Defense and the National Interest

By William S. Lind
One of the more intriguing questions Clio poses is the degree to which great military victories were the fruit of smart plans as opposed to dumb luck. Did the North Vietnamese expect the Tet Offensive to be a tactical defeat but an operational victory? They now claim they did, but [...]

Retired US Army COL Doug Macgregor has just published a critical look at this issue.
While the arrangement reached by U.S. military commanders and dubbed the “Great Awakening” has allowed the administration and its allies to declare the surge a success, it carries long-term consequences that are worrisome, if not perilous. The reduction in U.S. casualties [...]

Elaine M. Grossman
© National Journal Group, Inc.
The United States holds nearly 20,000 suspected insurgents in detention at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and, on long days in the desert sun, the inmates can get restless. On May 14, restlessness turned into a riot.
Detainees corralled inside huge compounds — where the only refuge from the sun [...]