Secretary of Defense Mattis meets with Omani Foreign Minister

The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, recently met with the Omani Foreign Minister, Yusuf bin Alawi, at the Pentagon recently. They primarily discussed security concerns, such as the ongoing conflict in Yemen — Mattis also conducts these meetings frequently with politicians from around the world to bolster their relationships with the United States. Pentagon […]

Air Force announces plans to bring back 1,000 retired pilots

On Wednesday, Heather Wilson, the Secretary of the Air Force, announced an expansion of 2017’s Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program that aims to lure as many as 1,000 retired aviators back into the ranks in order to address ongoing pilot shortages within the branch. At the end of the last year, an internal […]

United States Cyber Command: The new functional combatant command

The Department of Defense recently added the United States Cyber Command to its list of combatant commands. This is a direct response to the growing number of threats found in the cyber realm, from both state actors as well as independent ones. The program was initially meant to be defensive in nature, but it will […]

Air strikes in Syria: The targets, the aircraft involved, and the Russian response

On Friday night, President Donald Trump took to television to announce an offensive being carried about by military assets from the United States, UK, and France, aiming to significantly hinder Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities. The offensive, which included weapons launches from multiple air and naval platforms, was a direct response to […]

Air Force General: North Korea’s still missing key components for a functional ICBM

Over the past year, the media, and the American public, have devoted a great deal of attention to Kim Jong Un’s rapidly advancing nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. However, throughout repeated ballistic missile tests and the detonation of the reclusive state’s first dual-stage (hydrogen) nuclear bomb, certain elements of the recipe for intercontinental ballistic […]

Pending West Wing cell phone ban ruffles staffer and media feathers

White House staffers and guests are bracing for a change in policy that will ban personal cell phone use in the West Wing. The ban imposed by Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former Marine General, likely stems from his own experience with security practices that are widely enforced at U.S. military bases around the […]

Pentagon pays for reassignment surgery for active duty soldier

An active-duty member of the U.S. military received a sex-reassignment surgery which was covered by the Department of Defense this week. Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said in a statement released to the media that the member had “already begun a sex-reassignment course of treatment,” and that “the treating doctor deemed this surgery medically necessary.” First […]

Mattis, Tillerson warn against removing current war authorization

Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday to give the Trump Administration’s stance on calls for a renewed Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF. Both Mattis and Tillerson advocated leaving the AUMF in its current form, and warned against […]

Government report shows average American paid $7,500 towards War on Terror

Previously unreported data from the Department of Defense released this summer shows that the average American taxpayer has spent $7,500 on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, since the beginning of the Global War on Terror in 2001. That means this fiscal year, your average taxpaying American citizen will spend about $289 on wars […]