DJ

As Bob posted below, William S. Lind, in The American Conservative, wrote an article titled, “How to Win in Iraq.” If you haven’t read it, please do. It is beyond good: it is brilliant, perhaps staggeringly so. Lind grasps many…

In my preceding posts, I developed a paradigm for conflict that suggests the leaders of the combatant parties are predisposed to continue fighting, and therefore will resist peace. This paradigm developed not because of any preconceived notion on my part,…

Pakistan police are locked in a standoff with students holed up inside a mosque in Islamabad.  The students are demanding “Taliban-style” sharia law.  Says Reuters, “The clashes began when about 150 students attacked a security picket at a Pakistani government…

Observation #5: A militant group and the state can have very different goals in a conflict; thus at he same time, both may believe they are winning. Back in 1999, I worked in Sri Lanka on a team that included…

These observations suggest that a militant vs. state conflict tends to make the leaders on both sides stronger– giving both leaderships a vested interest in continuing the fight. In July 1983, the LTTE carried out an ambush on government security forces.…