Brookings Stability Operations event

This afternoon I attended a panel discussion held at the Brookings Institution that focused on the new Army field manual for stability operations, FM 3-07. The discussion was moderated by Janine Davidson, and the panel was composed of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (and former president of the Center for a New American Security) Michele Flournoy, Brookings Director of Foreign Policy Studies and reputedly soon-to-be-announced U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, and LTG William Caldwell, commander of the Army’s Combined Arms Center.

UPDATE: CSPAN has the video up here. My question is around the 1:22 mark if you’re interested. My voice doesn’t sound like that in real life, I promise.

I might write more on this later, but for now I’ll just post what I wrote in the comments section at Abu Muqawama regarding the question I asked USD Flournoy:

Japan to the (USAF’s) rescue on F-22?

Judah Grunstein points us in the direction of Defense Industry Daily on the subject of the potential international sale of F-22, more specifically to Japan. The Raptor is in many ways the perfect aircraft for an island nation at pains to stress its lack of offensive ambition: F-22 is not a strike aircraft, but rather an extremely capable interceptor, or what amounts to a badass armed-to-the-teeth flying sensor network.

Why can’t I just leave well enough alone on China?

I’ve been working on some other things lately (like finding a new job!) and haven’t felt particularly inspired to write. Until tonight, when I came across this article by noted right-wing “media expert” Cliff Kincaid.

It’s really difficult to know where to begin with this, because Kincaid seems not to have a really firm handle on what exactly he’s trying to say. Obviously the whole thing centers around the degeneracy of the left and the insipid anti-American agenda of the United Nations and multilateral institutions in general. Most of Kincaid’s “analysis” piggybacks some out-of-context quotes from Tony Corn, including the assertion that “China could be the world’s leading naval power by 2020.”