CSBA in the News

A single moment that may have defined President Obama as a surprisingly tough commander in chief came in December 2009, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize while leading two wars. In the 11 months before the speech and the 22 months since, a president heralded as a liberal and hailed as a pacifist has built his national security record by taking out terrorists, stepping up drone attacks, sending 30,000 troops into Afghanistan and clearing the air for a NATO war against Libya that led to Moammar Gadhafi’s death Thursday.

After more than eight months of fighting and a total of 26,089 sorties — including 9,618 strike missions — by NATO aircraft and ships, Col. Moammar Gadhafi is dead and the Libyan rebels appear firmly in charge of the North African nation.For military strategists one of biggest questions to emerge from the Libyan civil war is whether or not Odyssey Dawn — the official name for the operation — is a new template for Western military intervention.

Would troops prefer the promise of Tricare for Life health care coverage or a cash bonus of $5,500 for every year they serve on active duty?

Five Air Force Pave Hawk helicopters are parked or landing in the high desert east of Tucson, Ariz. They are transporting victims of a mock earthquake as part of a training exercise called Operation Angel Thunder.

On the chopping block: a perfectly good aircraft carrier, a handful of aging cruisers, four of the Navy’s 14 ballistic-missile submarines and another 5,000 sailors beyond expected cuts over the next five to 10 years.

Upcoming spending cuts are likely to end the custom of splitting DoD’s budget pie evenly among the Air Force, Navy and Army — and it’s the ground force that’s most likely to wind up with a thinner slice/…/ “You’re going to make decisions both on force structure and modernization programs, based on your strategic judgments, and that doesn’t lend itself to a one-third, one-third, one-third” split, Lynn said.