Mariupol. Kharkiv. Bucha. Donbas. We’ve all quickly, unintentionally become experts on Ukrainian geography, tutored by a relentless barrage of news stories and videos detailing the Russian assault. After months of ferocious battle, what's the endgame: victory? Stalemate? Partition? Who knows? Even Vladimir Putin, venting his rage against Ukraine’s intransigent bid to be European while yanking his own country from authoritarian kleptocracy into neo-fascist totalitarianism, appears to be flailing for an answer.

How could 75,000 Taliban sweep afghan cities from 300,000 well-trained, better-equipped government forces—forces that mostly folded and fled?

Between 2012 and early 2013, the forces of the jihadist organization known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its allies came within a hair’s breadth of entirely conquering the country of Mali. Riding on a wave of civil discontent within the Malian government, the jihadist forces were able to hijack an ethnically based rebellion, capitalize on a fractured government and bring nearly two-thirds of the country under their control. 

The noise cuts through the darkness like a knife—insisting and incessant. I wake, utterly confused. A strange dream slowly dissipates. For a second, I am unsure of where I am, until recollection begins to manifest.

On 8 September 2021, Ali Maisam Nazary, the Head of Foreign Relations for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), sat for an online interview with John Arquilla, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Defense Analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California.

The US military's shift from fighting irregular conflicts to preparing for Great Power competition has tremendous logic in the face of China’s continued rise as a modern military power with a significant economic base.

One evening in the autumn of 1994, secret negotiations of the utmost importance took place deep inside the al-Maqar palace compound in Amman, Jordan, home of the Jordanian royal family and the site of key government offices.

Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force?