Philip Gold

Of MICE and Men: Rumsfeld for the Defense

On Sept. 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the man the MICE —— the Military-Industrial-Congressional Empire — loved to hate. Today, after nine months as everybody’s favorite “secretary of war,” the MICE are chewing on him again. The reason, then and now: “transformation,” or Rumsfeld’s attempt to drag America’s defense establishment, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. The Read More ›

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pre sunrise hike //
Photo by Ahmad Jawed on Unsplash

Against All Terror

The Afghan war drags on. Nobody knows where the next war or terrorist strike will come, or how soon, or how bad it will be. Nobody knows where the defense budget is going, except up, up and away. America remains steadfast. But increasingly, America wants explanations and answers. Enter Against All Terrors: This People’s Next Defense. This is one of Read More ›

Tribunals are American Way

This war is full of surprises. And among the strangest so far has been the reaction to President Bush’s decision to establish military tribunals to try certain terrorist suspects. To our knowledge, none have so far been held. Procedures are still being worked out by a Defense Department that regards the assignment with considerably less than total enthusiasm. Only suspects Read More ›

Defending the 21st Century

“Against All Terrors” is one man’s vision for reshaping America’s way of defending its interests. Philip Gold, a Discovery Institute defense analyst, has written a book for the layperson who might not normally read a book about terrorism or defense issues. And while this approach occasionally causes the book to be overly broad, Gold succeeds in bringing a basic understanding Read More ›

Rules of TV Punditry

“We’d like you for an on-air terrorism and defense commentator.” “No.” “We’ll pay you.” “Yes.” And so, last September, I morphed from think tank policy pogue (a venerable military term denoting anyone who’s farther from the fighting than you are) into regional TV bobble head. KING5 in Seattle and their co-located sister station, NorthWest Cable News. Good folks. Good product. Read More ›

In from the Cold: Review of Derek Leebaert’s “The Fifty Year Wound”

When the Cold War ended, historians and pundits rightly cautioned that it would take time to sort it all out. Most then spent the next 10 years flailing about to buttress their previously held opinions. A cumulating tonnage of American and Soviet revelations, selectively invoked and analyzed by all sides, demonstrated nothing so much as a sclerotic determination to keep Read More ›

Clinton’s Afghan Triumph?

My Beltway friend was furious. “Every cocktail party I go to, the liberals are claiming it was Bill Clinton’s military that won Afghanistan.” “Glad we go to different parties,” rejoindered I from Seattle. Then I started hearing it on television, and noticed a similar claim in, of all places, The Washington Times. According to Morton Kondracke’s column of Feb. 4, Read More ›