Tom Ricks didn’t like me noting that Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn are probably the only two independent journalists living in Kandahar. He even called it "bullshit." What follows, however, is just bizarre: As opposed, I reckon, to the dozens of MSM hacks who line up for frosty Taj beers by 3 pm [...]

We have treated the 17 Uighurs imprisoned at Guantanamo reprehensibly… but they are not alone.

Direct diplomacy isn’t about North Korea or Iran, its about Russia, China and our traditional allies.

Just to show how the army’s perception of blogging has shifted, because of this guestblogging gig I’m featured front and center on the Combined Arms Center homepage.

Kazakhstan is a lot more that oil and Cohen jokes.

My friend and colleague Major Rob Thornton launched an excellent series on understanding the challenges of Security Force Assistance (SFA). For mere mortals, SFA is the current term that encompasses DoD’s efforts to advise and equip foreign security forces. This can include Special Forces teams, embedded advisers, or a range of lethal and non-lethal capability. Rob is a deep thinker for the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance, a organization headquartered on Fort Leavenworth. Rob spent a tour as an adviser in Mosul and has been working to improve our advisory efforts ever since. If you’re interested in what this SFA thing is all about, check out his four posts so far and the ensuing discussion:

A couple of weeks ago, I felt the council over at the great Small Wars Journal was in a rut. So I got the wild idea to post a "discussion starter" slide my organization uses on the road. It worked. What I got in response was one of the most interesting threads in awhile. Comments [...]

Alex Strick van Linschoten, apparently reading old Robert Kaplan books so we don’t have to (just kidding: Soldiers of God is pretty much his only legitimate and readable book), noticed something Alexander Cockburn—he of Counterpunch and The Nation fame—said in 1980: "In the January 20, 1980, issue of the Village Voice, the left-wing writer Alexander [...]

Lets take a long hard look at what Judge Sotomayor actually said.

Pakistan’s security forces are neither unified nor monolithic. So why do we talk about them as if they are?