War and Peace

TM Lutas’s thoughtful post is worth reading, as is this post by Thomas Barnett, to which Lutas links. I don’t agree with Barnett’s conclusion but he makes his version of the “soft kill” case well.

UPDATE: Barnett comments on Lutas’s post.

I’ve got a midterm in three hours, but the Iraqi elections is something that can’t be missed. Besides, I hadn’t really covered the October constitutional referendum, so this is my way of making up for it.

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Former Marines Owen West and his father Bing West pen a detailed article in Popular Mechanics about the tactical lessons learned in Iraq.

Now seems like a good time also to recall an earlier post about the good work that Popular Mechanics did in debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]

A&L links to Frederick R. Kagan’s “Power and Persuasion” in the Wilson Quarterly. Like most important balances (of tenderness, discipline & love in child raising or of customers, employees & profit in business), the one between the military, diplomacy & a certain humility in victory is obvious; nonetheless, finding the right proportions and being sure enough of those proportions – courageous enough – to persist is difficult. May we hope Bush is stubborn where it counts. If it achieves this balance, America’s non-imperial imperialism will not be an oxymoron but a paradox. Keegan argues:

For the United States, there is no path that will spare it criticism and even outright opposition, but its broad goals of spreading freedom and political reform are ones that a great many people in the Muslim world and beyond will be able to accept. The challenge is not only to continue balancing power and persuasion but also simply to continue—to persist in the face of adversity and despite arguments that the very exercise of power ensures that the United States will never persuade and never prevail.

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