Personal Military Ties Key To Successful Alliances: CJCS Demspey

WASHINGTON: Just back from his trip to Asia, the jet-lagged Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff attended graduation ceremonies at the Pentagon’s National Defense University, where he singled out NDU’s first-ever Vietnamese graduate, a colonel in the People’s Army of Vietnam, as an example of the kind of relationship-building the US military must do…

Islamic Militants Bloody US Forces In Big Army Wargame

US ARMY WAR COLLEGE: It’s a week into the war, and things are getting ugly. Fifty American and allied troops are dead, four hundred are wounded — some in city fighting against Islamic militants, some when the surprisingly sophisticated foe shot down their aircraft with shoulder-fired missiles and anti-helicopter mines. Now the US-led task force…

Former CNO, DepSecDef Fight To Stop Cuts To Navy’s Humanitarian Mission

WASHINGTON: Disaster relief, medical assistance, and other humanitarian missions can provide a low-cost way for the military to build US influence in Asia and elsewhere, a key part of the administration’s new national security strategy, but this “soft power” approach is complicated both by civilian aid groups’ suspicion of the military and by looming budget…

Japan To Pay $3.1B To Move Okinawa Marines; Eye On Pacific Strategy

The Obama administration late Thursday announced yet another attempt to settle the prolonged and increasingly bitter clash with Japan over the controversial and expensive plan to relocate thousands of U.S. Marines off the crowded island of Okinawa. Senior defense and State Department officials said the revised agreement would strengthen the critical alliance between the U.S.…

Be ‘Dominant’ In Pacific, But Make Nice With PRC, Singaporean MoD Tells U.S.

WASHINGTON: The US plays a “dominant role” in keeping the peace in the Pacific, and that’s a good thing, said Singaporean Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen — but the US still needs to cooperate with China, not confront or contain it. That’s the word to the wise from one of America’s closest military partners in…

Does US Navy Need More Ships to Counter China?

WASHINGTON: The complexities of the United States diplomatic and military relationships with the People’s Republic of China were on full view today as the U.S. Navy’s leader said he does not need a bigger force to manage our presence in the western Pacific. Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, told several hundred people that…

Army Targets AirSea Battle; Hungers For Pacific Role

With budgets falling and China rising, the U.S. Army wants in on the one theater where President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have promised to keep investing: the Pacific. The world’s largest ocean is not an obvious fit for America’s land forces. So far, it is the Air Force and the Navy that have…

Army Seeks Answers, Combs Through ‘Alternative Futures’

Escalating cyber threats, a struggling economy, the rise of China, and the unpredictable impact of the Arab Spring will dominate the next decade. At least, that’s the best collective guess of a conclave of academic experts, government officials, and military officers from the U.S. and abroad, convened by the United States Army. Their objective: This…