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 An Undisciplined Defense:  Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending (full text .pdf with charts and appendices) (executive summary), by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Report #20, 18 January 2010. Analyzes the unprecedented post-1998 rise in defense spending and the return to Cold War budget levels. The causes include overly ambitious US military strategy and goals; weakness of reform and transformation efforts; failure to make hard choices in acquisition; and conduct of wars ill-suited to the US military. Also examined: the surge in military construction and the expanded role of private contractors.

 The President's Dilemma:  Debt, Deficits, and Defense Spending, by Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #45, 18 January 2010. The nation faces Reagan-level deficit spending and greatly increased debt. Can the president's program of high defense spending and increased non-defense spending survive? What about other urgent national priorities?

  Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces (Paperback and Kindle editions) (Mobipocket edition) by Lutz Unterseher with contributions by C. Knight and C. Conetta, June 2009. Detailed assessment of ground force options for today's most challenging type of military intervention: those required for the stabilization of countries seriously affected by civil war or insurgency.

• Helicopters in America?s post-9/11 wars by Carl Conetta, from Lutz Unterseher, et. al., Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces, Chapter 6 (Berlin: Ryckschau, June 2009)

Meeting the Enemy with Serious Talks of Extraordinary Scope  by Charles Knight, OpEdNews.com, 05 January 2009. This commentary invites us to imagine President Obama's Assistant for National Security Affairs or Secretary of State sitting down for serious talks of extraordinary scope with one or more of the leaders of present day 'enemy' nations in the Middle East.

It's time to scrutinize the Pentagon, by Charles Knight, Carl Conetta, and James P. McGovern, Minuteman Media, 01 January 2009. The Pentagon budget constitutes so much of our discretionary spending and has contributed so much to our deficit spending that we can no longer afford to look the other way.