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An intro for those who don't know me

This is Arming for the War We're In, a newsletter about “taking non-military conflict as seriously as military conflict.” I’ve been blogging at mountainrunner.us since 2004, published a few articles at War on the Rocks, published chapters, and in the past presented at conferences and various venues (until I realized I was wasting my time). I have a book long in the works nearing completion on the actual history behind the Smith-Mundt Act and will be resuming my PhD research shortly on a relevant topic. A more complete bio may be found here.

Below is a picture I often used to conclude a presentation for something over a decade. It also represents why I quit being a speaker at conferences, though I suspect some were tired of me pointing out the discussions were constantly focused on reacting to adversary operations, a posture that fundamentally allowed, if not encouraged, our adversaries to set the time, tempo, method, and place of engagement. Our foreign policy, which can often be simplified as “stop it,” too often takes the form of Alice below.