Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

BD comment of the day: ‘You are wrong about the early privateers’

Now that (on the second page of comments about my three proposed options for national service) is a classic Best Defense comment, especially because it came smack in the middle of a discussion of a contemporary issue. I am sure others’ tastes run to the more refined later privateers. It reminds me of a squabble ...

561671_101122_Confaince_Kent_fight2.jpg
561671_101122_Confaince_Kent_fight2.jpg

Now that (on the second page of comments about my three proposed options for national service) is a classic Best Defense comment, especially because it came smack in the middle of a discussion of a contemporary issue. I am sure others’ tastes run to the more refined later privateers. It reminds me of a squabble we once had about rates of fire and ranges of fire of the bolt-action, breech-loading chassepot in the Franco-Prussian War.

Meanwhile, Doonesbury offers a tribute to the new Call of Duty: Black Ops. I wonder if the next list of the Top 10 Songs to Kill By will have to include “Sympathy for the Devil,” which I am told is on the Black Ops soundtrack.

The only two comic strips I read every day are Doonesbury and Dilbert. To me they represent the two sides of American life in this recessionary, war-strained, shitty era.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

More from Foreign Policy

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment

Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.

How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China

As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.

What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal

Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.

A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.
A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.

Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust

Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.