*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. War is hard. Even the sharpest mind can’t accurately predict or adequately prepare for trial by combat. It is inherently dependent on the enemy’s zags and the environment’s zigs—we can’t foresee where war will take us, so while we may…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. With the turn of a new administration and a new year, it’s fun to play king for a day. How about I go first? I would build a 21st-century American General Staff. Several smart folks have called for this in…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. If ever there was a symbol for intimate violence, the razor blade is it. Every day, military men wage a small, savage war on stubble by scraping steel across their faces to meet shaving standards. Yet, as in war, not…
DetailsI just raced the Dead Horse Ultra near Moab, Utah, and I can’t stop wondering what killed the horse. Was it the breath-removing beautiful red vistas? Or the dangerous drop-offs from rock ledges that promise certain death? While most race reports ponder trail conditions, shoe selection, gear tradeoffs, course advantages and disadvantages, and some might…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. It was surreal to watch. Here I was, sitting near someone at a conference I’d admired from afar as a strategist, a titan in the academic and policy worlds—and there he was, plugged into every conceivable Apple product on the…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. Author’s Note: If you don’t know Star Trek, click straight to iTunes and rent Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and/or Star Trek (2009)—immediately. Then come back and read this. If you’re anything like me, you forget things.…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. Winter is coming. At least, it seems that conflict is more likely these days if you listen to Professor Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, as I did this week at the Modern War Institute’s…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. Ever get the sense something isn’t quite right? A feeling, an inkling, a tremor. Mothers get them from distant children; animals get them from inbound weather; and, apparently, I get them from reading definitions of “strategy.” Confusingly, there are a…
Details*Note: This essay was published in the New York Times print edition on October 19, 2016 and is available online here. Tonight, like millions of Americans, I will be glued to my television, watching the third and last presidential debate. But unlike them, and millions of others, whatever I hear tonight, I won’t be taking it with…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. A few weeks back, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker triumphantly announced the peace deal between the government of Columbia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC). While positive, this declaration rings hollow as the…
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