One of the projects I dream of but never shall produce( Read more... )

Anyone who thinks that the massive police operations - they barely deserve the name of war - carried out by the USA and its allies since September 11, 2001 could have been avoided are talking total nonsense. What do they propose the USA should have done? Sat there and taken it? The reaction was absolutely inevitable, and indeed the rest of the ( Read more... )

An individual in someone else's blog charged me with saying that the wars between native Americans and European settlers were justified. That was what led to my outburst a few weeks about putting words in my mouth; and it rankled so much that I went back and delivered an answer, although the sensible path would have been to just let the so-and-so ( Read more... )

The place of war in human affairs is overestimated. War rarely causes any great change in overall historical trends; nine times out of ten, the great trends of sociology, economics and culture have already decided which party will win, when war is joined. It is rare to find a war where historians are not broadly agreed as to the causes of success ( Read more... )

I've got what I suppose is a very commonplace and obvious theory( Read more... )

It is often said that the armies and the generals in World War One were not prepared for the effect of then-modern technology on warfare - that is, the way it made defence prevail over offence and turn the war into a long and bloody slogging match. And I do not say that is wrong. But that really reflects on the ability of humans to extrapolate ( Read more... )

I said a prayer to the God of hosts to defend the right, protect those who are fighting for justice and for freedom, and strike the tyrants who blaspheme His name. This is language I would not ordinarily use, but this is no ordinary moment. From the struggle in Tehran depends much of our future.

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Some people credit Putin with some sort of scoundrelly brilliance for managing an international crime that nobody seems able or willing to stop. That is nonsense. In terms of Putin's own international policy goals, he has done himself an immense amount of no good ( Read more... )