While costs will not dictate how we pay for the Obama surge in Afghanistan, they will be a subject of strong debate in the Congress. There are many unknowns about the costs and still a lot of work being done in the executive branch to figure them out.

Costs,...

I ran into a major DC budget analyst on the street today, who asked me, "How did you like the F-22 vote?" "A two-legged stool cannot stand," was my reply.

What happened to the F-22 was both rare and predictable. Nearly 30 years ago I wrote a book called The...

Where are the Afghans?
Gordon Adams
8 July 2009

"What I need is more Afghans,"
Says General Nicolson.

"We can't read these people; we're different,"
Said Captain Huysmans.
"They're not going to tell us the truth.
We'll never get to...

In its first 100 days, the Obama administration has had to confront a series of pressing foreign policy and national security issues -- North Korean missile launches, a revamping of the war strategy in Afghanistan, the Taliban's continued rise in Pakistan, and, of course, the Iranian nuclear program. As with...

I just posted this column on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Website. The President faces his first test on whether he means to put the Pentagon back in the box, after eight years of out-of-control spending. We'll see if he means it.

Obama's first budget test
...

Another Federal budget season approaches and once again, pundits are attempting use it as an excuse to paint Democrats as weak on national security. In fact, reports that the White House has decided to cut the defense budget in Fiscal Year 2010 are nonsense. If the reports are accurate, the...

My niece, Ryan Beattie Scrimger, a 30-something actress and soon-to-be mother in San Diego, received a fear-laden e-mail about Barak Obama from a friend. It took the tried, but untrue line that "we don't know this man and have reason to fear him." It is too common a dirty trick,...