Blog Posts

Surveys are now a common, though largely unacknowledged, counterinsurgency tool of the contemporary battlefield.

Read, connect, and discuss..

Washington Post book review by Carter Malkasian.

The newly dominant zealots calling themselves Islamic State produced gruesome videos...

"I found three types of conflicts that were not on many lists but should be. Each, for different reasons, represents a trend worth paying attention to."

The key factor is senior leadership that has not kept faith with its troops.

A retired four-star Marine Corps general, now the U.S. ‘special envoy’ in the war against the terrorist army, on reasons for optimism even as a long fight looms.

The rifle that today's infantry uses is little changed since the 1960s—and it is badly flawed.

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation…

The United States and NATO formally marked the end of their war in Afghanistan Sunday.

Back to the future for headline junkies. Updated 29 Dec and now to 24/7 ops!

"And they are impressive warriors! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be."

Obama announced a major shift in U.S. relations with Cuba, after the country’s communist leaders released Alan Gross, an American who had been imprisoned there for five years.

CTC Islamic State Report & Resources

Thrice bitten, once shy, we opt to bury our heads in the sand.

Some food for thought (and hopefully start some discussion) concerning prisons and radicalization.

"The American war against the Islamic State has become the most opaque conflict the United States has undertaken in more than two decades..."

A list of professional reading lists.

Robert B. Oakley, a career diplomat and three-time ambassador with a reputation for shrewdness in Washington and toughness in crisis zones.

Gen. John Allen must sometimes feel as if he’s navigating a maze as he organizes the coalition to defeat the Islamic State.

It was Voltaire who said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Some would say the same of IS - that it is neither Islamic, nor a state.

One of the Islamic State’s senior commanders reveals exclusive details of the terror group’s origins inside an Iraqi prison – right under the noses of their American jailers.

Jihadist attacks killed more than 5,000 people in just one month, an investigation by the BBC World Service and King's College London has found.

CTC Sentinel : Volume 7, Issue 11 (Nov/Dec 2014)

Rebuilding America’s Defenses – Highlights from the 2014 FPI Forum.