...The U.S. has probably not yet fully woken up to the appalling fact that, after a long period in which the first motto of its military was "no more Vietnams," it faces another Vietnam. There are many important differences, but the basic result is similar: The mightiest military in the world fails to achieve its strategic goals and is, in the end, politically defeated by an economically and technologically inferior adversary. Even if there are no scenes of helicopters evacuating Americans from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, there will surely be some totemic photographic image of national humiliation as the U.S. struggles to extract its troops. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have done terrible damage to the U.S. reputation for being humane; this defeat will convince more people around the world that it is not even that powerful. And Bin Laden, still alive, will claim another victory over the death-fearing weaklings of the West.

Iraq hasn't even begun (more within)
posted by y2karl on Jul 22, 2007 - 148 comments

Laws for an Outlaw Culture. Robert Greene is an unlikely guru for the Hip Hip Nation - a geeky white freelance writer & filmmaker. But his 48 Laws of Power have been embraced by the movers & shakers in the Hip Hop scene as their path to personal power. He's also written another book you may have heard of, The Art of Seduction. And he's just started his own blog.
posted by scalefree on Jul 12, 2006 - 27 comments

In case the Downing Street Papers weren't enough: US State Dept. documents from the National Security Archive, obtained thru a Freedom of Information Act: State Department experts warned CENTCOM before Iraq war about lack of plans for post-war Iraq security, Planning for post-Saddam regime change began as early as October 2001, and ...They provide detail on each of the working groups and give the starting date for planning as October 2001. Entire sections of a Powerpoint presentation the State Department prepared on November 1, 2002 -- including those covering "What We Have Learned So Far" and "Implications for the Real Future of Iraq" -- have been censored as still-classified information. ... (PDFS)
posted by amberglow on Aug 17, 2005 - 41 comments

A new Harper's article by Jeff Sharlet , author of the also-must-read Jesus Plus Nothing. To win a war, you must have an elaborate strategy...
posted by deusdiabolus on May 27, 2005 - 24 comments

It is more likely than not that most of America’s enemies in the near future will continue to be at least as awkwardly and inconveniently asymmetrical as they have been over the past 15 years. However, it would be grossly imprudent to assume that they will all be led by politicians as incompetent at grand strategy as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. There is probably a General Aideed lurking out there, not to mention a General Giap. A no-less-troubling thought is recognition of the certainty that America’s strategic future will witness enemies initially of the second-rate, and eventually of the first... One may choose to recall the old aphorism that “unless you have fought the Germans, you don’t really know war.” That thought, though one hopes not its precise national example, holds for the future.

How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War?  The answer seems to be not that much at all: The truth of the matter is that war is not changing its character, let alone miraculously accomplishing the impossible and changing its nature.
posted by y2karl on Mar 15, 2005 - 8 comments

Disappearing the Dead: 'casualty agnosticism', and the Idea of a `New Warfare' A new report ( See Boston Globe story ) by the Project on Defense Alternatives details how, in promoting it's "New [sanitized] Warfare" concept, the Pentagon has refused to release it's estimates of civilian casualties and sought to "sink the whole issue of war casualties in an impenetrable murk of skepticism" (also with the aid of Psyops campaigns). This has, the report claims : 1) made the postwar stabilization in Afghanistan and Iraq far more difficult and 2) damaged the U.S.' international reputation. [ via Cursor ]
posted by troutfishing on Feb 20, 2004 - 37 comments

"Shock and Awe" is the concept behind the Pentagon's planned, "Hiroshima like" attack on Baghdad. "Carpet bombing" was the concept's name in the old days, and was responsible for 125,000 civilian deaths in Dresden. Precision carpet bombing - condonable strategy?
posted by RichLyon on Jan 27, 2003 - 100 comments

Is Preemption a Nuclear Schlieffen Plan? The greatest and most difficult task facing a statesman in international affairs is reconciling the natural tension between the constructive nature of a nation's grand strategy with the destructive character of its military strategy. The emerging doctrine of preemption should be examined in the context of this challenge. With this in mind, the author continues with a "Dr. Strangelove" type warning. Are our leaders "doing themselves in" (and us with them) in the current 'war' on terrorism?
posted by tgrundke on Aug 21, 2002 - 12 comments

The clash of battling war plans. "Imagine Operation Overlord for D-Day splashed all over the front page of the New York Times. Unthinkable, you say. Then imagine the German high command's plans to repulse the Allied invasion announced by Adolf Hitler himself in a meeting with his closest advisers and then leaked to a London newspaper. Equally unthinkable. But this is how the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Saddam's plans to counterattack have been played out in the New York Times and a Kuwaiti newspaper â?? all before a single shot has been fired." First there was the parade of leaks from the U.S., even an influential insider making predictions on TV. Then there was the apparent counterleak of Saddam's war plan. What is going on? Is the Iraqi leak credible? And if so, what price are American civilians going to pay?
posted by homunculus on Jul 24, 2002 - 18 comments

Taliban Withdrawal Was Strategy, Not Rout
posted by Oxydude on Nov 14, 2001 - 30 comments

US is just playing around, says Northern Alliance. [in news.telegraph.co.uk via Drudge]
posted by rushmc on Oct 18, 2001 - 18 comments