Small Wars, Big Ideas
Armed Forces Journal article Small Wars, Big Ideas by Christopher Griffin.
… So, what is Kilcullen doing in the blogosphere? He’s been there for some time, contributing to the Small Wars Journal (SWJ) site through a series of postings on their general blog. Founded by a pair of Marines, Dave Dilegge and Bill Nagle, and named in homage to the Corps’ legendary “Small Wars Manual,” the SWJ provides a combination of blogs, discussion boards, and links to its readers. The SWJ is one of the finest resources on the Internet for the student of counterinsurgency, and has attracted leading experts to contribute to its balanced, informative blog.
The list of SWJ blog contributors reads as a who’s who of the debate on counterinsurgency theory, including Kilcullen, Nagl, Frank Hoffman, Malcolm Nance, Bing West and Lt. Col. Paul Yingling. The addition of SWJ contributors in recent months is especially impressive. For example, following his controversial May 2007 Armed Forces Journal essay, “A failure in generalship,” Yingling joined the SWJ blog as a contributor to address some of the response his article had received.
The broader SWJ site amplifies the debates among its bloggers through a set of discussion boards where members of the “Small Wars Council” can join the fray with their own opinion. To take one particularly noteworthy example, Yingling’s essay inspired a thread with more than 200 postings, many of which were substantive arguments based on the merits of Yingling’s argument (a rare attribute for any blogosphere debate). The site also offers the digital SWJ Magazine, which principally publishes articles by the captains and majors who are fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and provides another excellent venue for expanding and enhancing the debate on the war.
After so many articles about how the milblogging phenomenon has threatened chains of command, engendered violations of soldiers’ civil liberties and fueled a digital propaganda war, it is refreshing to note that the blogosphere can also serve as a virtual graduate seminar for the practitioners of war. If the blogosphere provides a sustained venue for debating the strategies and doctrine of the American military, it appears that the Small Wars Journal will be a keystone to that success.
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