Center for a New American Security

It blows my mind that some legislators still think it's a good idea to peg our nation's defense budget to a percentage of the GDP. Call me a traditionalist, but a nation's defense budget should probably be based on a) how the nation sees its current and future threat environments, to include planning for contingencies, b) resources available, and c) how defense spending rates as a priority compared to other government expenditures.

My friend Mike Horowitz -- author of this great new book -- has a really funny, well, debate up on Slate with Ma

I thought Fred Kaplan's profile of Sec. Gates was very solid work and enjoyed reading it. Gates said some very reasonable stuff about when he might like to retire:

"I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012," he said. It might be hard to find a good person to take the job so late, with just one year to go in the president's current term. And, he added, "This is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year."

CNAS -- and specifically, the CNAS kitchen -- is apparently where retired military officers come to channel their inner smart-ass. Today's quote comes from Col. (Ret.) Bob Killebrew, who was deep in discussion with Cdr. Herb "Herbal" Carmen (of "Sun Kings" fame) about the horse-trading with Virginia's congressmen that could determine how JFCOM is shuttered. When someone in the kitchen floated the possibility that Sec.

I just hope they don't make Ray Odierno Chief of Staff of the Army. We can't afford to get rid of the Army.

-- LTG (Ret.) David Barno, to me, outside the CNAS kitchen just now, in reference to Ray Odierno's habit of being the last man to hold a given position.

P.S. @chrisalbon is a genius.

The news that the Department of Defense is shuttering the Joint Forces Command was just broken to JFCOM's public affairs officer ... by a reporter. Ouch.

From Mark Helprin in today's Wall Street Journal:

Cancelling the F-22 Raptor, the most capable fighter plane ever produced, is yet another act in the tragedy of a nation that, bankrupting itself, embracing moral decline, and apologizing to its enemies, is losing the will to prevail.

Travis Sharpe better watch out, because Shawn Brimley used to sit in his comfortable perch at CNAS and write all kinds of sensible stuff about the budget and the QDR, and look where it got him: in charge of the latter. That hasn't stopped Travis from writing this timely primer on the QDR and the new defense budget, which you can read here.

I received a paper copy of this a few days ago and understood it was embargoed so I didn't post it. But now I'm starting to receive it over email as a .pdf, so I figure it's out there already and that readers of this blog should get the chance to read it. My first thoughts on this are very positive.

Big news in defense policy circles. A draft of the QDR has been leaked to Inside Defense. It -- the QDR, not the leak -- has a strong whiff of Brimley about it. I would post the .pdf on my Scribd account, but the security settings on the file are too strict.

Update: Nevermind. One my tech-genius readers figured out how I could share the document.