A few days after posting this about the impact of COIN on armor, I ran across this Gian Gentile piece over at Small Wars Journal, basically arguing that the U.S. Armor Corps is dying a slow death by negligence. That spawned an Internet-wide debate that SWJ collected here. I’d add Paul McLeary’s Ares post on the subject as well. In the meantime, it looks like China and Turkey are two other places where the job prospects for tank commanders are bright. The fact that China still place such a heavy doctrinal emphasis on armor is certain to embolden the COIN-skeptic [...]
It seems like a “given” that the freedom from torture is a right guaranteed by all democratic societies in the 21st century. But the reality is that over the past decade, in many democratic countries, including Pakistan and the United States, authorities have turned a blind eye, or in some cases openly endorsed torture, when politically expedient. So the news that the Indian cabinet has signed off on handing over the country’s first anti-torture legislation to the parliament for a vote should spark cheers, right? Not exactly. The Prevention of Torture Bill 2010 was drafted without public discussion, and no [...]
Walter Russell Mead has some typically thoughtful things to say on the persistence of American power and influence. But if Mead is right that this week’s Nuclear Security Summit is an illustration of the ways in which America still sets the global agenda, it seems that he might not have paid as close attention to the BRIC and IBSA summits that followed it. In addition to both summits articulating alternatives to the Obama administration’s Iran policy, the BRIC summit also produced a joint declaration setting a 2010 deadline for reforming the IMF and World Bank to better reflect the shifting [...]
