Every culture and nation within that culture must decide how it fights wars. What works for one group of people isn’t necessarily acceptable to others. Therefore when I discuss my preferred way of fighting, I’m not saying that everyone should adopt it. Also, when I point out what I see as the shortcomings of different…
Avoiding the mistakes that western powers made in the Middle East
December 28, 2015
I urge everyone to take some time and watch videos put out by the Syrian Democratic Forces (QSD). Although the QSD are fighters, they’re also a political movement that was created in the hopes of avoiding the many blunders that the West has committed in the Middle East since forever. It appears that the greatest…
Quds Force chief Qassem Suleimani is still dead, I’m pretty sure
December 27, 2015
There’s no doubt that virtually every significant Iranian and Hezbollah commander in Syria has been killed. The list is incredible. Though some people say that this is because Iranian leaders go to the front lines to rally their men, I don’t believe it. I think Saudi and allied commandos are doing the killing. The National…
Video: Do the Kurds have a new guided rocket-propelled grenade?
December 26, 2015
Watch this video of Kurdish Peshmerga destroying an Islamic State truck bomb. The Peshmerga are the official armed forces of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. They aren’t the YPG or YPJ militias. The video is important for several reasons. First, it shows that two MILAN antitank guided missiles were fired but missed the truck. Since sound travels…
Magical mystery videos from Syria point to very good news ahead
December 24, 2015
For whatever reason I began studying military issues when I was about seven. It was an odd choice for me, since I hate violence. When I saw my first plucked turkey, I became hysterical. My mother had to throw it away and give us peanut-butter sandwiches for Thanksgiving dinner. But studying war was useful in…
Good conspiracy theories should be at least slightly plausible
December 23, 2015
Attention hog Seymour Hersh claims that the United States Department of Defense Joint Chiefs of Staff—the highest-ranking bureaucrats in the Pentagon—gave Bashar al-Assad intelligence to help him defeat jihadist terrorists. This isn’t even a good conspiracy theory. Hersh made it all up, as is clear by his claim that his source is a “former senior…
Arab League and Israeli plan for the Middle East goes forward
December 22, 2015
In June of this year, Saudi Arabia announced a seven-point plan for the Middle East. It’s incredibly risky and ambitious. The Saudis must always be taken seriously, so I knew that they’d thought this out. I couldn’t determine how in the world the Arab League would keep the region from going up in flames the…
Human rights organizations being ignored. Why would that be?
December 21, 2015
The real world isn’t like the movies. Leaders of western democracies don’t gleefully stuff their pockets with cash while bellowing with laughter as they watch schools and hospitals being bombed. Somewhere along the line, human rights organizations went insane. They internalized the Michael Moorean ideology that all war waged by developed nations is based on…
Paper tiger revealed in Syria, say Israelis. Guess who?
December 20, 2015
I always loved the phrase “paper tiger.” The communist Chinese invented it to describe the US. My mother was a great fan of folded paper doodads. This is the sort of thing she did. In July of this year, I became convinced that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the Iranian nuclear deal—was an international…
Deception: the smart kind and the really stupid kind
December 19, 2015
If the Arab League were enemies of the United States, we’d be sunk. There’s no question. I’m in the process of reverse engineering the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, and I’m amazed at the brilliance of the military deception. It continues to this day. Fierce fighting and airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition pounded northern Yemen on…