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 Agence France-Presse | Mon, 04/15/2019 - 8:00am | 0 comments
"The Taliban on Friday announced their annual spring offensive, which comes as the US and Afghan politicians try to negotiate for a peace settlement with the Islamist militants."
by Voice of America | Mon, 04/15/2019 - 6:06am | 0 comments
"More than four years after a brutal civil war in Yemen that has claimed thousands of lives and has pushed millions to the brink of starvation, Houthi rebels are ready to establish relations with the United States, an official responsible for the group's foreign affairs told VOA."
by Voice of America | Sun, 04/14/2019 - 9:51pm | 0 comments
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week described a powerful Iranian military commander as a “terrorist,” while discussing options the U.S. government could have to further punish Iran for its destabilizing activities in the Middle East. “Qassem Soleimani has the blood of Americans on his hands … as does the force that he leads,” Pompeo said during an interview with Fox News. “America is determined each time we find an organization, institution or an individual that has taken the lives of Americans, it is our responsibility.”
by The Los Angeles Times | Sun, 04/14/2019 - 9:18pm | 0 comments
"Within the last two weeks, protests that are being called “Arab Spring 2.0” have led to the fall of presidents in Algeria and Sudan. But these aren’t just people’s revolutions: In both cases, the army stepped in, purportedly in support of the anti-government demonstrators."
by Associated Press | Sun, 04/14/2019 - 8:05pm | 0 comments
"North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to a third summit with President Donald Trump, but set the year’s end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy, the North’s state-run media said Saturday."
by The New York Times | Sun, 04/14/2019 - 5:13pm | 0 comments
"For months, employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross have made weekly visits to a detention camp in northern Syria bearing a photograph of a petite woman in her early 60s."
by The Washington Post | Sun, 04/14/2019 - 4:47pm | 0 comments
"President Trump’s proposal for a 'deal of the century' to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict promises practical improvements in the lives of Palestinians but is likely to stop short of ensuring a separate, fully sovereign Palestinian state, according to people familiar with the main elements of the effort."
by The Washington Post | Sun, 04/14/2019 - 10:04am | 0 comments
"The war wasn’t going to last forever, we foolishly thought, and someday we needed to figure out what it all meant."
by The Washington Post | Sat, 04/13/2019 - 10:45am | 0 comments
"At a time when others were closing their doors to refugees, Canada stepped in to help, offering to resettle more than 1,000 of the Islamic State’s most vulnerable victims, particularly Yazidi women and girls who, like Melkeya, survived sexual enslavement."
by The Washington Post | Fri, 04/12/2019 - 6:13pm | 0 comments
"Trump administration officials took a victory lap Friday after the International Criminal Court decided not to proceed with an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, hailing it as vindication of their insistence that the court has no jurisdiction over U.S. forces who might have been implicated in a probe."
by Voice of America | Fri, 04/12/2019 - 5:24pm | 0 comments
"The International Criminal Court has announced it will not pursue an investigation into alleged war crimes by U.S. troops and allies in Afghanistan."
by RAND Corporation | Fri, 04/12/2019 - 12:23am | 0 comments
Read an excerpt and the introduction of this new report, as well as timely and important, from RAND. Also, links to the main report.
by Voice of America | Fri, 04/12/2019 - 12:10am | 0 comments
"The Taliban disclosed Thursday that the United Nations has temporarily removed sanctions against its senior leaders who are negotiating a deal with the United States for ending the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan."
by Voice of America | Thu, 04/11/2019 - 1:38pm | 0 comments
"The Taliban says it has temporarily stopped the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) from carrying out relief work in the areas they control in Afghanistan and revoked security guarantees for their staff."
by The Wall Street Journal | Thu, 04/11/2019 - 11:57am | 0 comments
"Omar al-Bashir, dictator of 30 years, has been facing a popular uprising since December."
by The New York Times | Thu, 04/11/2019 - 10:18am | 0 comments
"The United States has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with one count of conspiracy to hack a computer related to his role in the 2010 release of reams of secret American documents, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday just hours after British authorities arrested him in London."
by Military Times | Thu, 04/11/2019 - 9:49am | 0 comments
"A dual citizen of Libya and the U.S. has marched an army to the Libyan capital of Tripoli, but don’t expect U.S. forces to stop him. The only solution to the conflict, a U.S. Africa Command spokesman told Military Times, is a political one."
by The Washington Post | Thu, 04/11/2019 - 9:29am | 0 comments
"Sudan’s defense minister said Thursday that President Omar al-Bashir had been taken into military custody, effectively announcing a military coup to end his 30-year rule."
by Wavell Room | Thu, 04/11/2019 - 7:27am | 0 comments
“The character of politics and warfare is evolving rapidly, driven by the pervasiveness of information and the rate of technological change. Our competitors have become masters at exploiting the seams between peace and war. As I said here in January, what constitutes a weapon in this ‘grey zone’, below the threshold of conventional war, no longer has to go ‘bang’.”
by Army Times | Wed, 04/10/2019 - 8:57pm | 0 comments
"Great power competition has been the primary driver of the Pentagon over the past few years, but the Defense Department doesn’t get to pick the next war."
by Voice of America | Wed, 04/10/2019 - 8:15pm | 0 comments
"President Donald Trump says more troops will need to be sent to the country's southern border because too many dangerous people are illegally entering the United States."
by Military Times | Wed, 04/10/2019 - 8:00pm | 0 comments
"The top civilian over low-intensity conflicts, a long-held SOF specialty, and the new head of U.S. Special Operations Command told lawmakers this week that special operators will see the fight flip from how they’ve experienced the past two decades of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency warfare."
by The New York Times | Wed, 04/10/2019 - 6:53pm | 0 comments
"The Iranian government has used the Guard Corps internationally to create, train, arm and sometimes plot strategy for paramilitary forces and nonstate actors in other countries."
by The Washington Post | Wed, 04/10/2019 - 11:23am | 0 comments
"With renegade eastern commander Khalifa Hifter at the gates of the Libyan capital, the United Nations and Western and Arab governments have called for a halt to the fighting — to no avail."
by The Washington Examiner | Wed, 04/10/2019 - 9:43am | 0 comments
"A northern Texas sheriff says his county has seen a big uptick in methamphetamine and heroin seizures since October, saying Mexican drug smugglers are using large groups of migrants to divert Border Patrol’s attention while they run narcotics over the border in nearby areas."