Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 151

"Writing Wednesdays": An Experiment

I'm going to try something new on Wednesdays from now on, which is to post pieces that are not about tribalism or Afghanistan, but about writing. This is #1.
The subject is professionalism. If you've read my book The War of Art, you know that I view professionalism not only as an asset ...

From a Vietnam Vet: A Guest Blog

My dear friend Printer Bowler is a former army captain who served with psychological operations units in Viet Nam (1966-67). He was attached to the Third Marine Amphibious force, I Corps near the DMZ. He's a perennial history student, now teaching, writing and pumping out radical troop-support propaganda from his home ...

Weekend Mashup July 17-19

Thank you for your Weekend Mashup suggestions.
 
A few of the blogs I've been introduced to this week include Global Guerrillas, Ink Spots, Sosh-P and Building Peace. When I saw T.X. Hammes mentioned in Building Peace's July 13 post, I was sold. All four are great blogs. Suggest you visit if ...

The Learning Curve

 
By Mark Safranski—aka "Zenpundit"
Steven Pressfield invited me to do a guest post here at "Tribes" and give my assessment of the vigorous debate that greeted the entry of "It's the Tribes, Stupid: War & Reality in Afghanistan" into the blogosphere. Or, at least the corner of the blogosphere that is concerned ...

What I Would Say Differently If I Were Saying It Again

 
The "It's the Tribes, Stupid" series launched just over a month ago.
 
The first episode and blog entry laid out my thesis—that what we're up against in Afghanistan is tribalism and the tribal mind-set. The comments started arriving.
 
Tribes, the Tribal Mindset, and the Enemy
           
Fabius Maximus was among the first ...

Weekend Mashup

It's been one month since the June 8th launch of "It's the Tribes, Stupid." One month since I stepped into the blogosphere, sent my first "tweet" and was introduced to more sites, blogs, and social media participants than I knew existed. It has been a real education.
 As I move forward, ...

Horse Sense, or What We Can Learn from a British Cavalry Officer of the 1830s

One of my favorite writers, Patrick Devenny, wrote an article recently for Foreign Policy that's not only fascinating and fun, but also has much to teach us about, in Mr. Devenny's words, "one of the most complicated problems in Afghanistan today: the training and oversight of local defense forces."
 
The article, ...

A Tale of Two Captains, Part Two

 


[caption id="attachment_365" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Tribal elders tell US Special Forces about their "muj days," fighting the Russians":][/caption:]

A week ago I ran a post about two young Army captains—Jim Gant and Michael Harrison—who served in the same valley in Konar province, Afghanistan.  Their service was six years apart, yet the two ...

What I've Learned About Blogging So Far

In the coming weeks, I'll start posting on regular days, probably Mondays and Thursdays (I'm working on it), probably a long piece and a short one. On other random days I'll post "I take it back" pieces, highlighting how comments or correspondence have changed or expanded my thinking. I want ...

Sisyphus, Sean Naylor and C-SPAN

First, many thanks to all correspondents and contributors for the tremendous and very thoughtful response  to the previous post, "A Tale of Two Captains." More to come in a couple of days about Capt. Harrison's work, including an update dispatch from him in Konar.
But first, here's a strikingly apt flashback ...