Defense and the National Interest

By William S. Lind
October 15, 2008
As the military situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, there may be at least the possibility of better news on the political front. Nightwatch for October 7 reported that
Multiple news services have reported meetings hosted by Saudi Arabian King Abdallah between representatives of the Kabul government and the Taliban. Both [...]

Predicting Future Military Threats: Implications of the Black Swan
 
COL Bob Toguchi, US Army
26 September 2008
Special to Defense and the National Interest
[Robert M. Toguchi is an active duty Army colonel in the Initiatives Group, Army Capabilities Integration Center, US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Fort Monroe, Virginia. In his previous assignment, he served [...]

Cyber War, Blitzkrieg, and John Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict
 
David A. Shunk
Col, USAF, Ret.
25 September 2008
[Editor's note:  Dave Shunk is a retired USAF Colonel, B-52G pilot, and Desert Storm combat veteran whose last military assignment was as the B-2 Vice Wing Commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, Whitman AFB, MO. Currently he is an Army government [...]

William S. Lind
September 16, 2008
A few weeks ago I wrote a column explaining why Senator John McCain is wrong on Iraq. In contrast, Senator Barack Obama is largely right on Iraq. Whether he would follow through on his plan for withdrawing U.S. troops is another question. The Democratic foreign policy establishment is [...]

William S. Lind
August 18, 2008
Despite the recent drop in the price of oil, the world economy is still sailing into troubled waters. The U.S. credit crisis is intensifying and spreading to Britain. Europe is moving toward recession. The international financial system continues to depend on mountains of debt. If the financial panic the Federal Reserve [...]

Bret Stephens has an editorial in today’s Wall St. J. justifying the war.  He makes the point that if we hadn’t invaded, we (meaning, I guess, his fellow neocons) would still think that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  I am not kidding:
Saddam is dead. Had he remained in power, we would likely still believe [...]

By William S. Lind
July 28, 2008
Senator John McCain’s position on the situation in Iraq is wrong on two counts, which means his criticism of Senator Obama is also wrong.  The twin pillars of McCain’s assessment of the war are a) the surge worked and b) because the surge worked we are now winning.  Neither of [...]

In that department this week, two items stand out:

First, the ACLU announced that the terrorist watch list now contains over 1 million names.  Your first reaction might be that if the number of terrorists is into seven figures we are truly doomed — it only took 19 plus a support organization of perhaps a few [...]

By John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus
Washington is overflowing with foreign policy proposals for the next administration. Think-tankers of all political stripes are looking for a big idea to revolutionize American foreign policy. Missing from the equation, however, are new solutions for America’s problems with counterinsurgency (COIN) and stabilization operations. The goal of these military [...]

Finally, a decline-of-the-state book that not only doesn’t depend on Martin van Creveld’s work, but doesn’t even mention it. And it’s a pretty good one.
FROM THE NEW MIDDLE AGES TO A NEW DARK AGE: THE DECLINE OF THE STATE AND U.S. STRATEGY, by Phil Williams. Dr. Williams is Visiting Research Professor at the [...]