Image courtesy of Vanity Fair; photo illustration by Stephen Doyle. Words and war are connected deeply and in ways that have shaped human history. Land armies secured the Rosetta Stone, which enabled linguistic understanding of far off ancient civilizations. Paper-making technology came to the Middle East and Europe from a Chinese prisoner of war taken at the Battle of Talas in 751A.D. And,…
Image courtesy of Flikr user UK Ministry of Defence. Note: Last week (on October 7, 2014) I had the privilege of speaking at the West Point Philosophy Forum on the subject of “Killer Machines” (aka drones). A representative version of my remarks follows: First, you will note that I use the term “drones” instead…
Image courtesy of Wikipedia. This past week, while reading and thinking about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), two figures jumped out at me. The first comes from an interview with the head of (Iraqi) Kurdish intelligence, who said he believes that ISIS “generates something equivalent to $6 million a day by…
U.S. Navy ships moving to watch Billy Mitchell’s Project B bombing demonstration. Image courtesy of U.S. National Archives. Friday’s Last Word – Pull Pin, Throw Grenade, Run Away: A provocative thought to kick off the weekend… I’m a little tired of the back-and-forth between cyber “experts” (an overused superlative when one considers how early it…
Image courtesy of CNN and House of Charity. Friday’s Last Word – Pull Pin, Throw Grenade, Run Away: A provocative thought to kick off the weekend… How much time do we as a society reflect on the damage we inflict on other societies in war? Any at all? Don’t get me wrong, I’m clearly not…
The principal United States Armed Services – Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Army. Image from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” I’ve been thinking a lot about simplification lately. Bruce Lee said once that “the height of cultivation runs to simplicity.” Of course, there’s a downside to this process – Mencken would retort, “for every complex problem…