Small Wars Journal

Blog Posts

SWJ Blog is a multi-author blog publishing news and commentary on the various goings on across the broad community of practice.  We gladly accept guest posts from serious voices in the community.

by The Washington Post | Fri, 06/14/2019 - 3:22pm | 0 comments
Situation and news updates via 'The Washington Post'.
by Defense News | Fri, 06/14/2019 - 8:37am | 0 comments
"The Republican president and Democrats in the House are currently at odds over military support in Yemen, where “a small number” of U.S. military personnel are deployed, according to the June 11 letter."
by The New York Times | Fri, 06/14/2019 - 7:49am | 0 comments
"Two years ago, Pentagon officials said that American forces in the remote reaches of Afghanistan could defeat the Islamic State’s offshoot here by the end of 2017. This month, American Special Forces in eastern Afghanistan were still fighting, with no end in sight."
by The U.S. Naval Institute | Fri, 06/14/2019 - 6:07am | 0 comments
"U.S. Central Command has released a video and photographs that officials say prove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy attacked two merchant tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday."
by Military Times, by The New York Times | Fri, 06/14/2019 - 12:06am | 0 comments
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of attacking a pair of oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of a “unacceptable campaign of escalating tension” by its leaders, but said the United States won’t respond with military force for now."
by Reuters | Fri, 06/14/2019 - 12:04am | 0 comments
"Iraq’s second city, once a recruitment center for Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein’s army, became an al Qaeda hotbed after the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled the dictator, and later the base from where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014."
by Stars & Stripes | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 12:44pm | 0 comments
"Continued success by the American-backed military campaign in Somalia could set the stage for economic development in the country, which has been wracked by years of lawlessness and violence, U.S. officials said."
by Associated Press | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 12:31pm | 0 comments
"Two massive tankers off the southern coast of Iran near the strategic Strait of Hormuz were reportedly attacked on Thursday, an assault that left one ablaze and adrift as sailors were evacuated from both vessels."
by Reuters | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 12:16pm | 0 comments
"Israeli aircraft attacked a Hamas target in Gaza on Thursday after a Palestinian rocket strike, the Israeli military said, in the first serious cross-border flare-up since a surge in fighting last month."
by Associated Press | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 11:50am | 0 comments
"... Katie Jones doesn’t exist, The Associated Press has determined. Instead, the persona was part of a vast army of phantom profiles lurking on the professional networking site LinkedIn."
by SOF News | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 9:57am | 0 comments
"The Marine Corps Advisor Company or MCAC is a new unit that has been established to provide trained and capable military advisors to work with foreign militaries and security forces of partner nations. The MCAC units will focus exclusively on training, equipping, and deploying military advisor teams that will operate around the world."
by The New York Times | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 12:13am | 0 comments
"Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked an airport in southern Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, wounding 26 people in the latest escalation of a four-year-old conflict that threatens to further strain relations between the United States and Iran."
by Voice of America | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 12:09am | 0 comments
Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar dismissed the Pentagon's latest warning over Ankara's imminent procurement of Russian missiles on Thursday as "language unbecoming of an ally." U.S. acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan's letter to his Turkish counterpart laid out a detailed timetable of Turkey's exclusion from the purchase and production of America's latest F-35 fighter jet if Ankara buys Russia's S-400 missiles system.
by The Wall Street Journal | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 12:08am | 0 comments
"A standoff over China’s encroachment on this city’s legal autonomy deepened, with hundreds of police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, as the financial center’s Beijing-backed government showed no signs of yielding during a second day of widespread demonstrations."
by Voice of America | Wed, 06/12/2019 - 8:46pm | 0 comments
"Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned of another military conflict in the Middle East if the global community is not more patient in the quest to ease escalating tensions between the United States and Iran."
by The Cipher Brief | Wed, 06/12/2019 - 3:31pm | 0 comments
"Despite an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign waged by the Egyptian military, militants linked to IS are still capable of coordinating sophisticated attacks."
by Voice of America | Wed, 06/12/2019 - 2:55pm | 0 comments
Kosovo is celebrating the 20th anniversary of a NATO intervention that drove out Serbian troops and helped end a crackdown that left more than 10,000 ethnic Albanians dead.
by The Center for a New American Security | Wed, 06/12/2019 - 12:17pm | 0 comments
"For the first time in decades, it is possible to imagine the United States fighting—and possibly losing—a large-scale war with a great power. For generations of Americans accustomed to U.S. military superiority and its ability to deter major wars, the idea of armed conflict between great powers may seem highly improbable. The idea that the United States—with the most expensive armed forces in the world by a wide margin—might lose such a war would seem absolutely preposterous. Nevertheless, the possibility of war and U.S. defeat are real and growing."
by The Wall Street Journal | Wed, 06/12/2019 - 10:41am | 0 comments
"A merger that would be the aerospace-and-defense industry’s biggest ever caps two years of deal making in a sector that is reorganizing in anticipation of slower growth in Pentagon spending and new priorities such as space systems and hypersonic missiles."
by Voice of America | Tue, 06/11/2019 - 9:58pm | 0 comments
"U.S. President Donald Trump and his Polish counterpart will make "a significant announcement on the future security partnership" Wednesday at the White House, according to senior administration officials."
by Center for Strategic & International Studies | Tue, 06/11/2019 - 7:56pm | 0 comments
"Iran is engaged in a soft war, or jang-e narm, with the United States. Iran uses formal and informal means to influence populations across the globe and has expanded its information campaign utilizing the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, cultural centers, universities, and charitable foundations."
by The New York Times | Tue, 06/11/2019 - 9:50am | 0 comments
"Colombia’s House of Representatives opened a debate on Monday to censure the country’s defense minister, amid national criticism that the military had issued orders this year encouraging human rights abuses."
by The Washington Post | Tue, 06/11/2019 - 7:36am | 0 comments
"President Trump’s border wall — and the military construction projects he siphoned money from to help fund it — are going to take center stage at the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, as it attempts to finalize its annual defense bill amid several deeply partisan policy divides."
by The New York Times | Tue, 06/11/2019 - 7:00am | 0 comments
"With the Pakistani military’s crackdown on protesters in the northwestern tribal belt in recent days, the security forces have asserted themselves as the true masters of justice in the region."
by Agence France-Presse | Mon, 06/10/2019 - 8:40pm | 0 comments
"Nearly 100 people were killed in a gruesome overnight attack on a village in central Mali, in the latest violence to strike the fragile region, authorities said Monday."