Tom Bowman

As the American military winds down its efforts in Afghanistan, grand plans for nation building are giving way to limited, practical steps: building up the Afghan forces and denying the Taliban key terrain, especially the approaches to Kabul.

About an hour south of the capital Kabul, one Green Beret team ...

At Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Michael Johnson exercises under a long, steel framework set on a wooden platform. It looks like a giant jungle gym. Above his head are pull-up bars and rings. A climbing rope is off to one side.

It's here where he and ...

Editor's note: In a story earlier this week, we met Celeste Corcoran, one of nearly two dozen people who lost limbs in the April 15 Boston bombing. Corcoran told NPR's Richard Knox that a hospital visit from two Marines who lost legs in Afghanistan had given her hope. "After ...

A suspected drug kingpin from the tiny West African nation of Guinea-Bissau was captured on the high seas by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency earlier this month, brought to Manhattan and is now awaiting trial.

The dramatic sting operation sheds light on what officials say is a growing ...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in his first major policy speech, laid out Wednesday how to deal with threats in an era of tight defense budgets.

Hagel has ordered the Pentagon to take a hard look at how many soldiers and sailors it needs and what types of weapons it ...

When the Pentagon said earlier this year that it would open ground combat jobs to women, it was cast in terms of giving women equal opportunities in the workplace — the military workplace.

But the move has practical considerations, too. The military needs qualified people to fill its ranks, and ...

Several weeks ago, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the U.S. is planning what to do about Syria's vast chemical weapons program once Bashar Assad's regime falls. The Syrians are believed to have hundreds of tons of chemical agents, including sarin, one of the deadliest chemical ...

President Obama said during Monday night's debate that the U.S. Army has fewer horses and bayonets than in the past. That's true, although Army Special Forces were on horseback in Afg...

The U.S. strategy for leaving Afghanistan calls for U.S. troops to hand off responsibility for security to Afghan forces. The target date is two years away. It's been a slow process s...

The killings of some 16 civilians in Afghanistan on Sunday allegedly by a U.S. soldier are raising new questions about U.S. military strategy: whether the surge of American troops w...

The U.S. military plans to steadily wind down its role in Afghanistan over the next three years. But with the recent attacks against U.S. forces, will the military have to revise its approach?

An explosion set off a series of shootings by a U.S. Marine squad in Haditha in one of the war's more controversial incidents. The military trial starts this week for the squad's lead...