Why We Get It Wrong

One of the few consistencies of the war in Iraq is America's ability to make the wrong choices. From starting the war in the first place through outlawing the Ba'ath and sending the Iraqi army home to assaulting Fallujah and declaring war on Shiite militia leader...

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Your Fish, Sir

In the twelve-course meal that is the war in Iraq, America has just been served the first entree. The fight with Iraq's state armed forces was merely the amuse-bouche. The subsequent guerilla war with the Baath, as distasteful as we found it, was still just the...

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Pakistan: The Battle That Wasn’t

About two weeks ago, the world's attention suddenly turned to a dramatic battle in Pakistan. The Pakistani Army, we were told, had trapped a large force of al Qaeda, including a "high-value target," possibly Ayman Zawahiri. The Pakistanis brought in...

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Phase III Resistance in Iraq

An article in the Friday, March 29 Washington Post pointed to the long-expected opening of Phase III of America’s war with Iraq. Phase I was the jousting contest, the formal "war" between America’s and Iraq’s armies that ended with the fall of Baghdad....

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Reality 1, Neocons 0

The Marines have landed, and the situation is not well in hand, nor will it ever be. I am speaking, of course, of Haiti, that boil on the Western Hemisphere's posterior which no plaster can ever cure. In the 18th century, Haiti was so rich, thanks to the sugar trade,...

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Understanding Fourth Generation War

Rather than commenting on the specifics of the war with Iraq, I thought it might be a good time to lay out a framework for understanding that and other conflicts. The framework is the Four Generations of Modern War. I developed the framework of the first three...

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Marley’s List For Santa

Back in my tadpole days, sometime in the Pleistocene, my fellows at Roehm Junior High (Frederick, not Ernst) enjoyed hanging the name of "Scrooge" around my neck. Whether or not they did so in response to my "Bah! Humbug" attitude toward Christmas...

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The Politics Of War

As I said in an earlier column, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are already lost. Nothing the United States can do can yield an American victory in either place. In all probability, both wars were lost before the first bomb was dropped or the first shot fired. They...

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