1st B-log

Every time we go into a war and we don’t figure out what the political end state is … we don’t know how to end them.   I think the first thing, if you go back a few years, what you’ll find, there’s a great article written in The Atlantic I recommend to you.  I believe it was July of 2013 and it’s written by the former President Emeritus of Dartmouth University Jim Wright. He said, “what did we learn from the Korean war?”  If you look at the wars from probably Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, dare I say Afghanistan, every time we go into a war and we don’t figure out what the political end state is, we get into wars and we don’t know how to end them. Then you’ve got a real problem. Every time we go into a war and we don’t figure out what the political end state is … we don’t know how to end them. The most important thing is, if you have to go to war, then do everything you can not to go to war if at all possible. Then you’ve got to get the political end state right or you’ll never fi

You go all the way back to Thucydides who wrote the first history and it was of a war and he said it’s fear and honor and interest and those continue to this day. The technology and the way wars are fought, they’re like chameleons, a dead German guy wrote, and it changes constantly, especially when you mix technology and all. But it’s still full of fear and courage, cowardice and duplicity, treachery, and clarity, honesty and confusion. It’s a fundamental and predictable phenomenon. So just mix in all the new technologies, the way a society thinks, and you put all that together and out of it comes a non-quantifiable that results in victory or defeat. So it’s hard to say, It’ll certainly be aspects that are in outer space and in the cyber domain that were not there before. We fought on this planet mostly with ground armies until navies became something one hundred years ago. Air forces joined and now in the last ten years, we’ve added space and cyber. So it’ll be a very complex

History will show you not all the answers, but it’ll tell you a lot of the questions to ask. The human condition, the aspirations, the dreams, the problems that are associated with being social animals, not being a hermit and living alone, but having to interact with others, whether it be your local school district, your community, your state, your county, your national, your international relations, history will show you not all the answers, but it’ll tell you a lot of the questions to ask and furthermore, it will show you how other people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar type issues. I wish now looking back on it, if I’d known what waited for me in life, I would have put a lot more attention into history.

I don’t care for ideological people.   It’s like those people just want to stop thinking. By sitting down and talking with them, after having a good strong argument, going out and having a root beer with them, maybe showing up at the same church, maybe going to the hospital to see their kid when they’re having their appendix out, reminds you that they’re human beings too.  There’s no reason to get all worked up as if someone is evil or crazy. For one thing, none of us are perfect and all-knowing, so this might be their right, and that’s why I don’t care for ideological people. It’s like those people just want to stop thinking.  They know what they think, they don’t read anything but one newspaper that agrees with them or they watch only one television news show because it reinforces them, instead of listening to the ones that don’t agree with them. So, I think the way you get over it is, you take people one at a time and you give them the same credit you give yours

Resolute on the Ground and Reasonable in Diplomacy should be the  FOREIGN POLICY  for China Month after Doklam withdrawal, more Chinese troops on the plateau than ever before The Indian team was given instructions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his two principal aides - NSA Doval and foreign secretary S. Jaishankar - on the redlines: India would remain 'resolute on the ground and reasonable in diplomacy'. In other words, India was willing to discuss mutual disengagement or withdrawal but it would not step back just because the Chinese were making threatening noises. "Doklam was never about the PLA leaving," says an Indian army official. "It was about them staying." And while the world's attention was focused on Doklam, the PLA quietly moved deeper into Bhutanese territory. "De-escalation at Doklam is one phase," says Jayadeva Ranade, ex-additional secretary (R&AW) and a China analyst. "The Chinese are smarting and will

When we sit in the very center of all our chaos and stop fighting it or wishing it away it is possible to find the present moment. And in the present moment we find our center, a.k.a. the eye of the storm. “At the center of a fierce tropical storm, there is a small area where the weather is calm, the sky is clear, and the winds are just light breezes. This area is called the eye of the storm.” When we stay centered and in the present moment, peace and calm are possible all the time. No matter what. When we try to runaway from what is happening in our lives or race through it we move into the eyewall: “Surrounding the eye is the eyewall, which is the most violent part of hurricane.” When we put all our efforts into getting away from the storm in our lives, we move into agitation, anger, upset. Yet if we stay exactly in the center of our selves, in the center of our lives in this moment we are fine. In each moment we are just fine. In fact calm weather, clear skies and light bre

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Is  artificial intelligence creating jobs, hardly stealing ? About 9 out of 10 Indian companies say artificial intelligence (AI) has created new jobs, according to a study report by IT services and consulting firm Capgemini. The same report mentioned that every 6 out of 10 Indian companies have been implementing AI in their operations. India has seen more than 20 per cent of such new roles in AI and digital technology being created at very senior level (C-suite), unlike other countries, noted the report. All the Indian companies who have been surveyed said they expect AI to increase effectiveness at varied operational categories. What is 'C-Suite' C-Suite, or C-Level, is a widely-used slang term used to collectively refer to a corporation's most important senior executives. C-Suite gets its name from the titles of top senior executives which tend to start with the letter C, for chief, as in chief  executive officer (CEO), chief financ