January 18, 2010
I'll be interested to see how much coverage this story gets. I'm guessing not much....
August 22, 2009
July 15, 2009
I'm away at a full-on Geek-Fest Summer Camp for a few weeks. It's an academic retreat that teaches security studies, with a specific focus on military strategy and operations. We spent a couple hours today arguing about Lee at Gettysburg,...
May 15, 2009
That's what Lawrence Wilkerson says. I think Josh Marshall is right to have highlighted these remarks. If the US hasn't tortured anyone since 2004, and if most of those acts weren't aimed at preempting terrorist attacks, but at finding confirmation...
May 04, 2009
He thinks Stephen Walt and Dan Drezner have, at best, a weird take on the movies you really need to see to understand IR....
April 16, 2009
So much could be different if Tora Bora had gone differently. That it wasn't a bigger issue in the 2004 campaign amazes me. Kerry tried to make it an issue - but didn't push it enough. And the media really...
December 30, 2008
September 10, 2008
And "we're running out of time"....
August 25, 2008
A US-led coalition military operation in western Afghanistan on Friday killed 76 civilians, including 50 children and 19 women, the Afghan interior ministry said. The coalition confirmed it carried out an operation that included air strikes in the western province...
April 17, 2008
These are horrifying, and heartbreaking, numbers. Roughly one in five U.S. troops is suffering from major depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an equal number have suffered brain injuries, a new study...
February 08, 2008
This will be somewhat obscure, 'cause I don't want this to be public (this will make sense; just read on).I've been invited to have dinner with a gentleman being inducted to this august University's Alumni Hall of Fame (or whatever...
January 26, 2008
An update from ObWi: A member of Andy Olmsted's family has just written me to say that if people want to do something in honor of him, they can send donations to a fund that has been set up for...
November 03, 2007
My damn cat stole a raw steak off a plate (next to the stove) last night. I first knew something was amiss when I saw him streaking by me (head down from the weight of the steak). I start yelling...
October 18, 2007
Or "How Osama Bin Laden Beat George W. Bush".Yes on occasion good articles can be found inside The New Republic, and this one is insightful. The general tale is familiar, but the details are enlightening and deeply depressing....
September 14, 2007
A post for Baltar (and others who may be interested), or rather two posts from Information Dissemination, in case you might be interested in them. First Congress has canceled the fourth Littoral Combat Ship, and more and more it's looking...
August 12, 2007
Feeling safer yet? Al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new U.S. government analysis concludes, according to a senior government official who has seen it. Despite a campaign...
June 18, 2007
What happens when a state can't - or won't - rely on a standing army to accomplish its security objectives? Privatization. In the case of the war in Iraq, it looks like the private sector has found new and improved...
June 17, 2007
Bad news from Kabul. Thirty-five people were killed and 52 injured this morning in a devastating suicide bomb attack on a bus in Kabul. The attack bore immediate comparison to mass casualty suicide bombings in Iraq and appeared to mark...
June 08, 2007
Yes it's four years behind schedule, but nonetheless the British have finally launched the first of their new class of attack submarines. Looks like an impressive warship. And they continue to outclass us in naming their warships. These will be...
March 02, 2007
"Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey resigned Friday in the wake of recent reports of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a key facility treating troops wounded in Iraq."...
February 28, 2007
The first wounded soldier of the Iraq war too. Marine comes out against 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': And I can almost hear it now -- "Oh, yeah, he's that gay Marine." I'm okay with that. The truth is, something's wrong...
Unbelieveable. Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not...
January 19, 2007
Some general points, based on the very (very) long view of history: 1. No state (or, for those of a historical bent, pre-state - empire, city-state, etc.) achieves permenant supremacy. They all (ALL) fall at some point (when they fall,...
January 11, 2007
Or British military planning in World War I? AMERICAblog reports, you decide....
January 10, 2007
OK, I just listened to Bush's "New Strategy in Iraq Speech". I remain confused. We have something like 130,000 US troops in Iraq today. Bush is proposing sending an additional five brigades of troops to Iraq (plus 4,000 to Anbar...
January 09, 2007
If you take a step back and think about it, it's really rather astonishing that this level of idiocy in our government really isn't all that surprising any more.It really does make one wish that we had a political system...
January 08, 2007
I think "Why Hawks Win" (co-written with the Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman) has been hyped to death on the IR and IR-related blogs. Some interesting thoughts, but the piece seems to have some notable flaws too. That said, it got...
January 03, 2007
This is a rather interesting historical exercise, albeit arguably one with limited practical applications. The LA Times asked 4 prominent historians to describe what well known political/military leaders from the past would do if they were fighting in Iraq today....
December 03, 2006
Micheal Lind's entry in to the "just how bad is George W. Bush?" discussion rates the current president as the fifth worst ever (after Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Nixon and Madison). A key part of this rating stems from Bush waging...
September 18, 2006
Radley Balko gets to the heart of the matter: In any case, the vagueness of the phrase "outrages on personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" is a real strength of the Convention, not a flaw. Why? Because those...
September 14, 2006
That's not what Korb and Ogden's piece is about, but I think it could prove effective.The solution is to do two things that the Bush administration has not: permanently increase the number of troops in the active Army and fully...
August 21, 2006
James Wimberley has some interesting thoughts on the wants, motivations and goals of Hezbollah. To me, the key lines are these - "Like the Knights Templars or the arms industry in different contexts, Hezbollah needs its conflict with Israel to...
August 20, 2006
This morning James Fallows was interviewed on NPR. If you haven't read his cover story ("Declaring Victory") in the current issue of The Atlantic, I recommend it. There's not a lot new in it exactly. For example, some of it...
August 07, 2006
I'm disturbed by the continued arguments (most, though not exclusively, right wing) that the use of force solves problems for states. I'm not going to bother with a laundry list of sites who argue this, but it's inherent in the...
The early blog coverage of these comments by the president seems focused on his uh, interesting, take on the relationship between elections and civil wars. For an example, see Atrios. Coming in the wake of Peter Galbraith's comments that before...
July 31, 2006
The Cunning Realist picks up this pithy comment by Richard Haass (the director of policy planning at State during President Bush's first term), on President Bush's statement that the disaster in Lebanon is an "opportunity":"An opportunity?" Haass said with an...
Marc Lynch notes how the war is gravely weakening (killing off entirely?) the domestic political position of moderating and liberalizing forces in the Arab world. Since 9/11 this has been a constant refrain among many Arab reformers and liberals: Bush's...
July 30, 2006
I found this story off a link on Juan Cole's site - does anyone know about this? It's the first I'd heard of the practice.In one instance, Major General McNarn vetoed a US plan to drop a range of huge...
July 29, 2006
This speculative dribble isn't only amoral and outrageous. It's also just plain stupid, and shows an abysmal lack of understanding regarding the most basic tenets of counter-insurgency doctrine ... The fact that any of this passes for hifalutin' commentary, and...
July 26, 2006
So the president isn't raising a word of concern while the Israelis kill hundreds of Lebanese civilians in response to a few dozen Israelis being killed by Hezbollah troops based in Lebanon. He urges strong action to deal with the...
July 25, 2006
Does anyone else have a problem with the cover of this week's issue of The Economist? The cover story is "The Accidental War". Am I the only person who doesn't see much "accidental" in this war?...
July 23, 2006
I read the Sunday papers so you don't have to: Most Interesting Story: The US is reducing our military spending in Africa. Why is this interesting? Al Qaeda (short term) and raw materials (long term). Follow me here. The Republican...
July 22, 2006
"What I won't do is go to some place and try to get a cease-fire that I know isn't going to last," she said.OK, so how about going to a war zone where innocent lives are being snuffed out every...
July 20, 2006
It's a complicated place with many possibilities, but I still never expected to see this sentence, not even there: "There are so many warships and cruiseliners in the sea in front of Beirut that it looks like a cross between...
July 16, 2006
Hezbollah's attack on the Hanit raises quite a number of questions, and makes it increasingly difficult to see how a peaceful resolution of this crisis can be achieved - especially if the Lebanese military is giving Hezbollah vital intelligence. The...
June 07, 2006
Read this.I won't post anything tomorrow, and since Baltar and Binky are still out of town for a few more days, this might stay at the top of the page for a little bit. And that's entirely appropriate. It makes...
May 21, 2006
As the post above notes, I am on vacation, and have television. Cable even, with HBO. Baghdad ER is incredibly gripping. Graphic, heroic, depressing. Difficult to watch, but worth it....
May 14, 2006
Denied treatment, forced to fight: The Hartford Courant, citing records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel, reported numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own...
April 23, 2006
Need some military history for your Sunday morning? Sara recently posted these two pieces on General Marshall and planning for post-war environments....
April 15, 2006
Greg Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch has been putting up some good, concise, no-BS posts about the calls for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation from six retired generals. If you want a sober analysis of these events, their aftermath and their implications (that...
April 12, 2006
Ugh - the Bush administration is SUCH a bunch of liars. The Armchair Generalist provides a concise, convenient timeline of their deceptions relating to the supposed "mobile wmd labs". I'm really getting surprised that even the administration's most ardent supporters...
March 20, 2006
Is there a civil war in Iraq? Yes, though it does not immediately threaten the Iraqi Government. Interesting post, and lots of good information....
February 13, 2006
Not that this is new news, but winning the (smaller) war in Iraq and the (larger) war against fundamentalist Islam will be harder than we thought, and take longer than we want: ...the number of books translated by the whole...
February 11, 2006
A reminder of the stakes involved in national security - and why the Republicans aren't merely incompetent at providing it, they spend almost every minute of the year telling lies about their opponents in a pathetic (and dangerous) attempt to...
January 30, 2006
Does anyone besides me wonder why it's front page news when an anchor is wounded, but the fact that more than 80 others have been killed gets little to no attention? Or why we don't hear more about the thousands...
January 29, 2006
The number kept in the military through the stop loss program. Acknowledging nod to Born at the Crest of the Empire....
December 22, 2005
Your assignment today is to go read the medium-length Washington Post story on the disaster that was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Short version: a bureaucratic mess. Discuss. (Seriously, a great read. Well worth your time.)...
November 22, 2005
From CNN. Alfred Anderson, the last surviving soldier to have heard the guns fall silent along the Western Front during the spontaneous "Christmas Truce" of World War I, died Monday at age 109. More than 80 years after the war,...