Marc | September 29, 2009
In the US House Report 111-166 – NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010, there is a very interesting set of requirements regarding a direction to implement an independent assessment of the Human Terrain System (major hat tip to John Stanton for letting me know – his own article on it is available here).
Marc | September 29, 2009
Ken MacLeish has a very nuanced examination of the problems faced by a number of US vets and the structural use of the “Crazy Vet” stereotype over at Savage Minds. The post, Wounds of War and the Dilemmas of Stereotypes, is well worth reading not only for its nuance but, also, for its portrayal of [...]
Marc | September 28, 2009
I have been following a series of posts by my friend Max Forte over at Openanthropology on his “relationship” with the Open Anthropology Co-operative (OAC). I won’t go into the details, they are all available on Max’s site, but the most recent one is extremely disturbing. There is, at least from the evidence Max provides, [...]
Marc | September 22, 2009
A quite brilliant, and very snarky, piece was written by Chris Rodda over at Daily Kos entitled the Top Ten Ways to Convince the Muslims we’re on a Crusade. 10. Have top U.S. military officers, Defense Department officials, and politicians say we’re in a religious war 9. Have top U.S. military officers appear in a [...]
Marc | September 21, 2009
With the release of an unclassified version of GEN McChrystal’s assessment (pdf; w/ hat tip to SWJ and the Washington Post) we can finally start to get a handle on the rationale behind the new (?) strategy for Afghanistan. I have only skimmed the Assessment as yet, but several points jump out at me. In [...]
Marc | September 18, 2009
My friends Adam Elkus and Mark Safranski just released what is one of the more insightful, and scathing, critiques of US “Grand Strategy”. The short article is entitled Theory, Policy, and Strategy: A Conceptual Muddle (abstract | PDF) and focuses on one simple observation: grand strategy for the US is now being driven by operational [...]
Marc | September 16, 2009
I’ve been having an email discussion with my friend Drew about narratives for the past little while. One of the things that bothers me about the general topic, and by this I mean the military use and analysis of narratives, is that it is all to often focused at the wrong “levels”; in milspeak, it [...]
Marc | September 9, 2009
A recent article in the New York Times by James Dao presents a pretty good synopsis of the “problem” of MilBlogging (with a hat tip to SWJ for the posting). For me, one of the key points is this To many analysts and officers, the debate reflects a broader clash of cultures: between the anarchic, [...]
Marc on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1Marc on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1
In Harmonium » Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 3 on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2
MM on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1
Backwards Observer on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2