Bill Gertz is senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon he was a national security reporter, editor, and columnist for 27 years at the Washington Times.
Bill is the author of six books, four of which were national bestsellers. His most recent book was The Failure Factory, a look at an out-of-control government bureaucracy that could have been a primer for the Tea Party. Bill has an international reputation. Vyachaslav Trubnikov, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, once called him a “tool of the CIA” after he wrote an article exposing Russian intelligence operations in the Balkans. A senior CIA official once threatened to have a cruise missile fired at his desk after he wrote a column critical of the CIA’s analysis of China. And China’s communist government has criticized him for news reports exposing China’s weapons and missile sales to rogues states. The state-run Xinhua news agency in 2006 identified Bill as the No. 1 “anti-China expert” in the world. Bill insists he is very much pro-China—pro-Chinese people and opposed to the communist system. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once told him: “You are drilling holes in the Pentagon and sucking out information.” His Twitter handle is @BillGertz.
The State Department’s former top weapons proliferation official said recently that the Obama administration’s failure to threaten military force against Iran had helped advance the covert nuclear arms program there.
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee are calling for bolstering nuclear and conventional forces in Asia in response to China’s nuclear buildup and missile proliferation to North Korea.
Tensions between China and the Philippines remain high and U.S. officials say the likelihood Beijing will take some type of military action is growing.
The commander of the U.S. Northern Command this week directed all military personnel assigned to security duties at the NATO summit in Chicago to refrain from soliciting prostitutes or drinking alcoholic beverages, according to a copy of the orders.
U.S. intelligence agencies are closely monitoring North Korea for signs the Kim Jong-un regime is set to conduct a new military provocation that could trigger another conflict on the Asian peninsula, according to U.S. officials.
Two groups of specialists have been locked in a battle to dominate U.S. policy toward China for the past three decades, and the camp of hawkish skeptics sharply increased its influence in the last few years, according to a long-time Pentagon specialist on Asian affairs.
China’s defense minister and a delegation of military officials will visit sensitive U.S. military facilities this week, raising fresh concerns that the Pentagon may not be fully abiding by a 2000 law restricting Chinese military visits.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Thursday attacked the Obama administration over its handling of the case of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, calling the case a “dark day for freedom” and a “day of shame for the Obama administration.”
The regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un recently consolidated power by elevating and demoting key Communist, internal security, and military leaders amid signs a third underground nuclear test is imminent.
The State Department’s senior negotiator with Moscow on a missile defense agreement declined on Wednesday to say what President Obama recently meant when he promised Russia’s leader “more flexibility” after his reelection.
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