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Speaking of "Ends-Ways-Means", someone help me understand this as it applies to AFPAK.

When I go to what the President of the United States says the "Ends" are, he says quite clearly that it is:
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We also went into Germany expecting the German people to fight us for every inch of ground; whereas we went into Iraq expecting to be greeted like the the guys who liberated Paris. Query: Did we...

I really don't have a dog in this fight, but to me, when we discuss the operational level of war, it is not how Corps fight; rather it is the scope of the fight that one traditionally assigns a...

No, I'm simply saying that ideology is not the overarching bogeyman it is made out to be.

Catholics in N. Ireland did/do not resist English occupation because Irish tend to be Catholic and English...

"war of ideas" is a misnomer.

Was the "idea" of Nazisim the problem in WWII?
Was the "idea" of Communism the problem in the Cold War?
Is the "idea" of Islamism the problem today?

When Ends...

Fuchs, to find a better list of our "tinpot dictators" Google foreign fighters and the states that they come from to find the ones with Muslim connections.

For those of other persuasions one...

Ken,


We do hate to constrain ourselves, and certainly a Grand Strategy does that, as well as guide our policies and actions.

One of my favorite insights on this topic is from a...

They are called strategic bombers because they were intended to be employed to product strategic effects. The same is true for SOF.

All actions are tactical in nature; from pushing the big red...

Wilf,

OK, fair enough, and I completely agree that many of the concepts, (and Hybrid warfare is an excellent example) are wheeled out by those who study a current problem and cook up a name for...

WILF,

Since we are really just talking about the terms and concepts we use to describe this fundamental human dynamic of warfare, my question is what harm comes from some incorporating an...

ML,

You are clearly a military professional who knows a great deal about his profession and also takes great comfort in that knowledge. Such is the science of war and the path for...

Collins does not define the operational level of war, but he does define "operational art"

"Military plans and operations that implement military strategies at theater level. Campaigns...

The ones who dissented were killed or otherwise marginalized. No, your statement is overly broad, and therefore wildly inaccurate. Did the poor strategy of Germany in WWII lead to their ultimate...

I think you meant to say "Hitler...[was] horrible strategically." I don't think "Germans" got much of a vote on strategic issues in that era.

For those who have not seen it, this presentation on Clausewitz by Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II at the US Army War College is a good summary from a guy who's put a lot of thought into the topic.
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I'm guessing it's "wrong" because it is not found within the "four squares" of CvC. Mike you might need to bring him along on implied terms...;)

Always good to remember that Joint Doctrine, all doctrine, is not law, or somehow deemed smarter or better than any other position on a topic. It is merely the current institutional position on the...

We've been under what Dr. John Lewis Gaddis and others describe as "Grand Strategies of Containment" since the late 1940s.

Personally, I think what worked well enough to get us through the Cold...

Obviously "Strategy" is a word used in many ways by many communities and cultures. Equally obviously, even within the military context it can have many meanings.

Slap comes at it with more of an...

Michael, Michael, Michael...chumming the waters of the Small Wars Journal with your bloody questions!:)

Ok, as the first shark on the scene, let me just say "YES."

Clausewitz offers much for...

One certainly discounts the importance of Ethnicity and and Honor to one's peril in Afhganistan. And in a recent poll, nearly twice the percentage of Kandahar City cited "Economy" as cited...

These things take time to sort out. I actually was thinking about my poor governance definition when I woke up this morning (I know, sadly this is in fact what I was thinking about as I rolled out...

As a LT in West Germany, at the end of a 6-week Graf-Hohenfels rotation there would be long lines of tanks and APCs across the motorpool, waiting to get on the washrack so that they could be cleaned...

I've never recommended paternalism, or controlling of the populace by government, but always that government exists to serve the populace, and that when they are weak in that role discontent will...

HN must be out front. Sorry not to state something so obvious. In fact, best if the HN is doing this all by itself, all the time, and never requiring any outside assistance what so ever.

Which...