Author’s Note: My Muse has a burr under her saddle about things… – Arrias What Makes Sense? It doesn’t make much sense to me All that is going on, Terrorists conduct a raid On a warm, clear dawn. Raping, burning, killing, Civilians, all unarmed. More than a thousand so they say, Hundreds more badly harmed. […]

In virtually any situation, from sports to geo-politics, you can usually parse things down to one major actor and a whole bunch of reactors. There may also be spectators, but usually they’re reacting as well. For the US, as the world’s preeminent great power, maintaining some level of stability requires that we stay in front […]

Author’s Note: I know this is impossible, but it really needs to be said… While the Israelis pursue their plan to sweep through Gaza, the question that bugs me is this: what is the long term solution to the Gaza Strip? As I see it, there are four major paths forward for Gaza – in […]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Just needed to say this… – ARRIAS A good man passed away the other day… I’ll call him Mr. Smith. He deserves, as much as is possible, given his career, a note on his passing. You don’t know him, and in all likelihood you never will. He worked for one of those organizations […]

When a Captain or Colonel is promoted to admiral or general, he is sent through a program called “Capstone,” which is basically a 6 week program to make sure all new admirals and generals understand how the services integrate in support of national strategy. A friend of mine told me that when he went through […]

Cruising in an Auburn roadster, Sliding down a twisting country lane, Speckled sunlight through the elms, In the distance lumbers a huge coal train. With a sultry blonde by my side, We drive beside a lazy river, A stand of towering cottonwoods, In the breeze their leaves gently shiver. She’s wears a broad straw hat […]

There’s a minor cottage industry that has sprung up in the last 12 months in which various foreign policy mavens play Nostradamus and forecast “How the War in Ukraine will end,” some with a good deal of detail, some with a very broad hand waving at a map of the world. Of course, using the […]

A distant moan, a growl, the treetops shake, A rafter of turkeys wander out of the trees, Pecking through the grass, feathers ruffled in the breeze, Dawn approaches, the Dismal Swamp awakes. The deer disappear, under the still-green leaf, Fat they’ve all grown through summer’s dog days, Soon trees’ will be dressed in a multi-hued […]

There is a great scene in “the Raiders of the Lost Ark” in which Indiana Jones jumps on a horse to chase the Nazis in their big Mercedes Benz touring car, and he is asked: “What are you going to do?” Jones answers, in his insouciant, devil-may-care style: “I don’t know, I’m making this up […]

There have been a number of articles of late that have made the case that the only thing we can all do now in Ukraine is to back the Ukrainians all the way to victory. The basics of the argument are: The war has involved so much violence on both sides that neither side has […]