Apr 27, 2009

abu muqawama I have been reading through David Kilcullen's testimony to House Armed Services Committee on COIN in Pakistan (.pdf). Studying the past few years, one could arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan's army is epically incompetent. One could similarly arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan's army is competent -- but fighting fo (Read More)

Apr 27, 2009

Westhawk To much fanfare, the Obama administration has opened the door to Iran’s diplomats. The U.S. government has made it clear to the world that it wants to sit across the table from Iranian representatives on a broad range of matters – Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran’s problems with the IAEA and the UN Security Council.However, Mr. (Read More)

Aug 04, 2008

Thaindian News New York , Aug 4 (ANI): A Pakistani-American historian and expert on South Asia has written in her new book that Al Qaeda has resurfaced in Pakistan s tribal areas in the form of Taliban.Pakistan ‘’s federally administered tribal areas (FATA) are wilder than the wild west because Al-Qaeda has resurfaced here in (Read More)

Aug 04, 2008

SWJ Blog Small Wars Journal has received an advance copy of Bing West’s newest book The Strongest Tribe. We will be posting a review and SWJ interview with Bing in the near future. The early pages and reviews indicate that The Strongest Tribe will be acknowledged as a classic work on counterinsurgency in Iraq – much like The Village (Read More)

Aug 03, 2008

Submitted by Zenpundit: Worthwhile read for all of the VC/entrepreneurs w/ thoughts of IPOs. "Dark Aggregators" are now out there analyzing your market. (Read More)

Jul 30, 2008

Counterterrorism Blog The International Herald Tribune today reports on a recent CIA mission to Pakistan to confront leaders of the ISI there about the ties ISI members retain to the Taliban and al Qaeda.The CIA assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, an (Read More)

Aug 01, 2008

Fourth Generation Warfare - Google Blog Search Many call the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "4th generation warfare." "Fourth generation warfare is understanding that it's not going to be a uniformed (enemy) that we're going to be fighting," said Sgt Thomas Layou. ... (Read More)

Aug 01, 2008

Counterterrorism Blog On May 8, I was honored to chair one of four panels at a special seminar, "Dealing with Today's Asymmetric Threat," co-sponsored by the National Defense University and CACI International, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Foundation. The purpose of the seminar was to establish a framework for the development of an i (Read More)

Aug 02, 2008

Thaindian News Washington , Aug 2 (ANI): Fearing that it would leak intelligence reports to extremists operating from its tribal areas, the US has for the past four months not shared information with Pakistan prior to carrying out air strikes on areas lying in Pakistan territory targeting al Qaeda and Taliban suspects.The revelation on th (Read More)

Jul 29, 2008

COIN counterinsurgency - Google Blog Search "Thus, the primary focus for USG [US government] or international agencies engaging in COIN [counterinsurgency] is often the building of governmental capacity within a host government, rather than directly killing or capturing ... (Read More)

Jul 30, 2008

Submitted by Zenpundit: Jeffry Carr's blog IntelFusion is a great intersection of Intel and Tech world issues. Frequent read for me. (Read More)

Jul 28, 2008

Submitted by Infodiva: No counterculture evolved without an unmet need. Blogging 2.0 seeks to fill the void left by the evolution of blogging into a format that no longer focuses primarily on community, a less friendly space. Blogging 2.0 tools are still evolving and emerging to fill this void, and we are still fairly early in to the process. The (Read More)

Jul 29, 2008

MountainRunner Small Wars Journal just published my paper “Rethinking Smith-Mundt” in which I researched the historical record, scholarly books and articles and media reports surrounding the information activities portion of the US law commonly referred to as the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. After two years (1946-1947) of debates, testimony (Read More)

Jul 29, 2008

SWJ Blog Spencer Ackerman, in yesterday�s Washington Independent, claims I told him the Iraq war was �f*cking stupid�. He did not seek to clear that quote with me, and I would not have approved it if he had. If he HAD sought a formal comment, I would have told him what I have said publicly before: in my view, the decision to i (Read More)

Jul 29, 2008

Fourth Generation Warfare - Google Blog Search Intelligence strategy for fourth generation warfare: "War theorists believe we have entered into a new generation of warfare where an 'evolved form of insurgency uses all available networks - political, economic, social, military - to ... (Read More)

Mark Safranski

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. - Machiavelli