Pentagon Labyrinth

On this episode of The Pentagon Labyrinth, we analyze the most recent F-35 testing report in depth and place the issues raised in the proper context.

Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis talks about the official lies told about the Afghanistan War, revealing the truth, and how America can forge a new foreign policy path moving forward.

Retired Navy JAG and Syracuse Law professor Mark Nevitt talks about the laws governing the president’s authority to deploy the military within the United States.

Retired Army doctor Robert Adams talks about the consequences of the efforts to outsource the military’s health system over the past decade, despite repeated warnings from medical professionals.

The relationship between the military and the society it serves has a significant impact on policy decisions and even budgets. The veneration of service members in the United States today manifests benignly in the refrain, “Thank you for your service,” and the much appreciated discounts at the local home improvement center, but this reverence can also have less benign effects. The number of retired flag officers serving in high government positions, sitting on the boards of defense...

Corruption is often viewed as a byproduct of unrest and ineffective government. Former adviser to the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Sarah Chayes, in her book Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, makes the case that corruption is the single largest source of unrest in the world. With this lens, it is possible to better understand many of the hotspots around the world—including Afghanistan, the counties upended by the Arab Spring, and even colonial America’s...

Combat troops tend to get the majority of the attention in the coverage of our overseas wars. But there is an often-overlooked cadre of troops that perform a key role in our overseas campaigns and can affect both the duration and outcome of a conflict. The United States has a long history with military advisors. Soldiers in the Continental Army were on the receiving end when the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben worked with them to increase their effectiveness on the battlefield....

Military leaders are faced with a dilemma unique among the professions. While doctors get to practice medicine, architects get to design buildings, and educators get to teach students on a daily basis, military professionals spend the vast majority of their careers preparing to do a job they rarely, and in some fortunate cases, never have to actually perform. This makes the education and training of military leaders that much more important. They need to be ready to perform at their peak...

Military scholars and practitioners continue to debate the significance and merit of John Boyd’s ideas more than 20 years after his death. Colonel Boyd is the legendary Air Force fighter pilot who, in addition to revolutionizing aerial combat tactics and aircraft design, also changed the way Americans think about conflict and warfare. He profoundly influenced the Marine Corps’ maneuver warfare doctrine and helped shape the ground campaign that led to the rapid defeat of the Iraqi Army during...

The Navy’s version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, recently declared ready for combat, has netted unacceptably low “fully mission capable” rates—meaning it’s in fact almost never fully ready for combat—according to a document obtained by the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). The fact that the Navy is pushing ahead with the aircraft in spite of evidence that it is not ready for combat and could therefore put at risk missions, as well as the troops...

Former Army Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey issued a challenge to the Army in 2012 to change its institutional culture. In his transformative “Mission Command White Paper,” he wrote that “education and training are keys to achieving the habit of mission command; our doctrine must describe it, our schools must teach it, and we must train individually and collectively to it.” But what is mission command? Its origins are found in the Prussian military reforms during the first decade of the...

Instructors at The Basic School, the Marine Corps’ six-month-long course for all newly commissioned officers, are using training methods used in institutions like Harvard Business School and Columbia University to make better decision-makers. The Case Method Project at Quantico, Virginia, uses decision-forcing exercises, or scenarios used to place students in the role of a person facing a difficult problem.

Navy LT Wes Van Dorn raised concerns for years about the safety of the MH-53E helicopters in his squadron. Aging equipment and shoddy maintenance plagued the entire fleet for years which he believed seriously jeopardized the lives of his crew. Tragically, he was proven correct when faulty wiring sparked a fire in his helicopter, causing it to crash off the coast of Virginia on January 8, 2014. LT Van Dorn, LT Sean Snyder, and Petty Officer Brian Collins all died from their injuries. This...

Officials in the F-35 Joint Program Office are doing paper reclassifications of potentially life-threatening design flaws to make them appear less serious, likely in an attempt to prevent the $1.5 trillion program from missing another schedule deadline and budget cap. The Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) obtained a document showing how F-35 officials are recategorizing—rather than fixing—major design flaws to be able to claim they have completed...

After receiving his grades from the Army’s Command and General Staff College, Major Jamie Schwandt decided to assign his own grades for the instructors and the institution itself. He did not paint a flattering portrait of the school. He took issue with the school’s leadership, the course content, and even the method of taking attendance. When he published his assessment, the blog provoked a vigorous online debate. Many people agreed with his views, but at least as many came to the defense of...

Jeff Groom, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, recently published a highly satirical, and occasionally irreverent, account of his experiences in uniform, American Cobra Pilot: A Marine Remembers a Dog and Pony Show. He talks with POGO’s Jack Shanahan Military Fellow Dan Grazier about his transition from being a highly motivated and idealistic young officer to one who critically appraised the state of the current force. He also discusses life as a pilot who flies far fewer hours than he...

The F-35 has now entered an unprecedented seventeenth year of continuing redesign, test deficiencies, fixes, schedule slippages, and cost overruns. And it’s still not at the finish line. Numerous missteps along the way—from the fact that the two competing contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, submitted “flyoff” planes that were crude and undeveloped “technology demonstrators” rather than following the better practice of submitting fully functional prototypes, to concurrent acquisition...

The A-10 has proven itself to be one of the most venerable and capable aircraft in the U.S. arsenal. It is also an aircraft most people in the Air Force never wanted, and they have spent years actively working to send it to the scrap yard. It is the first aircraft ever designed from the very beginning to be solely dedicated to supporting ground troops. Generations of American soldiers and Marines have come to love the jet for its unique abilities to free them from jams and help accomplish...

The A-10 has proven itself to be one of the most venerable and capable aircraft in the US arsenal. It is also an aircraft most people in the Air Force never wanted and have spent years actively working to send it to the scrap yard. It is the first aircraft every designed from the very beginning to be solely dedicated to supporting ground troops. Generations of American soldiers and Marines have come to love the jet for its unique abilities to free them from jams and to help accomplish the...

Congress has authorized—and the Pentagon has spent—nearly $40 billion purchasing approximately 189 F-35s that, in their current configuration, will never be able to perform the way they were expected to when taxpayer dollars were used to buy them. This is hardly the right way to do business. POGO’s Jack Shanahan Military Fellow Dan Grazier explores and explains this problem further.