The Strategos

It cannot be said with certainty whether the idea to put the other cheek up after receiving a slap on one is still celebrated or not. However, it can be safely assumed that if there were a choice between returning the slap to the perpetrator and giving him another chance to repeat the attack, few would choose the latter. Arguably, it was the New Testament that first proposed this idea, which was then followed and propagated to the public at large to varying degrees by leaders around the world. The idea of non-violence has taken many different shapes and forms as it has translated into the real world. It is interesting to investigate how an idea that leaders and thinkers like Gandhi and Tolstoy held so close to their hearts came to be under the purview of strategy.  To many, pacifism is a tool of the weak as it dissociates from the idea of using strength in its conventional form. It is argued; those lacking the traditional means to confront the established authority seek refuge in...

“Did the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 do any good for the Middle East or the world?” This is the question that still haunts the USA and breeds serious doubts on the credibility of the US as a responsible superpower. The series of events that have followed the US invasion have been far from those expected. The unstable nature of the region in the recent decades can well be seen as after-effects of what US did in Iraq. The reasons given by the US for invading a sovereign nation far from its borders have been far from convincing. Nonetheless, the significant effects the invasion has had on Iraq in particular and the region at large have not diminished in the last decade.   The world has changed a lot since USA first got involved in Iraq with an aim to rescue Kuwait. What has remained same is one of the primary causes of the problems the region struggles with at present that can be backtracked to what US did in 2003. Following the defeat of Iraq and the restoration of Kuwaiti gove...