Defense and the National Interest

William S. Lind
29 June 2009
The advent of General Stanley McChrystal as America’s overall commander in Afghanistan appears to be good news. He seems to understand that in this kind of war, the rule must be, “First, do no harm.” Associated Press recently reported him as saying that his measure of effectiveness will be [...]

William S. Lind
22 June 2009
The current crisis in Iran is not 4GW. It is a struggle for control of a state, not an attempt to replace the state with something else. However, it could prove a harbinger of 4GW in Iran, because what is at stake is the legitimacy of current Iranian political [...]

William S. Lind
17 June 2009
Secession is in the air. In Texas, a Republican governor has dared breathe the word. Vermont has an active and growing secessionist movement. Oregon, Washington and British Columbia already call themselves Cascadia. Last weekend’s Wall Street Journal led off with a piece on secession. The author, [...]

by William S. Lind
June 2, 2009
The recent fire/counterfire between President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney over Guantanamo, the prisoners held there and techniques used in their interrogation revealed a distressing ignorance in the White House. Specifically, it revealed that Obama and his advisors are ignorant of military theory.

More precisely, near me:
“Quiet Atlanta suburbs draw drug cartels”
The Mexican cartels responsible for transporting 99 percent of illicit drugs into the United States are “studiously low-key,” said Jack Killorin, director of the Atlanta High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force.
“They are trying not to interact in the communities in a way which draws attention,” Killorin [...]

by William S. Lind
19 May 2009
For years, I have warned in these columns and elsewhere that the future weapon of mass destruction we should most fear is not a nuke. Rather, it is a genetically engineered plague, a plague no one has ever seen before and against which no one has any immunity. [...]

by William S. Lind
12 May 2009
A story I read years ago culminated with the protagonist holed up in a cheap hotel in the Balkans, listening unwillingly through the paper-thin wall as the man in the room next door beat his wife. As he pummeled her, she cried again and again, “Balkan! Balkan!” [...]

by William S. Lind
May 4, 2009
Thus far, the great swine flu “pandemic” exists mainly in newspaper headlines. “World Ends Tomorrow” always sells a few extra papers. I’m waiting for the Onion: “Pigs flu.”
If swine flu follows the route of its 1918-1919 predecessor, receding over the summer, then coming back in a more virulent [...]

by William S. Lind
28 April 2009
At the height of the Cold War, a U.S. army corps commander in Europe asked for information on his Soviet opposite, the commander of the corps facing him across the inter-German border. All the U.S. intelligence agencies, working with classified material, came up with very little. He then [...]

William S. Lind
April 20, 2009
As the U.S. sends thousands more American soldiers to Afghanistan, it risks speeding its own defeat in that graveyard of empires. Why? Because the Second Generation practice of the U.S. military reduces tactics to little more than bumping into the enemy and calling for fire. The fire, most [...]