Outside the Beltway

Some light fundraising whilst waiting for mum to die.

Some great suggestions, same lame ones, and some missed opportunities.

A fascinating report from the WSJ.

Putin’s forces are in Kyiv.

The American way of war kills a lot of noncombatants.

The Rogue Warrior is gone at 81.

Our last-ditch airstrikes only postpone the inevitable.

A stroll down memory lane.

A hero of the Afghan War has succumbed to cancer, aged 41.

The founder of Small Wars Journal passed Saturday.

Donald Trump’s pardons of soldiers convicted of war crimes sends the wrong message to the military, to our allies, and to the world.

Against the advice of his top military advisers, President Trump has cleared three American soldiers of war crimes, sending a horrible signal to the world and to the troops in the field.

Eighteen years after it started, the American public seems to be mostly ignoring the war in Afghanistan. But that isn’t an excuse for not bringing it to an end.

An idea that’s both long overdue and problematic.

The arguments against withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan are becoming weaker and weaker.

The Pentagon is being ordered to draw up plans to withdraw roughly one-half of the American forces remaining in Afghanistan. It’s about time.

American troops have been in Afghanistan for seventeen years now, it’s time to bring them all home.

American involvement in the genocidal Saudi war on Yemen is getting more complicated. This is a bad idea.

Author Sam Anderson puts forward a rather strange hypothesis in Politico.

The U.S. Army is once again embroiled in an internecine fight over hats.

America has become involved in conflicts around the world, largely without the knowledge of the American people or the consent of their representatives, and it doesn’t appear that’s going to end anytime soon.

President Trump sinks even lower.

America’s longest war seems likely to soon turn into America’s never-ending war.

The situation in the Middle East just potentially became much more complicated.

Athletes are sitting out the Star Spangled Banner to air their grievances. Management is pushing back.

A respected scholar has an interesting suggestion for fighting the Forever War.

The U.S. is poised to send troops to the front lines of yet another war we have no reason to be involved in.

Donald Trump loves the fact that he’s being praised by an autocratic dictator.

Why hasn’t anyone else thought of this?

The German Parliament has approved expansion of the nation’s involvement in the campaign against ISIS, but that doesn’t make the current campaign any less incoherent.

Yesterday, the British Parliament debated the expansion of that nation’s military strikes against ISIS. For more than a year, our cowardly Congress has failed to even hold one debate or vote on America’s role in that conflict.

Hillary Clinton’s recently announced policies toward the ISIS fight are as incoherent and misguided as President Obama’s and those of her Republican opponents.

An apparent ongoing terrorist attack in Central Africa.

Even the people hired to advice Ben Carson on foreign policy seem to recognize that he is clueless on the subject, and has no apparent desire to educate himself.

We are legally, morally, and practically obligated to respond. Let’s not do so stupidly.

France’s President blames ISIS, vows response, as death toll from Paris terror attacks stands at at least 127.

Ben Carson displays incoherence and ignorance on foreign policy issues that disqualify him from being considered a serious candidate for President of the United States.

In the wake of President Obama’s to send Special Forces to Syria, a new poll finds the public doesn’t like the idea very much.

President Obama came to office inheriting the legacy of one unnecessary war, and another that had faded from memory. He will leave office with Iraq and Syria in crisis, Europe uneasy, Yemen and Libya unstable breeding grounds for terrorism, and China doing whatever it is they’re doing.

Another day, another military escalation in the Middle East.

Marine special operations forces have called themselves “Raiders” for years. Now it’s official.

ISIS has captured Ramadi, and revealed yet again how fractured Iraq actually is. Fixing that isn’t something that American aid or arms can accomplish.

Seymour Hersh is out with a conspiracy theory about the death of Osama bin Laden that just doesn’t make sense.

There must be something odd in the water in the Lone Star State, because a bizarre conspiracy theory seems to have taken root there.

ISIS apparently now has a foothold in Libya, and is making inroads in Yemen.

Explaining my ambivalence around the latest escalation in our intervention.