Pentagon Labyrinth Center for Defense Information

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 contractors, and appearing as talking heads on television shapes policy, which in turn drives Pentagon budgets.

Dr. Steele Brand, a professor of history at The King’s College in New York City, explored the differences between the citizen-soldier and the soldier-citizen in his recent book, “Killing for the Republic.”Republican Rome produced highly adaptive armies with farmers who would moonlight as effective soldiers during the campaigning season and then return to their families and plows—a practice that helped to remove the barriers between the military and the society it served, according to Brand. He says Rome’s part-time soldiers faced an uphill battle against enemy professionals, but that their ability to adapt meant they usually prevailed in the end. In this interview, Dr. Brand explains the differences between the Roman and American models of training soldiers and how those differences contribute to the civilian-military divide.

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 revolution.

Show Notes:

Thieves of State

Sarah Chayes: on living in Afghanistan and sleeping with a Kalashnikov

The Afghan Bag Man

Sarah Chayes: Global Kleptocracy

*Music: “Without Limits” Ross Bugden*