PCCF and the FY10 budget request

Today the White House released the details of its FY2010 budget request, totaling $3.4 trillion. I’ll probably have more to say about the defense-related provisions of the request at some point in the future, but for right now I just want to highlight one thing: the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.

Insurgent basketball: Gladwell on sports and asymmetric conflict

I was all girded up to write a couple thousand words on Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece “How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules.” I even made notes. And then I left them at work. 

So as part of my new commitment to try to write something every day (increase frequency of posts, decrease frequency of “excuses” tag), I’m just going to direct you to the article and the thread on Abu Muqawama where I got scooped in the middle of the work day. Hopefully I’ll get back to this tomorrow, because I think there’s really a lot of interesting stuff to say about this. Gladwell has really only just nibbled at the edge of this subject, but his conclusion that “effort > skill” is noteworthy.