Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners
Quotes of the Day:
"In everyday life the exchange of opinion with others checks our partiality and widens our perspective; we are made to see things from their standpoint and the limits of our vision are brought home to us.... The benefits from discussion lie in the fact that even representative legislators are limited in knowledge and the ability to reason. No one of them knows everything the others know, or can make all tie same inferences that they can draw in concert. Discussion is a way of combining information and enlarging the range of arguments”
- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.”
- John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
“If you are a leader or someone who works for the interest of a community, first make sure that you understand the interest of the people who make up that community. In this way, you will have a good chance of minimizing, perhaps, avoiding the us versus them mentality.”
- Duop Chak Wuol
1. What is America's role in the world?
2. A U.S. Military Base Needs to Make 13,000 Afghan Evacuees Feel at Home
3. Private groups aiding thousands in Afghanistan worry about dwindling funds
4. Special ops soldiers evade late-night ninja attack at California airport
5. Soldiers after War
6. The U.S. Military's Biggest Enemy Isn't Russia or China Anymore
7. Our International Institutions Are Failing Us (Or Are We Failing Them?)
8. Those Left Behind in Afghanistan
9. The CCP’s Culture of Fear
10. Why Havana Syndrome is a 'global experiment in mass suggestion'
11. How Xi Jinping lost Australia
12. How We Fell into the Terrorist Trap and Have Yet to Find Our Way Out
13. How a Divided U.S. Views Its Armed Forces and Their Role
14. We Now Know Why Biden Was in a Hurry to Exit Afghanistan
15. From Our Files 09/30/21 (UW, terrorism, and guerrilla conflicts)
16. ‘Black Hawk Down’ Rangers receive Silver Stars 28 years after Mogadishu heroics
17. All-female guard change at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier makes history
18. System Rivalry: How Democracies Must Compete with Digital Authoritarians Artificial Intelligence
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/10-2-2021-National-Security-News-and-Commentary.html?soid=1114009586911&aid=NZbCGM4Jk2w
