Anthony A. Wallis
| July 31, 2013, 12:44 p.m.
For months, the Defense Department has carried out affairs under the direction of the Budget Control Act of 2011, aka “the sequester.” This state of affairs has imposed limits on military procurement, deployment, training schedules and overall force readiness.
Howard Dean and Tom Ridge
| July 31, 2013, 5 a.m.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
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Frank Oliveri
| July 30, 2013, 3:01 p.m.
Democrats and Republicans agree that the nation’s missile defenses — designed to blunt missile threats from North Korea and Iran — need improvement.
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Frank Oliveri
| July 30, 2013, 2:58 p.m.
The $40 billion Ground-based Midcourse Defense system was developed and deployed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles and consists of ground-based interceptor missiles, kill vehicles and radar located in Alaska and California.
Bob Ridder
| July 29, 2013, 5 a.m.
For most of last year, Democrats and Republicans in Congress agreed that the sequester was a defense calamity that would undermine military readiness and break faith with our troops and veterans. It’s hard to watch their prediction come true while the real waste at the Pentagon goes unchecked.
Sen. Christopher S. Murphy
| July 19, 2013, 1:10 p.m.
There are more international regulations for the cross-border sale of comfy armchairs than there are for deadly arms. Yes, you read that right. Furniture, fruit and iPods are just a few of the items that cross international borders on a daily basis with more regulation than weapons that can be used to fuel war, tyrannical repression and genocide.
Mark Jansson
| July 17, 2013, 12:41 p.m.
The election of moderate Hasan Rouhani as president of Iran has sparked both hope and fear about the future of negotiations to resolve the nuclear dispute. Rouhani is saying all of the right things to raise hopes for diplomacy.
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Megan Scully, Emily Cadei
| July 16, 2013, 1:19 p.m.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the military’s top officer, is up for confirmation for another two-year term at an awkward time for the Obama administration, as it wrestles with its response to unrest abroad and steep cuts to defense spending at home.
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Megan Scully
| July 16, 2013, 1:17 p.m.
Senate Armed Services Committee members will likely use Thursday’s hearing with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey to flesh out more detail on the fiscal sacrifices the military will make if budget caps remain in place into fiscal 2014.
Hugh Shelton
| July 16, 2013, 5 a.m.
The United States is again party to a good news/bad news event in the Middle East. For years, freedom-loving people around the world worked together under the courageous leadership of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, using every tool at their disposal, to get the wrongful designation of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) as a terrorist group removed.
Melissa Kaplan
| July 15, 2013, 5 a.m.
In today’s polarized political environment, it’s not often that a bill receives a unanimous show of support from the U.S. House of Representatives. However, that’s what happened last December, when the House approved, by a vote of 390-0, the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act.
Michael Shank and Matt Southworth
| July 12, 2013, 12:34 p.m.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee heard a compelling case recently for better oversight and accountability of war funding. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen delivered the agency’s final oversight report to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. The takeaway: More oversight is needed or more money will be wasted.
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Steven T. Dennis, Rob Margetta
| July 12, 2013, 12:07 p.m.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s decision to leave the Cabinet this fall means President Barack Obama will have to find a replacement just as deliberations over an immigration overhaul may reach their peak.
Matthew Boulay
| July 10, 2013, 3:56 p.m.
Five years ago last week, the Post-9/11 GI Bill was signed into law to honor those who served and sacrificed by giving them a shot at a better future and a chance at the American dream.
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Emily Cadei
| July 10, 2013, 6 a.m.
The covert nature of President Barack Obama’s plan to arm Syria’s rebels has left Congress’ intelligence committees with what amounts to sole jurisdiction over the latest phase of U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war.
Rep. Karen Bass
| July 8, 2013, 2:02 p.m.
In a recent Capitol Hill policy discussion on U.S.-Africa trade, an African ambassador passionately proclaimed that the best thing the United States can do for Africa is to remove the negative stereotype that if one nation has a problem then the continent as a whole is damned.
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Kerry Young
| July 5, 2013, 11:30 a.m.
The late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, who lost an arm fighting in World War II, once observed that advances in transportation and medicine were allowing soldiers to survive battlefield wounds that would have been a death sentence during his time in combat.
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Paul M. Krawzak
| July 1, 2013, 5 p.m.
Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray wants Republicans to engage in budget negotiations to replace the sequester before the August recess, saying bipartisan talks provide the only way for the parties to agree on higher defense spending levels.
David Beckmann, George Ingram and Jim Kolbe
| July 1, 2013, 11:07 a.m.
Something peculiar has happened around President Barack Obama’s trip to Africa: a famously dysfunctional Congress actually sent a constructive, bipartisan message to the president about the future of engagement with the continent and other developing countries.
Chet Nagle
| July 1, 2013, 5 a.m.
North Korea fell off the front pages when the media decided Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is a fat paper tiger. But North Korea is resolutely sending military advisors to help Syria, an embattled ally and an excellent customer for chemical weapons. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights notes that North Korean officers are now in Syria, directing Assad’s artillery.
