Left: President Trump receiving a briefing on the Syria military strike from the National Security team via secure video teleconference on April 06, 2017 at the Mar a Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. Source: Sean Spicer, White House Press … [Read more...] about Untangling U.S. Foreign policy
Southeast Asia
Militarization of China
As the Chinese and the Americans sit down for the seventh of their annual two-day meeting [June 22-24], set up in 2009 to maintain bilateral cooperation despite growing differences, a major transformation of the Chinese regime is a new and worrying … [Read more...] about Militarization of China
Weekly Briefing, February 8-13, 2015
Deterring ISIL is Not Enough - Rachel Ehrenfeld - "Muslims need to change the religious discourse and remove from it things that have led to violence and extremism.”... President Obama’s requested Congressional authorization to indefinitely use U.S. … [Read more...] about Weekly Briefing, February 8-13, 2015
Southeast Asian Islam, gentle and ungentle
A “rage against history”: a bewildered and at times visceral sense, a disquiet in the soul and gut, that “history has gone wrong”, departed from its divinely ordained path. Religious “supersessionism”: or, underlying that sense of historical … [Read more...] about Southeast Asian Islam, gentle and ungentle
Obama=Incoherence*
Left: Detainees praying at the military prison, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In any litany of the failures of policy of the Obama Administration, the question of Guantánamo ranks high on the list. The Bush Administration, in the white heat of post-9/11, … [Read more...] about Obama=Incoherence*
Weekly Briefing – August 30-September 6, 2014
The Religion of War - Rachel Ehrenfeld - American and European leaders are “shocked” that the Islamic State (IS) barbarians beheaded two American reporters, Steven J. Sotloff and James Foley. Their “shock” is disingenuous and troubling. They react as … [Read more...] about Weekly Briefing – August 30-September 6, 2014
Testing, testing, testing…*
The horror of 298 innocents, oblivious to the warfare 33,000 feet below them, blown out of the sky by criminally negligent fanatics supported by Russian Vladimir Putin, forebodes greater catastrophes. The incident is a part of a worldwide scene … [Read more...] about Testing, testing, testing…*
South China Sea Territorial Disputes
"Vietnamese Riot in Industrial Zones in Anti-China Protest," Reuters, Hanoi, 14 May 2014. Thousands of workers took to the streets to demonstrate against "Chinese oil drilling in a contested area of the South China Sea." It did not take long before … [Read more...] about South China Sea Territorial Disputes
A World Ablaze – But Different Fuels*
A bane of modern military studies (let’s eschew the term “science”) is the concept of counter-insurgency--the idea that indigenous revolts around the world can be analyzed with “the scientific method” and that a set of general principles, if … [Read more...] about A World Ablaze – But Different Fuels*