2014-07-10 An Interview with Air Vice -Marshal John Blackburn AO (Retd). In an interview with Murielle Delaporte in May 2014, Air Vice-Marshal John Blackburn assesses the evolution of military logistics in Australia, which unique geographic circumstances are a challenge all in itself. Expeditionary by nature, the Australian Defence Force has…
2014-07-07 By Richard Weitz Recent tests have seen progress for two key elements of the evolving missile defense system deployed by the United States and key allies. The first set of tests involve key elements for the new Ground Based Interceptor to be deployed in Alaska. And the second set…
2014-07-10 by Ed Timperlake Debate over the type of response America should demonstrate against the fanatical Islamic killers called ISIS is cloudy, confused and murky in DC. This is especially true inside the Obama Administration. Vice President Biden early on wanted a three part geographic division of Iraq, Sunni, Shia,…
2014-07-02 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake When we wrote our book on the evolution of Pacific challenges and strategy with Richard Weitz, we focused on the core necessity to shape a modular and scalable force to provide for the kind of forward presence, which the US needed to operate…
2014-07-07 By Bill Jayne The battle for the future of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is shaping up as a typical D vs. R skirmish over money. The D's say that everything will be ok if the stingy R's just cough up…
2014-07-08 By Robbin Laird During my recent visit to the 2nd I have had the opportunity to visit the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing for a number of years. The Wing has been an important force for innovation in the period in which I have been visiting. KC-130Js, and Ospreys are…
2014-07-08 Second Line of Defense visited 2nd Marine Wing in late June 2014, and we covered the VMX-22 change of command. As part of this effort, we sat down with the departing commander, Col. Michael Orr and with the newly appointed commander, who had been serving as the Executive Officer…
2014-07-03 by Kenneth Maxwell On the eve of Ramadan, the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levent (Isis), an violently extremist jihadi group, having seized territory in both Iraq and Syria, tore down the boundaries between them, and established a Caliphate, a sovereign state, believed by many Muslims to be the inheritor of the…
