William S. Lind

William Lind is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation. He is a former congressional aide and the author of many books and articles on military strategy and war.

Last Exit Before Quagmire

The Washington Post yesterday made available an unclassified version of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s long-awaited report on the war in Afghanistan. Politically, the report is bold, in that it acknowledges the enemy has the initiative and we have been fighting the war – for eight years – in counterproductive ways. But intellectually, both as analysis and … Continue reading “Last Exit Before Quagmire”

The Silence of the Sheep

In early July, U.S. Army Col. Timothy Reese committed truth. According to a story by Michael Gordon in the New York Times (reprinted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where I saw it), Col. Reese wrote "an unusually blunt memo [concluding] that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi … Continue reading “The Silence of the Sheep”

One Step Forward,
One Step Back

According to the July 3 Cleveland Plain Dealer, President Barack Obama said something very interesting last week. He told the AP that he has "a very narrow definition of success when it comes to our national security interests" in Afghanistan. "And that is that al-Qaeda and its affiliates cannot set up safe havens from which … Continue reading “One Step Forward,
One Step Back”

DOD Can’t Handle the Truth?

At the height of the Cold War, a U.S. Army corps commander in Europe asked for information on his Soviet opposite, the commander of the corps facing him across the inter-German border. All the U.S. intelligence agencies, working with classified material, came up with very little. He then took his question to Chris Donnelly, who … Continue reading “DOD Can’t Handle the Truth?”