David Axe

Stories by David Axe

GOP’s War On Terror 2.0: More Drones, More Missiles, More Boots On Ground

GOP’s War On Terror 2.0: More Drones, More Missiles, More Boots On Ground
GOP’s War On Terror 2.0: More Drones, More Missiles, More Boots On Ground

President Barack Obama says he wants to end the 12-year-old war on terror. Not so fast, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Armed Services Committee member. Not only does Graham warn against declaring victory over al Qaeda, he wants more drones, more deployed missile defenses and more U.S. troops on the ground…

Army Releases The Kraken To Protect Foreign Fire Bases; ‘I’d Like To See The Taliban Try To Attack This Place’

ZARI, Afghanistan: On March 3, 2008, a Taliban suicide bomber driving a green truck packed with explosives barreled through the front gate of a small U.S. outpost in Sabari district, Afghanistan, and blew himself up next to the dining facility where American soldiers were just sitting down to dinner. Taliban foot soldiers streamed in, firing…

New Networks Potential Untapped Until Services Shrink Units, Strip Hierarchy

Sitting in the cockpit of her A-10 Warthog somewhere over Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base on Jan. 10, Maj. Olivia Elliott flipped a switch. In an instant her blunt, twin-engine warplane with the 30-millimeter cannon in the nose was transformed. No longer just the Air Force’s most heavily-armed attack jet, now the A-10 was also…

Pentagon’s Global Strike Weapon Stuck In Limbo; Congress Fears Accidental Nuclear War

As part of its ongoing strategic “pivot” towards the Pacific, early this year the Defense Department announced it would design a new missile able to quickly cross long distances and penetrate sophisticated air defenses, of the kind rapidly proliferating across Asia. The so-called “conventional prompt strike option” would be submarine-launched, the Pentagon said in its…

New Air Force Missile Turns Out Lights With Raytheon Microwave Tech

The missile launched from the wing pylon of a B-52 heavy bomber and streaked over the desert of western Utah. At pre-set coordinates, a microwave emitter installed in the winged, jet-propelled cruise missile blasted a target building. But there was no big bang, no billowing clouds of dust and debris. Instead, the building was struck…

The Great MRAP Debate: Are Blast-Resistant Vehicles Worth It?

The bomb exploded like a dusty thunderclap directly underneath the front left tire of the U.S. Army MaxxPro truck, sending the tall, roughly 20-ton vehicle lurching at least 10 feet forward and scattering chunks of the outer hull like amputated body parts. It was March 19, 2011, in the Pakhab-e-Shana in eastern Afghanistan’s breadbasket Logar…

Allies Offer US Strong Advantages, And Some Risk, In China Rivalry

America counts heavily on a cordon of allies stretching from Japan to the north down to Thailand, and across to India, in the highly unlikely event of war with China. But these same allies could draw the U.S. into strictly local disputes in which America does not always have a clear security interest and which…

Navy, MIT Grapple With Managing Drones On Dangerous Decks

The U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers flight decks are some of the most chaotic and deadly real estate in the world. Teeming with scores of high-performance aircraft, wheeled vehicles and up to a thousand sailors generating up to several hundred sorties per day, flight decks “are fraught with danger,” the Naval Safety Center warned in…

Military Airships: Hot Air or Soaring Promise?

The past decade has seen an unlikely revival of a long-grounded technology. Military airships, last operational with the U.S. Navy in the 1960s, took back to the skies, propelled by soaring demand for long-endurance, low-cost aerial surveillance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Per flight hour, an airship costs a fraction of what a helicopter or a…

Missile Subs Delay Is Good News, Bad News Story For Shipbuilders

The Navy’s proposal to delay construction of new ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) meant to succeed the current Ohio class is both good and bad news for America’s shipbuilders, according to the program manager for the new “boomer” sub. But key members of Congress -– already at odds with the Administration over delays to the Virginia-class submarine…

Congress Fights Back Against Costly Delay To Virginia Submarine Program

The cost of building Virginia-class attack submarines could grow by up to $600 million if Congress signs off on the Navy’s proposal to slip a Virginia from 2014 to 2018. Under heavy pressure to cut budgets, the Navy wants to reduce sub-building expenses in the short term, even at the price of increasing the program’s…

U.S. Special Forces Take Down Corrupt Afghan Officials, One At A Time

The commandos came under the cover of darkness. It was mid-February in Laghman province, just east of Kabul in mountainous eastern Afghanistan. A team of U.S. Army Special Forces swept in together with an elite unit of the Afghan police, known as the Provincial Response Company. But this time the target was not a Taliban.…

A Glimpse Inside Special Forces Training of Top Afghan Cops; Rule of Law Vs. Corruption

AFGHANISTAN: International Special Operations Forces play an important but largely unheralded role in Afghanistan. American Army Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force, along with Navy SEALs and Air Force specialists work with the best from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and a host of other allied nations to kill and capture insurgents and terrorists. They also…

Afghan Village Fight Illustrates More Lethal COIN Strategy

MARZAK, Afghanistan — In the middle of the night on July 23, U.S. Special Forces infiltrated a bowl-shaped valley in Paktika Province in remote eastern Afghanistan. Their target: a major Taliban encampment just outside this, which hadn’t had a government presence in decades. Taliban fighters had been using Marzak as a rest stop on the…

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