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 Associated Press | Mon, 05/06/2019 - 12:17am | 0 comments
"The Taliban on Saturday said the gap is narrowing in talks with Washington’s special peace envoy over a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The two sides are continuing to meet in Qatar, where the insurgent movement maintains a political office."
by World Politics Review | Sun, 05/05/2019 - 10:00am | 0 comments
"Whenever the United States becomes involved in counterinsurgency, it eventually wishes that it hadn't. As Judah Grunstein wrote this week, the recent counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan were just the latest episode in the U.S. military's long cyclical history of fighting counterinsurgencies—known variously as small wars, unconventional warfare and asymmetric warfare—as they arise, then tossing aside the operational lessons learned when they were no longer needed."
by The Wall Street Journal | Sun, 05/05/2019 - 9:07am | 0 comments
"Venezuela’s opposition came tantalizingly close to removing President Nicolás Maduro from power this week, according to more than a dozen people involved in talks to oust him. But in the end, it all went wrong."
by The Washington Post | Sun, 05/05/2019 - 8:33am | 0 comments
"President Trump’s senior national security aides met Friday at the Pentagon to review what acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan called a 'comprehensive set of options' for the administration’s next steps in Venezuela."
by The Wall Street Journal | Sun, 05/05/2019 - 7:31am | 0 comments
"Netanyahu orders ’massive attacks’ on Gaza during worst fighting in months."
by The New York Times | Sun, 05/05/2019 - 6:02am | 0 comments
"In one of the deadliest cities in the world, an embattled group of young men had little but their tiny patch of turf — and they would die to protect it. Journalists from The New York Times spent weeks recording their struggle."
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 05/04/2019 - 6:22pm | 0 comments
Foreign Policy Research Institute - "After three days of talks in Turkey, representatives from Washington and Ankara failed to reach agreement on the terms of a proposed safe zone in northeastern Syria."
by The Washington Post | Sat, 05/04/2019 - 1:42pm | 0 comments
"It was one of the last places anyone expected the Islamic State to strike. Just weeks after its decisive defeat in Syria, the radical group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks more than 3,000 miles away in Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean."
by The Wall Street Journal | Sat, 05/04/2019 - 1:36pm | 0 comments
"Regime insiders in talks with opposition are said to have lost confidence in the bid to remove Maduro. Venezuela’s opposition came tantalizingly close to removing President Nicolás Maduro from power this week, according to more than a dozen people involved in talks to oust him."
by The British Broadcasting Corporation | Sat, 05/04/2019 - 1:33pm | 0 comments
"The Taliban in Afghanistan has rejected calls for a Ramadan ceasefire and attacked the traditional council, or loya jirga, which made the proposal."
by Voice of America | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 8:03pm | 0 comments
"Russia has increased its airstrike campaign on the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib in the past few days, which rights group warn could lead to a new humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country."
by The National Interest | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 1:28pm | 0 comments
"Despite the dark cloud of pessimism hovering over the Afghan peace talks, negotiation is the only way out."
by The Wall Street Journal | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 12:46pm | 0 comments
"Local religious fissures and imported Wahhabism make countries like India and Sri Lanka vulnerable."
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 11:07am | 0 comments
In a new report published by the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, author Michael L. Burgoyne, a U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer, looks at the limitations of current policing models in Mexico and Central America to confront “militarized criminal violence.”
by The Washington Post | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 1:18am | 0 comments
"The appearance of the Islamic State’s leader in a video this week after a five-year absence appeared to be an effort to signal that the group is preparing for a long global war despite its territorial defeat, terrorism experts say."
by Institute for the Study of War | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 12:10am | 0 comments
"The U.S. will likely fail to secure its national security interests with its current strategy in Afghanistan."
by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction | Fri, 05/03/2019 - 12:03am | 0 comments
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has released its forty-third Quarterly Report to Congress, continue on for the report’s key points and a link to the full document.
by The Wall Street Journal | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 2:23pm | 0 comments
"Houthi rebels in Yemen ramp up pilotless attacks; U.N. suspects input from Iran."
by Foreign Affairs | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 12:42pm | 0 comments
"True peace in Yemen will remain elusive unless both sides accept that they have nothing to gain from more fighting. We are not there yet."
by World Politics Review | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 10:56am | 0 comments
"The next generation of violent extremists will almost certainly be inspired by the rubble left behind by the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State."
by The National Interest | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 3:11am | 0 comments
"The Baltic States don’t have a chance in a conventional war with Russia. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be conquered in less than three days, according to some estimates. But a guerrilla army just might make the Baltics so indigestible as to deter Moscow from invading, according to a study by U.S. thinktank RAND Corp."
by Associated Press | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 1:09am | 0 comments
"No longer burdened by territory and administration, Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi outlined the new path forward for his group: Widen your reach, connect with far-flung militant groups and exhaust your enemies with a 'war of attrition.'"
by The Wall Street Journal | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 12:59am | 0 comments
"An April 19 U.S. airstrike in Somalia killed the al-Shabaab militant believed responsible for an American soldier’s death last year in an attack on an isolated outpost, according to the U.S. military."
by The Washington Post | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 12:56am | 0 comments
"More than a week after devastating bombings in Sri Lanka, a government minister and a U.S. diplomat warned that the group that carried out the attacks could launch further strikes."
by Military Times | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 12:30am | 0 comments
"The war in Afghanistan is getting harder to track for the American public, as U.S. military officials there have decided to no longer report how much of the country is controlled or influenced by the Taliban or other insurgent forces, according to oversight officials."