Wednesday, June 30, 2010

HOT5 Daily 6/30/2010

1. "Strategy, What Strategy?" We have no national security strategy. Unfortunately this is not surprising.

Representative Sample: The Obama administration, according to two sources, has failed to produce a classified national security strategy, leaving the country bereft of guidance at a crucial time.

2. "Why So Much of the Western Elite Hates (or Doesn’t Like) Israel (And Their Own Societies, Too)" Long but worth reading. 

Representative Sample: Aside from all the traditional reasons—antisemitism, oil money, strategic weight of the Arab world, guilt over colonialist pasts, fear of Islamist violence, etc)—there are some very important new ideological reasons for the dislike (or hate) of Israel by large elements of the Western elite, especially what is called the intellectual elite, there are some new ones of the greatest importance.

3. "A look at the history of victories over insurgents. How often do foreign armies win?" Very interesting. Includes link to the complete RAND study. The study includes 89 recent (in historical terms) modern insurgencies.  

Representative Sample: A RAND study examines the victories of foreign armies over insurgents. It holds powerful lessons for us, and deserves more attention.

4. "Is there such a thing as "absolute morality"?" How is human morality similar worldwide, and what are the differences? 

Representative Sample: there still are endless variations on how this inner device works and culture, inherited traits, societal pressures and personal history can make different people see different and even contradicting things as good or bad.

5. "Responding to John Hawkins" Frum should not have been excluded, and smearing him as a cynical mercenary was uncalled for.

Representative Sample: Hawkins does not say, “We denied FrumForum admission to the conservative hive because they are not conservatives.” He did not say that because it would be too obviously ludicrous to do so. His complaint rather is that we are conservatives who do too much self-criticism.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

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