Well, we’ve had the first round of debates among those who wish to run against the incumbent president. As is normal, much time was spent discussing what specific programs each would institute to the benefit of various groups in society. Students are offered loan forgiveness, everyone is offered health care, some talk about a guaranteed […]

Some early thoughts from Arrias on July 4th…and the REAL Old Navy. If you are ever find yourself riding along Route 6A in West Barnstable (the “north side” of Cape Cod), drop by one of the old cemeteries and find the grave of Captain John “Mad Jack” Percival. Jack Percival was one of those characters […]

So, President Trump didn’t strike Iran. (Although reporting now suggests that he did attack Iran – cyber attacks on both the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and on their air defense systems.) In any case, this isn’t the first time a President has recalled a strike, nor will it be the last. We all may have viscerally […]

Hong Kong: an amazing blend of east and west, with shades of both London and Shanghai, an incredible, bustling city full of energy. And freedom. That started changing in 1997, when the British ceded Hong Kong back to the People’s Republic of China. Beijing promised Hong Kong would remain, well, Hong Kong, that there would […]

Imagine “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz has been paroled and is moving into your neighborhood. Can you forgive and forget? Should you? June 4th marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, the Chinese government’s violent suppression of student demonstrators calling for reform; they killed several thousand students. Since then policy “sages” have insisted we […]

“Thrice armed is he who has a quarrel just, But four times is he who gets his blow in fust” So went a little piece of doggerel in the early days of World War I (actually from an American several decades earlier) as the Royal Navy and the German Navy squared off against each other. […]

In Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore Sir Joseph Porter sings that he’s done many things in his career that led to being named First Lord of the Admiralty, but none of them took place at sea, or, for that matter, had anything to do with ships. The Chorus tells us: “Stick close to your desks […]

I wish Secretary of Defense Shanahan all the best; by all accounts it’s a thankless job. That said, I offer these thoughts from the cheap seats, things he might want to “take a second look at.” War Plans – there are multiple OPLANS and CONPLANS (Operations Plans and Contingency Plans); someone needs to start working […]

George Washington once (perhaps apocryphally) noted that: “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Which is important to remember in light of a recent poll by a major US university that indicated that a majority of Americans believe we […]

The majority opinion seemed to be, in the wake of the last summit between North Korea and the US, that the summit was a failure. As there was no agreement, I suppose that’s an accurate, if limited, assessment. If the whole point of the summit was to produce an agreement, no matter what that agreement […]