Selections from Clausewitz, Part 4

In the third chapter of his first book, the Father of Strategy shifts his focus to matters of what we would today call psychology. This is to say, he discusses some of the more human elements of war, warfare, and generalship.

"The fewer the employment followed by a nation, the more that of arms predominates, so much the more prevalent military genius must also be found. But this merely applies to its prevalence, by no means to its degree, for that depends on the general state of intellectual culture in the country. If we look at a wild, warlike race, then we find a warlike spirit in individuals much more common than in a civilised people; for in the former almost every warrior possesses it; whilst in the civilised, whole masses are only carried away by it from necessity, never by inclination. But amongst uncivilised people we never find a really great general, and very seldom what we can properly call a military genius, because that requires a development of the intelligent powers which cannot be found in an uncivilised state."
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III

Having spent a year of my life studying strategy, it should come as no surprise that I'm an advocate for strategic thinking. The U.S. Army, which is America's "senior service" and tends to dominate overall defense operations, has been criticized for being anti-intellectual, and I'm increasingly convinced that most career officers don't learn strategy or really even understand what it entails - they learn tactics as cadets and junior officers, and campaigning as field grade officers. It's not a comprehensive phenomenon, but it's systemic and institutionalized. This quandary seems to extend in large part from the way the Army selects and promotes its officer corps; as a commenter on a recent article at War on the Rocks noted (I've truncated it a bit): "[T]actical proficiency does not necessarily guarantee strategic proficiency... there are some gifted tacticians in the officer ranks who are not necessarily suited to strategy... we may be weeding out excellent strategists before they are afforded a chance to show their abilities." I could point to a number of illustrative examples of this trend. I actually think that the American military, primarily the Army, is representative of the proverbial "middle" in the Father of Strategy's example, between the unstrategic, chaotic bezerkers of ISIS/DAESH on the one hand, and America's insular and militarily disengaged European allies on the other. That sweet spot between a sufficiently martial society and the sort of intellectual culture which produces a "great general" or a "military genius" is tough to suss out.

"A common understanding may, at one time, perhaps hit upon this truth by accident: an extraordinary courage, at another time, may compensate for the want of this tact: but in the majority of cases the average result will always bring to light the deficient understanding."
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III

This observation by the Father of Strategy could be applied to just about anything. To some degree, all human exploits, not the least of these being warfare, are governed by pure, dumb luck. However, patterns of success reveal sufficient understanding, while patterns of failure reveal deficient understanding.

"Mere intelligence is still not courage, for we often see the cleverest people devoid of resolution. The mind must, therefore, first awaken the feeling of courage, and then be guided and supported by it, because in momentary emergencies the man is swayed more by his feelings than his thoughts."
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III

I'm reminded of the training that modern soldiers, and particularly the Marines, who are conditioned in recruit training and again in the Schools of Infantry to follow direction from their junior leaders almost instinctively. Clausewitz's observation highlights the critical confluence of intellect and courage.

"We believe, therefore, that resolution is indebted to a special direction of the mind for its existence, a direction which belongs to a strong head, rather than to a brilliant one. In corroboration of this genealogy of resolution we may add that there have been many instances of men who have shown the greatest resolution in an inferior rank, and have lost it in a higher position. While on the one hand they are obliged to resolve, on the other they see the dangers of a wrong decision, and as they are surrounded with things new to them, their understanding loses its original force, and they become only the more timid the more they become aware of the danger of the irresolution into which they have fallen, and the more they have formerly been in the habit of acting on the spur of the moment."
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III

I didn't originally save this passage as I was reading through the third chapter of On War, but I kept thinking about it and decided to include it. It's such a fascination observation of how bold young leaders are, and how that boldness is adulterated - for better and for worse - by age and experience. This phenomenon speaks to life in general, but particularly for the leadership and administration of armed force in the pursuit of political ends.

"To conduct a whole war, or its great acts, which we call campaigns, to a successful termination, there must be an intimate knowledge of state policy in its higher relations. The conduct of the war, and the policy of the State, here coincide; and the general becomes, at the same time, the statesman."

[...]

"In order that the reader may appreciate all that must be comprehended and judged of correctly at a glance by a general, we refer to the first chapter. We say, the general becomes a statesman, but he must not cease to be the general. He takes into view all the relations of the State on the one hand; on the other he must know exactly what he can do with the means at his disposal."
- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III

I'll cover this concept in more detail in a subsequent edition, but I wanted to highlight its instance here. We tend to think of generals as senior managers of the use of armed force. The truly great generals, however - which is to say, the successful ones - are intimately acquainted with all of the instruments of national power, what their comparative strengths and limitations are, and how best to orchestrate them in order to achieve political ends as directed by policy-makers.

More to come.

Recent Items on ISIS/DAESH, Assad, Iraq, and Syria

A buddy of mine brought the following articles to my attention this morning:

Washington Post, 26 April 2015: Assad’s hold on power looks shakier than ever as rebels advance in Syria

Washington Free Beacon, 30 April 2015: Obama Administration Unprepared if Assad Falls

I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but wanted to share them anyway. I'll divulge my skepticism. The Syrian Civil War has effectively been a stalemate for the last several years, and most of the analysis I've heard or seen in recent months has suggested that the only two major players are the Assad regime and ISIS/DAESH. Various moderate elements have been purported in the recent past, but these haven't tended to have much actual sway.

I also wanted to bring the following items to everyone's attention, and this is as good a way as any to share them with that aforementioned buddy, too.

War on the Rocks, 15 April 2015: PODCAST: The Islamic State’s War in Iraq and Syria

Der Spiegel, 18 April 2015: The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State

War on the Rocks, 20 April 2015: Are Turkey and Saudi Arabia Going to War in Syria?

The Daily Beast, 21 April 2015: What Saddam Gave ISIS

Gawker Phase Zero, 22 April 2015: An Intelligence Vet Explains ISIS, Yemen, and "the Dick Cheney of Iraq"

I'll admit to bristling a bit at the suggestion that ISIS/DAESH is essentially the successor to the Iraqi Baath Party. There seems to be good evidence that former Iraqi Baath Party figures have held a lot of sway in the top echelons of ISIS/DAESH, but I question the degree to which the Iraqi Baath Party originated ISIS/DAESH. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing, but I wanted to share the articles for everyone's consideration.

Second World War Bombing and Conflict Geography

I'm currently reading Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force by Robert M. Farley. While I was studying for my master's degree, I read several items about nuclear strategy and the history of nuclear deterrence. Notable among these were The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy by Lawrence Freedman, World Politics and the Evolution of War by John J. Weltman, The Anatomy of Deterrence by Bernard Brodie, and The Delicate Balance of Terror by Albert Wohlstetter. On Friday, War on the Rocks published a couple of great items on the topic. One was an article in their (W)archives series entitled Aerial Bombardment and Hitting the Broad Side of a Barn, which discussed the inaccuracy of Second World War bombing campaigns. The second was their weekly Weekend Reading list, which included a link to the new Bomb Sight website, which provides a detailed, interactive map of the British government's postwar bomb census.

At the moment, and increasingly since I began doing those readings for my degree, one of my fascinations is and has been the history of how the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force turned some very controversial theory about air power into a case for independence from the other services. This was obviously bolstered, somewhat understandably, by the proliferation of atomic weapons after 1945. Farley's book serves as a sort of long overdue sanity check with respect to that independence. One of my longer-standing interests is geography, and particularly conflict geography. (At this point, I'd love to link to an old website that was tracking the Libyan Civil War in 2011, but I can't find it; that said, I found a fascinating New York Times graphic that partially scratches that particular itch).

Ancillary to the nuclear topic is the discovery of the hulk of the USS Independence, which was recently discovered in the waters near San Francisco. The article and the pictures are worth having a look at.

Four Things to Remember About the Iranian Nuclear Negotiations

The Iranian nuclear negotiations are big news at the moment. Never fear, for I'm here to cut through the bluster with four things you should know about what's going on. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very special Iranian Nuclear Negotiations Thoughts for Today:

1. Iran doesn't want to stage a nuclear attack on Israel, or the United States, or anyone, really.

A lot of the concern about Iran revolves around a fear that they'll try to bomb Israel and "exterminate the Jews". Iran has a lot of vitriolic rhetoric about Israel, but it's all saber-rattling. For the domestic audience, the Iranian regime uses Israel as a scapegoat to justify lousy living conditions, a poor economy, and no reforms to fix anything. A lot of regimes in the Islamic world do this, and it mirrors North Korea's saber-rattling against South Korea, not to mention George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984. For the international audience, portraying itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause is meant to bolster Shiite Persian Iran's Islamic bona fides relative to Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia in a region that's majority Sunni Arab. (Turkey's Islamist government has been getting into that game recently, too.) Iran's Jews are actually some of the best-treated in the Islamic world. Actually attacking Israel with an atomic weapon would not only obliterate Iran's most convenient scapegoat, but would also negate any Islamic credibility Iran might have by destroying one of Islam's holy sites (Jerusalem/al Quds), and there's no good reason for Iran to do either.

2. The mullahs want a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against regime change.

For a variety of reasons, some understandable and some ludicrous, Iran maintains a very aggressive foreign policy directed at the United States, Israel, and its rivals in the Gulf Region. This includes varying degrees of sponsorship for such terrorist groups as Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Taliban; covert terrorist attacks, such as Argentina (2012), Thailand, and Bulgaria (2012); and varying degrees of agitation in places like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain. The mullahs had a front row seat (and allegedly participated as well) when American-led coalitions invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003; and they watched in 1991 as the United States took four days to defeat the same Iraqi army that Iran spent nine years fighting to a bloody stalemate between 1980 and 1988. Those countries were invaded for precisely the kind of bellicose foreign policy that the mullahs believe to be in their regime's best interest, and recent history suggests that the best insulation against regime change is a nuclear deterrent. If the mullahs can build a deterrent capability, they believe that they can insulate themselves from regime change and continue to pursue their long-term strategic goals. In addition, the Iranian regime is unpopular, and the civilian nuclear program is the only government program that enjoys widespread public support. Thucydides characterized strategic considerations as aligning along the lines of fear, honor, and interest, and the mullahs believe that a nuclear deterrent would satisfy all three considerations.

3. Without ruling out an eleventh hour breakthrough, there's grounds for pessimism about the negotiations.

In late 2013, there was a lot of chest-thumping because the negotiators, by ceding some substantial leverage, had gotten Iran to agree to more talks. They really haven't made much progress in the intervening year and a half. Negotiations work based upon one of two factors: a confluence of common interests, or one party having enough leverage to get the other party to concede. Without getting into the modern history of arms control, two good examples are the SALT treaties of the 1970's, and the START treaties of the 1980's and early 1990's. The SALT treaties made some progress during a period of detente between the Soviet Union and the West, and ultimately fell apart because the detente fell apart when Russia responded to a weakening of American foreign policy with renewed aggression. By contrast, the START treaties were successful because they corresponded with ambitious efforts by the Reagan Administration to hamstring the Soviet Union economically, politically, and militarily. Iran was in pretty dire financial straits in late 2013. Although the Saudis have pushed oil prices down in an effort to maintain that pressure, the relaxation of sanctions aimed at keeping the regime at the negotiating table gave Iran a reprieve that has not been met with good will. SALT II fell apart when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, but the current diplomatic effort continues despite Iran's involvement in the recent overthrow of the Western-friendly government in Yemen, not to mention Iran's other disruptive efforts in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Without a bona fide overlap in strategic interest, or a significantly weakened Iranian regime, the chances for any substantive agreement seem slim.

4. Everything's not lost.

There are a few reasons for some hope. For one thing, the deal and any relaxation of most of the strictest sanctions has to get through Congress. Second, there's been a lot of agitation about how the failure to get a deal is the equivalent of wanting to bomb Iran, but that's not really accurate - there are plenty of other methods aside from military force to continue pressuring Iran. For better or for worse, the Obama Administration is probably the most permissive administration the Iranians could hope for in the near term, which could give Secretary Kerry some leverage, or potentially whomever succeeds President Obama in 2017. We Westerners are fond of thinking in terms of stories that wrap up tightly into a tight, coherent ending, but history keeps unfolding. A lot can happen in the coming days, and a lot can keep happening in the days, weeks, months, years, and decades thereafter.

Link Purge, 23-28 February 2014 Edition

China:

War is Boring: China’s Aircraft Carriers on the Cheap

COIN:

War on the Rocks: The Strategy of Savagery: Explaining the Islamic State

Wired: The 40,000 People on Bagram Air Base Haven’t Actually Seen Afghanistan - I've been hearing a line for years that "If you've only ever been to Bagram, you've never been to Afghanistan." Recently, when discussing Kuwait with a business associate who had spent a year in Afghanistan, I made the same observation of Ali al Salem Air Base.

War on the Rocks: Reading Galula in Afghanistan - This is a somewhat narrowly focused, but overall poignant discussion of American counterinsurgency doctrine relative to traditionally accepted counterinsurgency theory. The comments on the article itself, and on the corresponding thread at Small Wars Journal, are worth skimming as well.

NPR: The IED: The $30-Bombs That Cost The U.S. Billions

Afghanistan Analysts Network: Six Days That Shook Kabul: The ’3 Hut uprising’, first urban protest against the Soviet occupation

Foreign Affairs:

War on the Rocks: Nepal’s Dirty Little War: Counterinsurgency and the Fall of a Hindu King

BBC: Are the Afghan Taliban ready to talk? - Why would the Afghan Taliban be ready to talk? Belligerents negotiate the end of a conflict when one or another of them has been forced into a position in which surrender is preferable to continuing hostilities. The Taliban have not been forced into such a position, and for years, their adversaries have been advertising to them that all they need to do is wait.

Michael J. Totten: ISIS' Next Target

AFP: Fighting IS not a priority for Turkey: US spy chief

War on the Rocks: Women in Combat Arms: Just Good Business - While Captain (Major?) van Dam's service as a Marine Corps attack helicopter pilot certainly gives weight to her argument, I personally find the views of Army Special Forces Michael Yon more compelling, though they're less diplomatic.

Intelligence/Espionage:

BBC: Argentina Congress votes to dissolve intelligence agency - If you haven't caught the recent controversy over the Argentine intelligence agency, it's worth catching up on.

BBC: Paris drones: Al-Jazeera journalist to face court - If you haven't caught the recent controversy over UAVs in Paris, it's worth catching up on.

Iran:

War on the Rocks: The Key to a Nuclear Agreement with Iran? The Window of Vulnerability I think that commentator Cliff Sherrill puts it well: "How can we be confident that Fordow was the only secret site? (Natanz was hardly secret). How can we be so sure as to our intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program when our intelligence about Iraq’s proved mistaken? The issue, it seems to me, is not about crafting an agreement with a regime that holds us to be a necessary enemy. Such an actor will inevitably abandon any agreement. The issue, rather, is how to obtain regime change such that Iranian knowledge about nuclear arms no longer presents a threat." I've been cautiously optimistic about the last thirteen or fourteen months of negotiations with Iran, but I continue to worry that they're focused entirely on technical concerns without addressing the root cause: the Iranian regime sees a nuclear program as its best chance of securing domestic support, and a nuclear weapon as its best chance of deterring international intervention in Iranian affairs. Without addressing those root causes, even cautious optimism is difficult to maintain.

War is Boring: Iran Stages Giant Attack on Mock Aircraft Carrier - You can read more about this story here, here, and here.

Iraq:

War is Boring: These Westerners Joined an Iraqi Militia - This is a follow-up to a recent article I knicked from Doctrine Man.

Small Wars Journal: US Christians Back Emerging Private War on Iraq Jihadists - This is a follow-up to a recent article I knicked from Doctrine Man.

AFP: Riyadh talks seek stronger Iraqi army: Western source

IT Security:

AFP: US State Dept blocks thousands of hack attacks every day

BBC: US spy chief James Clapper highlights cyber threats - No, Virginia, hackers do not pose a treater threat than terrorists.

Kuwait - General:

Arab Times: Police Raid ‘Disco Tent’ - This was the Kuwaiti Headline of the Week.

Libya:

BBC: Islamic State gains Libya foothold

BBC: How West's limited intervention failed Libya - Limited, intervention, e.g. air strikes and Western special operations/covert intelligence support to local actors was the panacea for the early 1980's, and has become popular today. However, Libya - and to a similar degree, Somalia, Yemen, the Iraqi-Syrian border, and elsewhere - is proof that such an approach has its severe limitations.

AFP: Libya could be next Syria without West's help: foreign minister

Military Kit:

War is Boring: Top U.S. Army Marksman Explains Why Gun Nuts Shoot Better - I'm reminded of a long blog post that circulated after the Newtown Shootings in which the writer discussed, among other things, the role that an anti-gun culture played in the poor response by Indian police to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Both are worth reading.

War is Boring: The U.S. Navy Reserve’s Fighter Jets Are Going Extinct

War is Boring: I Built an AR-15 in My Kitchen - This article reminded me of this pictorial in which a guy built an AK-47 out of a shovel - a garden variety shovel, one might dare to presume.

North Korea:

AFP: N.Korea could have 100 nuclear weapons by 2020: US researchers

BBC: North Korea reflagging ships to evade sanctions - UN - Oh, those wacky North Koreans. What will they think of next?

BBC: Kidnapped by North Korea - and forced to make films

Professional Stuff:

Task and Purpose: 10 Ways To Get Ahead Of Your Military Transition While You’re Still Active Duty

Times of Oman: Sayyid Fahd inaugurates Oman's Military Technical College

Risk Management:

BBC: US hostage policy reviewed as Qatari emir visits Obama

Russia:

BBC: Cyprus signs deal to allow Russian navy to use ports

AFP: Russian paratroopers in drills on border with Estonia, Latvia

AFP: Russia could target Moldova: NATO commander

Scottish Miscellany:

BBC: New Aberdour manure letterbox incident man fined

BBC: Oil and gas industry in 'bleak' 2014, finds survey

BBC: Are low oil prices here to stay?

BBC: Consultative ballot on offshore strike from GMB Scotland

Strategy:

War on the Rocks: U.S. Land Forces Must Deter and Defend Abroad

General James Mattis: A New American Grand Strategy - When the Warrior Monk talks, everyone should listen. General James Mattis has penned a testimony to the need for a renewal of American grand strategy.

WMD:

BBC: Trident question comes to the surface - God forbid the BBC would find someone who actually knows about strategic nuclear doctrine to interview, instead of a bunch of political hacks and feckless yobs on street corners, none of whom are competent to comment on defense ("defence") issues.

War on the Rocks: Why the New Bomber is a Good Investment - I'm currently reading Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force. The author, Robert M. Farley, argues that the Air Force has traditionally decided upon the platform they wanted, and built their capability justification around the platform, rather than building a platform to provide a capability in order to meet a strategic requirement. I haven't put much thought into the projected replacement for the Air Force's bomber fleet, but I'd prefer to see a lot more objective analysis of the actual requirements a bomber is meant to meet - potentially by analytical organizations that are free of undue Air Force institutional influence - than we've seen from such procurement efforts as the F-35.

War is Boring: America Readies Its New ‘Smart’ Nuke

XNA: Three rockets launched near-simultaneously in Aegis test

General Chicanery:

BBC: The secrets of the Santa Priscilla catacombs

Yemen:

BBC: Yemen on brink as Gulf Co-operation Council initiative fails

BBC: Yemen kidnap: French woman seized in capital Sanaa

Kuwait Times: Houthis take over US-trained Special Forces base

Some Stuff I Knicked from Doctrine Man

I frequently check Doctrine Man on Facebook. The articles that "DM" posts are often worthy of consideration, DM's commentary is sometimes worthy of consideration, and comments on the items and/or commentary that DM has posted ranges from thought-provoking to frustrating. Here are a few items I grabbed from DM on Wednesday, February 18th, 2015.

* * *
Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled Christians Flock to Iraq to Fight ISIS.

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Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled Return of the ‘Ghost Rider’. For the first time, a decommissioned B-52 bomber has been returned to active service. Sweet!

LATE BREAKING UPDATE: Here's another link: I’ll Be Damned, These Boneyard B-52s Can Still Fly: Aged bomber gets airborne after years in the desert. * * *
Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled What The Military Teaches About Bad Intel Applies To Anti-Vaxxers. It's worth reading, but it barely mentions the military at all, and does so in the following quote:

"In the military, we know better than to use rumor or unfounded suspicion as a basis for action. When a military leader feeds us obviously bad information, we call him on it."

When dealing with the military, this has not been my experience.

LATE BREAKING UPDATE: Apparently, it hasn't been anyone's experience: Lying in the military is common, Army War College study says. * * *
Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled C.I.A. Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi Chemical Weapons. Recognizing that the intelligence that informed the decision to invade Iraq was not completely accurate, it nonetheless surprises me how many flat out falsehoods - the most common being "there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" - get perpetuated despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, more of which is being publicly acknowledged all the time.

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Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled Biden being Biden is the highlight of Ash Carter's swearing-in ceremony. Partisan politics aside, am I the only one who finds it almost hilariously ironic that Vice President Biden was recently very vocal, even aggressive, in denouncing sexual assault, and now it's emerging that he apparently has a reputation for being kind of a creeper? I remember listening last year to a segment on the Michael Medved Show in which Medved interviewed Ronald Kessler, author of The First Family Detail and In the President's Secret Service, and Kessler discussed the fact that Vice President Biden apparently enjoys skinny dipping despite having female agents on his Secret Service detail. Also, The Onion has done some really good comedy work relating to Vice President Biden, and it can be viewed herehere, and here.

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As awkward a note as that is to end on, that's the extent of what I grabbed from Doctrine Man today.

Link Purge from the Last Week (Or So)

I've recently updated the system I use to collect news links. Here's a purge - with some commentary as necessary - of the news links I've collected in the past week.

China:

WOTR: Ten Reasons Why China Will Have Trouble Fighting a Modern War - I recognize the need for America and its allies to prepare for Chinese ambitions, but I remain very skeptical that China is on the verge of becoming a legitimate superpower, militarily or otherwise. These are some good reasons to question such alarmism.

RAND: China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) - This study was produced semi-independently from the article above, and provides more depth on the issues identified by the author of the WOTR article, in addition to other relevant topics.

COIN:

War is Boring: All the Reasons Islamic State Won’t Have It Easy in Afghanistan: For one, there’s Taliban to deal with

CNN: Nonsense about terrorism's 'root causes' - There's been a lot of press this week about ISIS/DAESH's motives, and how to undermine its regional ambitions. This is one of those items, though

CNN: Why does ISIS keep making enemies? - This op-ed, also by Peter Bergen, is another such item.

The Atlantic: What ISIS Really Wants - The most prominent article on the topic is this one from The Atlantic.

Slate: The Atlantic’s big Islam lie: What Muslims really believe about ISIS - Haroon Moghul at Slate disagrees with that article in The Atlantic. I'm shocked, I swear.

Iran:

War is Boring: Looks Like Iran Upgraded Syria’s Helicopters: But the regime’s not actually using the new systems

War is Boring: A Bunch of Iranian Drones Have Crashed in Iraq

Science/Junk Science:

BBC: In pictures: Snow blankets the Middle East

Kuwait Times: In Pakistan, vaccinating kids becoming a deadly battle

Kuwait - General:

Kuwait Times: The pros and cons of cousin marriage - Occasionally, I'll post a "Kuwaiti Headline of the Day" on Facebook. This one absolutely made the cut. Previous favorites include "Fight over 100 fils (about $0.34) renders Bangladeshi impotent", "‘Accusing Kuwaitis of laziness unfair’", "Excessive meddling ruining Kuwait Airways: MP Saleh", "New twist in Kabad camel market brawl", "Royal among three Kuwaitis in fight over bike ownership", "Daesh (ISIS) Goes Potty", "Ministry of Interior officer steals sheep", "The great Kuwaiti cat-meat scandal", and my all-time favorite, "Egyptian Sex Maniac brought to book".

Military Kit:

WOTR: Getting Our Money’s Worth: LCS vs Iver Huitfeldt-Class - This one feeds into a conversation I've been having with one of my postgraduate coursemates, CN Slapshot.

AFP: Four US littoral combat ships to operate out of Singapore by 2018 - This feeds into the same conversation with CN Slapshot.

Risk Management:

UPI: Industry: Risk aversion costs more than 'fast failure'

Russia:

Sputnik: Russia May Finalize its Flagship Aircraft Carrier by 2025 - A couple of years ago, I researched the state of Russia's conventional forces, to include its navy. I wasn't impressed.

SPX: Russian Shipyard Makes History: 4 Subs Under Construction Simultaneously - See directly above.

Scottish Miscellany:

BBC: Shetland firearms teenager to appeal against three-year sentence

BBC: Shetland ferry strike called off after Cosla talks

BBC: Wood Group warns of further cuts over low oil price

BBC: British Gas owner Centrica sees profits fall steeply

Strategy:

BBC: How strong is the Nato military alliance?

Terrorism:

Al Jazeera: Al-Shabab stages deadly attack on Somalia luxury hotel

WMD:

AFP: Nuclear deterrent important in 'dangerous world', says Hollande - I mainly saved this article to share with my Strategic Nuclear Doctrine instructor, Critical Mass.

General Chicanery:

Wondermark #1101

Wondermark #1102

Al Jazeera: Spring has sprung in Oregon - It can't be very frequent that Oregon gets mentioned by Al Jazeera.

BBC: Algeria's protracted end of an era

Failblog: This Wrong Number Text Ends in Excellent Home Decoration Advice

BBC: Rand Paul and his Ron Paul conundrum