Pentagon may ease recruiting rules for obese people, pot smokers and single parents

Trainees take part in Army Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, S.C. (Department of Defense) **FILE**

 

Ash Carter on ‘Force of the Future’ reforms: ‘We’re going to review and update these standards’

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke on “Force of the Future” military reforms this week that may involve relaxed recruiting rules on everything from single-parent enlistees to drug use and obesity.

A Tuesday event at City College of New York featured Mr. Carter speaking on the challenges of recruitment in a nation that is fatter, increasingly at ease with smoking marijuana, and producing more single-parent homes. The result has been a fighting force that is gleaned from rural areas at twice the rate of urban environments.

US Dispatches F-22 Stealth Fighters to Intercept Syrian Aircraft

An F-22 Raptor from the 43rd Fighter Squadron takes off in Savannah, Ga., during Sentry Savannah 16-3, Aug. 2, 2016. The F-22 is a fifth-generation, single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the U.S. Air Force. (Photo by Solomon Cook/U.S. Air Force)

 

The U.S. military on Friday dispatched two F-22 Raptors stealth fighter jets to intercept a pair of Syrian Su-24 Fencer aircraft that flew in the vicinity of Hasakah, Syria, according to news accounts citing an unnamed Pentagon official.

The American pilots of the fifth-generation fighters made by Lockheed Martin Corp. tried to radio the Syrian pilots but didn’t receive a response, according to CNN’s Barbara Starr.

Is China Deploying Anti-Ship Missiles on Islands in the South China Sea?

 

Did China just deploy dangerous anti-ship missiles to Woody Island in the South China Sea?

Several outlets are speculating that Beijing might have taken what is very likely the next logical step in its dangerous game of military brinksmanship in this increasingly tension-filled body of water.

The Vanishing ‘Man of War’

From 2006 with relevancy today:

How the mightiest military in history is making itself vulnerable to annihilation

The Prophet Isaiah foretold a massive leadership void that would plague the modern nations of Israel and Judah. Perhaps nowhere is this scenario more dramatically and distressingly fulfilled than in the United States military.

Read Isaiah 3:1-3. Among the male leaders prophesied to be absent in our day are the “mighty man,” the “man of war,” and “the captain of fifty”—strong men, valiant men, champions, warriors and generals. Isaiah’s pronouncement clearly includes a softening among military personnel.

US eyes Port Blair as new drone base

A US report suggests that the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could be ideally suited as a base for American drones in the event of an offensive against China.

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In possibly the first reference to the use of Indian territory for the US military in recent times, the paper, put together by the RAND Corporation, suggests that the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could be ideally suited as a base for American drones in the event of an offensive against China.

The paper, titled ‘Overseas Basing of US Military Forces’, was commissioned by the Pentagon on the instructions of the US Congress and looks into the presence of the American military at various bases and locations across the globe.