Mosul and America’s Quixotic Search for the “Decisive” Battle

by James A. Russell and Donald Abenheim The Super Bowl-like reporting about the assault on Mosul is regrettably but perhaps inevitably cloaked in America’s desperate search for a clear-cut, decisive battle that will allow the country to bask in the glow… Continue Reading

Islamic State: Apocalypse Postponed?

by Derek Davison When the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) began publishing an online magazine in 2014, it named the new publication Dabiq, after the north Syrian town by the same name, which ISIS captured later that same year. The… Continue Reading

Why Victory Over IS Won’t Solve the Real Problem Facing Iraq and Syria

by Derek Davison A recent spate of high-casualty Islamic State-linked attacks in France, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and (arguably) Orlando, Florida, has raised fears about the group’s ability to carry out international terrorist strikes while also obscuring its failures at… Continue Reading

Washington’s Military Addiction

by Tom Engelhardt There are the news stories that genuinely surprise you, and then there are the ones that you could write in your sleep before they happen. Let me concoct an example for you: “Top American and European military… Continue Reading

Failed States and States of Failure

by Tom Engelhardt One of the charms of the future is its powerful element of unpredictability, its ability to ambush us in lovely ways or bite us unexpectedly in the ass. Most of the futures I imagined as a boy… Continue Reading