Good news: the U.S. military has found a new way to get supplies to Afghanistan, after being kicked out of a crucial base in Central Asia. Bad news: that new route means shipping goods, by rail, through Russia. Earlier this week, the U.S. military opened a new supply route to Afghanistan, sending a ...

Everybody in D.C. knows that the way the federal government -- and the Pentagon especially -- handles contracts is beyond screwed-up. Sweetheart deals, busted budgets, and lax oversight, and missed deadlines are pretty much the norm, on every major deal. Yesterday, President Barack Obama sent a mess...

Earlier today, a car bomb struck outside the gates of Bagram Air Base, the main U.S. operations hub in Afghanistan. According to a news release from Combined Joint Task Force 101, the driver sprinted away from the vehicle before it detonated; moments later, the explosives he was carrying detonated a...

During the campaign, Barack Obama made it clear that he wasn't particularly gung-ho about putting ballistic missile interceptors in Eastern Europe. So it's not exactly surprising that he proposed a deal with Russia, to rethink missile defense in Eastern Europe in exchange for Russian support in keep...

Iran's nuclear ambitions are on the minds of every world leader -- including President Barack Obama, who tried to cut a deal with Russia to help disarm Iran. Strategist and Pentagon consultant Tom Barnett's view? Get over it. "I make the argument -- and I get into all kinds of fights over it --...

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised the alarm yesterday over Iran's nuclear activities. In an interview with CNN, he said Iran "might now have enough fissile material to make a bomb." And a nuclear-armed Iran, he added, "is a very, very bad outcome for t...

The Iraq war may be winding down. But the battle for Afghanistan could continue until 2025. That's the view, at least, of Lt. Gen. (Ret.) David Barno, the former head of coalition forces in Afghanistan. In testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Barno outlined a strategy that...

President Barack Obama's decision to send more combat forc es to Afghanistan has won a lot of headlines. But the U.S. military is also planning to plus up the training and mentoring mission. According to a NATO news item, Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, which oversees training of the Afghan Natio...

So now it's official: The United States is sending more troops to Afghanistan. That means more soldiers out among the population and on the roads. And that creates potential for more "escalation of force" incidents like this and this. The military works hard to bring more realism to checkp...

According to a new U.N. report, 2008 was the deadliest year in Afghanistan for civilians since the fall of the Taliban. Erica Gaston, a researcher on civilian casualties, spent most of last year on the ground in Afghanistan; the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict today released a report that ...