AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
Looking For Trouble
The Theologian And The Soldier: Two Fighters For One Freedom
Is freedom something you have to take, something you have to make, something you have to earn, something you have to ask for, something someone has to give you, something you have already, something you are already? Which is it?
The question is important because it decides where you start when thinking about freedom. It also is important because where you start when thinking about freedom affects your motivation, performance, and satisfaction when discharging the duties and exploiting the opportunities which came to you as the call to Soldiering, a call you answered in the affirmative.
So which is it? What is freedom to you? Is it one or is it several of the possibilities mentioned: is freedom something you have to take, something you have to make, something you have to earn, something you have to ask for, something someone has to give you, something you have already, something you are already?
There is no wrong answer. But some of the possible answers mentioned are more right than others. Right in this case means factual, true, actual, accurate. Think of a coordinate system measuring both depth and breadth, like a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. For example, something can be factual (right) across few or many points in the coordinate system. A child shares many points with an adult but few points as a child in the general population.
So it is with freedom. Some of it you have to take. Those points you share with a few. They are factual but less so. Some of it someone has to give to you, or, you have to make it. Those points you share with many more. They are factual and much more so but still not totally so. And some of it you are already. Those points you share with, virtually, all. They are factual and almost entirely so, almost totally so.
You go through life making decisions about freedom based on facts containing more or less factuality. Every decision you make rests on facts that are more or less factual yet always facts. That more or less part is where your life gets interesting and your later years are laid down like track ahead of you.
The weight of a fact, the number of its shared, connected points in a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, so to speak, differs from fact to fact. You are responsible for deciding how factual — meaning how shared-point/connection-laden — a fact regarding freedom is. Your life comprises a very consequential procession of such decisions. I leave you to ponder most of the connections between facts and freedom because only you, personally, can do that for yourself.
I want to invite your attention, however, to the most comprehensive, the most thorough, the widest, and the deepest number of connected facts, namely, that you already are freedom. Let’s think about this because, of all things about facts and freedom, this is the big one. This is the hinge of the operation called leader development.
You are a Soldier. Your strongest and most immediate ally is a Theologian. Not a pastor, not a priest, a Theologian. A pastor or a priest could be a Theologian, but few are. Very few. Very, very few. Very many pastors and priests you would not care to be around if you knew the content of their hearts.
A Theologian is someone with power to pull worlds into being and to bring seekers into the company of God. This means a Theologian is in the busy-ness of culturing, broadcasting, cultivating, and harvesting freedom. For, God is Love and Love is Freedom.
You know what The Book says: God made you in His Image. Theologians can speak at length about what that means, but the nub of it this: your nature is divine. You are a reflection of, and therefore you reflect, God. And since God is Love and Love is Freedom, your nature is love and freedom. And your duty, as a Human and as a Soldier, is to reflect love and freedom. This is the most comprehensive, the widest, and the deepest fact of all, namely, that you already are freedom. To this fact I want to invite your attention when you are thinking about your calling and your actions as a Soldier.
Who pays your bills? Your countrymen do. And why do they do that? Because they want you to protect their freedom, especially their freedom of communications. Protecting your countrymen’s freedom you protect your own. To do that, you protect your teammates’ freedom. This all works on freedom, the whole thing. All this is about that: freedom.
The hierarchical system in which you practice Soldiering is the kind of system most likely to succeed at your duty of protecting your countrymen’s, your teammates’, and your own freedom. Experience shows that. The military is not a democracy. It cannot be. Actually, nothing can be a democracy and last long, but that topic is for another time. Our nation, as you may know, is a republic, not a democracy, and not itself an hierarchy, although our military necessarily is an hierarchy.
You report to your NCOs and/or Officers. Theologians report God. Have you ever thought about that? You both work to the same purpose, freedom, but to different types of it. And you have different reporting authorities. You work to freedom of movement, freedom of communication across space and in time, which is also called political freedom. Theologians work to freedom of knowledge and in particular freedom of communication with God in the eternal now, which is called spiritual freedom.
These types of freedom are complimentary in their differences, like a woman and a man. A woman takes care of the home, makes sure everything is fitting inside it. A man provides the home in the first place and remains vigilant to protect the home from pests. In this way the home’s residents are free to pursue their destinies and the home itself to evolve in natural ways.
Theologians may be compared to scouts. Nations and their militaries and other assets of statecraft rely on Theologians for over-the-horizon radar information, so to speak. Their radar constantly scans the horizon for threats to their nation’s freedom, which means to their countrymen’s freedom. When freedom is threatened, a Theologian will be the first to recognize its advent. Their duty is to give adequate warning to their countrymen, as from a watchtower or an orbiting satellite, so that defensive and offensive preparations against the advancing threat may be undertaken.
Soldiers are a country’s battle maneuver force, trained and toned to hold a threat to their freedom of movement by its front while kicking it in its rear . . . then chewing it to pieces and oblivion. Soldiers get the job done of eliminating threats to their countrymen’s freedoms. That is your duty, purely and simply. It is not more complex than that. You do not need to do more than that, for, that is sufficient unto the day itself. As a Soldier, a member of a combat team, you must not let anyone thwart your nation’s, your countrymen’, or your own divine and therefore inalienable freedom of communication, which includes her, their, and your freedom of movement in trade and in prayer.
In Soldiering, your strongest and most immediate ally is a Theologian. Together, you go looking for trouble to end it before it reaches your home.
Being Trouble
The Nation And Sovereignty: Two Desires Of One People
Europeans — and citizens of many other nations — are prone to making war on hostile nations. Americans are prone to making war on aggressive nations. There are worlds of difference between these two dispositions.
Someone throws them an insult, Europeans throw them a bullet. Someone throws them an insult, Americans forebear unless and until the insulter attacks their persons or properties. Then, they throw the attacker to the ground.
Europeans forebear practically nothing. Americans forebear practically everything this side of aggression upon their persons or properties. That they do not forebear. Or forgive.
Aswamedha
In former times, in India, when a ruler wished his people truly to be happy, he demonstrated to them, in unambiguous, unmistakable terms, that their lives and properties were safe and sound in his care. He did this by performing the horse sacrifice, called Aswamedha.
History’s most famous horse sacrifice was performed by Lord Rama (Volume One, Volume Two). You can read of that starting here, on page 142 and ending here.
While the horse sacrifice is an elaborate production, comprising many detailed rituals, the gist of it is this:
1- Select a white horse of surpassing beauty, without blemish.
2- Attach to the horse’s forehead an inscription which reads along these lines:
In the city of […..], there is a hero; he is the destroyer of enemies. Even the Lord of gods trembles at the sight of him. This horse is his sacrificial animal. The strong may lay hold of it; or they have to pay him tax and tribute; or if they cannot do either, they must flee into the jungles.
3- Turn the horse loose to wander at will, accompanied by a brace of heroic men-at-arms.
4- A ruler into whose domain the horse wanders has three choices: (a) take the horse and be destroyed by its owner, (b) become a subordinate of its owner, paying him tribute, (c) disappear altogether, ceding his realm to the owner of the horse.
When the horse has returned to its owner or dies still free in old age, the sacrifice is complete. The point is, the ruler who owns and sent forth the horse has proven to his people that no enemies threaten them. This makes them very happy, which was the ruler’s purpose in conducting the horse sacrifice.
This is the clean way to rule and to war. When you come upon an enemy, do not beg, battle. Do not negotiate, strike. If your strike succeeds — that is, if you throw your enemy to the ground (aka unconditional surrender) — you can negotiate with him because the enemy is defeated and you decide the terms of his recovery or not. Only, do not negotiate away the victory you achieved. That would be insane and precipitate more war, never peace.
Give an enemy you defeat two choices: (a) death, or (b) exile. Then you take over what formerly was his territory and make of it as you wish. It is yours.
The only time a people, a nation, truly can be happy is when they know without doubt that they are sovereign in their persons and properties, to include their persons and property as one nation. Sovereignty means safety, out of harm’s way, unassailable by enemies. Sovereignty is particularly important to the women of a nation because they are ill-conditioned to self-protect in full-spectrum combat operations.
Nationhood and sovereignty, everyone knows, are prerequisite to safety. Both are required. Personal sovereignty is insufficient to guarantee personal safety. National sovereignty only, supported by wise and willing sacrifice of personal safety, though not of personal sovereignty, is the guarantee, the only guarantee, of personal and national safety. For this reason, nationhood and sovereignty are desired by a people. A people are not wrong to desire those conditions for themselves. Those conditions truly make a people happy, a sovereign nation.
Every creature tries to maintain their creature-hood by avoiding harm to themselves. This is known as the instinct for self-preservation. The instinct is natural, built-in to every creature. It is hard-wired, so to speak. Maintaining our creature-hood is an inalienable component of our given nature. Who we are includes that instinct. It cannot be removed from us, or long denied us.
This fact causes us to have two proper, primal, and persistent desires: (1) the desire to be safe from attack (through sovereignty) and (2) the desire to be assured that we are safe from attack (through nationhood).
Ending Trouble
Command And Distribution: Two Necessities For One Goal
Here is a command principle, in brief. Take ten people, randomly. Skills and interests differ among them. If one of the ten centralizes authority, demanding the rest do exactly as the one tells them they are to do, with their skills and interests, the result — before rebellion sets in — is thin gruel indeed, not sustainably nourishing for any of the ten. But if a leader emerges, they decentralize authority and cultivate others’ skills and interests, and from that structure riches are produced and shared around. One way, centralized, is a penury. Self-generated ways, decentralized, are a wealth.
Centralize strategics
Decentralize tactics
Clean — Plan — Operate
Multi-Domain Operations comprise:
Confession -> Strategics -> Objectives ->,
Confession -> Logistics -> Tactics (OODA Loop) ->,
Confession -> Strategics -> Objectives ->,
[recycle]
John Boyd conceived the OODA Loop as an analytical tool illuminating the conduct of operations (tactics). The present, expanded version of the tool is conceived to illuminate the nature of war-fighting per se, namely, cleaning (confession) and planning (strategics) as well as operations (tactics). This expansion may be regarded as a military-theological exegesis of von Clausewitz’s Trinity Doctrine.
Christopher Bassford translates von Clausewitz’s précis of the doctrine of trinitarian warfare as follows:
War is thus more than a true chameleon, because it changes its nature to some extent in each concrete case. It is also, however, when it is regarded as a whole and in relation to the tendencies that dominate within it, a fascinating trinity—composed of:
1) primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force [aka power of being];
2) the play of chance and probability, within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and
3) its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to mere intellect.
The first of these three aspects concerns more the people; the second, more the commander and his army; the third, more the government. The passions that are to blaze up in war must already be inherent in the people; the scope that the play of courage and talent will enjoy in the realm of probability and chance depends on the particular character of the commander and the army; but the political aims are the business of government alone.
These three tendencies are like three different codes of law, deep-rooted in their subject and yet variable in their relationship to one another. A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship among them would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless.
The task, therefore, is to keep our theory [of war] floating among these three tendencies, as among three points of attraction.
What lines might best be followed to achieve this difficult task will be explored in the book on the theory of war [i.e., Book Two]. In any case, the conception of war defined here will be the first ray of light into the fundamental structure of theory, which first sorts out the major components and allows us to distinguish them from one another.
The truth I wish observed is that war-fighting is quite more than a binary interplay of centralized and decentralized decision-making, as sometimes is asserted by command and control theories. More than, not other than. The interplay in decision-making, and especially military decision-making, is between three active conceptual nodes, not just two. We are here tri-polar, not bi-polar. Furthermore, we are in the presence of persistent not evanescent actors, permanent not disappearing faces, constants not epiphenomena. These three do not leave the stage, not ever.
Von Clausewitz lists the permanent cast of actors in the play of wars as Violence, Chance, and Subordination. We could call them Power, Destiny, and Reason.
In order for war to proceed adequately and succeed fully and promptly, these three actors must be reading from the same script, singing the same song, working to the same purpose, but on different though overlapping frequencies. If you know music, think fugue rather than monody. Moreover, that purpose of war must answer a nation’s actual interests and, most critically, her interest in maintaining her own sovereign freedom.
A nation summons her capacity for violence (Power) to chance (Destiny) a subordination (Reason) of someone or something to her will. That is what war is. War has these three constants.
John Boyd’s OODA Loop describes optimal operation of the third face or constant of war-making: operations, subordination, by reason, of someone or something to a nation’s and a commander’s will. Our present expansion of Boyd’s analytical tool essays to recognize essentials of optimal operation of all three faces, all three active conceptual nodes, all three constants of war-making.
1- Confession/Cleaning. The theological correlate of von Clausewitz’s famous first rule of war — Know your enemy. — is confession. What is this really? It is cleaning the intellect of vagaries, debris, and other corrosion. It is hardening the mind against vacillation and doubt. It is purifying the heart of downward-dragging tendencies. Confession builds spiritual courage, moral acuity, and intellectual cleanliness. Confession is hygienics for the whole personality.
Before she led her armies into battle, The Maid Jean led them into the confessional. Her purpose? To console/unburden them of paralyzing guilt, to soften them for prompt and effective obedience to orders, and to harden them against the fear of loss.
Confession clears away obstructions
to knowing your enemy.
The Christian Confessional is infinitely more
therapeutic than the shrink’s couch.
Our trinitarian expansion of von Clausewitz’s Trinity Doctrine starts each iteration with a personal and professional cleansing. So it must be that each face of the trinity stay on script through the entire play.
The cynosure of the drama is the nation’s sovereign freedom. This cynosure only will give her citizens happiness because it only promises to slake, and can slake, their deepest yearnings, which are for safe freedom in their homes and country.
2- Strategics/Planning. Strategics enacts the following role in the difficult art of war. It asks, does a threat to our nation’s sovereign freedom exist, and if so, exactly why? Someone is hostile to us, say. So what? Is that cause for punching them in the face and absorbing counter punches, more or less, from them? Not unless they have infringed our citizens’ persons or properties — to include trade — which is to say, our nation’s communications.
If someone has so infringed, strategics asks, what is the easiest, quickest, and least costly manner of inducing them to decamp, to renounce aggression and move away? That is a question of logistics, which is essentially strategics. Strategics and logistics are practically synonyms in the same way, and for the same reason, it is said that personnel is policy.
This is also the reason West Point was founded as an engineering school — the country’s first such — and remains essentially that today. Strategics is engineering, on a grand scale, applied against a genuine threat to the nation’s sovereign freedom.
3- Tactics/Operations. Now we come to the fun part: setting objectives and achieving them. This is the third face of war-fighting: tactics, operations. Or, as von Clausewitz puts it, subjugation [of an enemy’s will to aggress].
Any operation, war or peace, is meant to subjugate something or other to one’s will. Play a flute and you are subjecting your whole being, the flute, and air itself to your will that a specific pleasing sound be produced. You have set an objective and labored to achieve it by summoning at least three forces to that purpose: body, breath, and atmosphere. War-fighting is no different at the tactical, operational face of its triune nature.
Genesis 1:26-31 states that God created man (= male and female) in His image, ordered man to replenish the earth (propagate himself and recycle resources) and subdue it, and gave man dominion over all other creatures. Facets of this hagiography of humanity bear on our topic. Two especially: (1) man’s nature is divine, and (2) man is to throw the powers of being under his foot, as God does.
Birds, beasts, and fishes represent all creatures and these are treated, properly as they are, as powers of being. Like God, man is to rule the powers of being (St. Paul’s principalities and powers), not be intimidated by them, much less begging of them. Behind this manner of presenting man’s origin and destiny is the concern of theologians and true priests for the myriad blandishments and occasions of idolatry, the hidden cause of which is delusion.
The objection to idolatry is that it diminishes man’s nature, making him subject to that which should be subject to him, namely powers of being — wind, surf, birds, beasts, stars, trees, gadgets, sounds, governments, banks, families . . . whatever. Idolatry is man putting himself in the utterly absurd position of bowing to that which should bow to him. Man’s nature is divine, what creature deserves his reverential begging? Angels and the Devil Himself, all very large-scale creatures indeed, do not deserve man’s homage. He deserves theirs.
Think Jesus in a manger. And Luther says we should be Little Christs. He means that is who we are at our creation and so why should we settle for less at any time thereafter? This is big stuff indeed. Religion frees then relaxes, idolatry burdens then drives insane. Idolatry is taking as ultimate that which is not ultimate.
Now, an aggressor is a power of being. You see where we are going with this. A friend or ally also is a power of being. But a friend is not an aggressor, they do not require begging of them by you, and so one is not required to subject them to one’s will. An enemy requires you beg of them and thereby requires your foot be laid on their neck. It is not an invitation. It is a requirement.
Here is an example. Abroad today is the idolatrous notion that the imago dei (image of God) and have dominion language in Genesis 1:26-28 mean that man should be a good eco-steward of the environment, to include summoning and supporting government compulsion to that end. Biblical dominion and subdue are taken to mean secular stewardship, and that compulsory.
et ait faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram et praesit (Hebrew וְיִרְדּוּ֩ = wə-yir-dū) piscibus maris et volatilibus caeli et bestiis universaeque terrae omnique reptili quod movetur in terra
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam ad imaginem Dei creavit illum masculum et feminam creavit eos
And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.
benedixitque illis Deus et ait crescite et multiplicamini et replete terram et subicite (Hebrew וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ = wə-ḵiḇ-šu-hā) eam et dominamini (Hebrew וּרְד֞וּ = ū-rə-ḏū) piscibus maris et volatilibus caeli et universis animantibus quae moventur super terram
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
Praesit is the base of the English word preside. It means to sit before, as in pronouncing judgement at a trial, or, as controller of a field of endeavor. The Hebrew root word — radash — Jerome translates with praesit refers to war-making: specifically, holding ones’s foot on the neck of an enemy one has thrown down whilst cocking sword to slice off his head. Hercules slaying the Hydra is a parallel image from Classical Greece. The correlate in Vedic literature is Rama slaying Ravana. To preside is to subject someone to one’s will by removing their ability and desire to resist one’s will.
Subicite is the base of the English word subdue. Even more than praesit, this word, to include in its Hebrew original, indicates war against the powers of being, to make them serve man’s will rather than vice-versa. To subdue someone is to push them down and under and into your control, to reverse their rampancy. Subicite means to subduct someone downward — to welcome them, as General Patton put it, to the infernal region. Here Hercules and the Hydra are an especially apt image.
Dominamini is the base of the English word dominate. The Hebrew Jerome here translates, in Genesis 1:28, with dominamini is a version of same root word — radash — Jerome previously translates with praesit, in Genesis 1:26. The Hebrew cognate underlying Jerome’s praesit in Genesis 1:26 and his dominamini in Genesis 1:28 is rdsh or rd. It means, as previously stated, holding down an enemy with the foot and lopping off his head. These are violent images, intended as such. We should ask why and why they lead Sacred Scripture.
Advancing stewardship for praesit, subicite, or dominamini and their underlying Hebrew in Genesis 1:26-28 is tendentious exegesis (aka eisegesis). Advancing that translation as justification for government compulsion in private matters is felonious. The KJV/RSV’s dominion for praesit and dominamini, and subdue for subicite, faithfully reflect the Hebrew originals as well as Jerome’s Latin translations. Preside itself may be best for contemporary usage, although subduct has a certain what’s it.
The context of Genesis 1 is the struggle of idolatry vice divinity, which is short-hand for saying, the powers of being (birds, beasts, fishes) vice God and the imago’s divine functionality. Which one has your loyalty? Which one benefits you and which one belongs under your boot? Give you your loyalty to some power of being or other, or to God? One or the other has it, both cannot.
Man’s role in this world is to subdue its powers to his purposes. Man is put here to compel the world to answer and abet his needs and desires, first among which is freedom of spirit. Not at all what some moderns want to hear, but utterly biblical and carries through the Prophetic and New Testament witness as well.
Genesis 1:26-28 is about subjugation of powers of being to man’s divine nature. It has no interest in some stewardship of the environment by way of individuals, groups, or governments. Basically, subdue the world or be subdue by it. Defeat an enemy or be defeated by him. Bring the powers of being into conformity with your will or be conformed to their vagaries. Win the war or do not come back alive.
This is the third face of von Clausewitz’s Trinity, the three constants of war. The fun one. But it will not be enjoyable absent preparatory strategic wisdom and, even more importantly, full-person cleansing.
There is imperative in each of God’s acts that create man. Man is not invited to preside over the powers of being. He is given a direct order to do exactly that. Man is not invited to make peace with his enemies. He is given a direct order to do exactly that . . . by annihilating his enemy’s will to aggress. And note that, after the fashion of Classical Hebrew literature, the direct order appears in couplet form, first in verse 26, then in verse 28, with the tone, if anything, becoming more insistent the second time around.
The presence of a direct order, repeated twice, illuminates two things: (1) the high nature of man (his nature is divine), and (2) the existential importance to himself of man’s delivering his allegiance to God rather than to powers of being (whether angelic or devilish).
If you are made of God, you had better be loyal to God and not some twerp down the street who today seduces you and tomorrow kills you. You are not made for that crap, but you are made for grandeur. Be self-confident, at least. It is a strong step God-ward, which is to say, towards savoring the Bliss that is your own inherent and intrepid nature.
In the same way, there is imperative in each constant of war. A constant is an imperative. Violence, Chance, and Subordination compel war fighters to conduct multi-domain operations in each of three constants, three active conceptual modes simultaneously:
Confession -> Strategics -> Objectives ->,
Confession -> Logistics -> Tactics (OODA Loop) ->,
Confession -> Strategics -> Objectives ->,
[recycle]
When scaled up from operations to full-spectrum war-fighting per se, the OODA Loop concept expands to three groups of three active conceptual modes each, each comprising the three faces of war-fighting. Nine altogether but in three parallel strands, so to speak, a trinity of trinities.
This happens when the OODA Loop concept is taken from two-dimensional to three-dimensional operations, in order to accommodate analysis of the whole of war-fighting per se.
Note that the initial active conceptual mode or face of war-fighting in each dimension is cleansing. Clear the mind, calm the emotions, lighten the heart. Then the strategic and tactical phases of war-fighting can succeed. Always come back to cleansing. Always start your day in the confessional, so to speak. That will make you a brave, proud, and confident Soldier. It will also crown your labors with success and prestige.
Related 1: Europeans traditionally go to war over mere hostility. Americans traditionally go to war over actual aggression on American persons or properties. American elites since the 1930s or so have convinced themselves, more and more, to think like Europeans rather than like Americans in this regard.
So they do a Janus: try to forestall hostility with ever-larger bribes (foreign aid) and try to subdue hostility with indecisive incursions euphemistically colored (endless wars). But hostility is not a strategic threat, only aggression on American persons or properties is that.
Traditional American forbearance of hostility is mature statecraft whereas carrot-and-stick engagement with hostility is infantile statecraft.
When Americans acquire territory, they purchase or conquer it. Most territory they conquer Americans return to its natives. Europeans, on the other hand, when not fighting over snarling demeanors, are accustomed to assign territories variously to one another, through the centuries, by means of treaties agreed behind closed doors by ambitious families.
The only strategic threat, the only aggression from Afghanistan against the USA since the end of the US’s 2001-03 punitive expedition there is opiates. Were USA elites not personally benefitting from that aggression — and the like from other countries — that aggression would be extirpated well this side of deploying US war-fighting assets to Afghanistan.
Mexico, perhaps, with Mexico’s approval and cooperation, but not Afghanistan. At least, not unless in joint endeavor with Russia and India, to protect and expand trade and the safety of industrial interests.
Related 2: The prim violence of lawyers is out of its depth at the grim violence of warriors.
Related 3: John Wright has recently collected data showing that political ideology predicts almost perfectly the policy positions of criminologists.
Related 4:
Charles Sam Faddis: Remembering Why We Are At War In Afghanistan
Dani DePetris: Don’t Believe These Tired Myths About Ending The 18-Year War In Afghanistan
Paul Mirengoff: Afghanistan And The Pre-9/11 Mindset, I commented:
Faddis and DePetris already are pushing back on this take on affairs. DePetris in particular answers Andy’s principle argument: leave and the world falls on our disgraced heads.
Andy’s argument, unsurprisingly neo-con, aka without strategic support, is too-far removed from the ground for my taste. Like NRO generally in such matters, however, he speaks for powerful sutler interests well-wedged inside DOD and elsewhere in the alphabet soup.
Faddis’ points are most clearly made and sensible, which is surprising in view of the fact that they probably represent some agency consensus.
Basic point made by Faddis and DePetris: USA had/has no strategic interest in Afghanistan since brilliant completion of the punitive expedition of 2001-03. With this I concur.
What does Katherine Bradley think of this matter? Juleanna Glover Weiss?
Related 1: Docta Ignorantia LXXXV: The Relationship Between Clergy And Soldiers
Update 2: Glenn Reynolds: Me, then: I love lawyers. I am a lawyer. But there are plenty of places where the role of lawyers should be limited, and war is certainly one of them. Nothing has happened since to make me think I was wrong.
Update 3: Of course, there is also Juleanna Glover Weiss, doyenne of D.C.’s principled conservatives and other NeverTrump-ers. Research suggests she does wear a bra to parties.
Update 4: Steve Leonard: You Really Think I’m Irrelevant? LOL. A Letter To Clausewitz Haters From Beyond The Grave
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