Pentagon
Jeffrey Eugenides’s Washington
The author of Middlesex and The Marriage Plot tours the seat of power.
When I was in first grade, our family moved from Detroit to Potomac, Maryland. My father worked for a mortgage company in D.C., and every so often, we’d go into the city to have dinner or sightsee. My favorite place to visit was the Mall. READ MORE >>
Barack Obama is probably America’s most web-savvy president ever. But when it comes to actually crafting policy for the nation's cyber security, his administration has been consistent in only one aspect: bluster. Obama's major legacy on cyber security, it increasingly seems, will be an infrastructure for waging a non-existent “cyber war” that's incapable of defending the country from the types of cyber attacks that are actually coming. READ MORE >>
Retrenchment Games
Forget Iran—Chuck Hagel's toughest fight will be the Pentagon's budget
In the run-up to his confirmation hearing this week, Chuck Hagel has had to endure a coordinated campaign attacking his views on the simmering conflict between Iran and Israel. There's no doubt that if Hagel is confirmed as Defense Secretary, Tehran's nuclear program will eventually be one of his central challenges. But there's another task that he will have to address first, one that's perhaps even more important for the United States in the long-term: scaling the Pentagon's budget to fiscal reality. READ MORE >>
The Washington Post's Confused Anti-Hagel Crusade
Can Chuck Hagel Cure the Military's Health Care Problem?
Obama's Controversial CIA Pick Is the Best Man for the Job
John Brennan is the best nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency in a generation--alas. The best of a bad lot. READ MORE >>
It's About Time That an Enlisted Man Ran the Military
Hagel, the Enemy of Liberals' Enemies, Shouldn't be Their Friend
A historian looking back on the public battle over Barack Obama’s second-term appointments might very well scratch his head as he struggles to explain the fight over the president’s next Secretary of Defense. He will look at the columns written for and against the leading nominees and see something very strange. He will notice that liberals, by and large, are rallying behind a conservative Republican, and that conservatives are pulling for a liberal Democrat. READ MORE >>
Over the Cliff? A Better Deal Would Be Worth the Wait
Will we get an agreement on the “fiscal cliff” before year’s end? Even after Friday’s developments, which included a meeting of congressional leaders at the White House, I really don’t know—and neither does anybody else. But when the deal materializes still matters less than what the deal entails. READ MORE >>
