War Is Boring

English Russia goes inside a MiG-29 squadron in Kursk.

The blog Excuses and Half Truths praises my new graphic novel.

Has the dialogue surrounding the recent killings in Afghanistan been overly sympathetic to the alleged killer, Sgt. Robert Bales? I’m in total agreement with David: the argument that an Afghan life is less valuable than any other life … is wrong.

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN The military has a data problem. More specifically, it has a too-much-data problem. Analysts have to sort through massive amounts of information collected by orbiting surveillance drones and satellites, or finding the data trails left behind by spies inside defense networks. Sorting through all this data is also necessary for making unmanned [...]

Kony Hunter with Christopher Meloni from Christopher Meloni

The U.S. Coast Guard could finally be on track to acquire a new oceangoing icebreaker to boost its dwindling polar fleet.

The robot revolution now has its very own Industrial Light & Magic. Despite the current budget crunch, the Obama Administration got the Navy a brand-new lab. The Naval Research Laboratory’s Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) officially opened for business March 16, 2012, and behind its tired acronym lies a facility Hollywood would kill for.

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN A DEA sting operation targeting a cell of would-be cartel assassins ended in a violent warehouse showdown over the weekend. Among their ranks: one active-duty Army soldier, and one former G.I. According to a criminal complaint released yesterday in federal court (.pdf), the showdown occured around 12:30 p.m. Saturday as armed federal agents closed [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN The CIA offered in January to scale back its unofficial drone war in Pakistan, hoping to convince the country’s reluctant spy chiefs to acquiesce to a continued robotic campaign against al-Qaeda and its allies. The problem: a fair-sized chunk of Pakistan’s political leadership would rather have the drones leave altogether. The offer [...]

After nearly 20 years of development and $65 billion, the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 2005. But it wasn’t until this month that the first squadron of Lockheed Martin-built F-22s was fully combat-ready with ground-mapping radars and a flexible bomb payload — standard equipment on most Air Force strike jets. The cost to bring the roughly 150 front-line Raptors up to this normal level of capability: an extra $8 billion, boosting the per-jet cost from $350 million to almost $400 million.

The Navy’s proposal to delay construction of new ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) meant to succeed the current Ohio class is both good and bad news for America’s shipbuilders, according to the program manager for the new “boomer” sub. But key members of Congress -– already at odds with the Administration over delays to the Virginia-class submarine — remain skeptical.