War Is Boring

by DAVID AXE A paragraph or two a day from my forthcoming book FROM A TO B: HOW LOGISTICS FUELS AMERICAN POWER AND PROSPERITY: In June 2009, in a nondescript field in a nondescript corner on the MIT campus, a mostly normal-looking forklift does what millions of forklifts do every day all over the world: [...]

In two years of operations, a Virginia-based maritime security company has escorted commercial vessels through pirate-infested East African waters 300 times without incident. Nexus Consulting Group of Alexandria’s impressive record is the latest evidence of a surprising turn in the five-year-old international war on Somali pirates. More and more, for-profit security guards are taking over from the world’s navies on the maritime front lines.

Rep. McKeon, Secretary Panetta, and Admiral Mullen demonstrate their colossal failure to cope with the problem. They believe that spending levels are the key determinant of military viability. They fail to acknowledge that for the past decade-actually longer-more money has meant smaller, older, less ready forces. Their worship of the money flow means they cannot conceive how our forces might actually improve at lower levels of spending, and they quake in fear at the prospect of Pentagon spending being only thrice that of China. Indeed, they have no inkling how to reduce spending without reducing the viability of our forces. At lower budget levels, they will indeed decimate our forces. Before they are given a chance to do that, they should be replaced.

A paragraph or two a day from my forthcoming book FROM A TO B: HOW LOGISTICS FUELS AMERICAN POWER AND PROSPERITY.

China is just days away from launching an ambitious rival to the International Space Station, pictured above. A rocket launch carrying an unmanned test module named Tiangong 1 — literally, “Heavenly Palace 1” — is scheduled for this week. Allegedly, the 8.5-ton Tiangong 1 module is designed to practice autonomous rendezvous ops in orbit, in order to prep for a manned space base around 2020. But China-watchers and space specialists are trying to figure out if there’s an additional agenda for the Heavenly Palace.

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN A scrawled sign was placed next to a decapitated body near a main road in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo. Its message was simple: Stop talking about drug cartels on the internet — or anywhere else. “Nuevo Laredo en Vivo and social networking sites,” the sign read, “I’m The Laredo [...]

A paragraph or two a day from my forthcoming book FROM A TO B: HOW LOGISTICS FUELS AMERICAN POWER AND PROSPERITY.

Alice Fordham at The Washington Post reflects on my new book FROM A TO B.

A paragraph or two a day from my forthcoming book FROM A TO B: HOW LOGISTICS FUELS AMERICAN POWER AND PROSPERITY.

It took nearly two decades, but the first of a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarines has launched in Russia. Severodvinsk, displacing 12,000 tons, is now on sea trials.

F-22s are back in the air following a four-month grounding. Background here.

A paragraph or two a day from my forthcoming book FROM A TO B: HOW LOGISTICS FUELS AMERICAN POWER AND PROSPERITY.