A Nation Slighted: How the 1908 Annexation of Bosnia Embarrassed Russia and Led to the Great War

The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 was a dress rehearsal for the events following the Sarajevo assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.  The diplomatic exchange between Russia and the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire left Russia embarrassed and looking for opportunity to redeem its standing within the Great Powers of the day.

The Battle of Atlanta - The True Turning Point of the American Civil War

The Battle of Atlanta

– The True Turning Point of the American Civil War

Introduction

            For three days in July of 1863, a small crossroads town in Southeastern Pennsylvania served as the stage for the largest battle ever waged on the North American continent. There elements of General Robert E. Lee’s invading Army of Northern Virginia stumbled into a cavalry element of General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac. As the rest of the two armies sprinted to join their comrades in the initial skirmishes of the battle, the Union wisely ceded the town to occupy the high ground to the south of the city. From the afternoon of the 1^st through the afternoon of the 3^rd of July, Lee, wishing to be Wellington to Meade’s Napoleon at Waterloo, threw three waves of attacks at all sides of the Union lines. Attempts at the flanks were thrown back on days one and two, while what should be considered Lee’s gravest tactical failure, the infamous “Picket’s Charge” at the center of the Union line at Cemetery Ridge, failed on the final day. After witnessing horrendous losses to his three Corps, Lee retreated to Virginia.

            Much of conventional wisdom states that the battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the American Civil War in favor of the Union. Certainly due to the proximity of the Eastern Front to the highly populated Atlantic Coast and New England states, the ebbs and flows of the war in this region were amplified by the press. Strengthening the argument of July 1863 serving as the turning point of the Civil War, coincidental to the battle of Gettysburg was arguably the far more important final battle of Vicksburg, in which Lincoln’s favorite fighting general, Ulysses S. Grant, masterfully maneuvered his army down the Mississippi, came ashore many miles south of the city, marched through swampland, fighting multiple battles as he went, and arrived at Vicksburg knocking at its backdoor. Grant’s bold maneuver in concert with the poor strategic decision of the Confederate War Department not to reinforce Pemberton’s 30,000-strong army at Vicksburg, and Pemberton’s foolhardy decision not to abandon the city resulted in a 45 day siege with the inevitable complete surrender of Pemberton’s forces.

            These two battles certainly marked not just a change in direction of the war, but also a change in perception of the war from the Northern point of view. After all Gettysburg demonstrated that Lee was not in fact, invincible. Lee’s previous ability to stymie Union advances against overwhelming odds to include the masterful strategic victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville fed the legend that was Lee; alternately contributing towards his own overconfidence at Gettysburg, and propagating the myth to Union generals that Lee was unbeatable. And, once again, this all took place under the bright lights of the sensational print media of Washington, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

            But just as quickly did the press’ love affair with the advances of the Union armies in general and with General Grant in particular began, so speedily it ended during the Overland Campaign in the summer of 1864. General Grant’s and General Lee’s armies marched by flanking maneuver after flanking maneuver from the Rapidan River down to the James. In just 45 days the Army of the Potomac suffered 65,000 casualties at the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, North Anna, and Cold Harbor. The number of casualties from May 5 to July 4 “was nearly two-thirds of the total in the previous three years.”[1] Appalled by the horrifying loss of life and limb, the northern press bestowed the moniker of “butcher” upon Grant.

            It is upon this stage then that the battle was fought that proved to be the latest and greatest turning point of the war: the Battle of Atlanta.

“The devastating Confederate setbacks in the Vicksburg and Gettysburg campaigns together and simultaneously (both campaigns produced Union victories in early July 1863) put an end to the prospect of the South conquering the North, but none of those union campaign victories signified an end to the war on Lincoln’s two terms [of reunion and abolishment of slavery]. [2]

Defining Liberty: The Stark Contrasts Between the French Revolution and the American War of Independence

Introduction

            The period of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason as some have named it, was an age in which the established order of all things was vigorously questioned and subjected to reason. Not since classical Greece was such emphasis put on rationality and not on power, might, birth-right, or the force of arms. Men, disaffected with the failures and shortcomings of the world around them, had been speaking their minds for ages. But the successes of the scientific revolution in casting off the monopoly the church had over explanations of the physical world, and the advent of the ability to mass-produce the written word via the printing press combined to embolden the thinkers of the Age of Reason and provide them a forum to reach the masses.

            This Age of Reason, with the exception of Britain, and Prussia under Frederick the Great, was for the most part, an intellectual exercise in which ‘enlightened’ nobility desired to expand their minds and wished to discuss the latest matters of political and social theory. It did not very often manifest itself in practical ways until the late 18^th Century. From around 1763 to 1799 two events transpired to put to test two very different practical applications of the principles of the Enlightenment: The American War of Independence and the French Revolution.

            Much has been written on the stark contrasts between the American and French Revolutions. That there were differences is not a matter of debate, but the reasons for these differences is something that is debated to this day. Were these violent divergences simply differences in the fundamental philosophy underpinning the movements? Were they a result of the differing contexts between 18th century Colonial America and Bourbon France?

            While there are certainly many contextual realities that greatly influenced the ways in which both of these tumultuous events evolved, the primary difference that shaped the events of those 36 years is one that is deeply rooted in the contextual and philosophical realities of the day: that of the foundational source of the rights of man. While the Americans held that God, or nature’s God to the deists, was the guarantor of the natural rights of man, the French largely dismissed God from the equation, substituting Him for reason.

National Power in History: How Nations Become Great and Decline

My term paper for my Seminar in World History for my Master's program.

Introduction

                In Cullen Murphy’s work, Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (2007), the author contemplates the title upon a trip through Ireland in which she witnesses the mobile seat of the Executive Branch of the United States government.[1] President George W. Bush was visiting the Emerald Isle and had parked Air Force One and all the accompanying architecture that makes the National Command Authority on the move possible. The comparison of America to Rome is one that is often made. “Obviously, the emergence of America as the world’s sole superpower, and the troubles it has encountered in that role, explain much of the revival of the Roman Empire in the American imagination.”[2]

                Vaclav Smil counters Murphy’s claim in his own book on the subject, Why America is Not a New Rome (2010).[3] Though Smil argues against the claim of the United States as an Empire, his acknowledgement of the question shows how the topic of world powers can grab the attention of world observers. And when one looks back into history, one can see how the comparison can fit, if only in the fact that the Roman Empire and the post-Soviet United States were without equal in world power and dominance in almost every quantifiable manner.

                How did states like the Roman Empire and the United States of America rise in power? How did the same Roman Empire fall? History is replete with the ascendency and collapse of empires. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Abbasside, Ottoman, Habsburg Spain and Austria, France, Britain, and Russia are but a few of the major world powers who experienced this cycle of ascendency and collapse. This essay seeks to explore the commonalities of why powers become powers and how they fall. It will first disclose the common factors shared by powers in their rise and then will explain reasons for their decline. Furthermore, the factors will be listed in order of importance.

A Brief Historiography of the Great War

 Introduction

Franz Ferdinand on the Morning of June 28, 1914

According to conventional wisdom, on June 28, 1914, a Serb nationalist gunman assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo. This brazen assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire enraged the Empire and thus sparked a war between Serbia and Austria. Even before these first shots were fired, a tangled web of alliances brought virtually all the European powers into the conflict. Russia immediately mobilized to protect Serbia. Germany countered by coming to its ally Austria’s aid. Germany, also paranoid that France would mobilize to assist Russia, and seize on the opportunity to inflict revenge upon Germany for French losses in the Franco-Prussian war, preempted France by invading her through neutral Belgium. The British, lastly, in pursuant to her own commitment to Belgian neutrality prepared an Expeditionary Force to come to the aid of the West European nation. Thus the entirety of the continent was thrown into a multi-front, multi-national war the likes of which the world has not seen before.

This is the narrative taught to countless American secondary school students, but the particulars of this story have been criticized, defended, attacked, amended, changed, altered, sometimes lied about, and otherwise revised for the past ninety years. Historians have had such interest in this topic due to its tremendous impact upon the entire world. From 1914 to 1918, the war claimed the lives of over nine million in uniform and over five million noncombatants.[1] “By the end of 1914, four months after the outbreak of the Great War, 300,000 Frenchman had been killed, 600,000 wounded, out of a male population of twenty million.[2] The nation of Serbia, “of whose pre-war population of five million, 125,000 were killed or died as soldiers but another 650,000 civilians succumbed to privation or disease, making a total of 15 per cent of the population lost.”[3] It is in a large part due to the painful consequences of the late summer of 1914 that historians have sought to seek the truth of the matter. They have been at the forefront of many controversies and theories regarding the conflict. This essay will provide an overview to the historiography of World War I. It will cover the different themes that historians have followed in writing their accounts. It will furthermore show how Great War historians have followed general trends of popular history throughout the past century.

Book Review - The Origins and Legacies of World War I - D.F. Fleming

Introduction

In 1968, Dr. D. F. Fleming, Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Vanderbilt University published The Origins and Legacies of World War I. This volume did not portend to be a comprehensive account of the military campaigns and of the waging of the war; nor did it claim to be a newer look at topics already extensively covered by other historians in the past fifty years. What it did do, is provide a new interpretation of how the war came about, its contextual relationship to the events of the next fifty years, as well as how it fits into the broader historical context. Fleming does not write this account from any particular school of persuasion, whether it be intentionalist or structuralist, instead his is an amalgamation of causes including the personal, structural, intentional, unintentional, cultural, and emotional variables of the individual leaders and nations involved in the struggles between the powers at the turn of the twentieth  century.

Praises

            This book has a masterful way of juxtaposing a war that most laymen view in isolation from its greater context. Fleming ties every event together until the mobilizations of July 1914 make perfect sense given the logic of the time. He writes on the build-up to the war in a very non-accusatory tone that distinguishes him from many of his predecessors who, being only ten or 20 years removed from the events, wrote their histories out of emotion and with a goal of alternately defending or accusing prominent actors.

Criticisms

Fleming’s topical arrangement of chapters can lead to some confusion for those not already well-grounded in late 19^th Century and early 20^th Century European history. Although there is not much that can be done about it, to remain easily followed, this book requires such a background.

On one occasion Fleming makes an unlikely leap of logic in the immediate aftermath of the Sarajevo assassination. He asserts that during the entire ‘diplomatic’ proceeding between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, Germany remained confident they would be able to limit the war to the Balkans, and that Russia, not able to mobilize quickly enough, would once again sit on the sidelines and stew in impotent fury (162). He then, without making necessary crucial connections, claims that with reckless abandon, Germany soon thereafter initiated the Schliefen plan, the swift invasion of northern France, through neutral Belgium. It seems highly problematic, though not unlikely, that the Germans would make such a risky gamble on localizing the war without a plan to back down at the last moment. Although his conclusion is probable, Fleming does not make the necessary, logical case for Germany’s immediate, swift, and violent action in seizing the advantage, nor does he dwell long enough on the German internal deliberations as to the possibility of British intervention due to the violation of Belgium.

Although Fleming, for the most part, makes a logical case for the origins of the war, he rushes through the war itself and the uneasy peace that follows. He seems to lay a large portion of the blame for the start of the Second World War at the feet of the United States; indicting it for its failure in the Senate to adopt Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Versailles Peace Treaty, and the failure to join and lead the League of Nations. Fleming, so exhausted and disgusted by the death and destruction of the war, blindly shills for the internationalists in the United States and gives hardly a minute’s notice to the very valid points of the Constitutional dissenters in Congress. So embittered is Fleming to the failure of Wilson’s ability to shepherd the treaty safely through, that he tries to make a case that the Second World War occurred because of this failure. Fleming believes that only the U.S. was able to lead the League of Nations, and that this failure to do so lead to the appeasement and capitulation to Hitler and the Nazis, leading inevitably down the path to war once again (297). It is here that this author cannot but differ and voice his opinion that it was in fact the peace movement, with disarmament for disarmament’s sake, as well as the weak Western governments, negotiating and appeasing from positions of weakness that emboldened the Nazis, leading to the Second World War. Fleming fails in making a valid case, using only conjecture and the infamous ‘what-if’ question as his sole basis.

Synopsis

Fleming catalogues the disintegration of the various authoritarian states at the close of the 19^th Century. He spends a whole chapter on the fall of the Manchu dynasty in China, the impending transformation of the sultan-ruled Ottoman Empire, and the brutal Russian Tsars’ tenuous cling to power. This was the age of the anarchist and the assassin. It was an age of violent introduction to democratic revolution. The last of the western autocracies clung to power while the oppressed took to politics through the barrel of a gun. “Among every people, from Switzerland to Japan, there was a powerful ferment operating, a striving for free institutions and the end of arbitrary government” (1).

At this time as well, the struggle between the progressive labor parties and the conservative, land-holding aristocrats reached tipping points in the western democracies. From London to Paris, Labor clashed with Tory and urban Socialist with the agrarian. The United Kingdom, splintering over issues such as military spending, social welfare spending, the problem of Irish nationalism, tariffs, and parliamentary procedures and privilege was nearly too distracted to be conducting a cohesive and focused foreign policy.

Upon the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war, Bismark having united all of Germany, sought to defend its acquisitions. Fleming states that Bismark’s fundamental failure was the harsh terms of the 1871 peace terms between Germany and France that handed Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans. Bismark discounts French nationalist sentiments in his calculation (52). Later, Bismark, having realized his error[1] does everything in his power to keep France “isolated and without allies” (54). It is in this context that Fleming then documents all of the secret, intriguing networks of alliances that Bismark made with the sole purpose to hold together and defend his state.

Following Bismark’s removal by William II, Germany then proceeded on a more ambitious course; one desirous of African colonies and towards a status more commensurate with its power on the world stage. What Fleming alludes to here is that Bismark’s network of treaties being defensive in nature was incompatible with this more aggressive policy. The unlikely formation of a counter-alliance between traditional foes in Britain with France and Russia are manifest of this. Germany’s testing of this alliance’s political will in the two Moroccan crises essentially sealed the fate of Europe in 1914.

While Fleming doses much of the structuralist blame upon the continuation of Bismark’s policies under aggressive, new management, he gives his heaviest criticism to the crumbling Hapsburg dynasty to the south and east. The disparate coalition of multiple ethnic groups comprised varying nationalities with national histories and different languages was held together merely by the force of arms and the character of the ailing Emperor Francis Joseph (25). With Austria and the Russian backed Slavic states in the Balkans scrambling over the shards of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, the Hapsburgs deemed independent Serbian and Bosnian states incompatible with keeping their own empire intact, lest there spread a revolutionary fervor into its own Slavic, Czech, and other peoples. As the sparks continued to fly, the Russians, seeking to control their own access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea gave complete support to the Serbs against the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

As an ally Austria was now both a burden and a danger to the existence of Germany herself. In opposition to the strongest urge of the age, and of all ages, the urge of men of the same race and language to govern themselves, “she linked up her fresh and vigorous national strength with the corrupt remnant of a decaying empire doomed to destruction.” Yet the dissolution of the [Austro-Hungarian] Monarchy without disaster to Germany and without a European conflagration, was made impossible by the German policy of refusing all agreement with England on the naval [limitations] issue (128).

Following the Sarajevo assassination, Fleming asserts the stage was set for Austria-Hungary to act. Convinced on their ability, through the threat of force, to keep Russia from coming to the defense of Serbia, Germany pressured Austria to go to war in order to “finish with Serbia once and for all, and restore her own damaged prestige” (149).

Fleming’s handling of the war itself is a standard recounting of the major events. He goes into no great detail and no great length on the conflict, devoting a meager 34 pages to the event out of the 342 in the book. He seems to rush through the events in order to get to the aftermath.

In the conclusion to his book, Fleming briefly tells the story of Wilson’s failure to convince the Senate to adopt the treaty and join the League of Nations. And, as previously stated, he lays much of the blame for the Second World War at the feet of the United States’ failure to lead said League; providing the force to arbitrate the conflicts that arose in the inter-war years.

Conclusion

Fleming does a very good job painting a landscape of Europe at the close of the 19^th Century, laying the foundations for the Great War. The war itself was inevitable. Structurally, Europe was a veritable powder keg, awaiting a spark to set it off. The spark came out of a dying Empire’s desire to continue to force subjugation on peoples that sensed their time for emancipation had come. The small fuse lit, aggressive leaders sought the advantage, knowing the inevitability of the conflict, and pursued a quick, aggressive path to victory, that dragged in quick succession all the world’s powers.

Just as Fleming did to bring some clarity to the origins of the war, he also muddied the waters surrounding the causes of the second great war. Fleming throws bombs and melts back into the crowd. He blames the United States for the Second World War, by its failure to go against its own Constitution and its founders’ principles. Washington’s advice to stay out of the quarrels of Continental Europe is swept under the rug in his haste. Fleming launches a what-if argument that cannot possibly stand on merit, and seems to attribute one of the greatest calamities of the world on the failure of one nation’s desire to police only itself, rather than the world. Ignoring the evil and the barbarous aggression of Nazi Germany, he assumes the United States would have been able to bring the Nazis to disarmament talks and to peaceful terms.

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[1] Fleming clearly alludes to the fact that Bismark did realize his mistake.  “No sooner was the Treaty of Frankfurt signed than Bismark began to dread the renewal of the old anti-Prussian coalition of the days of Frederick the Great – Austria, France, and Russia” (53, 54).

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A Brief History of the Modern Intelligence Community - Reactionary Policy

I love it when my interests and my academic pursuits collide:

Summary:

The US Intelligence Community is where it is today primarily because of reactionary policies.  Rather than looking forward, the Community looks backward.  I hate to be so negative in this assessment, yet I will prove this with examples from the modern history of the Intelligence Community.

Strategic Outlook:

The Community will continue its reactionary changes.  Unfortunately, the recent trend of politicization of the Intelligence Community will also continue unabated.  When an actual crippling terrorist attack or a conventional war kick off that catches the Community by complete surprise, the politicians will use this tragedy as a club to beat their oppositions, much as the changes made after September 11 and the dissent to them were very political in nature, rather than focused on effectiveness.

Evolution of the Intelligence Community – Pre WWII:

Intelligence was primarily limited to periods of armed conflict in the times preceding WWII, at least in the US.  Diplomatic intelligence (what we can view as strategic intelligence) was still considered very much a disingenuous, ungentlemanly thing to do.  The European powers have always plied this trade out of necessity due to their small, confined, cramped living spaces on the continent; the US, by the opposite extension, viewed this strategic intelligence unnecessary.

The advance in technology in communications and transportation changed this paradigm in the early 1900s.  This technological advance also made the wars that erupted bloodier than ever (another topic that follows this ‘backward thinking’ trend), making the ungentlemanly use of intelligence much more palatable when compared to the alternative.  It was the confluence of the First World War and the rise of the Bolsheviks and political ideals that transcended borders and nationalities that spurred the first, true internationalist President, Wilson, to develop the nascent intelligence community into one that practiced its trade even during peacetime.

This growth (or birth) of the Intelligence Community was precipitated by treacherous events toward the United States.  The intercept of the Zimmerman telegram demonstrated the necessity of diplomatic intelligence to provide early warning and intention intelligence.  True, Wilson was of such a progressive mind (and I use that term pejoratively) that collecting intelligence on adversaries came naturally to him; yet the world had become far more dangerous than before.

World War II:

World War II, also by necessity, forever altered the Intelligence Community.  The first US covert operations took place under Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, in these days.  Technology advanced ever onward, making war that much more horrific.  The value of these covert actions towards changing outcomes on the battlefields demonstrated the impact of intelligence upon strategic objectives in war campaigns as well as in saving servicemen’s lives.

Indeed, arguably, the entire war’s outcome could be attributed to the intelligence victories such as the cracking of the Japanese naval and diplomatic encryptions, Operation Fortitude that stunted the German reaction to Overlord, the capture and the decryption of the German Enigma machine, and the British operation Doublecross which successfully turned every German covert operative infiltrated into Britain to work for the Allied cause.  Some have even speculated that the very German chief of the Abwehr, its military intelligence, may have secretly been turned.

The war’s aftermath, and the tremendous loss of life and capital, slammed home the importance of intelligence to US policy makers.  The surprise of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, initiating the US involvement, left an indelible mark upon the nation.  The European hegemony intended by the Soviets and the espionage levied upon its erstwhile allies, the US, was more proof of the need for change in the Community, to practice even more aggressively, this art in peacetime.

The Cold War:

The Cold War saw the creation of the modern Intelligence Community.  The multiple three-letter agencies we have today were birthed in this post-war period.  Certainly this was a necessary reaction to Soviet intentions and the most dramatic example of reactionary intelligence policies was the overreaction of the intelligence components of the military services as well as the CIA and FBI that involved domestic intelligence collections.  Up until this point, the intelligence services did not have clear limits to their practices and the judicial interpretation of the domestic protections of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments had yet to be issued.  Unfortunately for the Community, this Cold War period also saw the beginnings of politicians advancing their own interests and the interests of their party while clothing themselves in either the national security garb, or the Constitutional rights apparel.  The Pike and Church committees in the House and Senate, uncovered the domestic abuses, but in vast overreach and with the compliance of the Watergate-tamed Ford administration, severely handcuffed the Intelligence Community’s ability to protect the country from threats, primarily from within.

The War on Terrorism:

The collapse of the Soviet Union, the drawdown of standing military, the changing priorities and explosion of minor intelligence threats upon the nation, and the inevitable fallout from the Church and Pike Committees directly led to the failures that precipitated the bombing of the USS Cole and the attacks of September 11.  Following that attack, national policy makers made far more reactionary intelligence policies than ever before to include the creation of a giant new federal cabinet-level bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security.  The necessary reaction turned overreaction in the intelligence that led up to the invasion of Iraq, in which our and the rest of our allies bought completely into the Iraqi charade in which Saddam Hussein peddled himself off as a continued developer and/or possessor of nonconventional weaponry (likely performed as a hedge on regional threats and to keep corrupt UN aid and under-the-table lucrative business deals with countries like France and Russia continuing).

The biggest, and in my estimation, the costliest reactionary policy is the bureaucratization of transportation security.  The TSA has turned an over $7 billion annual budget into a bloated nightmare of a dog and pony show intended only to make the innocent travelling public feel safe as their own privacy and time is robbed of them.  I would be very interested to see economists come up with a cost estimate of the likely (now) trillions of dollars lost in economic activity due to the horrifically ineffective process of stopping potentially dangerous items from boarding aircraft, vice utilizing common sense and targeting intelligence resources to identifying and stopping the dangerous people from boarding aircraft.  I am aware of no occasion in which the TSA has successfully averted a terrorist attack.  Instead, civilian travelers (the same that are subjected to the molestation of the TSA) have recorded the actual last-measures-of-defense stopping terrorists in the act of their attacks (reference the 9/11 flight over Pennsylvania, the Richard Reid shoe bombing, and the Christmas Day underwear bomber), so in this American’s mind, it’s the civilians 3, the TSA 0.  And how much economic damage for this score?

Conclusion:

The future is bleak I am afraid, unless we as a nation get politics out of the way and concentrate on actual threats to our country.  Until we start taking seriously the threats posed by China, Iran, Russia, especially in the cyber arena (and the burgeoning threat of being beholden to our creditors), we will be at a continued disadvantage and vulnerable not just to a terrorist attack, but be impotent to defend and back up our military and national defense interests abroad.  What will this country do when (not if) China invades Taiwan?  What will we do when (still an if) the North Koreans shell Seoul?  What will we do when (debate that amongst yourselves) Israel preemptively attacks Iran over its nuclear development?  What are we going to do when Russia cuts off oil and natural gas supplies to Western Europe?  These are serious questions that have to be answered, and cannot be answered through a lens of political ideology (unless ones ideology is purely anti-American, but that is a subject for a different class).

Application:

To me, this simply means I have to (as a member of the Community) simply remain vigilant and exercise independent, informed, and original thought.  To the Department of Defense, it means taking the intelligence battle to new arenas.  The DOD must shift resources to focus on emerging threats and other resurgent, conventional threats.  The DOD must win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (political correctness be damned) by focusing not on Iraq and Afghanistan, but on regional powers with much at stake in these two theaters (Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, etc who seek to interfere with our operations).  Congress and the White House must cease this incessant political grandstanding (and this includes social engineering in our Armed Forces) and focus on threats to our national interest.

OK.  I’m done.  Talk amongst yourselves.  :)

P.S.  This opinion piece is defended with items that are taken solely from memory (and, what I consider common knowledge; and I’m at the in-laws for Christmas, away from my books); therefore there are no citations.  Sorry fellow academic poachers.  Normally I source heavily.  But hey!  Why be well-read and knowledgeable if you cannot use it ever?