defense secretary

All 10 living former secretaries of defense have joined in cautioning against any attempt to use the military in the cause of overturning November’s presidential election

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he would increase counter-narcotics operations. Trump said the increased operations were aimed at protecting Americans from the “deadly scourge of illegal narcotics.” He added, “We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives.”

Richard Spencer, who was fired at Navy secretary for his handling of a SEAL war crimes case championed by President Donald Trump, wrote Wednesday that the commander in chief “has very little understanding” of how the American military works. The extraordinary accusation came in an opinion piece published on The Washington Post’s website Wednesday evening, three days after he was...

Defense Secretary Mark Esper declared Monday that President Donald Trump ordered him to stop a disciplinary review of a Navy SEAL accused of battlefield misconduct, an intervention that raised questions about America’s commitment to international standards for battlefield ethics. Esper’s comments are the latest twist in the case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, which led to a conflict between...

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday the United States and South Korea have indefinitely postponed a joint military exercise in an “act of goodwill” toward North Korea. The move comes even as Japan’s defense minister, whose country feels threatened by repeated North Korean missile launches, told Esper “no one could be optimistic about” changing the North’s behavior. The statement...

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is lashing out at Turkey for its military assault on Syrian Kurdish fighters across the border into Syria. His remarks in Brussels Thursday came after spending four tumultuous days engulfed in the chaotic ramifications of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Esper says Turkey’s unwarranted invasion into Syria jeopardizes security gains made in recent...

Residents of a Kurdish-dominated Syrian city have pelted U.S. troops with potatoes as they drove through, apparently on their way out from Syria. Angry Qamishli residents hurled potatoes, shouting “No America” and “America liar,” in English.

While President Donald Trump insists he’s bringing home Americans from “endless wars” in the Mideast, his Pentagon chief says all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the American military will continue operations against the Islamic State group. They aren’t coming home and the United States isn’t leaving the turbulent Middle East, according to current plans outlined...

Mark Esper sought a firsthand assessment Sunday of the U.S. military’s future role in America’s longest war as he made his initial visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief. Stalled peace talks with the Taliban and unrelenting attacks by the insurgent group and Islamic State militants have complicated the Trump administration’s pledge to withdraw more than 5,000 American troops. Esper told...

The Mexican city of Culiacan lived under drug cartel terror for 12 hours as gang members forced the government to free a drug lord’s son, but in many parts of Mexico, the government ceded the battle to the gangs long ago. The massive, rolling gunbattle in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, was shocking for the openness of the government’s capitulation...

Mexican security forces aborted an attempt to capture a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman after finding themselves outgunned in a ferocious shootout with cartel henchmen that left at least eight people dead and more than 20 wounded, authorities said Friday. The gunbattle Thursday paralyzed the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, Culiacán, and left the streets littered...

President Donald Trump punched back Friday at criticism that his Syria withdrawal is damaging U.S. credibility, betraying Kurdish allies and opening the door for a possible resurgence of the Islamic State. He touted a cease-fire agreement that seemed at risk as Turkey and Kurdish fighters differed over what it required and whether combat had halted.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis is laughing off an insult hurled at him by President Donald Trump. Speaking at a New York charity event Thursday the day after Trump demeaned him as “the world’s most overrated general,” Mattis joked that he took it as a compliment. “I’m not just an overrated general. I’m the greatest, the world’s most overrated,”...

The swift-moving impeachment probe pushed onward Wednesday as a former top State Department aide testified that the Trump administration’s politicization of foreign policy contributed to his resignation, while the Senate GOP leader briefed colleagues on a possible Christmas impeachment trial. The day’s events, interrupted by an explosive meeting at the White House, churned as longtime State Department officials are speaking...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked out of a meeting with President Donald Trump after Trump had what Democrats described as a meltdown. The meeting took place after the House voted to condemn Trump’s unilateral decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.

President Donald Trump muddled the facts Wednesday on America’s withdrawal from Syria and the conditions on the ground there, as he distanced himself and the U.S. from the ongoing Turkish invasion into Syria. He suggested incorrectly that the Syrian Kurds who fought alongside U.S. forces against the Islamic State group deliberately released IS prisoners and wrongly said Americans have been...

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who led the Pentagon through the first two years of the Trump administration, warned during an exclusive interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the president’s decision to pull troops from Syria’s border in advance of a Turkish incursion could have dire consequences and lead to ISIS’s resurgence, NBC News reports. “We have got to...

The U.S. is deploying dozens more fighter jets and additional air defenses to Saudi Arabia, beefing up efforts to defend the kingdom against Iran even as President Donald Trump repeatedly insists that America must get out of endless Middle East wars. Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the deployments Friday just hours after Iran said two missiles struck one of its...

Turkish forces continued their military strike on northern Syria on Thursday. World leaders have denounced the military action which they say will destabilize the region and leave it vulnerable to an ISIS resurgence.