Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. As a retired Air Force officer and military historian, I'm familiar with all kinds of euphemisms about killing, e.g. "precision bombing" and “collateral damage.” Just as it's easier to kill at a distance,...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. As the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia grinds on (or falters?), as U.S. disaster relief for Hawaii is tied to more military aid for Ukraine, as depleted uranium shells join cluster munitions as...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In today’s New York Times send-out, I saw the following story: Ukraine’s Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, U.S. Officials Say American strategists say Ukraine’s troops are too spread out and need to...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. ~ Anaïs Nin War, among other things, is a place of illusion. With the...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. I was reading an article from 2007 by an Air Force master sergeant, “We are called Airmen,” only to stumble on these lines: You have to be able to understand what part you play in America's defense. You have...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. There is a famine of peace in the world today. I came across that phrase, “famine of peace,” in an article in the New Yorker that reported on a papal envoy sent to advocate for a truce and diplomacy to...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission. A year ago, I asked whether Joe Biden and Donald Trump were too old to serve as president. Recently, concerns about advanced age and failing health have come to the fore in Congress. Senator Diane Feinstein,...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.In 1998, as an Air Force major, I attended a military history symposium on coalition warfare that discussed the future of NATO. One senior officer present, General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, spoke bluntly in...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.Three days ago, I got a story in my New York Times email feed on “A Turning Point in Military Spending.” The article celebrated the greater willingness of NATO members as well as countries like Japan to spend...
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.There's an important point about America’s Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) that people often miss.When the Bush/Cheney administration announced the GWOT after 9/11, I think nearly all Americans assumed that...
