The current issue of Popular Mechanics has an interesting, if not wholly credible, mea culpa by the CIA. Apparently, they were not telling the truth all along but now are coming fully clean. Right. Someone at the CIA’s department of public interactions figures we will really believe them when they give us an honest, double-dog [...]
Nice to read a national columnist who gets it. The war in Iraq should not be about reinforcing failure (the army is broken, so we need more army), but about reinforcing success. Airpower has done more for American military capability (and for positive Americanism abroad) than any other force, and it is time to put [...]
In case you did not see this missive in either your daily AFA spam or on the Early Warning (more like Distant Early Warning down here at Maxwell) Blog…..
Buzz About Obama and Airpower: Making the rounds of traditional and Web media are remarks Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made in New Hampshire earlier this [...]
[John Sheldon has a very thoughtful editorial in Today’s Space News]
The Chinese anti-satellite (A-Sat) test in January has produced countless calls for ways and means to strengthen and achieve “space security.” The advocates for space security range from the well-intentioned through to the disingenuous, but all have one thing in common: the state of affairs [...]
The first notion the military strategist must discard is victory, for strategy is not about winning. The pure strategist understands that war is but one aspect of social and political competition, an ongoing interaction that has no finality. This is not to say that victory has no place in strategy. The outcome of battles and [...]
There appear to be as many definitions of strategy as there are legitimate strategists. The following is a list of better known Formal Definitions of Strategy:
Simplistic:
“… the art of making war on a map.” Baron de Jomini
“… the art of the dialectics of will that use force to resolve their conflict.” Andre Beaufre
“A system of [...]
The clarion call for more troops in Iraq inevitably appears with the fashionable lament that an excessive fascination with the unfulfilled promise of airpower is a primary cause of America’s problems there. Had it not gutted its ground forces to pay for the Air Force’s favorite technological toys, so the argument goes, hundreds of thousands [...]
[The following editorial appeared in The Wright Stuff, 8 Feb 07]
Just over a year ago the US Air Force expanded its mission statement, declaring its commitment “to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace.” [Mitch Gettle, “Air Force Releases New Mission Statement,” Air Force Print News, December 8, 2005. Emphasis added] Highlighting its newly raised [...]
Extolling the virtues of strategy – its understanding and practice – is much easier said than done. Strategy is difficult, as generations of statesmen, generals and policymakers can attest, and those who are able to truly master it are few and far between. But because strategy is difficult does not mean that those charged with [...]
Many of those in the blog and MSM spheres feasting on the remains of William Arkin’s Jan 30th Early Warning column, “The Troops Also Need to Support the American People,” have unfortunately missed the crucial point of his argument.
Arkin’s thesis – clearly and unambiguously presented at the opening of his post – was this:
I hope [...]