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President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday. SNIP The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Mr. Obama’s new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether...

The United States is stuck in a 1960s flashback. In an interview on Monday, President Obama rejected comparisons between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam conflict, saying "you never step into the same river twice." The Amu Darya is not the Mekong. There are superficial parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, especially at the tactical level. The new joint counterinsurgency doctrine addresses many of these aspects, and it is noteworthy that Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversaw its development, wrote his doctoral dissertation on Vietnam. The Pentagon is well aware of the battlefield lessons of our country's only military defeat....

The Air Force general in charge of the air war in Afghanistan says a new strategy means warplanes in some cases may be buzzing rather than bombing some insurgents. Lt. Gen. Gilmary Hostage said Thursday that his job is to support the strategy of winning Afghan support as formulated by the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. As part of that, McChrystal imposed restrictions on air power to limit civilian casualties. ... But the three-star general said that at times, it may be better to fly low over enemy forces and disperse them with noisy warplanes that threaten...

Defense: President Obama dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Unless testing and maintenance of our nuclear deterrent is resumed, it will be a world without American nuclear weapons.In his Prague speech this spring, the president spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure. We recently observed the anniversaries of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, actions that brought an abrupt end to the carnage of World War II and arguably...

Even though the Taliban has admitted that there no "moderate" Taliban members, President Obama has promised nonmilitary solutions for Afghanistan. Well here comes the talks in which we will end up giving up ground to the Taliban.

Here is video of President Obama announcing a "joint understanding" he has signed with Russian President Medvedev that would reduce U.S. and Russian Nuclear Arsenals by one-third. Obama called the treaty he has signed a "legally binding agreement." Nothing was said about the U.S. Constitutional provision requiring the approval of the U.S. Senate to ratify treaties. . . . . (Watch Video)

MOSCOW (AP) — President Barack Obama says he expects to complete a review of the U.S. plan for building missile defense systems in Europe by the end of the summer. At a joint news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (dih-MEE'-tree med-VYEH'-dyev), Obama said that once the review is finished he will provide the Russian government with his assessment of how to resolve differences over the project. Obama said he expects that to lead to extensive negotiations. Russia strongly opposes the U.S. project, which was initiated by the administration of President George W. Bush. Earlier, the two leaders issued a...

AMSTERDAM, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday he hopes his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in July in Moscow will promote a new nuclear disarmament treaty. "We are ready to cut our strategic delivery vehicles by several times compared to the START-1 treaty. As for warheads connected with these delivery vehicles, their number should be lower than the level envisioned by the Moscow Treaty of 2002," Medvedev told journalists. "We are for real, effective and checkable cuts," he said, adding that at the meeting with Obama they will also discuss economic and regional problems,...

Perhaps no part of the Obama administration’s planned Defense Department budget makes less sense than its effort to slash $1.2B from missile defense programs for FY 2010. In light of the recent behavior of North Korea and the reminder that we face the prospect of a nuclear-armed revolutionary Islamic state in Iran, a group of Republican congressmen on the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday offered a series of amendments seeking to reverse the proposed cuts.

With the United States looking to cut defense costs and rethinking the way it fights wars, many defense companies are looking for international buyers to take the big, pricey weapons that the Pentagon no longer wants or needs fewer of. U.S. contractors are chasing some lucrative deals, but could also face some legal and political hurdles as they hawk weapons overseas.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said his country could give up nuclear weapons if everyone else that had them did the same. The remarks came as Russian and US officials negotiate a successor to the 1991 Start treaty on arms reduction, which expires in December. US President Barack Obama will discuss the issue in Moscow next month with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile a top general said Russia should not go below 1,500 warheads. Col-Gen Nikolai Solovtsov, who commands Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, said Moscow needed this number to ensure its own security. But he added that the...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday played down tensions with Russia over Georgia, saying they would not cloud arms control talks and Washington wanted ties with Moscow to hit a new level. At a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Clinton said "people in families disagree" and she did not want to dwell on differences over Georgia's or Russia's strong opposition to Nato military exercises there this week. "It is old thinking to say that we have a disagreement in one area, therefore we shouldn't work in something else that is of overwhelming importance. That is...

MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on May 7 to discuss the START agreement, which expires at the end of this year. The director of the North American Department at the Foreign Ministry, Igor Neverov, told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the first round of Russian-American expert-level consultations on preparing the new Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) agreement would take place in Rome this week. "There will be a meeting of experts in April, and the experts will continue to work until the minister...

Russia and America pledge to slash nuclear stockpiles Tom Baldwin and Philip Webster Russia and America have pledged to slash their nuclear stockpiles in a groundbreaking agreement in London on the eve of the G20 summit. President Obama and President Medvedev issued a statement that promised a “fresh start” in relations that could include a legally binding arms reduction treaty by the end of the year. White House officials indicated that the number of nuclear warheads was likely to be reduced to no more than 1,500 each. It was the first time that the two leaders had met. Mr Obama...

Reporting from Moscow -- The octogenarian Republican is an improbable go-between to push the diplomatic line of a young Democratic president. But here he was in Moscow on Friday: Henry Kissinger, the architect of Cold War detente with the Soviet Union, meeting informally with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to try to smooth over a new generation of animosities between the two countries. Kissinger led a team of prominent former U.S. officials in meetings in Moscow this week, acting on their own but echoing the message of cooperation from an Obama administration that has pledged to "reset" relations that have become...

On Tuesday, it was reported that U.S. President Barack Obama had written a “secret letter” last month to Russian “president” Dmitri Medvedev. The letter seemed to propose that the U.S. would back away from its planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Russia would force Iran to shut down its long-range missile program. When asked about the document, Obama stated: "What I said in the letter was that obviously to the extent that we are lessening Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for or the need for a missile defense system. In no way does...

MOSCOW, March 2 (RIA Novosti) - Washington has told Moscow that Russian help in resolving Iran's nuclear program would make its missile shield plans for Europe unnecessary, a Russian daily said on Monday, citing White House sources. U.S. President Barack Obama made the proposal on Iran in a letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, Kommersant said, referring to unidentified U.S. officials. Iran's controversial nuclear program was cited by the U.S. as one of the reasons behind its plans to deploy a missile base in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic. The missile shield has been strongly opposed by...

President Obama offered to consider scrapping plans for a missile defense shield in Europe if Russia helps rein in Iran's nuclear program, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported. -------snip---- Obama inherited plans to build the system in Poland and the Czech Republic from the Bush administration, but the new administration has equivocated over the project. Though the plans were put in place to deter nations like Iran and North Korea from launching attacks and developing nuclear weapons, Russia has interpreted the planned installation as a threat.

An adviser to Iran's president on Sunday demanded an apology from a team of visiting Hollywood actors and movie industry officials, including Annette Bening, saying films such as "300" and "The Wrestler" were "insulting" to Iranians. Without an apology, members of Iran's film industry should refuse to meet with representatives from the nine-member team, said Javad Shamaqdari, the art and cinema adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "In my viewpoint, it is a failure to have an official meeting with one who is insulting," Shamaqdari told The Associated Press. The film "300," portrays the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., in...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...