Brian M Downing and the world at war. Timely, thoughtful, and nonpartisan analysis of military matters. @BrianMDowning1.
Thinking About Nuclear War . . . and Other Things Brian M Downing Like many people, Alex Abella first learned of the RAND Corporation amid the passions of the Vietnam War, to which the famous think tank contributed many analyses. He realized then that the period was not conducive to Read More …
Brian M Downing Israel and Russia have a sound working relationship. Antisemitism has permeated Russia for centuries. The Soviet Union restricted Jewish emigration for many years and only relented after protracted US pressure. Nonetheless, many Israelis retain fondness for their former country and respect Russia for liberating Nazi camps, including Read More …
Brian M Downing Over the last thirty years or so, criticism of the military has been rare. It’s taboo in many quarters. Harsh assessments of the generals are usually deemed unwarranted, or unpatriotic, or an unwelcome return to the vicious and misguided discourse of the Vietnam War. Washington Post writer Read More …
Brian M Downing The Vietnam War had many ironies, twists, and convolutions. Villages, it was said, had to be destroyed in order to save them. Leaders saw signs of significant progress shortly before an unexpectedly strong enemy offensive. The values and institutions that governed America were close to collapse as a Read More …
Sharon Weinberger, Imaginary Weapons: A Journey through the Pentagon’s Scientific Underworld. New York: Nation Books, 2006. xxviii + 276; $26.00 (cloth). Reviewed by Brian M. Downing In the early 1960s, shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Stanley Kubrick began to write the screenplay for a Cold War thriller about an Read More …
Brian M Downing Syrian Kurds have played a critical role in the ISIL War. They handed ISIL its first defeat at Kobane, where the seemingly invincible band was driven back from the Turkish border with heavy losses. Today Kurdish troops serve in the composite Syrian Democratic Forces which are about Read More …
Brian M Downing Moscow and Washington vied for influence around the world in the first Cold War. They are doing the same in the second. In the first, the Soviet Union’s reach into the Gulf was limited. The USSR was atheistic, opposed to monarchy, and aligned with secular republics such Read More …
Brian M Downing President Trump ordered the Pentagon to present him with a more aggressive strategy for fighting ISIL, and the chiefs are about to offer options. One option calls for deploying more troops to Syria. The units would not be ground combat units, rather they would be primarily support troops to help Read More …
Brian M Downing Yesterday, in a decidedly informal press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump dropped American support for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He went on to say in passing that he would accept whatever solution the Israel government and Palestinian leadership arrived at. Meanwhile, expansion Read More …
Brian M Downing The new administration has taken several bold steps regarding the Middle East. The executive order on immigration from seven Muslim countries caused an uproar, though that’s far less important than its imprecision and questionable constitutionality. The plan to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Read More …