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The Pentagon blog
Peace Dividends Always Come Due, the 1990s Drawdown Reconsidered Both parties cut the force sharply after 1991 on the theory that history had ended. The bill came after 2001, and the 1998 surplus does not cancel it. Follow the Defense Bill From Markup to Signing, a Citizen's Guide The defense authorization bill has passed every year for more than sixty years, and a citizen who knows its calendar can weigh in at the points where it counts. The Weinberger Doctrine Set Six Tests Before Sending Troops to Fight Weinberger's 1984 speech set six tests for committing forces. The tests, Powell's version, Shultz's objection, and a check against Grenada, the Gulf and Iraq. Why Did We Lose in Afghanistan? Twelve Questions the Record Can Answer Twenty years of war left a public paper trail. Twelve plain questions about Afghanistan, answered from the inspector general's reports and the record. Cyberwar Has No Declaration, So When Is a Hack an Act of War Law and doctrine cannot say when a cyberattack becomes an armed attack, and the fog invites aggression. The standard, the history, the case for announced lines. The Defense Production Act of 1950 Is a Wartime Tool with Peacetime Habits Passed for the Korean War, the Defense Production Act lets presidents steer contracts and fund factories. Both parties now stretch it far past defense. Defense Contractors Do Not Start Wars, and Six Other Slogans Examined Seven popular slogans blame war on profit. Tested against the 1961 farewell address, budget shares and the 1990s consolidation, most of them fail. Zumwalt, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Lessons of Procurement Failure Two Navy programs, one cut from 32 ships to three and one retired early, show how requirements creep and concurrent design waste billions, and what to demand. The Pentagon Has Never Passed an Audit, and Conservatives Should Mind A limited-government movement cannot exempt the biggest discretionary agency from the books it demands of everyone else. Here is what a failed audit means. Defense Spending as a Share of the Economy, From Korea to the 2010s Measured against the economy, defense fell from a Korean War peak to near historic lows while entitlements grew. The Pentagon is not what drives the debt. The 2014 Wales Pledge Explained, Where NATO's Two Percent Came From NATO's two percent of GDP is a guideline from a 2014 summit, with a forgotten equipment goal, not a treaty duty. Here is the text, the math and what it means. How America Built 2,710 Liberty Ships and Why It Could Not Do So Today Henry Kaiser's wartime yards launched Liberty ships in days, and the story shows an industrial base is a weapon and why rebuilding ours is a conservative cause. Deterrence Fails When an Enemy Thinks You Will Not Pay the Price Deterrence is capability multiplied by credibility, and wars start when an adversary doubts the second term, as Korea, the Falklands and Kuwait show. Commander in Chief Means Less Than Presidents Claim and More Than Critics Say The Commander in Chief Clause gives a president command of forces Congress raises and the power to repel attacks, but not a general power to start wars. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Is the Case That Tells a President No in Wartime In 1952 the Court stopped Truman from seizing the steel mills during the Korean War, and Justice Jackson's three zones became the map for war power disputes. John Quincy Adams Said America Does Not Go Abroad Hunting for Monsters Adams's Fourth of July address of 1821 is the founding text of the restraint tradition. The passage, its context, and how hawks and restrainers use it. Eisenhower's Farewell Warned About More Than the Military-Industrial Complex Everyone quotes three words from the January 1961 farewell address. Read the whole speech: balance, debt, and an elite of experts were warnings too. NSC-68 and the 1950 Memo That Told America the Price of Staying Free A 1950 policy paper argued that containment without real military power was a bluff, and the argument still holds. What it said, what it cost, who objected.