#Petraeus

The Brilliant Failure of the Afghan Surge (So Far)

So, yes, a larger number of people died, and many more were injured, and a lot of time and money was wasted protecting a fighting retreat, because the political-military risks of an attempted immediate retreat – both within Afghanistan and far beyond, and for many years – were unacceptable, just as the decision for it, given the real existing correlation of political interests and forces in 2009, was actually impossible. Instead, the Afghan Surge worked – politically. Politically, it was a tremendous success. Militarily, it never had very good prospects, but its narrowly military-political failure – its inability to transform Afghanistan into Japan at bargain prices – has the further benefit of removing further illusions about what is and isn’t possible even for the best data-driven school-building expeditionary killing machine the world has ever seen.

Posted in War Tagged with: , ,

Americans planning… II – just a little crazy and dangerous

William Jacobson asks (at home blog here): Am I crazy and dangerous for pointing out [Frank] Rich’s intellectual laziness and predictability? Well, since you ask:  Probably just a little, maybe not as dangerous as you’d like to be.  Otherwise, you’re

Posted in International Relations, Religion Tagged with: , , , , ,

Flamesem & Japesem (All-Contentions Edition)

[T]he leaking of this memo and the notion that it represents the opinions of many in the Pentagon ought to scare Israelis and leave them less willing than ever to make the sorts of concessions Washington believes can strengthen the

Posted in Miscellany Tagged with: , , , , ,