*Note: This essay was published at War on the Rocks on June 24, 2016. It can also be found online here. “You had better get back to Korea,” the messenger whispered in U.S. Army Colonel W.H.S. Wright’s ear. Wright sat on a Tokyo church pew on Sunday, June 25, 1950, about to put his family on a…
*Note: This essay first appeared at Foreign Policy on May 26, 2016, and then ran with the Chicago Tribune on May 27, 2016. (PDF available here.) Ever since the Bible lumped pestilence and war together as two of the Apocalypse’s four horsemen, the military has fought disease. Zika, with over 1,000 confirmed cases and one death…
*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. There’s two kinds of people in the military: those on deployment now, and those bound for an overseas tour soon. Both require separation from home, and if home is where the heart is, then that means soldiers separated from…
*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. The current commander of US Army forces in Europe has a problem. How do you deter Russian aggression – achieve strategic deterrence – when you’ve had several cuts to your available forces? His self-prompted challenge: “We have to figure out…
*Note: This essay was published at War on the Rocks on April 28, 2016. It can also be found online here. Mea culpa. In my last essay, “A Neflix Assessment of China’s Rise and America’s Advantage,” I used the word “never” to express a conviction — as in, China “will never dominate” the Indo-Asia Pacific “for one…
*Note: This essay was published in USA Today on April 21, 2016. It can also be found online here (or PDF). Harvard President Drew Faust has many fine things to say about the military. Her eloquent words recently graced the air at West Point, where she delivered a remarkable, literary speech, complete with the ancient advice that guided…
*Note: This essay was published at War on the Rocks on April 20, 2016. It can also be found online here. In a smartphone world it’s easy to see China rise, but have we forgotten our other senses? This exercise in think tank voyeurism has become a distracting mirage, from CSIS’s aerial photos of the Great Wall…
*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. Strategists evolve, shaped by the times they live in, prisoners of the problems of the day. And so, just as warfare constantly changes, so must strategists. So what will mold future strategists?
*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. Two recent essays pertaining to the development of military strategists and Army strategic leaders have been lighting up the transom. They’re both well written and well read, but their prescriptions should be taken with a grain of salt. And here…
Note: This essay was published at War on the Rocks on March 29, 2016. It can also be found online here. Bringing death to 11 percent of the known world (and terrifying the other 89 percent) is apparently thirsty work, so the Mongols brought booze. Top shelf, at that, all the way from Persia to Korea circa…