Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners
Quotes of the Day:
“The key American shortcoming, in the early twenty-first century as in the 1960s, was the inability to constructively guide the leaders of allied states in the direction desired by Washington”
― Max Boot, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam
Lansdale quoted Robert Taber (The War of the Flea): "There is only one means of defeating an insurgent people who will not surrender, and that is extermination. There is only one way to control a territory that harbours resistance, and that is to turn it into a desert. Where these means cannot, for whatever reason, be used, the war is lost." Lansdale thought this was the situation in Vietnam and wrote to a friend that if the solution was to "kill every last person in the enemy ranks" then he was "not only morally opposed" to this strategy but knew it was "humanly impossible".
“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
1. Lessons from the Philippines: Irregular Warfare in Action
2. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: September (August 28 – October 6, 2021)
3. Why China Is Alienating the World
4. We Must Support Taiwan
5. Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on the Economic Consequences of Default on National Security and Military Families
6. Navy secretary’s new strategic guidance focuses on deterring China from invading Taiwan
7. How a misguided Vietnam analogy sealed the Afghanistan disaster
8. As China stumbles, the West must ask: what if its rise is not inevitable?
9. Don’t Arm the Afghan Resistance
10. The Fatal Flaw in the West’s Fight Against Autocracy
11. French senators visit Taiwan despite China protests
12. The hidden enemies in Xi’s midst
13. All calm in Taiwan in the face of Chinese threats
14. New Bond Can’t Take On Beijing’s Supervillains
15. Taiwan Says U.S. Commitment Is 'Rock Solid' After Biden Remark on China's Xi
16. FDD | The news from UNGA
17. FDD | An Iraqi Perspective on Israel
18. What’s At Stake In The Indo-Pacific
19. Why the World Can’t Abandon Taiwan
20. Japan, a Sleeping Giant of Global Affairs, Is Waking Up
21. Debate on ‘no first use’ of nukes mushrooms in Washington
22. World War III and IV? Why a U.S.-China War Might Have a Sequel
23. Desperate China backflips on Australia
24. The 9/11 Commission Said National Security Vacancies Were A Problem. Biden’s Pentagon Is ‘Far Worse’
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/10-7-2021-National-Security-News-and-Commentary.html?soid=1114009586911&aid=UlzGcg1CuVg
