Exum on Soft Power
I rarely interact with other bloggers, preferring to spend time in analysis. But occasionally it’s best to spend a few minutes and join in the fray. Andrew Exum of the blog Abu Muqawama gives us his...
View ArticleBad Form in Counterinsurgency Debates
Andrew Exum blogging at Abu Muqawama has a piece up on who he perceives to be the winner and losers in Tom Ricks’ new book The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Just Build the F-22, Okay?
Over at Abu Muqawama, Abu M. is telling us about his lamentable bent towards socialistic jobs programs by finally advocating the F-22 program. Well, not quite. The kind of people who will continue to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
U.S. Halts SOF Raids in Afghanistan
The New York Times published an article concerning temporarily halting SOF raids in Afghanistan. The commander of a secretive branch of America’s Special Operations forces last month ordered a halt to...
View ArticleConcerning Hiding Insurgents
Our buddy Andrew Exum has a piece out today with The New Republic entitled No Place to Hide. In it, he defends the Obama administration’s “renunciation of traditional counter-terror strategies.” More...
View ArticleResponse to SOF and Piracy
So Andrew Exum is mad, or so it seems, over a recent post on piracy and our preferred model for comprehensively addressing the problem (although he doesn’t mention us by name, a rather awkward exigency...
View ArticleNicholas Schmidle on How to Save Pakistan
Nick Schmidle has written an essay in Slate on How to Save Pakistan. Nick, with whom I have exchanged e-mail, is not only a first rate Pakistan and Taliban scholar (see his work on Next-Gen Taliban),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drones, ROE, Raids, Fathers and Sons, Diamonds and Goats
I thought I would give you a lot of loosely correlated things to think about for the weekend. First of all, Bird Dog at the FORVM says call off the drones in Pakistan. They have been a tactical...
View ArticleCNAS Releases Afghanistan Study
The Center for a New American Security, which is advising the Obama administration, has released Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Permit us a few observations? On page 4 we...
View ArticleThe Failing UK Strategy in Afghanistan
Abu Muqawama links a stinging report in the Telegraph. Writing in the British Army Review, an official MoD publication, Major SN Miller, stated: “Lets not kid ourselves. To date Operation Herrick [the...
View ArticleAfghan National Army in Operation Khanjar – Or Not
lbn Muqawama cites the latest report by Chandrasekaran at the Washington Post, lamenting the following quote: The Marines have also been vexed by a lack of Afghan security forces and a near-total...
View ArticleConcerning that Robust Afghan National Security Force
Joshua Foust has given us a rundown of what he sees as contradictions in Andrew Exum’s prose concerning Afghanistan. Particularly salient is one specific paragraph that Andrew uttered. Nowhere that I...
View Article
