I recently returned from Estonia and the Baltic Defense College, where the Russian counterattack on Georgia had left a residual case of nerves. They have little to fear in the short run, unless they duplicate Georgia's folly and attack Russia. But the question of how...
Pat Buchanan's new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, is causing a stir, which is a good thing. Buchanan argues that both World War I and World War II were unnecessary wars; that Britain bears at...
A person my age has watched many things decline in America, and few get better. As one of my neighbors says, everything good is gone or going. In that category we must now include good reporting. When I started work in Washington in 1973, it was axiomatic that a...
Improbably, an opportunity has arisen in Iraq for the U.S. to attain two of its most important goals, namely obtaining some legitimacy for the Maliki "government" and getting American troops out. This could be the last international express leaving Baghdad Central...
When the world was young and hope dared live in Washington, a small group of people put together something called the Military Reform Movement. Its purpose was to measure defense policies and programs by the standard of what works in combat rather than who benefits...
When Iraqi Prime Minister al-Kerensky sent his "army" to fight the Mahdi Army in Basra, President Bush called it "a defining moment." It turned out instead to be a confirming moment. It confirmed that there is no state in Mesopotamia. One of the...
Adm. Fallon's (forced?) resignation was the last warning we are likely to get of an attack on Iran. It does not mean an attack is certain, but the U.S. could not attack Iran so long as he was the Centcom commander. That obstacle is now gone. Vice President Cheney's...
At a recent book party for Winslow Wheeler's new history of the military reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s, I was asked for my views on the prospects for genuine reform. I replied that "So long as the money flow continues, nothing will change." Chuck Spinney, a...
One of several dead hands the First Generation of Modern War lays on contemporary state militaries' throats is linearity. Most state militaries both seek and expect linearity on and off the battlefield. Sometimes, this manifests itself in tactics that offer...
If the Balkans had an anthem, it would be that 1950's doo-wop hit, "Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread." The latest Balkan fools are the United States and the European Union, which have rushed in to recognize what Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica...
