In meetings during our visit to TRANSCOM spring, TRANSCOM officials explained how they addressed the Haiti mission. Three key aspects of this mission were highlighted. First, the Haiti effort had to be conducted while the two key ongoing efforts were maintained at a high level, namely support for the Afghan…
In early June, the SLD team visited the latest National Security Cutter, the WMSL-751 or the USCGC WAESCHE. The team toured the vessel while it was ported in San Diego for a training and repair mission. Captain Lance Bardo, the Commanding Officer of the Waesche, who will soon retire, provided…
By Retired Admiral Ed Gilbert The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is the smallest of our military services (“The runt of the military litter”, said one highly biased anti-military pundit.) Although it has 11 missions assigned by statutes, most of us see it executing the vital search and rescue mission, responding…
[caption id="attachment_10706" align="alignleft" width="116" caption="Dr. Richard Weitz (Credit Photo: The Hudson Institute)"][/caption] By Dr. Richard Weitz A major attraction-getter at the recent Farnborough International Air Show, the biennial aviation event in southern England at which representatives from SLD attended, was a video displaying a laser weapon downing four unmanned…
During our visit to Transcom in March 2010, General McNabb provided a detailed overview on the challenges in supporting the deployed warfighter in Afghanistan, including supporting the surge ordered by the President. Although the General did not put it this way, it was apparent that the con-ops approach of Transcom…
Air Force Association White Paper Excerpts As the support functions ramp up, the USAF has relied more on the KC-10s to provide for the tanker gap. And as the Administration moves forward to make a tanker decision, it is important to re-visit why tankers are so important to the US…
When Second Line of Defense visited Spain in May 2010 for the Trade Media briefings given by Military Airbus, there was an opportunity to visit the A400M final assembly line and to see the 4th A400M under construction which can be seen in the slide show below. In addition Peter…
By Richard Weitz One of the challenges General David Petraeus, U.S. Army, faces as the newly appointed commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is the failure of past efforts to induce many of the Taliban guerrillas to defect and some of the Taliban leaders to negotiate a peace…
