buy Boeing Fighters.
During the first visit by an American defense secretary to the country in seven years, Mr. Panetta used a speech at Superior War College here to focus on smoothing a sometimes thorny relationship and promoting American weapons sales. Brazil is deciding whether to buy 36 fighter jets worth about $4 billion in a competition between Boeing in the United States, Dassault Aviation in France and Saab in Sweden. Boeing makes the F/A-18 E/6 Super Hornet, Dassault makes the Rafale and Saab makes the Gripen. Mr. Mr. The Boeing sale is a priority for the American government — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been pushing it as well — in large part because it will provide jobs.
It is unclear whether Mr. American defense officials insisted that there was no quid pro quo in the contracts. Mr. Al-Qaeda Claims U.S. Mass Transportation Infrastructure Must Drastically Improve Before Any Terrorist Attacks. WASHINGTON—In a 30-minute video released Thursday, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri criticized the mass transportation infrastructure of the United States, claiming significant repairs and upgrades would need to be implemented before the militant group would consider destroying any roads, bridges, or railways with terrorist attacks. Reading from a prepared statement, al-Zawahiri blasted the U.S. government for its lack of foresight and admonished its leaders for failing to provide Americans with efficient and reliable modes of public transport to reduce traffic congestion, lower carbon emissions, improve air quality, and supply suitable targets for terrorists.
"The al-Qaeda network is fully prepared to continue the jihad against the American infidels by launching deadly attacks, but your outdated and rusting transportation infrastructure needs to be completely overhauled for those strikes even to be noticed," al-Zawahiri said. "Frankly, America is a complete mess," al-Zawahiri said. Marines Moving Women Toward the Front Lines. Pentagon establishes Defense Clandestine Service, new espionage unit. The plan, the official said, was developed in response to a classified study completed last year by the director of national intelligence that concluded that the military’s espionage efforts needed to be more focused on major targets beyond the tactical considerations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new service will seek to “make sure officers are in the right locations to pursue those requirements,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the “realignment” of the military’s classified human espionage efforts. The official declined to provide details on where such shifts might occur, but the nation’s most pressing intelligence priorities in recent years have included counterterrorism, nonproliferation and ascendant powers such as China.
Defense Secretary Leon E. The official said the new service is expected to grow “from several hundred to several more hundred” operatives in the coming years. “My question is, why? While serving in Afghanistan, Lt. Blackwater ‘Gone Wild’ in Iraq: ‘The Warrior Class’ (Videos) Trolling for Kids. The Empire is Using Hard Times to Help it Recruit More Imperial Troops and Cannon Fodder In the militarist society in which we live in these latter days of American Empire, all soldiers are “noble heroes” who have signed up at “great personal sacrifice” to “defend our freedoms,” and we are all expected to pay homage and a great deal of our hard-earned money to support them, both in their brutal efforts to subjugate people in desperately poor parts of the world, and (when they leave the service, either to take jobs in the private sector or to live out broken lives if they were wounded) as veterans.
But let’s be honest about all this. Most of the men and women in the military didn’t join the US armed forces out of any noble motives. They joined because there are no jobs to be had, and the military is taking pretty much anybody who’s willing to sign on the dotted line (they’re begging for recruits). The following list he provides includes: sailors as job inducements.) Pentagon Gets 12 Weapons For Only A Penny From Columbia Missile and Tank Club | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion Radio News.
Combat Camera - An FP Slide Show. U.S. Navy program to study how troops use intuition. Dhs-fast.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Future Attribute Screening Technology. A Very Scary Fireworks Show: Exploding H-Bombs In Space : Krulwich Wonders... Starfish Prime. Exploding H-Bombs In Space: Operation Starfish Prime. Nuclear Weapons on a Highway Near You. $100 Buys Airport Security Bypass | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | American Voices. War against Islam? Bin Laden’s documents show Obama was right, and Gingrich and Santorum were wrong. Afghan Massacre Sheds Light on Culture of Mania and Aggression in U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.
Home Movies From The Manhattan Project. Www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm1-04.pdf. Conscience and the Military. Gryphon winged suit drops in for some serious air time. First industry railgun prototype launcher gets all fired up. Using lasers to look through container walls from a distance and detect explosives. How did we forget about mutually assured destruction?
10 Weapons Of The Future That Are Being Developed Right Now. Is The Military Using Psychiatric Diagnoses to Keep Costs Down? A Military Diagnosis, ‘Personality Disorder,’ Is Challenged. U.S. Army develops “Kevlar underpants” to protect soldiers' nether regions. DARPA’s Robot Mules Carry 400 Lbs, Never Tire (Video) Security By Bending GPS Geography. Panetta Asks Congress to Undo Sequestration, Approve BRAC. Loose Lips Sink Drones. 11 Incredible Weapons That Only America Has. Invisibility Cloak Allows Combat Vehicles To 'Disappear' And Change Shape. Taser's Shockwave Cannon Array Like Many Little Bottles of Lightning Bolts. What should you do if you suspect a car has been following you. Air Force Budget Request Reflects Changing Needs, Official Says. 2013 Pentagon budget: Why so much spending on big-war weapons? Budget Proposal Requests Smaller, More Modern, Agile Force.
Future wars may be waged with mind-controlled weaponry, Royal Society warns. U.S. Navy set to test first industry railgun prototype. iRobot launches new 710 Warrior robot. Www1.rollingstone.com/extras/RS_REPORT.pdf. Barack Obama: Serial Warmonger (Video) Decoding the Pentagon’s Budget Numbers.