I was still at senior at West Point, roughly 50 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, on September 11th, 2001. I was in a course on Chinese politics, about to listen to a lecture from U.S. Defense Attaché to China, when my professor turned on the television in time to watch…
DetailsI went for a run on Oriental Bay a few weeks ago, and as I turned left I nearly bowled over All Blacks Head Coach Graham Henry on the day of the Tri Nations match in Wellington. Although excited and somewhat mortified, I wanted to turn back and talk to him about an outsider’s view…
DetailsThe NY Times is running a great graphical depiction of the costs of 9/11 ~ which they compute to be $3.3 trillion. About half of that, $1.649 trillion is attributed to war funding (Irag and Afghanistan). The breakdown can be seen at left. As a nation, we chose to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, but…
DetailsI don’t have anything interesting or unique to say on this subject, other than to respond to the bare fact that Time magazine (Aug 29, 2011) is reporting that there were 32 suspected active duty and reservist suicides recorded by the Army in July 2011. This is the “highest monthly toll on record.”
The U.S. has largely become very comfortable with debt. At left, the two large scanned documents are from the March 14, 2011 Time magazine. The second, smaller image at left is from the NY Times of April 11, 2011. It actually provides statistics that refute the larger graph at left ~ that student debt has…
Details**NOTE: On December 15, 1941, Japan generated a military proposal for it’s Axis partner, that the 70th meridian east longitude (splitting India in half) would form the dividing line between the powers. Hitler signed. What’s even more interesting is that Hitler, not knowing much about the world beyond Europe, in his only known conversation on…
DetailsSo, this is what 50 miles looks like ~ a very squinty eyed, salt stained expression of semi-agony. It took about 3 hours for the blood to come back to my arms and hands, as it had become fairly settled in my legs over the past 7 hours and 43 minutes.
My profession as a military officer and as an extension of that, a strategist, has been fulfilled by a holiday trip down to Lake Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island. My wife Rachel, daughter Grace and I were hiking along the Glendhu Bay Track adjacent to Lake Wanaka (about 5 minutes drive from the town…
DetailsIn March, President Obama outlined his policy goals for the violence in Libya. He began by discussing the context: In this particular country — Libya — at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for…
DetailsOn Saturday (Friday in the US), I’ll be running a 50 Miler as part of the Great Naseby Water Race. It will be a very small field ~ probably only 40 people spread across the 100k, 80k (50 mile), and 60k events. It will be miniscule compared to the event I’m accustomed to doing in…
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