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Showing 9321-9340 of 9519 Publications
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Chaos!
This time not in Iraq/Afghanistan/Lebanon/Pakistan/etc., but right here in the US of A! The college football BCS rankings are about to implode: both favorites lost tonight, wi...
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The Army Makes a Fool of Itself ... Again
No, Abu Muqawama isn't talking about the fact that West Point got beat 38-3 by the Naval Academy. (Aside from the officers who attended the Military Academy, there aren't too ...
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Anti-War Shenanigans and the Lebanese Presidential Crisis
As you may know, Abu Muqawama attended his first-ever anti-war conference and demonstration today. The editor of a Hizbollah newspaper was speaking, and Abu Muqawama went to h...
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CMC: Enough with the MRAPs already
Charlie has not followed the MRAP debate in the Marine Corps all that closely, but this story definitely caught her eye: The Corps says it doesn’t want to order any more bomb-...
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Ad-hockery in Afghanistan
The Wall Street Jounal has a long and excellent article about the COIN Academy in Afghanistan. Establishing tactical schools in-country is a well known COIN best practice (the...
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Counterinsurgency Quote of the Week
Non, décidément, on ne tue pas les mouches à coups de marteau (We definitely don't kill flies with hammers). -- Marcel Bigeard; found in Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violenc...
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Reporting Iraq
Abu Muqawama saw this article in the London Review of Books thanks to Theo Farrell, whose own analysis is worth reading. Since the surge of resistance in Falluja in 2004 and t...
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And now, for the most politically incorrect question of the day
The New York Times has a front-page article today on the lack of anything resembling a plan for all the Iraqi refugees who are now trying to return to their homes in the newly...
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Public Diplomacy and the SecDef
Hey, everybody, please direct your attention over to the Small Wars Journal blog where Matt Armstrong, a friend of Abu Muqawama who runs the excellent MountainRunner blog, has...
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McCain vs. Romney on Torture
Gail Collins writes this morning in the New York Times that John McCain "absolutely dismembered [Mitt] Romney on the question of torture" during last night's GOP debate. He di...
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True Crime
Here are the latest highlights from the police blotter of Abu Muqawama's hometown newspaper: Thieves got through four padlocks at the old Broadway Farm and Garden Supply on So...
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COIN Education
And now, a short administrative announcement from the folks who bring you this blog: This blog was first started to be a resource for all those out there looking to learn more...
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And then we'll hold Pashtu language classes in Waziristan
Abu Muqawama saw this press release via Small Wars Journal, but what really caught his eye was the dateline:ZARQA, Jordan (Army News Service, Nov. 28, 2007) - Arabic cultural-...
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John Boyd and the Neo-Taliban
Abu Muqawama attended a book launch tonight honoring this man's latest work. Some of you Afghanistan-watchers may recognize Antonio Giustozzi's name from earlier books and jou...
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Gap Years for Soldiers?
We all know that fighting insurgencies is exhausting work. Almost five years into the Iraq War, more and more soldiers are "burning out" and leaving the Army. (58% of the West...
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afghanistanica Has Some Announcements
Fourthly, to the person who owns this computer: I’m sorry about the websites in the browser history and in the cache. Reading about Afghanistan online can take you to some wei...
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NYT 100 Notable Books
Just in case you a) already own all the books on our reading list, or b) can't read about COIN all the time, the NYT has published its list of 100 Notable Books. Catching Char...
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The Democrats and Gen. Sanchez
"Why he has chosen all of a sudden to attempt to return to public attention, and why he would do it in an overtly partisan way, frankly baffles me," said Bacevich, whose son w...
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Feltman on Lebanon
Yes, we define Hizbullah as a terror organization. At the same time, I work in Lebanon. I cannot deny Hizbullah's effectiveness as a social organization. It has a well-oiled s...
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A Question for the Class...
Is this a low-level insurgency? Or just rioting? Where do we draw the line between the two? Note the interesting headline from Le Monde. Update: Charlie, here. In Charlie's wo...