The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Thursday, January 1, 2015

News of the Day for Thursday, January 1, 2015

Now it's the Afghan army that gets to do this.  Rocket fire kills 28 people at a wedding party in Sangin, Helmand. Fighting was going on in the area, but apparently the fire came from the ANA, not the Taliban. An investigation is underway. (Details are pretty horrific.) What is it about weddings that seems to attract missiles?

Mine kills 2 civilians in Kandahar province.

Taliban attack a convoy of would-be defectors in Jawzjan, resulting in 5 deaths, although it is not specified on which side the casualties were.

Posted by Cervantes at 9:34 AM

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