War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

--John Stuart Mill

US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Pentagon Rethinking Old Doctrine on 2 Wars - Thom Shanker, New York Times

The protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing the Obama administration to rethink what for more than two decades has been a central premise of American strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time.

For more than six years now, the United States has in fact been fighting two wars, with more than 170,000 troops now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The military has openly acknowledged that the wars have left troops and equipment severely strained, and has said that it would be difficult to carry out any kind of significant operation elsewhere.

To some extent, fears have faded that the United States may actually have to fight, say, Russia and North Korea, or China and Iran, at the same time. But if Iraq and Afghanistan were never formidable foes in conventional terms, they have already tied up the American military for a period longer than World War II.

More at The New York Times.

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

Troops Face New Tests in Afghanistan - Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post

Lt. Col. Daniel Hurlbut rolled into this dusty Taliban stronghold in September with a battalion of US Army infantrymen and a detailed, year-long plan to combat the Taliban. The first quarter was to be devoted to reconnaissance. The next three months would involve military operations to root out insurgents. By now, his unit should have been focusing on reconstruction and building up the local government.

But the battalion's efforts to pry information about the Taliban from the local population -- by conducting foot patrols, doling out money for mosques to buy new prayer rugs, and offering agricultural assistance to subsistence farmers -- have been met with indifference, if not downright hostility.

More at The Washington Post.

Quiet Crawl to Peace on the Afghan Shuttle - Christina Lamb, The Times

On the dusty airfields of Kandahar and Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan, frantic construction work is under way to accommodate 17,000 extra US troops who are due to fly in and try to stem the relentless tide of Taliban.

But it is far away, in the diverse settings of a council flat in Greenford, west London, and the marble palaces of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, that hope is increasingly focused on ending the war.

These unlikely locations are the bases for an Algerian former militant and a Saudi prince who are mediators in western-backed negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Once a taboo subject in Washington and Whitehall, “talks with the Taliban” are suddenly being presented by western leaders as the only way out of a war they concede they are not winning.

More at The Times.

Yes, We Can - Max Boot, Frederick W. Kagan & Kimberly Kagan, Weekly Standard opinion

If you believe the headlines, Afghanistan is "the graveyard of empires," a "quagmire" and a "fiasco," the place where President Barack Obama will meet his "Vietnam." In the media's imagination, the Taliban are on the march, and Kabul is on the verge of falling to a resurgent insurgency that already controls much of the countryside. Increasing numbers of voices, on both the left and the right, counsel that the war is unwinnable and that we need to radically "downsize" our objectives in order to salvage something from a failing war effort lest we go the way of the Russians or British, previous conquerors who foundered in this merciless land of violence and fanaticism.

Evidence to support the pessimists isn't hard to find. Violence has increased every year since 2001. The United Nations recently reported that there was an especially big jump last year, with civilian deaths up nearly 40 percent, from 1,523 in 2007 to 2,118 in 2008. Coalition deaths were up 27 percent, rising to 294 in 2008 from 232 in 2007. Because of the improving situation in Iraq, there have been a number of months when more U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the number of Afghans surveyed by ABC, the BBC, and the German network ARD who said that their country was headed in the right direction fell to 40 percent, down from 54 percent in 2007, with security rated as by far the worst problem, outpacing corruption and the economy.

More at The Weekly Standard.

PAKISTAN

Pakistan Opposition Leader Is Held Before Protest - Jane Perlez, New York Times

The police detained the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, at his house in Lahore early Sunday morning hours before his address to a planned demonstration here, and arrested supporters protesting outside his home.

Mr. Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz, was also detained in Rawilpindi, the city adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, according to Pakistani television. The detentions of the brothers occurred at dawn, as security forces stepped up a crackdown to prevent a national protest by the lawyers’ movement and the Sharif brothers’ supporters that is aimed at converging on the capital by Monday.

The police shut down the center of Lahore at dawn, placing tractor-trailers across the roads near the high court, the starting point of the protests. More than a dozen prominent leaders of the opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League-N, had been detained in the early morning, the home secretary, Rao Iftikhar Ahmed, said.

More at The New York Times and:

Pakistani Government to Appeal Ruling Against Opposition - Voice of America
Pakistan Detains Opposition Leader Nawaz Sharif - Los Angeles Times
Sharif Under House Arrest in Pakistan - Associated Press
As Pakistan Churns, Protesters Plan to March - Washington Post
Pakistan on Edge as Zardari Arouses Rebellion - The Times
Pakistan President Under Pressure - Daily Telegraph
US Keeping Close Eye on Pakistan, Chairman Says - AFPS

CUBA

Cuba's a Little Closer Under Obama - William E. Gibson, Los Angeles Times

Cuban Americans' travel to the communist island nation just got easier under guidelines issued last week by the Obama administration.

The Treasury Department confirmed that Cuban Americans may visit extended relatives as well as close family members once a year and spend as much as $179 a day without fear of prosecution, effective immediately. The guidelines signal a trend toward looser enforcement of the US embargo on Cuba.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

MORE NEWS AND OPINION

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Security in Afghanistan Sets Conditions for Future, Mullen Says - AFPS
Abductors Set Terms to Free American - Washington Times
British Soldier Killed in Afghanistan - Daily Telegraph

Iraq

Bin Laden Calls for Iraq's 'Liberation' - Agence France-Presse
Rudd Seeks Food, Oil Ties with Iraq - The Australian
Rapid Security Issues Shift From Iraq to Afghanistan - The Australian
Iraqi President Not Seeking Re-election - Voice of America
Iraqi President Sets Off Talk on Role of Iraqi Kurds - New York Times
US Forces Perform Dual Role in Securing, Developing Iraq - AFPS
US, Iraqi Leaders Aim to Restore Iraq’s Historic Sites - AFPS
Baghdad Clothier Waiting for Iraqis to Live Large Again - Los Angeles Times
The Iraq We Don't Know - Washington Post opinion

Iran

Iran Signs $3.2-billion Natural Gas Deal with China - Los Angeles Times
A 'Back Channel' Appeal to Iran - Los Angeles Times opinion

The Long War

Bin Laden Attacks Arab Leaders - Daily Telegraph
Adrift on Border Security - Washington Times editorial
In Defense of Guantanamo - Washington Post opinion

The War on Drugs

Drug Cartels' New Weaponry Means War - Los Angeles Times
Police Find 9 Bodies in Mexican Border City - Associated Press

Piracy

Japan Sends Ships to Anti-Piracy Mission Off Somalia - Voice of America

US Department of Defense

Pentagon Rethinking Old Doctrine on 2 Wars - New York Times

United Kingdom

Senior Republican Arrested Over Soldier Murders - Daily Telegraph
Irish Leader Condemns Killings - Washington Post
Arrests Over Belfast Soldiers' Murder - Agence France-Presse
Arrests of 3 Dissidents in Ulster Killings Stir Riots - New York Times
Why the Killers are Back in Northern Ireland - The Times
Hate Cleric Leads Jihad Cash Appeal - The Times
Firebrand Risks Jail in Call for Jihad Cash - The Times
In Depth: al-Muhajiroun - The Times
We Should Just Laugh at These Clowns - The Times opinion

Australia

Money or the Big Guns - The Australian
HMAS Sydney Leads Biggest Show Since Bicentenary - The Australian

Africa

Kidnapped Aid Workers Freed in Sudan - Voice of America
Darfur Hostages: Kidnapped Western Aid Workers Freed - Daily Telegraph
3 Foreign Aid Workers Set Free by Abductors in Darfur - Associated Press
Madagascar's President Rejects Opposition Claims - Voice of America
Madagascar Reaches Showdown for Control - New York Times
Libya Complains - New York Times editorial

Americas

Russia Is Weighing 2 Latin Bases, General Says - New York Times
Russia Weighs Cuba, Venezuela Bases - Agence France-Presse
El Salvador Taking a Left Turn - Washington Times editorial

Asia Pacific

North Korea Bans Border Crossing for 2nd Day - Voice of America
Military Planners Second-guess a Resurgent China - The Australian
Indonesia Anti-terrorism Chief: Monitoring and Trust Key - Los Angeles Times
Japan’s Political Dynasties Come Under Fire but Prove Resilient - New York Times
Burma's Bullies - Washington Post editorial

Europe

Medvedev Takes on Putin Loyalists - Daily Telegraph
Relaunching NATO-Russia Ties - Washington Times opinion

Middle East

Palestinian Unity Talks Deadlocked - Voice of America
Israel's New Defence Minister Accused of War Crime - The Times
Mideast Press Questions Obama - Washington Post

South Asia

India Expects Pakistan to Act in Mumbai Investigation - Voice of America
Sri Lanka Denies UN Charge of Possible War Crimes - Voice of America

BOOK REVIEWS

Reluctant Warriors - The Economist book review of both The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Thomas Ricks and The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.

BOOKS

The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz

The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney

The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.

Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett

In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen

A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips

Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz

Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.