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Week In Review: The War in Iraq Turns Ugly. That's What Wars Do.
March 30, 2003

ARLINGTON, Va. -- This campaign was begun, like so many others throughout history, with lofty exhortations from battlefield commanders to their troops, urging courage, patience, compassion for the Iraqi people and even chivalry. Within a week it had degenerated into an unexpected ugliness in virtually every populated area... Read on...

No Ordinary War, No Ordinary Hero
February 25, 2000

ARLINGTON, Va. -- John McCain's presidential campaign, more clearly than any since that of Dwight D. Eisenhower, emphasizes military biography over political accomplishments. Just as Eisenhower was embraced by the nation for the leadership he showed in World War II, any discussion about Mr. McCain begins with his ordeal as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Read on...

Warily Watching China
February 23, 1999

An oddly nonlinear debate has emerged in Washington regarding the implications of China's growing power. Those who are concerned mainly with national defense measure tangibles like China's leaps in military technology, its nuclear and military assistance to other nations and its frequent saber-rattling over various East Asian issues. For them, China is a serious and looming threat. By contrast, those officials whose principal concerns are improving American-Chinese relations and reciprocal trade reason that the growth of Chinese power is to be expected, that it is defensive rather than expansionist, and that China has no intention of competing with the United States on a global scale. Read on...

What To Do About China
June 15, 1998

ARLINGTON, VA, For more than a decade many concerned observers have warned of the dangers in reaching a one-sided rapprochement with China. Invariably, such trepidations have been minimized by "pragmatic" political voices, or shouted down by business leaders who were seduced by China's vast potential market only to become hostages should our policies toward that country turn more confrontational. Read on...

Remember The Nixon Doctrine
November 1995

The Clinton Administration's insistence on putting 20,000 American troops into Bosnia should be seized on by A national leaders, particularly those running for president to force a long-overdue a debate on the worldwide obligations of our military. Read on...

Political Correctness Infects The Pentagon
July 1994

ARLINGTON, Va. In looking for someone to head the United States' complex and dangerous military operations in the Pacific (including the Korean Peninsula). one could hardly have found an officer more qualified than Adm. Stanley R. Arthur - who until recently was indeed the nominee for the job. And in seeking an example of how far Pentagon leadership has fallen, and how the issue of sexual harassment has descended into ugly McCarthyism, one could hardly find a more telling case than Admiral. Arthur's sudden. dispatch to early retirement. Read on...

The Military Is Not A Social Program
August 1993

Our society is becoming ever more divided between people of thought and people of action. Thus, it is not surprising that a wide array of politicians and commentators found the order by the Marine Corps Commandant that would have limited enlistments to unmarried recruits an object of easy derision. Administration officials concede that Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. possesses the authority to change Marine commitment policy without their approval. Nonetheless, the order was quickly rescinded, and he was subjected to a public dressing-do" for having exercised his judgment without their concurrence. Read on...

Witch Hunt In The Navy
October 1992

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. The Tailhook scandal has been "spun up," to borrow a service phrase, into a crisis that affects the Navy leadership's credibility on a wide range of issues. A botched internal investigation and the ongoing revelations of inexcusable harassment of women at a Las Vegas convention of, naval aviators a year ago have also left in their wake a witch hunt that threatens to swamp the entire naval service. Read on...

...And the Horrors of a Desert War
September 1990

ARLINGTON, Va. — President Bush has not only embarked on his own voyage into the Persian Gulf, that Bermuda Triangle of Presidencies. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, he has dragged more than a hundred thousand of our troops with him. And as the President struggles at home, our troops have been learning to cope with a sun that can melt electrical wiring, sand so fine that few filters can keep it out of gear boxes and a growing ennui that seeps through even the most careful monitoring of the press corps. Read on...