Defense

Not only is Baltimore linebacker Terrell Suggs planning to sit out of training camp, but he also has an enormous spare tire. The good news for the Ravens? The spare tire isn't around Suggs' waistline but instead came from a tractor. Suggs, the team's franchise player for the second consecutive season, has yet to sign his tender. He isn't allowing himself to get out of shape, though.

Back when the "Desert Swarm" defense was terrorizing college football, burying quarterbacks under a torrent of blitzes, Matt Barkley was still in kindergarten learning his ABCs. On Saturday afternoon, Barkley could get a history lesson. That's because the USC quarterback will face a San Jose State team coached by Dick Tomey, the man behind Arizona's famed defense of the 1990s. It appears that, after all these years, not much has changed with Tomey. "If you've ever watched us play," he says of his current team, "you know that we get off the bus pressuring the quarterback."

Poland's foreign minister said Friday that his country had agreed in principle to a controversial missile defense system proposed by the U.S. after receiving assurances that Washington would help with other defense needs.

The Air Force's top officer on Thursday presented a new strategic plan for the service that warns the U.S. cannot ignore "ascendant powers" seeking to challenge American military superiority as it fights low-intensity wars elsewhere. In his new plan, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, did not name specific countries as potential challengers. But at a formal presentation, Moseley singled out military spending in Russia and China, noting both are rising at a rapid clip.

The successful U.S. missile strike against a failing spy satellite 133 miles above the Earth on Wednesday bolstered the credibility of America's long-troubled missile defense system, according to military experts. U.S. military officials have sought to play down the strategic value of the operation, saying that it was solely intended to take out a malfunctioning satellite hurtling toward Earth with a tank of toxic rocket fuel.

With American officials working to close a deal on a missile defense system in Europe, the head of the U.S. program warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals. "They're already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It's something we need to think about," Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S.

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin failed Sunday to overcome their greatest conflicts on a missile defense system the United States plans to build in Central Europe but narrowed difference over one key element.

They make an unlikely pair, the world's most notorious captured terrorist and the Navy captain assigned to defend him against war-crimes charges that could lead to his execution. But together, the two men are quietly embarking on a legal odyssey that could last years, and may ultimately help define the constitutional parameters of the United States' role in the global war on terrorism.

The United States signed a pact Tuesday to build part of a U.S. missile defense shield in this former Soviet satellite, prompting Russia to warn that it will react with military means if the shield is deployed. The U.S. and Czech foreign ministers toasted with champagne after signing the accord to place a tracking radar southwest of Prague as part of a system to protect against attack from countries such as Iran. But Russia warned the U.S. against deploying the shield.

Poland and the United States struck a deal Thursday that will strengthen military ties and put an American missile interceptor base in Poland, a plan that has infuriated Moscow and sparked fears in Europe of a new arms race. Washington says the planned system, which is not yet operational, is needed to protect the U.S. and Europe from possible attacks by missile-armed "rogue states," such as Iran.