Why should the political slant matter? I would think you would want someone who simply is a qualified expert on AfPak? You could do worse than Dr. Kilcullen's recent testimony.
Conservative expertise?
Hi all, wondering if anyone can recommend good, reasonable conservative voices on all things AfPak?
Last edited by Katherine; 05-04-2009 at 02:44 PM.
Why should the political slant matter? I would think you would want someone who simply is a qualified expert on AfPak? You could do worse than Dr. Kilcullen's recent testimony.
I know, I'm looking for expertise from all slants--conservative just happens to be my weaker side so I thought I would ask the community. I've already, of course, added Dr. Kilcullen to my list.
Look for recent papers by Max Boot, Bing West, Victor Davis Hansen, or the Kagans for conservative scholar/expert views.
Victor Davis Hansen is good stuff. I don't buy all of it, but it's very well written and well argued. "Why the West has Won", takes a page right out of "Armies of Freemen," -which was written by a left wing socialist, so there's a lot to playe withOriginally Posted by Cavguy
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Really? I think he's the worst kind of historian, someone who goes digging in the past to find support for his ideological assumptions. I felt Lynn's Battle pretty convincingly rebuts Hanson.
Hi Katherine,
Can you tell me what you mean by "conservative"? Are you talking "neo-con"? 19th century "conservative" or what? The term assumes a common understanding that just isn't there. BTW, that is me speaking as a "conservative" (card-carrying for six years), but my brand of "conservatism" is certainly not what is currently understood as such in the US.
Cheers,
Marc
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
A historian ransacking the historical record to prove a point?Whatever next .... as I said I don't buy all of it, but it's very well written and well argued - which it is.
You could say the same of Wintringham, could you not?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
UK site
Katherine,
Richard North writes an informed, forthright and conservative UK blog, which includes much on Afghanistan, maybe worth a visit: http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/
davidbfpo
Katherine - I don't know if his particular philosophical orientation would fit with your needs, but Ralph Peters certainly offers strategic and tactical viewpoints (not necessarily regionally focused) that differ from current AfPak doctrine. For example: http://www.securityaffairs.org/issue.../16/peters.php
You might want to look at Michael Yon
also FreeRepublic.com Keyword Afghanistan Pakistan (Note FreeRepublic is very hard right)
I like Ralph Peters, (see Hidden Unities but (right hand to God) sometimes I think he could make Rebecca of sunnybrook farm want to slit her wrists.
I don't understand what the relevance of political slant is to the issue, unless one is looking for mindless bickering among people who stake out positions based upon everything except the facts.
I would specifically recommend avoiding FreeRepublic. That site is the lowest common denominator of the far-right loons. It is the ying to Democratic Underground's yang. Regarding Ralph Peters - consider his latest outburst on Fox. Whatever his former professional duties, he is now a TV personality, newspaper columnist, and the author of books that read like newspaper op-eds. Value added? Or just entertainment for political junkies?
If political slant is considered at all, it should be to narrow down your reading list, not to expand it, imo. Cavguy's recommendations of the AEI gang are probably as far to the right as you want to go. Brookings is probably as far left as you want to go. Other than that, if someone is better known for their political punditry than their research and original ideas, then they're probably more interested in things other than solving national security problems and reading their work will cause many of your brain cells to die in vain.
FreeRepublic
I really wish I could disagree with you...but I can't. It's one of the reasons I've left there a couple of years ago, after posting 1,000's of articles/replies over 9 years. Life being way too short to spend your time arguing with silly people. That being said, it is still a good place to get news, even there the quality in regards GWOT has dropped a lot, and there are still some good sharp people posting there, but they are becoming an endangered species.
For what it's worth, I do like your take on FR and DU being two sides of the same coin.
The only "conservative" about that blog is that it criticizes a government while the "conservatives" are the opposition.
That blog reminds me a lot of the post-Great War British Army critique of the 20's.
Riposte
I was mindful of Richard North's stance on the EU, which is conservative and reminded me of the old right-wing in the Conservative Party. His critique of the UK in Afghanistan and Iraq, reminds me of C19th disdain for imperial campaigns.
davidbfpo
Winston Churchill
I admired the life's work and writings of Churchill, who changed parties from Conservative to Labor back to Conservative again, ie, he changed parties twice. *Technical party labels had some variance in exact meaning in Britian but these terms convey the simplistic meaning of his back and forth affilations.
This said, "conservative" in America is very much akin to conservative in the UK today. Today, not referring to ancient history in UK.
It is all to easy to get bogged down in semantics when your meaning was and is clear. Conservative to you simply means the loyal to more traditional American values and Republican Party identity, although there are still conservative Democrats elected to Congress every two years, too, but in modest numbers. The Blue Dog Democrats are essentially the conservative Democratic caucus within the total national Democratic Party congressional caucus.
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