On Kings of War

• Jerusalem Cavalry 16 August 2010
  This morning I nearly got killed by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank. Well, not how you think. Asaf Hazani, an Army reserve officer and PhD in anthropology from the Dado Center, the IDF think tank, took me cycling. Mountain biking, to be more accurate. For a 4-hour, 40k trip, with steep climbs and falls. I took away two lessons from it, one about the Isra […]
• Should Israel Strike Iran? 31 July 2010
  “We don’t have a proper national debate about strategy.” — The complaint seems universal. I’ve heard it in America, in Britain, in France, in Germany, and elsewhere. But here in Israel that complaint is even louder. The IDF is known for its “bitsuist” culture, preferring doing over thinking. And Israeli academia, leaning far to the left — so the cliché — shu […]
• Exit Under Way 30 July 2010
  One of the hands-down best policy podcasts out there is “The Political Scene,” produced weekly — and superbly — by The New Yorker (iTunes link).  I’ve been listening to it for about two years now, usually while running in Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. Now that I’m not in DC any more, it’s one of the things that, oddly, makes me feel most connected. Voic […]
• The Drone and the Bra 29 July 2010
  Today, again, is one of those days where reality seems like satire. Lawmakers in Europe and America are debating the damage done by the leaked Afghanistan logs and the merits of Special Forces and drones in the fight against Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. The U.S. Congress just approved $59bn (£45.4bn) to pay for ongoing operations. Meanwhile, the extrem […]
• Which Way of War? 13 July 2010
  Unplugged This blog has a small but loyal readership in Israel. If you happen to be in the country right now: I’m giving a talk tomorrow in Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan by Tel Aviv, at the BESA Center, one of Israel’s finest strategic studies institutes, headed by the impressively prolific Efraim Inbar. At 5pm, here’s the invitation. The pitch for the pr […]
• No Way Out 28 June 2010
  Recently The New York Times had a number of thought-provoking columns on the war in Afghanistan, triggered by the MacArthuring of McChrystal, as Frank Rich put it in a usually biting piece yesterday. Today, Ross Douthat has a piece on Afghanistan, “One Way Out.” He’s the Times’s token conservative, often with quite refreshing ideas, who came in after Bill Kr […]
• Bundestagspetition on Afghanistan 31 May 2010
  Ich sehe was, was Du nicht siehst ... In many Western Democracies, for instance in the United States, the executive branch has to inform parliament in official reports about ongoing military operations. By law, in regular intervals, and in plain English. A month ago, on April 29, the Pentagon delivered such a 151-page report (pdf) to Congress, the fifth in a […]
• The State of Strategy 23 May 2010
  Who's next? Who produced the greatest strategists of all time, dead and alive? America or Europe? Before wading into that minefield, we need some criteria, some points of orientation. The key should be a body of strategic theory, writings of general nature. Just making history or writing about it doesn’t count here. That excludes two sets of people who […]