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Waterboarding is Torture... Period (Links Updated # 9)

... as a nation, are having a crisis of honor. Last week the Attorney General nominee Judge Michael Mukasey refused to define ... an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. ...

Blog entry - Oct 31 2007 - 1:30pm - 215 comments - 0 attachments

This Week at War: End of the COIN Era?

... Obama's Afghan withdrawal speech may mark the end of the U.S. counterinsurgency experiment. Here is the latest ... our last conflict. It seems that the question is not, "Does COIN (or FID or Stability Operations) work in a nation-building ...

Blog entry - Jun 23 2011 - 12:30pm - 64 comments - 0 attachments

The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal

... The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal   by Dr. Robert ... of any intelligence preparation of the battlefiled and does not require six figure social scientists to tell us what it is, Can we ...

Journal Article - Aug 15 2010 - 6:17am - 72 comments

FM 3-24 COIN Manual Critique

... A Civilian's Comprehensive Critique of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual...In 5-6 Pages ... approach as the only path to success and does not consider the merits of alternative strategies, thereby assuming, ... interval will become the necessary fall back option. CIA put out in the news today (part of the continuing media circus post UBL's ...

Journal Article - May 5 2011 - 8:01pm - 73 comments

A Tale of Two Design Efforts (and why they both failed in Afghanistan)

... in Afghanistan) by Grant Martin Download the Full Article: A Tale of Two Design Efforts Trying to be a "good ... positive change in a complex environment- much like nature does. Unfortunately this relies on emergent, bottom-up processes and trust in ...

Journal Article - Jul 7 2011 - 3:24pm - 75 comments

Understanding Current Operations in Iraq

... I've spent much of the last six weeks out on the ground, working with Iraqi and U.S. combat units, ... not make the news (the really important stuff rarely does) but it will be the truly decisive action. When we speak of "clearing" ...

Blog entry - Jun 26 2007 - 6:11am - 49 comments - 0 attachments

Deconstructing Galula

... Deconstructing Galula Much ado surrounds the myths of T.E. Lawrence and David Galula. So much so that academics fawn, ... influential source of the doctrine they set forth. What does an informed, objective study of the basis of Galula's work reveal? ...

Blog entry - Jun 5 2011 - 9:58am - 55 comments - 0 attachments

Woodward describes Obama's incoherent "terms sheet"

... White House staff will prove as embarrassing to the Obama administration as his previous volumes were to previous ... Triumph Forsaken) - be so proud, or so inclined? And what does that say about Petraeus - that any commander wants more troops, or ... Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the JCS, CIA, and NSC by Amy Zeigart ...

Blog entry - Sep 22 2010 - 11:05am - 44 comments - 0 attachments

Finding Petraeusism in Naglandia

... Deck:  The U.S. Military’s Hyper-American “Can-do” Spirit and Utopian Ideals ... protection of the people. This operational paradigm does not, in and of itself explain all of our failures in Afghanistan—the ...

Journal Article - Nov 10 2011 - 6:12pm - 5 comments

After Gates: Asymmetric Threats

... increased budget constraints and decreased certainty about the shape of future conflict. In other words, he or she will need to spend less ... It is indeed -- there's more to that than you realize. It does keep budgets nicely high. Bread indeed... ...(Job being considered to ...

Blog entry - Apr 24 2011 - 1:26pm - 18 comments - 0 attachments