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 DoD News | Sat, 05/26/2018 - 1:28pm | 0 comments
"As we take time to honor the men and women who have died while serving in the U.S. military this Memorial Day weekend, I wanted to reflect on how it affects me and highlight a few of the organizations that are important to veterans like me."
by CTC Sentinel | Sat, 05/26/2018 - 2:00am | 0 comments
Continue on for a link to the May issue's articles.
by Voice of America | Sat, 05/26/2018 - 12:16am | 0 comments
U.S. efforts to combat terrorists based on the African continent are running into a myriad of problems, perhaps none so vexing, or dangerous, as the constantly shifting alliances and aims of the terrorist fighters themselves. No longer beholden to one group or ideology, or even to the highest bidder, these terror operatives are steadily blurring the lines dividing one group from another.
by The New York Times | Fri, 05/25/2018 - 10:54am | 0 comments
"The details of the Feb. 7 firefight were gleaned from interviews and documents newly obtained by The New York Times. They provide the Pentagon’s first public on-the-ground accounting of one of the single bloodiest battles the American military has faced in Syria since deploying to fight the Islamic State."
by Keith Nightingale | Thu, 05/24/2018 - 9:45pm | 0 comments
Who are we and what are we all about?
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 05/24/2018 - 9:38pm | 0 comments
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC; General Orders No. 11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction | Thu, 05/24/2018 - 10:36am | 0 comments
Today, SIGAR released its fourth lessons learned report, entitled "Stabilization: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan," examining the U.S. government's efforts to stabilize Afghanistan between 2002 and 2017. At 9:30am EST, Inspector General John F. Sopko spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. to mark the report's launch. Following the address, General John R. Allen facilitated a discussion.
by Military.com | Thu, 05/24/2018 - 8:26am | 0 comments
“The head of Army Training and Doctrine Command said recently that the service will have to depend on high-tech simulations to prepare soldiers and leaders for the challenges they will face in complex, megacity warfare. Army leaders are certain that future conflicts will occur in large urban areas, known as megacities -- a reality that is forcing senior leaders to rethink how the service will prepare for this new type of warfare.”
by DoD News | Tue, 05/22/2018 - 5:55pm | 0 comments
The coalition training effort in Iraq is all about “making a good force better,” said Italian army Brig. Gen. Roberto Vannacci, the deputy commanding general for training for Operation Inherent Resolve's Joint Forces Land Component Command in Iraq.
by The Wall Street Journal | Tue, 05/22/2018 - 2:42pm | 0 comments
"FARAH, Afghanistan—The weekend visit by a high-level delegation from Kabul to this now calm provincial capital in western Afghanistan promised to be a victory lap of sorts, after the Taliban were driven from the city following two days of fierce fighting last week."
by Associated Press | Mon, 05/21/2018 - 6:47pm | 0 comments
“The Trump administration’s revamped Afghanistan strategy has made little progress against the Taliban insurgency, leaving the country a ‘dangerous and volatile’ place nearly 17 years after the U.S. invaded, a government watchdog report said Monday.”
by The United States Institute of Peace | Mon, 05/21/2018 - 4:44pm | 0 comments
USIP online course intended to provide a nuanced understanding of the context and dynamics of a conflict can determine the effectiveness with which you intervene, help you untangle the often-unintended consequences of any actions or policies, prevent any harm from being done, and help determine future priorities for program development.
by Lawfare | Mon, 05/21/2018 - 1:18pm | 0 comments
“A proxy war occurs when a major power instigates or plays a major role in supporting and directing a party to a conflict but does only a small portion of the actual fighting itself. Proxy war stands in contrast not only to a traditional war—when a state shoulders the burden of its own defense (or offense)—but also an alliance, when major and minor powers work together with each making significant contributions according to their means.”
by The Washington Times | Mon, 05/21/2018 - 12:49am | 0 comments
“As two of the Middle East’s military heavyweights edge closer to a shooting war, Israel boasts one of the world’s most effective militaries backed by a nuclear arsenal, but Iran has 10 times the population and an increasing number of ways to strike back asymmetrically.”
by The New York Times | Mon, 05/21/2018 - 12:28am | 0 comments
“Iraqis are still haunted by memories of black-clad death squads roaming Baghdad neighborhoods a decade ago, cleansing them of Sunnis as the country was convulsed by sectarian violence. Many of the mass killings in the capital were done in the name of Moktada al-Sadr, a cleric best remembered by Americans for fiery sermons declaring it a holy duty among his Shiite faithful to attack United States forces.”
by The Washington Post | Mon, 05/21/2018 - 12:26am | 0 comments
“This election season has been the most violent in Mexico’s recent history, with 36 candidates killed since September, and dozens of other politicians and campaign officials slaughtered. That macabre statistic has created a fresh challenge for the country’s political parties: They are now trying to fill dozens of candidacies left open by the assassinations.”
by Associated Press | Sun, 05/20/2018 - 9:08pm | 0 comments
"The State Department unit overseeing the fight against the Islamic State group will stay in business for at least six more months, reversing an administration plan for the unit’s imminent downgrade even as President Donald Trump presses ahead with a speedy U.S. exit from Syria."
by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | Sat, 05/19/2018 - 10:14pm | 0 comments
“When 20-year-old Khamzat Azimov went on a deadly stabbing spree in Paris this month, a May 12 attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, details about his upbringing caught the attention of psychoanalyst and counterterrorism expert Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin. Considering Azimov's infancy in war-torn Chechnya, and the fact that he continued to live with his mother in a one-room Paris apartment until he was shot dead by police in the midst of his attack, Kobrin saw a pattern reflected in other Islamist terrorists she has studied and written about.”
by The Washington Post | Sat, 05/19/2018 - 8:56pm | 0 comments
"His self-declared caliphate was in ruins when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi summoned some of his top aides to a meeting in eastern Syria last year. The Islamic State’s capital in Iraq had already fallen, and its Syrian headquarters was under siege. Yet the terrorist leader had something else on his mind: schoolchildren."
by The Washington Times | Sat, 05/19/2018 - 4:28pm | 0 comments
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the recently completed U.S. defense strategy, the first in 10 years, will be used to guide the revamping of the military during the Trump administration. “Without a sound strategy, the most brilliant generals, the most well-equipped troops, the most high-tech equipment, fine tactics — none of that works unless your strategy, your framework for what you’re doing, can actually tie ways and means together,” Mr. Mattis said in a recent speech.
by Military Times | Fri, 05/18/2018 - 3:44pm | 0 comments
“The Taliban announced Friday that they intend to focus their attacks on Americans and their foreign allies, rather than Afghan government forces, according to an Al Jazeera report. The statement comes on the heels of an unsuccessful bid by the insurgent group to take the city of Farah in the western part of the country.”
by The Washington Post | Fri, 05/18/2018 - 3:23pm | 0 comments
“American authorities say insurgent activity in Bahrain, a key hub for U.S. naval operations, has increased over the past year as a handful of Iranian-backed groups armed with smuggled weapons plan attacks against security forces.”
by Defense One | Fri, 05/18/2018 - 1:32am | 1 comment
“Even as the Pentagon shifts its focus from low-intensity conflict to full-spectrum war, the U.S. Air Force might finally buy a prop-driven light attack plane.”
by The Wall Street Journal | Fri, 05/18/2018 - 12:32am | 0 comments
“In its former heartland of Syria and Iraq, the once mighty Islamic State has turned, at least for now, into little more than a nuisance. But that’s not the case for the self-declared caliphate’s far-flung “provinces,” from West Africa to Afghanistan to Southeast Asia.”
by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. | Thu, 05/17/2018 - 6:39am | 0 comments
There has been a lot of discussion recently about what impact developments in artificial intelligence might have on the military, but there is also a growing amount of talk regarding how emerging advancements in human intelligence will influence tomorrow’s wars – much thanks to remarkable work occurring in neuroscience.