WASHINGTON: While it’s too early to say conclusively that the terror, fear, corruption and brutality of the Robert Mugabe regime is at an end, the coup in Zimbabwe offers a chance to highlight how important a role North Korea has played in keeping the old man in power. It’s true. I miss the massive adrenaline…
By Colin ClarkARMY WAR COLLEGE: If you want to know what the Army Chief of Staff is thinking, don’t just ask around the Pentagon. Drive a couple hours north through rural Pennsylvania — passing the Gettysburg battlefield on the way — to the Army War College here in quiet Carlisle. An institution whose influence has waxed and…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: For the first time, an important United States military base, one where a great deal of highly classified communications, intelligence and operations occur, sits within a few miles of a military competitor, China. Where? Djibouti, the tiny African state that sits on the Horn of Africa across from Yemen and sits astride the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: If you want to grow uneasy about the world, read the US-China Commission’s annual report to Congress. China, while it continues to enjoy robust economic growth, faces a major strategic challenge. Strategically, the biggest threat facing China right now — and the rest of the world given how integrated China is to the global economy…
By Colin ClarkLost in this month’s headlines is the fact that the democratically elected leaders of three countries close to the United States and important for its security strategies — France, Mali, and Turkey — have declared (or in France’s case, extended) formal states of emergency. All three states cited good reasons for doing so: France and…
By Michael ShurkinWASHINGTON: Two US special operators assisted with this morning’s hostage rescue operation in Bamako, Mali, a US Africa Command spokesman confirmed. The operators were in Mali already as advisors and so could swiftly respond to support the local forces, Col. Mark Cheadle told me. The Americans advised their Malian counterparts, who conducted the rescue, and physically helped…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Is the US Navy really so short of warships that Marines must catch a ride on foreign vessels, like heavily armed hitchhikers? The answer is, well, sort of. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire — the Marines definitely could use more amphibious warfare ships — but on this story, politicians, lobbyists, and some of…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: China is pushing hard for either special port access or basing rights in the former French colony of Djibouti, a key center where US and French special operations forces operate from against terrorism in both Africa and the Middle East. I confirmed with a senior allied official today that China is seriously pursuing a favored…
By Colin ClarkThis opinion piece — something Sydney and I rarely engage in — is offered to remind ourselves and our readers that, as yesterday’s Paris murders demonstrate, the cost of liberty can be high. Some think the currency of life and struggle — jihad, if you will — is worth paying. The Editor. If you want to be…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: Air Force Tech. Sgt. David Shea sensed no danger as he stood with his .50 caliber machine gun ready at the open ramp of “Rooster 73,” one of three CV-22 Ospreys coming in to land on a small, rutted airstrip in Bor, South Sudan. A crowd of up to 10,000 people milled about a United…
By Richard WhittleAUSA: Even as the first wave of 4,000 Army regulars deploys to West Africa, the service’s mobilization command is preparing for a possible call-up of Reserve and National Guard troops to replace them in six months, Lt. Gen. Michael Tucker told me today. “There are no orders yet,” the First Army commander cautioned, just precautionary…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.In this exclusive exit interview with Breaking Defense contributor James Kitfield, the outgoing chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, talks about metastasizing Islamic terrorism, his struggles to reform intelligence-gathering, and the risk of lurching from crisis to crisis in an Internet-accelerated world. – the editors. “Disruptive.” That’s how Michael Flynn’s enemies…
By James Kitfield
It’s one thing to tell a veteran, “thank you for your service.” It’s another to understand what that service really requires — and what being truly grateful would look like. Just today, the Navy’s already beleaguered 7th Fleet announced one of their 30-year-old C-2 Greyhounds — an aging shore-to-carrier transport due for replacement — had…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.