We Just Lost the Initiative.....

U.S. foreign policy is steeped in the elitism and continued missed opportunities. The U.S. President is hell bent to ignore facts on the ground and unilaterally disrupt international conventions. Recently, this is evident in U.S. Middle Eastern foreign policy. President Trump, in his trip to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, reaffirmed an undying loyalty and alliance with the Saudi government while demonizing Iran.   CREDIT:  SAUDI TV Our continued unadulterated loyalty to Saudi Arabia is unnerving and naive. Abdulaziz al-Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, consolidated power on the peninsula backed by the Wahhabi Islamic movement, an ultra-conservative branch of Islam. Today, many national security experts point to Wahhabists as the ideological source of global terrorists (as a side note  15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers  were from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). Even with the well documented cases of terrorism perpetrated by Saudi nationals schooled in Wahhabism...

Diplomacy and military power are the most common and direct means to project American influence internationally but American economic power potentially produces the long-lasting influence and impact.  Traditionally, economic power leverages a nation’s wealth to influence the behavior of others. Our interpretation of economic power includes sanctions, tariffs/taxes, trade policies, economic coercion, and economic aid. These elements are limited means to influence allies and adversaries. With a globally connected world, "traditional" elements of economic power become less influential. Countries are more inclined to turn their backs on international norms and instead worry about bolstering their own internal economic advantages. Instead of an international community in lock step, countries are more apt to work in their singular self-interest. This is evident in how China continues to placate North Korean aggression and maintain economic ties even though there are s...

"Red lines" have been crossed and an embolden new administration itches to flex America's military muscle. Russian and Iranian actors continue to support a detestable Assad regime, allowing the Syrian leader to deploy chemical weapons against his adversaries. Over a six year time period, Syria is a messy and complicated quagmire befuddling "foreign policy experts" and the political leadership within both the Democrat and Republican parties, as seen in the current military/political reality on the ground. Since March 2011, when initial protests against the Assad regime began, American's attention to Syria has waxed and waned. Particularly, specific situations have influenced American public opinion on what our reaction should be. The chemical attacks in 2013 (on Ghouta area of Damascus) and the recent attack on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, have invigorated the debate on a military response in Syria. Yet, the refugee crisis and a...

Battles over military force structure and how the military evolves will continue for the foreseeable future. Yet to make informed decision, military leaders need to assess what long term risks and adversaries may be and anticipate potential tactics these adversaries may engage. For the most part, the military gets hung up on the last conflict and addresses the issues that created the past operational environment. Taking a napkin assessment of potential geopolitical environment, there are potentially two conventional style warfare scenarios, consisting of a large force-on-force engagement starring conventional forces. The first scenario is armed conflict with China across maritime, territory, space, and cyber-space domains. The other possible scenario is what we now call hybrid warfare with the Russians, to include direct action on a limited scale for chunks of territory. But outside of those two scenarios,...

It is my opinion that the Department of Defense has become an over-bloated top heavy organization. As an organization the military is unable to nimbly react to new and developing threats. Instead, the default position is to set up a new office, a new command, a new organization within the hierarchical structure to deal with the specific threat. Yet, except in very rare cases like the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command, these new organizational structures continue even if they can be folded elsewhere. And in the case of Joint Forces Command, the senior officials and offices were farmed out to other organizations. We are seeing an evolution in warfare where adversaries are small, mobile forces that use a mix of conventional, unconventional, terrorist, and cyber tactics to achieve specific objectives or a stalemate in a limited operational environment. So how does the U.S. Government (USG) combat these new and developing threats? Well let's take a look at a specific example. I...

With morbid fascination the world has been watching a complicated and unpredictable geopolitical play unfold right in front of our collective eyes. The actors in this play are familiar but with new set pieces. No longer is it the Soviet Union versus the United States, instead a hyper-nationalistic Russia has risen from Soviet ashes. Are we witnessing a re-kindling of the Cold War or Russian "schizophrenic" gestation as it tries to regain its prominence as a super-power? I do not believe we will see Russia rival the military might of the old Soviet Union. Russian economics are too dependent on the commodities market (in particular oil and extractive minerals) to sustain a large military in the style of the old Soviet Union. But overwhelming military might is not needed in this day and age to compete on the global stage. Vladimir Putin has repackaged elements of Russian national power (for example: the military -  par...

After attending the Middle East Strategy Task Force security working group meeting, there is a definite need to re-look American strategy in the Middle East. Find ings f rom the working group, in conjunction with rec ent terr orist activity in Lebanon and France, spurred my own thoughts on the strategy that the U.S. needs to pursue in the fu ture. I know that some of my thoughts will be consistent with current public opinion while other ideas will be seen as heretical from an American viewpoint.    The United States' engagement in the Middle East, since 2001, has been primarily military interventions centered on counter-terrorism operations and regime change with undefined objectives. But for all of the military and economic resources pumped into the region, what have been the results? Iraq disintegrates into a sectarian quagmire, Syria embroiled in a protracted civil war, refugees flood across borders creating instability in Lebanon and Jordan and creat...