Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said today that Israel was “very far off” from any attack on Iran. More important, Israeli intelligence indicates that they have not yet determined that Iran has decided even to build a nuclear weapon. These are things you don’t hear much in the US press, so let’s run the [...]

Prior to all the rising tensions around Iran, the US and Israel had scheduled a large set of joint military exercises in the spring. Maybe this wasn’t necessarily a provocative act, but with everything happening around Iran, it gained a new resonance. So today, when the two sides postponed the exercises, some saw it as a way to cool those tensions.

It’s not like there is no evidence suggesting at the very least targeted assassinations, regardless of who is directing them. So why do media outlets resist the label of terrorism for these acts?

One important part of the suspected covert war with Iran, in addition to the drone surveillance and cyberwarfare, concerns the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Several scientists have been murdered under questionable circumstances over the past several months. And now, another death has been reported.

It must be an election year, because the noise about war with Iran has quite suddenly elevated. You have Republican Presidential candidates talking about blockades and putting missiles on high alert, threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, and the like. And Iran is doing its best to avoid an apocalyptic rhetoric gap, by announcing a series of advances on the nuclear and ballistic front.

The United States spies on China as it does on many nations of geostrategic significance – but thus far at least, the Chinese book publishing arena hasn’t yet produced anything as sizzling about its own world of spies and spymasters as David Wise has in his page-turner, Tiger Trap: America’ Secret Spy War with China.

John LeCarre – writing fiction – mastered the art of taking shadows of real world sophisticated spycraft and turning them into some of the best novels of the last generation. What David Wise has done is zero in on and reveal the stories of America’s real George Smiley’s – only problem is that most of them have none of the competence or the layers of complexly organized subterfuge that LeCarre’s principal character had.

Why does the United States Air Force, in their teaching materials provided to ICBM missile combat crew at Air Force Global Strike Command, present such a sympathetic portrayal of former Nazi scientist and SS officer Werner von Braun, and why does the Air Force limit their discussion about Nazi involvement in the U.S. space program to “only one man,” von Braun? The reason is simple, but shocking to many, as the history has been largely covered-up, or relegated to out-of-print history books: the U.S. missile program, and much of its military science program in the post-World War II period, was imported wholesale from the Nazis, including their leading scientists.

Apocalypse Never is a frightening book to read but impossible to put down. In clear, accessible prose, Tad Daley unblinkingly lays out the case, point by point, for why we must ultimately rid the world of nuclear weapons or else suffer the inevitable consequences of the end of civilization as we know it. Daley then takes on the task of showing how this seemingly Herculean task can be accomplished, even within our lifetimes. It is compelling and accurate in its assessments and one of the absolute best out there on why we simply cannot continue along the way it has been.

Talks aimed at a resolution between Iran and the West over their nuclear program collapsedtoday, with no progress and no timetable for future talks. Overall the negotiations sounded like a huge waste of time.

The Defense Department’s annual budget is a phantom figure, falling far short of what we truly spend on defense. It doesn’t include either supplemental appropriations, or money allocated to defense by other departments.

But in trying to come up with a true figure, what should be included?