Archive for the '4GW' Category

Day is Done – September 11th 2011

As the day closed on September 11 2001, we began the process of “doing what we know”- we had been attacked – strangely suprising to some in other lands, Americans strike back hard when treaded upon – so we went to war in the way we know how.  The events of September 11, 2001 were of such magnitude, […]

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EEI#33 “What Kind of War?” – McChrystal and Rolling Stone: Elements of self-inflicted “system” perturbation

  The story of interest over the past days in regard to Rolling Stone’s “The Runaway General –  Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House” does not go down easily, for more than just the […]

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EEI#32 "What kind of a war…?" – The Scent of Weakness

There was a time when Americans seemed to view suicide attacks as a sign of the complete conviction of the enemy, an immutable dedication to their cause that many people found terrifying and cause for soul-searching.  “What could we have done to provoke such anger?” Yet with time, American views of suicide attacks have matured […]

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EEI#30 Leadership – First follower

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness We continue to discuss the idea of “team of leaders.”  This video well worth your time. Thanks to John Robb at Global Guerrilllas.  See his site for comments. But let’s take this one step further into the context of  “What kind of war”  determination as impacting […]

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EEI#29 "What Kind of war" – Lawyering up – the killing of Hamas' Mahmoud Mabhouh

See Targeted for death -  the killing of Hamas’ Mahmoud Mabhouh.  (See  background report on the operation itself) Los Angeles Times’ Marjorie Miller sought the views of an array of military and human rights lawyers on the legality and legitimacy of targeted killings. So what kind of war or warfare or confrontation or conflict against non-state […]

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"On a White Horse" – Charlie Wilson 1933-2010

Someone who changed history….

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EEI#27 “What kind of War?” – First Addendum – The Post-COIN Era is Here

Making war upon insurgents is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.  T.E. Lawrence In a new think piece, one of the best writer/thinkers on line, Mark Safranski at Zenpundit in “The Post-COIN Era is Here; Learning to eat Soup with a Spoon Again” -provides not only more detail on the COIN (“or […]

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EEI#26 An Essential ELEMENT of Information: “So, What Kind of War and Warfare Is It?” – So far

Miranda Rights, IEDs, Counter Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, “reasonable doubt,” Counter Insurgency, cyber war, Geneva Conventions, enemy combatants gang warfare and Drug wars,etc., etc, are all elements that must be considered in defining or even just establishing boundary conditions in a search for “what kind of war.”  While certainly this series has not answered […]

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EEI#25 “What kind of war” – continued (11 of ?) – Science, defence and strategy… and John Boyd

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness   Without strategy the science of war overtakes the art of war The human decision-making process, Boyd argues, deals with this conundrum through a constant dialectic of creation and destruction of mental patterns and perceptions in response to a changing and complex observed reality. We cannot […]

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EEI#24 “What kind of war” – continued (10 of ?) – Definitions or Targets

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness   ( From The Counter Terrorism Puzzle; A Guide for Decision Makers, used with permission of the author, Dr. Boaz Ganor, the Associate Dean of the Lauder School of Government, at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, and the founder and Executive Director of the International Institute […]

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