War Machine

Where does the future lie for the private military industry? Those who watch the industry closely have noted it tends to migrate periodically. In the beginning, mirroring human evolution, the industry emerged in Africa.

At Booz Allen Hamilton’s headquarters in McLean, Virginia, the firm’s vice presidents specializing in intelligence oversee two types of contract: offer two types of services: training executives and supplying critical systems to the agencies. Virtually all of the latter call on its services: NSA, DIA, CIA, FBI, NRO, and NGA (see graph). Even IARPA, the newly- established R&D unit of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), relies of the firm’s technology assessments.

Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.

What could you buy with $6 billion? You could finally rebuild the New Orleans neighborhoods that Hurricane Katrina destroyed. For almost six years, you could provide a daily meal for every one of the 36 million Americans who live below the poverty line.

If you ever see a large tanklike vehicle rumbling through your neighborhood, take cover. It's not a good sign.

The next American president will inherit an overseas military base realignment process begun in the first term of the George W. Bush administration. This realignment, guided by an effort known as the Global Posture Review (GPR), was perhaps former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s chief intellectual and policy accomplishment during his six-year tenure at the Pentagon. Unlike his likely warfighting legacy, particularly in regard to Iraq, the GPR is on generally sound conceptual foundations. But a successful outcome for the Global Posture Review, roughly halfway implemented as of mid-2008, will depend on the next U.S. administration refining numerous rough edges of the current plan — and redefining the broader national security policy context in which any base realignment will inevitably be viewed.

WASHINGTON: The military's elite Special Operations Command has quietly stepped back from a controversial plan that gave it the authority to carry out secret counterterrorism missions on its own around the world. The decision culminates four years of misgivings within the military that the command, with its expertise in commando missions and unconventional war, would use its broader mandate too aggressively, by carrying out operations that had not been reviewed or approved by regional commanders.

Thirty years ago, the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man gave us the spectacle of a badly injured man totally rebuilt by scientists. Today the U.S. military is looking to do pretty much the same thing, for real, as I reported for World Politics Review:

Erik Prince, Holland native and founder of Blackwater Worldwide, detailed the nation’s long history of employing wartime help and said during a Monday, May 19, speaking engagement that his highly trained and heavily armed guards are undeserving of their rogue reputation.

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.