pentagon

When Pentagon strategists sought to create a new military command to oversee Africa, they believed they could build one that deemphasized military might and would serve as an exemplar of what so-called US soft power could do around the world.

A just-released Pentagon report spotlights a growing U.S. military concern that China is developing a multi-dimensional program to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by its potential adversaries during times of crisis or conflict.

Of all the crazy, bizarre less-lethal weapons that have been proposed, the use of microwaves to target the human mind remains the most disturbing. The question has always been: is this anything more than urban myth? We may not have the final answer to this question, but a newly declassified Pentagon report, Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons , obtained by a private citizen under the Freedom of Information Act, provides some fascinating tidbits on a variety of exotic weapons ideas.

The Pentagon has denied President Bush issued a directive for it to resume open-air testing of chemical and biological warfare(CBW) agents that were halted by President Richard Nixon in 1969. Yet, the Pentagon's stated preparations make it appear it is poised to do just that. Spokesperson Chris Isleib did not respond to a request for comment on a passage from the Defense Department's annual report sent to Congress last April that suggests the Pentagon is gearing up to resume the tests. Resumption of open-air testing would reverse a long-standing moratorium adopted after a public outcry against them following accidents in the Sixties. The Pentagon's annual report apparently calls for both the developmental and operational "field testing of (CBW) full systems," not just simulations.

Pakistan's Frontier Corps is responsible for protecting the country's western regions along its more than 1,500-kilometer porous border with Afghanistan. With a reported 60,000 paramilitary troops, the force is comprised of 14 units based in the Northwest Frontier Province and 13 units in Baluchistan. The troops operate under the orders of Pakistan's Army Headquarters as well as the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions. The Pentagon's proposal for more funds calls for a training center to be built in northwestern Pakistan.

The Pentagon's plan to hit anywhere on Earth, in just an hour or two, just got a $100 million boost from Congress. As the Washington Post notes, "the House-Senate conference report on the fiscal 2008 defense appropriations bill" provides a hundred large for a "'prompt global strike' program that could deliver a conventional, precision-guided warhead anywhere in the world within two hours."

The Pentagon is paying Lockheed Martin to try to predict insurgencies and civil unrest like the weather. It's part of a larger military effort to blend forecasting software with social science that has some counterinsurgency experts cringing.

PENTAGON (AP) - The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says he doesn't think the U.S. military is stretched too thin to take action against Iran, if that's what leaders decide to do.

Soviet era foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze on Wednesday warned world leaders not to let the row over US plans to place a missile shield in Europe escalate into another Cold War. "We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, we must not allow another Cold War to happen," Shevardnadze said as he presented the German version of his political memoirs, "Thoughts on the Past and the Future", at the Frankfurt Book Fair. "It is my moral duty to make this warning. We must not allow the upset about missiles and anti-missile systems to escalate.

There's been a "radical change in U.S. policy when it comes to its cyber warfighting stance," according to Inside the Air Force. A few months back, Pentagon officials were saying that "the military had no plans to shift its cyber warfare focus from a defensive mindset to an offensive one." But now that the Air Force has declared themselves the service in charge of all things electronic, "high-ranking service officials say they are developing offensive strategies to attack enemies’ cyber assets."