The war game turned out to be a rather accurate predictor of the future. (Note: by tradition, going back to the first Prussian Kriegsspiel, your side is “Blue”, the other side is “Red”. Soviets did it the other way round.) According to David Halberstam, when Washington was considering escalating its presence in Vietnam, a wargame…
The build-up of tensions and fears of foreign military invasion has always been used by US military and political circles to grow the arms business. Since fear is the ultimate motivator, it is stronger than all other feelings. A society that constantly reproduces “horrors” creates is shaping its own reality it lives in. And it is…
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati has no military, a population only one-sixth the size of Washington, D.C.’s, and a gross domestic product of less than $200 million. Despite that, it is the site of growing geopolitical competition. Lured by the promise of significant development aid, Kiribati terminated its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan two years ago and established relations with…
On Tuesday, Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the most promising war powers reform legislation in decades as part of the larger National Security Powers Act of 2021 (NSPA). There’s much to commend in this bipartisan, landmark bill that seeks to finally reset the balance of power between the political branches and restore Congress’…
Over the last week, I have been watching the Taliban sweep across the map of northern Afghanistan, capturing places that I first visited in 2001 at the beginning of the US-backed war. Taliban fighters have seized the main bridge to Tajikistan on the Amu Darya, a river that I crossed on an unwieldy raft a…
When Rumsfeld’s presence was needed more than ever before in his career, he went missing in action. What exactly was he doing on the morning of 9/11? One question that many people ask with regards to the events of September 11 was why the U.S. Air Force went missing in action for over 90 minutes…
