The V22 Osprey -- For want of a nail

By Fred Edwards | 07/12/09

  Crosshairs -- Military Matters in Review For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. (From Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack)  I’m not suggesting that we’ll lose the war in Afghanistan if... read more »

Is there a war going on? Does only 1 percent care?

By Fred Edwards | 06/21/09

  Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review World War II movies often contain the joke, “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?” The joke in today’s war against radical Islam is supposed to be that “One percent of Americans are fighting this war, and the rest of America is at the mall.” The World War II joke was sarcasm targeting somebody who wanted special perks when everybody else was sacrificing... read more »

North Korea shatters U.S. preemption policy

By Fred Edwards | 06/07/09

  Crosshairs- Military Matters in Review  A colleague told me this week, “If we know where North Korea’s missiles are, we have a right to take them out.” He makes a good point. President Bush established a preemption policy immediately after Nov. 11, 2001: The United States reserves the right to attack terrorists wherever they are, and if a country harboring terrorists doesn’t -- or can’t -- do something... read more »

North Korea cocks the trigger

By Fred Edwards | 05/30/09

  Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review  Since President Obama’s 95th day in office, North Korea has detonated a nuclear device, launched a slew of missiles, and started moving a long-range missile to a launch pad in the country’s northeast. Furthermore, it declared that it is no longer bound by the terms of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, and threatened military action if South Korea searches North Korean... read more »

An American military ethos: What’s wrong with it?

By Fred Edwards | 05/17/09

English author George Orwell is said to have written, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Are Americans who sleep peaceably afraid of those “rough men” who protect them? Let’s look at two cases.   First, scholars are warning of a civil-military gap within the United States. They say that members of the all-volunteer force tend to... read more »

Muslim fanatics and American courts: Square pegs and round holes

By Fred Edwards | 05/09/09

  Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review  With all the rhetoric about the detainees at Guantanamo that’s bouncing from one side of the Beltway to the other, it’s time to isolate the facts. Nearly one in every 10 detainee who has been released has hightailed it back to the killing fields. And they’re not all just run-of-the-mill suicide bombers. For example, Said Ali al-Shihri is al Qaeda in Yemen’s second... read more »

Afghanistan and the Opium War

By Fred Edwards | 05/03/09

  Crosshairs - Military Matters in Review   More than two millennia ago, a Greek city-state’s strategy often centered upon destroying an enemy city-state’s crops. If the hoplite infantry’s shields and spears defeated the defending hoplites, they won the food and therefore the war. If they failed, they went home.  In the first decade of the 21st century, the United States and its allies are doing something... read more »

‘AfPak’ targets Taliban threat

By Fred Edwards | 04/25/09

Crosshairs -- Military Matters in Review Officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan resent the U.S. term “AfPak” to describe the two countries, just like Americans would resent USCan or MexUS (try pronouncing them “uscan or “mexus”). But if you overlay a map of the two countries to show regions contested or owned by the Taliban, you see an inkblot that looks like AfPak. It’s jolting to launch a surge of troops... read more »

Piracy: Dollars and sense

By Fred Edwards | 04/19/09

Pirates notched up the stakes when they seized the American-flagged vessel, Maersk Alabama, off of Somalia and held the captain hostage until U.S. SEALs killed three of them. Now we hear threats of retribution. One 25-year-old thug from the Somali coastal town of Harardhere who calls himself “Ismail” said, We will seek out the Americans, and if we capture them, we will slaughter them." One Abdullahi Ahmed, also from... read more »

Guns in Mexico: Numbers Do Lie

By Fred Edwards | 04/13/09

If Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells reporters on a flight to Mexico City that 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States, it must be accurate, right? If CBS newsman Bob Schieffer refers to the same percentage while interviewing President Obama, it has to be correct, right? And if Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns... read more »