National Defense Briefs
October 23, 2013
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
October 25, 2013
With this piece we begin a new series, National Defense Briefs. Each week, LowcountryBizSC.com will publish several briefs aimed at informing readers with timely military and homeland security news updates, analysis, trends, and short commentaries. Defense issues are inextricably connected to business. And in that we will bring to LowcountryBizSC.com readers National Defense Briefs that matter.
- According to Military Officer magazine (Oct. 2013), by the mid-2020s, the Arctic might well be ice-free and fully navigable for one month every year. We are present in every ocean in the world, and will be present in the Arctic when it becomes navigable, says Rear Adm. Jonathan White, U.S. Navy Oceanographer. [Problem is] our area of responsibility is expanding, but none of our budgets are growing.
- Increasingly, the White House is shifting its defense strategy from the Middle East toward Asia (what is frequently referred to as the Pacific Pivot) as a matter of geopolitical necessity, because – as Popular Mechanics reports – America’s economic health is so closely tied to the region. The Middle East and Africa will, however, remain major focuses for the Defense Dept.
- In an interview for DefenseNews, Maj. Gen. Steven Kwast, U.S. Air Force, said, [the USAF projects] power, with the speed, range and persistence to go anywhere in the world and do whatever the president needs. As the world emerges and technology proliferates, other countries are able to push you off. We have to stay at a higher plateau … so when the president says he needs to see what’s going on in the South China Sea, there’s not a darn thing China can do about us getting in there to see what’s going on. That’s our job.
- In Afghanistan, Monsif Khan – an Afghan Army Special Forces commander – has defected to an insurgent group allied with the Taliban. The first Afghan special operations commander to defect, Khan took with him up to 30 guns, night-vision goggles, binoculars and a Humvee, according to the governor of Kunar Province. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bill Connor, former senior U.S. military advisor in Helmand Province says, In Pashtun culture much of the allegiances are wrapped-up in clan-and-tribal loyalties. Disturbing? Yes, though it’s too early to say this is a trend. One man is not a trend. Moreover, we cannot view this one defection by an Afghan soldier – though he may be an officer and he may be Special Forces – the way we would an American Special Forces officer. It is clearly not the same thing. Though it is something about which we must keep our eyes open.
- U.S. Army Capt. William Swenson received the Medal of Honor, Oct. 15, 2013, for his actions during the battle in the Ganjgal Valley, Afghanistan, Sept. 8, 2009. Swenson is the first U.S. Army officer to receive the Medal since the Vietnam War, and the sixth living-recipient in the War on Terror.
– W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a military analyst and partner with
NATIONAL DEFENSE CONSULTANTS, LLC. Visit him at http://uswriter.com.
