Military schools should develop officers who can question flawed assumptions and tell senior leaders unwelcome truths. Politically sanitized schools may produce more compliant officers. They will not produce better leaders. (PDF in first reply) www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

The Pentagon is waging a war on critical thinking

A proposal to eliminate civilian tenure at military academies would weaken the minds and the might of America's future leaders.

latimes.com

What tells the military its mission is complete? The Pentagon's answer: Jan. 20, 2029. A political end date is no military objective. My latest in the @latimes.com. PDF in the first reply: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Why are 4,000 National Guard still patrolling Washington?

Military missions, especially ones conducted within the U.S., require continuing justification, not just continuing authorization.

latimes.com

America is at war. Pete Hegseth is focused on beards and hormones. Military standards should measure excellence, not whether someone fits a particular image of what a warrior looks like. My latest in @latimes.com. PDF in first reply: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: America is at war. Pete Hegseth is focused on beards and hormones.

The Defense secretary is working to replace military standards rooted in mission with standards that reflect his personal image of the American warrior.

latimes.com

The administration wants Congress to pay for a war it never authorized, while refusing to say what that war actually cost. Oversight keeps faith with people a nation sends in harm's way. Americans deserve a straight account. New in the LA Times. PDF in first reply. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Why won’t Trump just tell us what the Iran war cost?

The administration owes Americans a serious accounting of what has been lost and what future spending is supposed to fix.

latimes.com

The Trump administration continues killing without answers. When the government uses lethal force, it does not get to answer only to itself. That is exactly what this administration is trying to do. My latest in the LA Times. Pdf in the first reply. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The Trump administration continues killing without answers

Legislators have finally begun to recognize the dangers of unchecked executive force.

latimes.com

The U.S. charged Héctor Guerrero Flores in federal court. Then the military killed him. The president is abusing military power. Senior military leaders are helping make it possible. My latest in the Los Angeles Times. PDF in the first response. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: U.S. military leaders are enabling Trump’s lawlessness

The president abused his power in the killing of Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores. Worse, the military did nothing to stop him.

latimes.com

My latest in the Los Angeles Times on Pete Hegseth’s meddling with military promotions. It undermines trust in leadership, puts every military leader under a cloud, and weakens the force Americans rely on to defend the country. PDF in the first reply. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Hegseth’s meddling with promotions tarnishes leadership and endangers the country

A visible pattern of removing women and minority officers from promotion lists sends a message to his military.

latimes.com

What exactly is our strategy in Cuba? The administration has increased pressure with little discussion about what outcome this pressure is intended to produce — or why ordinary Cubans must bear the cost. My latest in the Los Angeles Times. PDF in the first reply. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Why Trump is manufacturing a new crisis in Cuba

For more than 60 years, the U.S. has tried to pressure Cuba’s leadership into breaking. The regime has endured.

latimes.com

‘The Navy should be able to tell the difference between honoring a visitor and dishonoring the dead… It should be able to look at a request like this and understand, instantly, that some things must not be done.’ Via @joncduffy.bsky.social www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The Navy’s inexcusable accommodation of Kash Patel

The military is not a concierge service for powerful public officials.

latimes.com

The USS Arizona is a tomb. That should have been enough.   My latest in the LA Times looks at Kash Patel’s “V.I.P. Snorkel” there. The deeper disgrace was the Navy’s decision to accommodate it. PDF in the first reply. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The Navy’s inexcusable accommodation of Kash Patel

The military is not a concierge service for powerful public officials.

latimes.com

"Hello daddy. I hope you are OK. Tell everyone from my class hello." here's some of what I saw and learned this week when I visited the Dilley ICE family detention center in Texas.

I wrote on Monday about Pete Hegseth and Gen. Francis Donovan ramping up lawless boat strikes, which amount to extrajudicial killing. This week there have been 3 more strikes! Truly out of control. Awful that the US military is doing this and the world barely notices. wapo.st/4tOygA5

A blockade is an act of war. My latest in the Los Angeles Times argues that Congress cannot keep pretending the Iran war belongs to Trump alone while refusing to either authorize it or stop it. (PDF in the first comment) www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Trump's blockade is an act of war, not the end of war

The only thing more dangerous than the president's actions against Iran is Congress’ silence.

latimes.com

The U.S. is still killing people at sea. It refuses to explain how that’s lawful. My latest in the LA Times: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The U.S. is still killing people at sea. It must explain why.

Without legal justification the ongoing boat strikes are not normal, not constitutional and not something a free nation can simply get used to.

latimes.com

Strategy is judged by outcomes, not bravado. Whatever damage has been done to Iran, America has been diminished by this war militarily, diplomatically, economically and in its global standing. My latest in the @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

America is already diminished by this war

Among the United States' greatest losses is its legitimacy on the world stage.

latimes.com

Trump won’t accept his failures in Iran. What began as a show of force has turned into a search for smaller and smaller signs of progress. That is how strategic failure plays out. My latest in the @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Trump isn't ready to accept his strategic failures in Iran

The president's justifications have shifted repeatedly, and claims of victory have grown theatrical as the results have grown less convincing.

latimes.com

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is about more than control of a waterway. It exposes a deeper and more familiar problem: the repeated failure of the United States to match military power with equally serious strategic thought. My latest in @latimes.com www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The Strait of Hormuz shows us the biggest flaw in America's Iran war strategy

The most obvious strategic move following strikes in Iran has become a central problem for the United States.

latimes.com

War is not content. Killing is not branding. And the voice of the U.S. military should not sound like Pete Hegseth. My latest in @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Hegseth has no place as the voice of American war

A serious military does not celebrate destruction as proof of strength. And it does not treat the rules that govern force as optional.

latimes.com

The U.S. and Israel don’t agree on what “done” looks like in Iran. That’s how “limited” wars lose their stopping point. My latest in @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The U.S. and Israel don’t agree on what victory in Iran looks like

Pushing strategic decisions down the road means the ending will be imposed by fatigue, fracture or crisis rather than choice.

latimes.com

It’s not clear what this war in Iran is actually meant to achieve. As American casualties mount and operations expand, the absence of a defined political end state matters. My latest in @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: It's not clear what this war in Iran is actually meant to achieve

The president's weekend address following initial strikes in Iran offered forceful nationalist rhetoric but little actual clarity of purpose or strategy.

latimes.com

Using military force as leverage in negotiations is not self-defense. Air strikes can impose costs, but they cannot dictate how a determined adversary recalculates survival. My latest in @latimes.com on Iran, force and constitutional process: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Don't mistake military escalation in Iran for an actual strategy

What is imagined as calibrated pressure in Washington could easily be perceived as an existential threat in Tehran.

latimes.com

Here's a dirty little secret that isn't talked about much: we DO NOT currently have capability for a prolonged campaign against Iran or anyone else really. In 2017 I wrote the piece below explaining why the US, to use the term of art, are out of Schlitz. Nothing's really improved much since. 1/

Balloon Juice - We Are Not Escalating Operation Freedom's Sentinel, or Much of Anything Else, Despite the Clickbait Headlines

A number of commenters were concerned last night, and rightly so, about reporting that seemed to indicate that the Administration is considering escalating US operations in Afghanistan. These operatio...

balloon-juice.com

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 6mo ago

The Pentagon is raising concerns to President Trump about an extended military campaign against Iran, advising that war plans being considered carry risks including U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force. on.wsj.com/40vkhly

Culture-war applause lines don’t win wars. Decision quality does. My latest in @latimes.com: Hegseth’s war on diversity is eroding America’s military edge www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Hegseth's war on diversity is eroding America's military edge

Shrinking the pool of Americans who can serve while signaling that only certain types of people truly belong limits whose judgment shapes U.S. strategy.

latimes.com

We’re building military power faster than we’re defining what it’s meant to achieve. That should sound familiar. My latest in the @latimes.com on Iran, Iraq, and the cost of mistaking force for strategy: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The U.S. military strategy in Iran feels eerily familiar

Two decades after American forces invaded Iraq, the circumstances are different but the failure is unmistakable.

latimes.com

We’re building military power faster than we’re defining what it’s meant to achieve. That should sound familiar. My latest in the @latimes.com on Iran, Iraq, and the cost of mistaking force for strategy: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: The U.S. military strategy in Iran feels eerily familiar

Two decades after American forces invaded Iraq, the circumstances are different but the failure is unmistakable.

latimes.com

If you don’t understand why ordinary people stand nonviolently in the face of unaccountable force — you don’t understand service or sacrifice. My latest op-ed in the @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: If you don’t understand why people protest, you don’t understand service or sacrifice

The people standing against ICE in the streets of Minneapolis are not seeking recognition or reward. They are neighbors who decided that silence was the greater risk.

latimes.com

When scrutiny of state force is treated as betrayal, American democracy is in serious trouble. Minneapolis marks a line in the sand. My op-ed in @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Why Minneapolis marks a line in the sand for U.S. citizens

Federal operations across the city are normalizing the use of force as routine, and stripping away the transparency and oversight of ICE agents.

latimes.com

When legality is left unresolved, the burden doesn’t disappear — it gets pushed downward onto those ordered to act. My new piece for @latimes.com on why “refuse illegal orders” is not a substitute for leadership or accountability. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Those who execute military orders carry all the risk

As Mark Kelly and Pete Hegseth square off in soundbites, service members with limited authority are left to resolve the ambiguity created far above them.

latimes.com

My new @latimes op-ed: “Trump just removed the last restraints on presidential power.” U.S. military action in Venezuela this weekend bypassed Congress entirely. This piece is about war without consent and why this moment matters. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Trump just removed the last restraints on presidential power

Who now decides when the United States goes to war, and under what authority?

latimes.com

In today’s developments in the Article I Crisis. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

GOP signals end to probes into military’s killing of boat strike survivors

Despite Democrats’ objections, the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees said they were satisfied a controversial Sept. 2 attack was lawful.

washingtonpost.com