Blog Posts

Obama's plan for some time now has been to bring home most of the conventional forces from Afghanistan and replace them with a much smaller Special Operating Force (SOF). The task would have been daunting enough but recent events obviously make it more so.

SWJ contributor Bob Tollast interviews SWJ editor Peter Munson on Iraq.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

A few years ago Latin American specialists began warning the defense community at large that the Mexican cartels constituted an insurgency in the actual sense, though one that was strategically different from the ideologically-inspired ones with which we are all familiar.

I would imagine this might generate some heated discussion. Let's see. Thomas Bruscino, the author of A Nation Forged in War: How World War II Taught Americans to Get Along, discusses "on war art and the meaning of war".

A U.S. soldier reportedly massacred up to 16 Afghans in the Panjway district of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

In my Foreign Policy column, I discuss why U.S. policymakers and military commanders can't bridge the gap between policy and military strategy.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

CNN’s Adam Levine reports “al Qaeda's English-language outreach efforts have nearly disappeared”.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

SWJ El Centro Fellow John P. Sullivan's paper "From Drug Wars to Criminal Insurgency: Mexican Cartels, Criminal Enclaves and Criminal Insurgency in Mexico and Central America, and their Implications for Global Security" was just published as Vortex Working Paper No. 6 at the Scientific Vortex Foundation, Bogota.

As a crisis with Iran draws ever closer the stakes involved demand that military force is not used too soon.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

Peter Munson argues that civilian policy advocates have a responsibility to proffer realistic courses of action with an honest counting of their potential cost.

Eduardo Guerrero, a consultant on security affairs at Lantia Consultores, addresses lessons in the war against organized crime in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

Tyler Hicks' poignant "Bearing Witness in Syria" has drawn attention for a single sentence.

Gian Gentile strikes again, warning of the realities of an intervention in Syria.

Continue on for today's SWJ news and opinion roundup and links to the USNI Daily and Real Clear World.

To compel Iran to fold, President Obama may have to back Israel's play. Will Obama go all in or cash out? I also highlight a debate at El Centro, Small Wars Journal's new Latin American venture.

Nate Freier warns that the civil war in Syria could foreshadow the kinds of messy conflicts Washington policymakers would prefer to ignore but won't be able to.