Center for a New American Security

Tom highlights a quote from Ike:

French divisions are always a questionable asset." -- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1945.

This blog has a fantastic network of spies who monitor the effect COIN doctrine is having on countries outside the United States. Our friend Stephanie Pezard sent along this speech that French defense minister Hervé Morin gave at the CSIS.

The French are finally studying the lessons of Waterloo:

It was a defining moment in British history – a triumph that brought the crowning of a national hero and the end of a bitter foe.

And France is determined to ensure that it never happens again.

THE French cut off the medina with three cordons of troops, through which no Arab could escape. Inside the medina were detachments of Foreign Legionnaires, colonial infantry with tanks, barefoot Berber goumiers, whose hatred of the Arabs is legendary, and French police from whose wrists swung weighted truncheons.