Writing at Foreign Affairs, Audrey Kurth Cronin explores what it mean that drones, a new linchpin of U.S. power projection, “have been virtually useless in the last two conflicts that the United States has faced, first in Libya and now in Syria.”
At the Diplomat, Amitai Etzioni argues that AirSea Battle’s main flaw “is not merely that it is a particularly aggressive military response to the anti-access/area-denial challenge. The problem is that ASB is developing in a foreign policy vacuum.”
Foreign Policy’s Shane Harris asks: Is someone else helping the Syrian Electronic Army?
Elsewhere at FP, John Arquilla notes that one of WWII’s most celebrated deception operations was used in service of a campaign that perhaps need not have been fought, and concludes with a maxim that always bears repeating: outfoxing beats outgunning.
At War on the Rocks, NDU’s Frank Hoffman reviews “The Modern American Military,” a collections of essays edited by David Kennedy (Oxford University Press, 2013). Hoffman finds several valuable pieces, but also notes some missed opportunities (where is the article on special ops?), and most valuable of all, notes various candidates who might have filled the voids.
Warlord’s Quote of the Day
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. — Kurt Vonnegut, preface to Mother Night.
Contributed by Cmdr. (ret.) Ward Carroll, an award-winning author of five novels and editor of military.com. From a list compiled by the Warlord Loop, a private email forum for national security experts.
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