Defense and the National Interest

Former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts is his usual cheery self over at CounterPunch. According to numbers recently issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The government is now the largest single sector of employment in the country, passing manufacturing and even the services industries
Imports exceed the total value of manufactured goods (not just [...]

Seydlitz89 raised an interesting point in a comment to a my post, The Future of Conflict:
From a Clausewitzian perspective, specific political interests/objective politics runs what passes for US policy today, what Max Weber would have called political or adventure capitalism. Also the character of the state defines the character of its policies. Thus reducing the [...]

Or a 2-page summary of it at any rate. The Armed Forces Journal International has published my article “The Fight for Friends,” in their April issue. You can read it online at: http://www.afji.com/2008/04/3369506.
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Here’s the presentation that I made to the First Adaptive Leadership Symposium in Greenville, SC, a couple of weeks ago. [1.3 MB PPT]

Update: One of Robb’s themes is how open source groups evolve. Wired.com ran a feature today that talks about complexity, self-organization and evolution. Check out Biologists take evolution beyond Darwin — way beyond.
John Robb has begun speculating on the future of warfare from the point of what Boyd might call the “common outlook.” [...]

By William S. Lind
Bruce Gudmundsson, author of the best book on the development of modern tactics by the German Army in World War I, Stormtroop Tactics, has a new book out. Its title is On Armor (link is to the 2004 edition on Amazon), but thankfully it is not another book about tanks. [...]

From “Basra Battle Strengthens Sadr,” by Yochi J. Dreazen in today’s Wall Street Journal.
The Iraqi government’s inability to oust Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia from Basra has boosted the fortunes of the Shiite cleric while damaging the standing of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.