Senior defense officials are poised to discuss the way ahead for the Pentagon's Minerva research initiative this month at a National Defense University seminar, according to a draft agenda for the session.

Defense Department plans to expand counterdrug operations at a key Colombian base have been temporarily put on hold as Colombia's government rethinks a defense cooperation pact between the two nations, according to a military official.

A new U.S. Joint Forces Command working group has made significant strides in addressing shortfalls in coalition-led human and counterintelligence operations in Afghanistan, but more work is needed to ensure those gaps remain closed, according to a command official overseeing the effort.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is extracting a set of conclusions from Limited Objective Experiment 4, an exercise incorporating new tactics in a counterinsurgency scenario set in Hawaii last month.

As U.S. and NATO forces continue track, target and kill high-value al Qaeda and Taliban members via airstrikes by unmanned drones, insurgent forces have been able to gain valuable insight into those operations and have managed to stay one step ahead of coalition efforts.

A proposal by the Pentagon's special operations shop to stand up a new irregular warfare office faces an uncertain fate given potential personnel changes and the Defense Department's big push to cut overhead, according to sources tracking the effort.

The announcement of a U.S. troop withdrawal date last December did not move Taliban leaders in South Afghanistan to pursue a strategy of awaiting the Americans' exit next summer only to retake power afterward, as many Republicans in Washington have charged, according to a previously unreported military assessment from this spring.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is expected to "take a hard look" at the training program for that country's security forces, seen by some in Congress as too slow and hampered by corruption among Afghan officials, according to a military official close to the four-star.

Officials at Joint Forces Command's Joint Irregular Warfare Center plan to offer a still-classified metrics scheme as their answer to the question of how the U.S. military would know whether its irregular-warfare missions are succeeding or failing, according to a command official.

The Defense Department needs to funnel more manpower and resources into indigenous efforts to counter narcotrafficking networks that fund Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, according to a yet-to-be released report by a key Senate group.

The Defense Department is formulating a new concept of operations and force-planning strategy for counternarcotics operations in Colombia, focusing those efforts on the premier air base in the country, Inside the Pentagon has learned.

The Marine Corps has drafted a functional concept that looks toward a future where winning over hearts and minds will require troops within a Marine Air-Ground Task Force to acquire an understanding of an ever-growing number of cultures through "strategic communications."

The U.S. Navy cannot work unilaterally or even bilaterally to protect the seas from piracy and other illict activities, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said last week, emphasizing the continued need for broader maritime partnerships around the globe.

The Marine Corps post-Afghanistan must get lighter and return to operations staged from ships, which could include large Navy surface combatants and Coast Guard cutters, according to new operating concepts slated for release this week.

A top Air Force operations chief is concerned that the service will not reach its required goal of 65 combat air patrols before U.S. forces pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Navy advisers have begun reviewing the tough challenge of detecting small, stealthy vessels capable of smuggling drugs, people and weapons, but only after thorny issues concerning highly classified data significantly delayed the project, according to officials and documents.

The Defense Department earlier this month launched two new security assistance programs worth nearly $14 million to provide "mission-critical" equipment and training to Eastern European military forces from seven nations scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan within the next year, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

Concerned that Hezbollah's rise is further destabilizing Lebanon, the Pentagon is preparing to bolster the country's special forces with new shipments of weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

To help make Afghanistan's National Security Forces self-sustaining and self-sufficient, the Pentagon is working to open the doors of the Afghan Defense University -- a new facility that will house eight schools designed to educate the Afghan security force, according to a NATO official.

When Jack Kem, deputy to the commander of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, went to the war-torn country in November, not a single Afghan soldier or policeman had graduated from voluntary literacy training that began in 2008.