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...weeks ago, a well-known U.S. military expert gave a wise speech about the near impossibility of making a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy work in Afghanistan. He gave two examples. The first was digging a well: "How could you do anything wrong by digging a well to give people clean water?" Well, you could create new enemies by where you dug the well and who controlled it. You could lose a village by trying to help it. And then there was the matter of what he called COIN mathematics. If there are 10 Taliban and you kill two, how many...
...China's past 60 years can be divided into roughly two halves. First came the period of ceaseless revolution, with all the widespread turmoil and suffering it perpetrated. Then the time of gradual reform, which has brought greater prosperity and freedom than China has ever known but which is still characterized by grave corruption and terrible injustice under a stern authoritarianism. Today China is many things, often contradictory: rich and poor, open and closed, liberated and oppressed, confident and insecure. But it decidedly isn't Marxist - or even Maoist. (See pictures of modern Shanghai...
...know, MI5 is the first government agency to actually identify a sense of humor as a desirable trait in a recruit. When you look at the world of espionage, it's the only profession in which a fictional character is at least a hundred times better known than any real character. James Bond is the only brand leader to have remained in the top spot over the years. An intelligence officer once told me that in the depths of the Third World he met a tribal leader whom he thought knew no English but who addressed him with the famous...
...when May and other members of Cameron's top team turned out for the Pride festivities on Tuesday, Oct. 6, they wanted to demonstrate that such homophobia has been banished from the Tory ranks. Earlier this year, Cameron apologized for the 1986 legislation, known as Section 28, and even predicted that Britain's first gay Prime Minister would be a Tory. "If we do win the next election, instead of being a white, middle-class, middle-aged party, we will be far more diverse," he said. (Read "Q & A with David Cameron: Why Britain Needs a 'Compassionate Conservative...
Guinean leader Moussa Dadis Camara was little-known even in his own country before seizing control of the troubled West African nation in December following the death of its longtime dictator. The former junior military officer has vaulted to world prominence since the brutal massacre of his opponents by security forces on Sept. 28. Authorities shot, stabbed and beat protesters who were assembled at a stadium in the capital of Conakry, killing 157 people and injuring more than 1,000. Witnesses said scores of women were sexually assaulted and raped by soldiers. Camara, 45, has not accepted responsibility...