Free Republic

May 2006 Vol. 89, No. 5       print-friendly pdf By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor Are We Losing Nuke Expertise?; Modernizing the Arsenal; Iran, North Korea, and Friends ....  Strategic Strike: Fund It or Lose It Unless steps are taken to create new programs and attract new expertise, US strategic missile capabilities will soon become extinct, warns a Defense Science Board task force. In a March report titled “Future Strategic Strike Skills,” the DSB task force said the Defense Department has failed to make long-term plans for strategic systems or adequately fund their modernization. This neglect, the DSB said,...

From ancient Rome's destruction of Carthage to the Soviet Union of the late 1940s, nations' rise to great power status has almost always been on a tide of war. China -- both economically and militarily -- is on the verge of regional superpower status and aiming at the global equivalent. Despite President Hu Jintao's "peaceful rise" sloganeering, China is building its military at a pace last seen in 1930s Germany, arming itself with things such as anti-satellite weapons that have no defensive purpose. America faces two great challenges in this decade: to defeat the terrorists and to help shape China's...