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My Correct Views on Everything (with apologies to Leszek Kolakowski)
A few days ago, I blogged on Andrew Bacevich's review of David Kilcullen's new book, writing, "No one who really understands COIN wants to do it." What I meant by that was tha...
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Afternoon Reading
1. Are terrorists stupid? (Timothy Noah, Slate) 2. Tom Friedman: Not exactly Nostradamus (Barrett Brown, Vanity Fair) 3. Thoughts on Hybrid Warfare (Russell Glenn, Small Wars ...
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But where are the people?
Doug Ollivant once had this bright idea (.pdf) that in order to win in Iraq, U.S. troops had to abandon their big, Burger King-supported forward operating bases and get out th...
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Abu Muqawama Contest (Updated)
Many thanks to the readership for the great responses to yesterday's RFI. Here's another brain-teaser. I inherited the office at CNAS that last housed Shawn Brimley and Vikram...
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Oh Snap, Afghan Elections in May?
Londonstani beat me to Nick Schmidle's Zadari profile. But in other wily-South-Asian-presidents news, Hamid Karzai has just called the collective bluff of his domestic opposi...
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A game to die for?
Everyone who reads this blog knows that Londonstani is a big cricket fan. Long-time readers will be aware that he is hoping for life time membership of the MCC for his efforts...
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Dear U.S. Army: Please stop threatening to kill your anthropologists
I came across this bizarre website accusing me of not being outspoken enough in defense of anthropologists who are threatened by the U.S. soldiers with whom they serve. I was ...
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Lest anyone confuse KU-Mizzou with a basketball game
(That, of course, is John Brown. Holding a rifle and the National Championship trophy. I am unaware at this time if the original painting, in the Kansas state capitol, was s...
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Barno on Afghanistan; Exum still in his pajamas
Oh, this is ridiculous. My first day of work and it looks like a damn snow globe outside. Federal employees are supposed to arrive to work two hours late today, so taking my c...
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Bacevich on Kilcullen
One of the things I have always maintained is that realists of the Andrew Bacevich school and counter-insurgents of the David Kilcullen school have more in common than they re...
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RFI: Afghanistan
A close friend of the blog is putting together a course for tactical intelligence officers going to Afghanistan and needs the help of this blog's erudite and experienced reade...
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COIN equality - policing middle England
Who says counter insurgency is only applied in places like Afghanistan and Iraq? According to several newspaper reports over the last couple of weeks, British police are worki...
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NSFW: When the Advisory Mission Goes Wrong. Or Right.
Iraqis meet an American E-7. Lest anyone accuse this American of talking down to the Iraqis, in all fairness this is pretty much how he would speak to a bunch of American priv...
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NPR's Roxana Saberi Detained in Iran
We were introduced in DC by my friend Andrew Tabler several years ago. A brave journalist with an interesting personal story (Miss North Dakota 1997), Roxana has reported from...
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Counterinsurgency and the New Media
So a few weeks ago, when I posted my controversial "winners and losers" from the new Tom Ricks book, I asked why Tom had ignored the impact of the new media on operations in I...
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They still don't get it...
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asked a very good and legitimate question at this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference:McConnell managed to draw a standing ovation w...
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Left is Right, Up is Down
And Tom Ricks is interviewed by The Daily Beast? Wherein he says Obama sounds like George Bush?* Why is Tina Brown confusing my sleet-addled mind by posting real reporting on ...
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Obama's Plan for Iraq ... and how we got there
Okay, enough navel-gazing. It's one thing for U.S. television news bureaus to ignore the Iraq War, but when we here at a blog "dedicated to following issues related to contemp...
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Abu Muqawama, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney are in 100% Complete Agreement
I returned home late last night and opened up yesterday's Washington Post before bed. On page A16, right across from Al Kamen's column, was another one of those full-page ads ...
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Press Conference with General Abdul Rahim Wardak, Minister of Defense, Afghanistan
In response to increased attacks from anti-government forces, President Barack Obama last week ordered the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan by the summer. The a...