Armed Services Committee Research Articles

Send more guns: Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget plan for Africa

This paper examines US security policy toward Africa. It describes and analyses US security assistance to Africa and Biden’s security assistance budget request for Africa for Fiscal Year 2024. It also reports testimony of the commander of Africom at the hearings on the budget request held before the US House and US Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2023.

Interview: Tom Collina of the Ploughshares Fund on the politics of defense spending

Tom CollinaNot long before this interview began, the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee endorsed a defense authorization bill that was $25 billion higher than the Biden administration’s defense p...

Cybersecurity Attacks: Regulatory and Practical Approach Towards Preventing Data Breach and Cyber-Attacks in USA

Increased cyber-attacks on the United States of America cyberspace has raised a lot of concerns on the integrity of the US cyberspace. The US government recently declared a state of emergency on cyber-attacks after its largest pipeline and meat supply companies were hit by a ransomware attack. These recent attacks show that, in addition to targeting government infrastructures, hackers now target key private companies and demand huge ransomware payments as consideration for not disclosing sensitive information and trade secrets accessed from the attack. This was the case with the attack on Colonial pipeline, who reportedly paid the hackers who shut down their systems the sum of $5million in ransom . The safety of the US cyberspace is a pre-requisite for a sustainable economic development in the US. Acknowledging this fact, the US Homeland security, in its publication, noted that “our daily life, economic vitality, and national security depend on a stable, safe, and resilient cyberspace” . It is important to note that the efforts of the US Homeland Security towards preventing cybersecurity attacks relates mainly to attacks targeted at federal government networks and critical infrastructure . The effect of this is that private companies are generally responsible to develop the capacity to protect their networks against cyber-attacks. Addressing the recent attacks on private companies, the US Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing held on June 23, 2021, noted the lack of capacity on the part of private companies to withstand cyber-attacks . This acknowledgement came after President Biden had cautioned private companies to develop necessary infrastructure required to prevent future attacks. The Senate Committee also reinforced the need for the federal government to extend its cybersecurity prevention infrastructure to protect the entire country, including the private sector. To achieve a unified approach towards fighting cyber-attacks in the US, there is need for some level of dialogue and collaboration between the federal government and the private sector. The federal government must consider introducing laws and policies that will set the relevant standards required by companies to prevent cyber-attacks.

From Helicopters to Hearing Aids

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderIn the Limelight1 Mar 2020From Helicopters to Hearing AidsAn audiologist uses his military experience to support legislation allowing people with hearing loss to serve. Shelley D. Hutchins Shelley D. Hutchins Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.LML.25032020.26 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In David Alexander knew as a boy he wanted to serve his country. The son of a Marine also wanted to be a pediatrician. In high school, he discovered the Armed Services’ Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program would pay for college. Shortly after starting Loyola University Maryland as pre-med, Alexander realized that path wasn’t for him. “I still wanted to do something related,” he says. “So I literally read through the course catalog and picked communication sciences and disorders (CSD).” Alexander graduated in 2002 as an Army officer headed to helicopter flight training. Although he enjoyed piloting Blackhawks, he couldn’t shake the “medical itch.” In 2009, he met a University of South Dakota audiology professor while giving CSD undergrads his ROTC pitch. The professor encouraged Alexander to complete his audiology degree. Now an audiologist at Virginia Head and Neck Surgeons and serving in the Army Reserves, Alexander applies his piloting skills and experience to his current work. Applying military skills Many skills Alexander used as a pilot enhance his audiology work. Close attention to detail is an obvious overlap. Less so is his willingness to ask others for support. This helped when performing newborn hearing screenings at Maryland School for the Deaf (MSD), where he began in 2015. “Counseling parents was tough, and some parents would get quite emotional,” Alexander says. “I tapped into my ability to ask a more experienced audiologist when I didn’t know how to do something.“ Proving a point Alexander worked with MSD students in a junior cadet program. “We taught leadership training and drill work, which is all about communication,” he says. “In the military this is all verbal command, but we developed hand and arm signs with American Sign Language to do the same marching formations. Our cadets were invited to Fort Jackson in South Carolina to participate in boot camp for a few days. Our students did everything. And they figured out ways to communicate with each other and work together as one big group. The Army mantra happened in front of our eyes— ‘One team, one fight.’” Changing his mind Keith Nolan, a teacher, approached Alexander shortly after he started at MSD. “He is deaf and wanted to join the military,” Alexander says. “He asked what I thought about deaf people serving in the military. I gave a non-answer, but thought to myself it was impossible. But Keith showed me research he’d done on deaf soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force. I then thought—why haven’t we done this already?!” Advocating for change After Keith Nolan convinced Alexander that people who are deaf can serve in the military, the two worked together. “I helped Keith almost pass a bill allowing for a demonstration program of about 20 soldiers who are deaf to serve in the Air Force. It got close last year ... it made it out of the House Armed Services Committee and passed in the House as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but never made it into the Senate version. It was positive progress, really positive.” Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 25Issue 2March 2020 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Feb 28, 2020 Metrics Downloaded 483 times Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2020 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

Opposing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in the U.S. Congress: Ideological analysis of Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee Hearings

The United States Senate voted to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia in 2010 by 74-26, all 26 voting against being Republicans. The change in the voting outcome compared to the 95-0 result in the 2003 SORT vote was dramatic. Using inductive frame analysis, this article analyzes committee hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations and the Armed Services committees in order to identify competing narratives defining individual senators’ positions on the ratification of the New START. Building on conceptual framework introduced by Walter Russel Mead (2002), it distinguishes four schools of thought: Jacksonian, Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, and Wilsonian. The argumentation used in the hearings is deconstructed in order to understand the increase in opposition to the traditionally bipartisan nuclear arms control regime. The results reveal a factionalism in the Republican Party. The argumentationin opposition to ratification traces back to the Jacksonian school, whereas argumentation supporting the ratification traces back to Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian and Wilsonian traditions. According to opposition, the Obama administration was pursuing its idealistic goal of a world-without-nuclear-weapons and its misguided Russia reset policy by any means necessary – most importantly by compromising with Russia on U.S. European-based missile defense.

The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy by Steven P. Remy

Reviewed by: The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy by Steven P. Remy David A. Messenger (bio) The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy. By Steven P. Remy. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2017. Pp. 342. $29.95 cloth) Steven P. Remy's account of the 1946 war crimes trial of the seventy-four former members of the Waffen SS accused of killing hundreds of American prisoners of war in the vicinity of Malmedy, Belgium, in December 1944, is much more than an account of post-war justice. The Malmedy case was one of the most infamous and significant crimes against American soldiers in the Second World War. As Remy argues, however, what happened after the trial was just as significant, for when accusations of American torture and psychological stressing of German prisoners to get forced confessions emerged, it shaped the memory of the massacre for years to come, among scholars as well as others. Remy's goal is to discount these stories and re-establish the trial—and the crime—as legitimate. More importantly, in the view of this reviewer, is his effort to interpret the accusations and their longevity as part of a larger effort by Germans and Americans to recast Nazi criminals as welcome allies in the Cold War era. Remy evenly divides his book into two parts, the first of the investigation and trial itself and the second concerning the post-trial charges that the United Sates tortured the defendants in order to gain false confessions. Extensive use of war crimes records in American archives, as well as memoirs of participants, allows Remy to detail the investigations as well as the trial. In particular, his study of the prison environment at Schwäbisch Hall allows him to convincingly reject the torture accusations. Post-trial reviews of the verdicts were standard practice, and the initial review accepted the twenty-five death sentences and thirteen other convictions be approved, and thirty-four others confirmed but with reduced sentences (p. 144). The American lawyer who defended the Germans, Willis Everett, charged that the Germans had been tortured to get confessions—Everett had developed an intense disdain for the entire war crimes process, in particular for the role of American [End Page 565] and German émigré Jews in carrying out the prosecutions, which Remy concludes was part of Everett's "conspiratorial anti-Semitism that underpinned his view of a corrupt American occupation" (p. 131). Press coverage in both the United States and Germany of the torture charge grew, an effort Remy quite rightly views as part of the larger effort of Waffen SS veterans to recast themselves as soldiers in the heat of battle, and not part of a criminal organization to wage terror, as the rest of the SS was generally seen during the post-war trials (p. 167). American critics of the trials latched on to this larger German campaign, as did German clergy, who were extremely active. By 1949, a subcommittee of the Senate's Armed Services Committee held hearings in Washington, D.C. and Munich, Germany, involving freshman Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, who agreed from the start that the accusations of American torture were true, and who actively pursued the argument that German Jews involved on the American side were vengeful (p. 232). All of this forced American General Lucius Clay in Germany to only carry out death sentences if unquestionable and corroborated evidence existed in any given case. By 1957, every one of the men convicted in the Malmedy case, including those with death sentences, was free. In Germany, the case was seen simply as an example of victor's justice and the abandonment of denazification, championed by the West German government of Konrad Adenauer throughout the 1950s, was justified. The active role of Waffen SS men in helping politicize war crimes trials—not just in the Malmedy case—was hugely significant, especially after 1949 (p. 261). Remy's important book shows us the extent to which these efforts shaped and altered justice in the aftermath of war. [End Page 566] David A. Messenger DAVID A. MESSENGER is professor and chair in the Department of History at the University of South Alabama...

Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste Michael Leach (bio) The year 2017 in Timor-Leste was dominated by a round of national elections and a major breakthrough in the country's long-running dispute [End Page 539] with Australia over maritime boundaries. In the latter part of the year, a newly installed fretilin-led minority government proved unable to pass its program in Parliament, which saw the country head back to the polls in May 2018. (fretilin is the acronym for one of Timor-Leste's major political parties: the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor.) A new maritime boundary and revenue-sharing treaty with Australia negotiated over 2017 was signed in early March 2018. The year started unexpectedly with a joint announcement that the government of Timor-Leste would terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (cmats) with Australia (Australian Treaty Series 2007). The decision, which Australia did not contest, opened the way for progress in boundary negotiations. Aside from sharing the proceeds of undersea resources, the key feature of cmats was a fifty-year moratorium on boundary negotiations in favor of a series of revenue-sharing agreements, known as "provisional arrangements" under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, or unclos. Having vigorously defended cmats as recently as 2016, several factors explain the change in Australia's position. The 2006 treaty had been tarnished by allegations that Australia had spied on the East Timorese negotiating team in 2004 (smh 2013). Timor-Leste had then challenged the treaty, invoking the Vienna Convention's principle that negotiations should take place in "good faith." Equally significantly, in April 2016 the government of Timor-Leste initiated compulsory conciliation proceedings under unclos with the aim of concluding permanent maritime boundaries with Australia. Australia's opening legal gambit—a jurisdictional claim that the cmats treaty had already settled the border dispute—was dismissed by the conciliation commission in September 2016, which found that Australia's obligation to settle the boundary survived the treaty and its purported moratorium (unclos Conciliation Commission 2016). Having lost this argument, Australia had little further practical use for cmats. An additional factor was the dispute between China and its neighbors in the South China Sea, which raised the regional profile of international law in boundary disputes. In that case, Australia urged China to follow the rule of law, as represented by the decision of the tribunal formed under unclos. The contrast with Canberra's own behavior—its refusal to discuss a boundary in the Timor Sea and its withdrawal from the dispute-settlement provisions of unclos shortly before East Timorese independence in 2002—had created a public relations problem for Australia. For example, the powerful US House Armed Services Committee's National Defense Authorization Act for 2018 was specifically amended to encourage resolution of the maritime-boundary dispute between Australia and Timor-Leste. The committee noted that negotiations would send "a positive signal to other states in the region regarding adherence to a rules-based international order," highlighting the "potential security benefits" likely to flow from a peaceful resolution of the dispute (US House Armed Services Committee 2017, 2). There is little question that this shift in Washington [End Page 540] signaled extra pressure on Canberra to resolve the matter within the unclos conciliation process. These negotiations reached a partial conclusion in September 2017, discussed later in this review. The 2017 round of elections occurred in the wake of a government formed in extraordinary circumstances in early 2015, when the former independence movement leader Xanana Gusmão handed over the prime ministership to an opposition fretilin figure, Rui Araújo. Though best seen as a power-sharing executive rather than a formal government of national unity, this informal "grand coalition" between Timor-Leste's two largest parties—the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (cnrt) and fretilin—was a remarkable development, given the bitter tensions between the parties as recently as 2012. Described by a senior cnrt minister as a transition from "belligerent democracy to consensus democracy" (Pereira 2014), this powerful combination left President José Maria Vasconcelos (better known by his nom de guerre, Taur Matan Ruak) as the closest thing to an effective opposition. Ruak did...

Russia’s Ukraine Intervention and Changes to American Perceptions of the Russian Threat: Executive Branch Testimony to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, 2008–2016

The Russian Federation’s intervention in Ukraine in the spring of 2014 triggered a significant shift in the US government’s perception of that country. Before that event, statements by US officials depicted Russia as a non-threatening potential partner with compatible interests and common security concerns. After the Ukraine intervention, officials characterized Russia as a significant threat to the United States, its allies, and the European regional order. This article explains why the intervention precipitated such a profound change in American threat perceptions—that is, it links the action (Russia’s intervention in Ukraine) to the reaction (the US change in threat assessments). Through a detailed examination of executive branch testimony to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees from January 2008 to February 2016, this article demonstrates that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was seen by the United States as an unacceptable breach of international law and norms, including the principles of state sovereignty, the sanctity of borders, and territorial integrity. From the American perspective, Russia’s violation of these fundamental rules necessitated a questioning of prevailing American assumptions about Russia. Furthermore, the potential for future aggression by Russia had to be taken seriously. It was this factor of Russia as a “rule breaker” that directly led the United States to reassess the threat posed to it by Russia, rather than alternative explanations such as the application of new Russian military tactics, an increase in Russian military capabilities, politics surrounding Russian national identity or system of government, or Ukraine’s geopolitical value to the United States.

Capturing the Character of Future War

Abstract: This essay proposes a conceptual framework combining elements of Clausewitz's On War with trend-forecasting techniques to describe future operational environments. This framework captures how the interaction of megatrends--the rate of technological change, the composition of the international system, and the strength of state governance--shapes the character of competition, confrontation, and conflict in each period. We argue this framework can help military officers build the future force. ********** How should military officers describe the future operational environment? In February 25, 2016, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, US Air Force General and EUCOM Commander, General Philip M. Breedlove referred to a resurgent Russia as an existential threat. (1) Moscow continues to challenge multiple NATO members while investing in a military-modernization program that includes significant increases in autonomous systems. Despite those facts, Russia has a gross domestic product the size of Italy, and it spent less on defense in 2015 than Saudi Arabia. (2) The Islamic State continues to hold terrain in multiple countries, and it has been a magnet for foreign fighters. The group is pressing a 21st-century terror campaign by attacking European cities and waging complex operations in the cyber domain, including the use of social media and hacking the names and addresses of adversaries in an effort to encourage lone-wolf attacks. (3) Yet, the group has lost, by some estimates, as much as 40 percent of its territory in Iraq and Syria, multiple leaders, and as many as 10,000 fighters since 2014. (4) From the Islamic States' use of cyber and traditional guerilla and terror tactics to Russian experiments of combining massive fires with drones and broad-spectrum information warfare in Ukraine, there are signs the future of warfare may already be here. Just as the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the 1973 Arab-Israeli Conflict were harbingers of future conflict, we may be at the juncture where events from Eastern Ukraine to Syria and Iraq signal how warfare is likely to evolve and shape the world of 2030 to 2050. Describing the future character of war should be a central task for the military profession. (5) As bureaucracies, resourcing strategies, and programming processes increase in complexity, often unnecessarily, senior leaders need to make long-term bets on whether to innovate by combining legacy forces with new concepts and incremental improvements or to invent breakthrough capabilities for future contingencies. The future force is built now to be used later. Failing to meet that task abdicates a central responsibility of the military profession. This article introduces an analytical framework for describing the future operational environment based on integrating Clausewitz's concept of the character of war unique to each period with trend analysis techniques common in scenario-planning. (6) We contend macro-trends--specifically, the rate of technological change and through it the available means of coercion, the composition of the international system, and the degree to which political units in that system can secure their internal domains--interact in a trinity-like manner. As these trends interact, they produce an emergent character of war. To describe the future operational environment, military professionals should first define the likely future character of war and use the resulting forecasts to develop new concepts and modernization priorities. The article proceeds by establishing what the character of war is and uses the construct to situate a new approach to describing the future operational environment. From this vantage point, we look at major findings in future studies by the Army and the broader US national security community since the 1970s, highlighting how the interaction of technology, the international system, and governance tends to produce evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary change. …

Is Cyberthreat the Next Pearl Harbor?

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta states in his Secretary of Defense confirmation testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that, “The next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples America’s electrical grid and its security and financial systems.” Cyberattacks have become a daily threat to businesses, consumers, and all nation states resulting in the profound loss of economic assets and intellectual property. Cyberattack represents a real threat to geopolitical stability and world peace. This article depicts a fictional scenario of what a cyberattack on a massive scale might look like. First, a possible scenario of such a cyberattack is presented. Second, for historical perspective, the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor is discussed. Third, is a review of contemporary and credible warnings. Fourth, is a discussion about the privacy versus national security debate, and geopolitical developments that determine the stage upon which the cyber drama may be played-out. Fifth, the question of what is to be done is addressed. Next, the 1946 Congressional Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack’s recommended principles (designed to prevent the repetition of such a future attack) is reviewed with our contemporary environment in mind and in search of lessons to be learned. Thoughtful people everywhere will do well to remember that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

When America turned: reckoning with 1968

Much has been written about seismic shifts in American culture and politics during 1960s. Yet for all analysis of that turbulent era, its legacy remains unclear. In this elegantly written book, David Wyatt offers a fresh perspective on decade by focusing on pivotal year of 1968. He takes as his point of departure testimony delivered by returning veteran John Kerry before Senate Armed Services Committee in 1971, as he imagined a time in future when word Vietnam would mean the place where America finally turned. But turning from what, to what -- and for better or for worse?Wyatt explores these questions as he retraces decisive moments of 1968 -- Tet Offensive, McCarthy campaign, assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, student revolt at Columbia, police riot at Democratic Convention in Chicago, Lyndon Johnson's capitulation, and Richard Nixon's ascendency to power. Seeking to recover emotions surrounding these events as well as analyze their significance, Wyatt draws on insights of what Michael Herr has called straight and secret histories. The first category consists of work by professional historians, traditional journalists, public figures, and political operatives, while second includes writings of novelists, poets, New Journalists, and memoirists. The aim of this parallel approach is to uncover two kinds of truth: a scholarly truth grounded in documented past and an imaginative truth that occupies more ambiguous realm of meaning. Only by reckoning with both, Wyatt believes, can Americans come to understand true legacy of 1960s.

Capitol Hill Fellowship Gives Resident Insider’s View of Legislative Process

Back to table of contents Previous article ViewpointsFull AccessCapitol Hill Fellowship Gives Resident Insider’s View of Legislative ProcessEllyn Johnson, M.D.Ellyn JohnsonSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:26 Sep 2014https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2014.10a29It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as the 2014 APA Jeanne Spurlock Congressional Fellow the last six months. The fellowship provides psychiatry residents, fellows, and early career psychiatrists an opportunity to work in a congressional office on federal health policy.The fellowship was created in honor of the late Jeanne Spurlock, M.D., who was an APA deputy medical director and head of the Office of Minority and National Affairs, as well as a staunch advocate for children and minorities. My fellowship experience gave me the opportunity to serve on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Subcommittee on Personnel. The fellowship started with lots of background reading on the current reorganization of the military health system, which culminated in a hearing on this topic. I wrote the educational background material for the committee members, the opening remarks of the subcommittee chair, and many of the questions posed to the witnesses. I served as the subject-matter expert during meetings with medical special-interest groups pursuing a relationship with the Department of Defense (DoD) or seeking TRICARE coverage of specific therapeutic modalities. I was surprised at how often I was called on to review the evidence base of therapeutic modalities that had grabbed the attention of members of Congress. This showed me the importance of a well-organized political action strategy to get your issues taken seriously by elected officials. Although my recommendations weren’t always accepted, lawmakers appreciated the presence of a neutral physician able to translate the medical literature into lay terms, especially in the area of mental health treatment. In light of the committee’s oversight function, we had many briefings with DoD and the military services’ leaders around their efforts on suicide prevention, improvment of the Armed Forces’ mental health overall, sexual-assault response and prevention, the opening of combat positions to women, and more efficient collaboration with the Veterans Administration, among other topics. Each fiscal year, the HASC is responsible for passing the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets DoD policy as a companion to the annual appropriations bill that releases funding for defense spending. As the bill cycle heated up, I focused on reviewing and giving recommendations on proposed health care legislative provisions, many of which focused on military mental health. I received a priceless education in diplomacy as I discussed my concerns and recommendations with House members’ staffs and sought compromises that stayed as true as possible to the medical literature in the setting of complex political considerations. My time on the HASC really challenged my clinical and research interpretation skills in ways I did not expect. I also wrote many health-related parts of the bill, including spotlighting the forward-thinking suicide and resilience research that the Army is currently conducting. The bill recently passed the House.The mentoring and guidance I received during my fellowship was unmatched. Working under the direction of committee staff, I fully participated in all subcommittee activities and was accepted as a member of the team.Congressional staff are far more accessible and interested in their constituents then they receive credit for. We had meetings and gave professional recommendations regardless of political affiliation or personal views. My eyes were opened to how powerful special-interest lobbies can be, not from the backroom deals seen on television, but by organized grassroots efforts energized by a common issue. There is no excuse for psychiatrists, and all mental health care providers, to be politically inactive on the local, state, and national levels. Lawmakers need mental health care experts to inform policymaking, and our patients need political advocates. I challenge you to become politically active through APA, your district branch, and the APA Political Action Committee (APAPAC). I want to give special thanks to the staff in the Department of Government Relations and my subcommittee staff leader for her generous mentorship and teaching. ■Ellyn Johnson, M.D., was a resident at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University when she began her fellowship and is now on active duty in the U.S. Air Force. ISSUES NewArchived

Leaning In: Actions Taken by Congresswomen of the 113th Congress to Address Military Sexual Assault

On May 6, 2013 the Department of Defense released its Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military. According to this report, the number of sexual assaults reported by members of the military in fiscal year 2012 rose six percent, from 3,183 to 3,374. An anonymous survey included in the report detailed that “…the number of service members who had experienced unwanted sexual contact could be as many as 26,000, but most never reported the incidents. That number is an increase over the 19,000 estimated assaults in 2011.” This report followed the March 2013 incident of an Air Force lieutenant general overturning the court martial sexual assault conviction of a lieutenant colonel fighter pilot, and was quickly succeeded by the June 2013 incident of an Army major general who was suspended for failing to report or investigate an allegation of sexual assault. Additionally, a major embarrassment for the Air Force was the arrest of their Chief of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program for sexual assault of a civilian woman, also in June. These reports, all coming on the heels of the 2012 documentary The Invisible War and years of Department of Defense senior leader testimony about new programs emplaced and progress made, created an immediate political reaction. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel briefed the press on May 7th stating, “This department may be nearing a stage where the frequency of this crime and the perception that there is tolerance of it could very well undermine our ability to effectively carry out the mission ...That is unacceptable to me and the leaders of this institution.” He announced a new series of steps to improve sexual assault prevention efforts and directed the service chiefs to hold “all military commanders accountable for establishing command climates of dignity and respect.” President Obama met with senior military leaders on May 16th and not only called the issue “shameful and disgraceful,” but stated that it made the military less effective, which is “dangerous to our national security.” While Secretary Hagel attempted to control the damage, numerous members of the 113th Congress decided that they needed to get involved. This Congress is unique in that it has a record number of 102 women – 82 in the House and 20 in the Senate. It also has a record-high, seven female members on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and eleven on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), making them a “formidable, aggressive force in questioning military brass and shaping legislation.” This confluence of high profile military sexual assault cases and the record number of both total Congresswomen and those on the Armed Services Committees in the 113th Congress directly contributed to the passage of strong legislation in January 2014 to better protect uniformed victims of sexual assault.

Safeguarding the Commander's Authority to Review the Findings of a Court-Martial

“Do you really think that after a jury has found someone guilty, and dismissed someone from the military for sexual assault, that one person [the commander], over the advice of their legal counselor, should be able to say, ‘Never mind’?” Senator Claire McCaskill recently posed this question in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, as she and others expressed outrage over the disapproval of a sexual assault conviction by a military commander. Her question reflects a justifiably profound respect for the verdicts of juries, one that runs deep in American legal tradition, but reveals a basic misunderstanding about the court-martial panel in the military. The court-martial panel is not a true jury. Federal juries in criminal cases must have twelve jurors and be unanimous. State juries must have at least six jurors, and five of six jurors voting to convict is not enough to satisfy the Sixth Amendment. Unlike federal and state juries, the panel that convicted the accused in the sex assault case discussed above had only five members and it did not have to be unanimous – only a two-thirds vote, or four out of five, was needed for a conviction. No five-member panel, unanimous or not, is a jury. Because the panel was not a true jury, the panel’s verdict will not always resemble the commonsense judgment of a jury. The Supreme Court made clear that court-martial panels are not juries. Because a court-martial panel is not a true jury, the commander should retain the authority to review its findings for this reason alone. The commander’s authority to review the findings is actually a safeguard against the court-martial panel’s verdict, which is sometimes not supported by the evidence. Part I introduces the right to trial by jury as the key to liberty in the American scheme of justice. It also explains why the Founding Fathers denied military members this right along with all other protections of the Bill of Rights. Part II discusses the historical foundations of the court-martial and why the military justice system developed separately from the civilian justice system. The court-martial was and still is, first and foremost, a tool of discipline and not a court of law. Part III describes the essential differences between panels and juries and why those differences materially affect the reliability of verdicts. Part IV discusses the safeguards enacted by Congress to make up for the panel’s structural flaws. These safeguards are as unorthodox to the American scheme of justice as they are now controversial. They should not be eliminated unless the panel’s structural flaws are also corrected. Part V contains recommendations for amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to include a return to the original understanding that courts-martial should be limited in times of peace to disciplinary infractions. If the commander’s role seems antiquated today, so, too, is the denial of genuine due process to the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.

The US Congress and the politics of Afghanistan: an analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees during George W Bush's second term

This article considers the role of United States Congress in the Afghanistan conflict—and notably that of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees—from 2005 to 2009. Both of these committees had some legal oversight of the Afghan War, especially with regard to funding. During the first half of this period the Republicans had a majority while in the second half the Democrats took control. This led to differences in approach and method, which are here examined. Certainly, congressional committees operate generally in the open, which gives them a unique influence in framing issues in the press and thus before the public. Furthermore, five key members of the Obama administration belonged to these committees, attended their hearings and had much of their opinion shaped by their activities. An in-depth analysis of them during Bush's second term can provide us with valuable insights into the Obama administration's later policy decisions.

Impact of political-economy variables on cost growth in military weapon system contracts

For decades, cost growth in major military weapon system programs has been problematic. The result is a multitude of studies documenting internally focused causes of Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition cost growth and a spawning of acquisition reforms that have provided little relief to the problem. The missing components of these prior analyses are the larger economic and political factors that contribute to cost growth. This study analyzes cost growth in major DoD development and procurement contracts through a holistic political-economy construct including the effect of the political party of the President and Congress, and the liberal-conservative record of the Armed Services Committees. These political-economy constructs in both development contracts and procurement contracts are found to be more robust.

Reassessing the All-Volunteer Force

When America ended the military draft in 1973 and transitioned to the All-Volunteer Force (AVF), the success of this ambitious enterprise was not guaranteed. Yet by the early 1990s, decisive victor...

Counterterrorism, Dignity, and the Rule of Law

Counterterrorism, Dignity, and the Rule of Law

The Risks of Ignoring Strategic Insolvency

A moment has arrived when a great power with global responsibilities is having a crisis of confidence. Its economy has grown sluggish and it is being overtaken by a number of rising competitors. Financial pressures loom, notably the ability to keep a balance between government revenues and expenses. It is losing long-standing superioritiespsychological as well as technological and numericalin key categories of military power; this great power, whose diplomats and military leaders manage active or potential conflicts from Afghanistan to Europe with treaty alliances as far flung as Japan and Australia, confronts the need for constraints on its global ambitions and posture. This urgent reckoning has been prompted in part by a painful and largely unnecessary counterinsurgency war far from home that cost many times more than initially thought and exhausted the country's overstretched land forces.

The Real Problem in U.S.–Israeli Relations

Of all the foreign relationships of the United States, perhaps none is as closely watched and incessantly scrutinized as its relationship with Israel. Like a couple in counseling, U.S.—Israeli relations are the subject of endless analysis. Both supporters and critics are forever on the lookout for the slightest signs of tension or unease, with the former anguishing over them, and the latter celebrating. While there was little to pay attention to during the years of the Bush administration, given its tight and largely uncritical embrace of Israel, the tenure of the Obama administration has provided ample opportunities for U.S. —Israel watchers to speculate on the troubles between Washington and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. By now, the nature of this debate is entirely