Military News

“The [base realignment and closures] process offers us the opportunity to address readiness by providing our forces the best possible ranges and installations for them to be stationed at.” This is how Lucian Niemeyer, the new assistant secretary of defense for energy, installation, and environment, described the importance of Congress authorizing a new round of…

For the past 12 years, Congress has resisted calls from the Department of Defense to authorize another round of base realignment and closures. A new round is needed and is the best way for the Pentagon to objectively evaluate its infrastructure and shed capacity it no longer needs. Base realignment and closures have emerged as…

While North Korea reportedly achieved another milestone in developing a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. homeland, The Heritage Foundation visited the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, a city that lives and breathes ballistic missile defense. The conference is a gathering for policy experts, the military, industry representatives, on…

As a transgender military veteran, an Army retiree, and the first person in the United States to have their sex legally declared as nonbinary, I have a vested interest in the outcome of the transgender military service ban. In the days when transgender military service was banned, I spent 18 years of torment fearing that…

The current House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act both seek welcome increases in the Pentagon’s defense budget. Unfortunately, the law of the land is the Budget Control Act and the limits and consequences imposed by it. This means that in 2018, the defense budget is legally limited to $551 billion. Any…

As President Donald Trump contemplates the next steps for the U.S. in Afghanistan, it is time to inject a dose of realism into what the U.S. mission is there and what America’s goals should be. For too long, many of our policymakers have explained the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in terms of nation building or…

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he was reversing an Obama-era policy that opened the military to people who identify as transgender. That policy, announced during the last year of President Barack Obama’s second term, was scheduled to go into effect earlier this month, but Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a six-month delay…

Congress is currently deliberating the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018. The NDAA is an important tool for Congress as it offers it an opportunity to influence defense policy, as well as indicate its wishes with regard to armed forces and defense programs. How do the two versions of the NDAA measure up…

In passing its version of the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, the House of Representatives shot down the Pentagon’s plans to make more efficient use of its resources by reassessing military bases. The legislative body decided to maintain the prohibition on conducting a new round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), even though…

Leaders in the business world often have to make painful decisions in order to meet long-term strategic goals and keep up with market trends. For example, Sears Holdings announced earlier this year that it plans to close 150 unprofitable Sears and Kmart stores. If Sears Holdings attempted to keep these stores open, it would damage…

On Tuesday, a massive cyberattack hit Ukraine. The very next day, professor Scott Jasper of the Naval Postgraduate School offered a systematic analysis of the United States’ existing strategic cyber deterrence options, of which active cyber defense will play the leading role in the years ahead. Active cyber defense may be the answer to the…

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has news for Congress and for the nation: The military buildup will have to wait until next year. Mattis delivered that message in a back-to-back series of appearances before Congress, one of them taking place in a rare prime-time hearing on Monday night. During both testimonies—which were delivered before the…

Testifying in front of the Senate Appropriations’ defense subcommittee last Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was characteristically blunt. When asked, he told the assembled senators that in his opinion, the Army does not have enough soldiers to accomplish the missions it has been assigned. Acknowledging that Secretary of Defense James Mattis is…

President Donald Trump made helping the “forgotten man” a key theme of his presidency from the get-go. The challenge for Trump is how to aid the forgotten man by shrinking the programs and institutions that left him behind to begin with while moving toward policies that will help him thrive in the 21st century. One of…

The United States Missile Defense Agency has accomplished a historic feat. On Tuesday, the agency successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile in an important test utilizing its ground-based midcourse defense system. The ICBM—mocked up to resemble a missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload similar to the ones that North Korea is feverishly pursuing—was launched…

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s recent use of chemical weapons against his own people is a grim reminder of the deep challenges that continue to exist in Syria and the surrounding region. Compounding the problem is the brutal and ongoing presence of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which has taken a toll in recent…

The House Armed Services Committee scheduled a hearing Wednesday with the chiefs of staff of the U.S. armed forces to assess what the impact of a yearlong continuing budget resolution would be on the military. That such a hearing is even necessary is an indication of how far Congress has veered from accomplishing its constitutional…