On Wednesday, General Petraeus released an updated tactical directive that offered a fairly nuanced shift in guidelines for on-the-ground action. The unclassified bits were made available. We must continue – indeed, redouble – our efforts to reduce the loss of innocent civilian life to an absolute minimum. Every Afghan civilian death diminishes our cause. If [...]

I very much regret the nasty things I said about Fareed Zakaria in college when I had to read his book From Wealth to Power in a my capstone class. Not only does he host the most informative show on television this side of Frontline, he does things like this: Five years ago, the ADL [...]

@GlobalistHulk: FOLKSY WAR ADDICT NEED DECLARE IR PARADIGM AT OUTSET! OR YOU BE FOLKSY STRAW MAN! @FolksyWarAddict: Gee, I guess I’m not sophistimicated enough for that. I just believe in a STRONG America devoted to LIBERTY. And to ALL CAPS. @GlobalistHulk: YOU SO FOLKSY, WHY NOT BE FOLKSY FOR SOFT POWER? ALL SMASH ALL TIME [...]

One of the interesting things about the way physics research is done is the symbiotic partnership between the theoreticians and the experimentalists. The way it has worked for a long time is the theory people develop a theory about some aspect of the physical universe, based on the current understanding of the universe and some [...]

As Spencer reminds us on occasion, he is a Yankee fan. I, of course, not being from New York, have a dutiful, perfunctory and somewhat desultory hatred for the Yankees. It is simply a requirement if you are a baseball fan. Hatred of pinstripes is mandatory, passion is optional. But as a native, Spencer’s love [...]

Hey there, DNI Clapper. Welcome to your new gig. I have a couple pieces of advice for you as you emerge, confirmed, from the chambers of Congress. You probably don’t need the advice, but what’s a blog post for if not offering unsolicited opinions? Don’t let those agency guys push you around. Show some offense! [...]

A story that deserves a bit more attention than it gets is the ongoing plight of Kyrgyzstan. Back in April, protests led to a revolution that overthrew the President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, himself the product of the “Tulip Revolution” in 2005. Opposition leader and interim President Roza Otunbayeva had barely gotten settled when ethnically fueled riots [...]

The Department of Defense’s gigantic, crippling budget is news to no one–least of all Secretary Robert Gates and his boss President Obama. They’ve tried various tactics to push budget reduction, from threatening to axe the F-35 engine to putting the heat on the Navy. Now it looks like Gates as another weapon in his deficit-battling [...]

Ahh. One of the big arguments among the small arms community, one that has no beginning and no end and is kept endlessly alive by pints of beer and shots of whiskey. The M16/M4 US issue rifle. Love it? Hate it? Is it any good? Is it reliable? Does it kill people or just piss [...]

…in my Wonkette-ish weekly link roundup, “This Week in National Insecurity,” now posted on MoJo. Can I get a Howard Dean “YEEEEAH”?