Eeben Barlow's Military and Security Blog

As a young officer, I had little to no clue what our doctrine was or indeed even what ‘doctrine’ really entailed. I viewed it as one of ...

The phrase “If we don’t know where we are going, we can be sure we will never know how to get there” essentially refers to an absence of ...

A lot of people have asked my thoughts on fragile and failed states. I believe the following with regard to fragile and failed states: ...

And now for something completely different… I have had repeated requests over the years to develop programmes or workshops to share m...

Some of my Nigerian friends and I were discussing the situation in Mali and the apparent lack of good advice, intelligence, strategy, tra...

Threat prediction is a vital pre-requisite of strategy development. It can, however, be a difficult and problematic task if the intelligenc...

Fighting the complex and diverse wars of today requires us to be prepared to face an enemy who has no scruples in utilising crime, and tot...

Africa has been wracked by numerous wars, civil wars, rebellions and insurgencies, conflicts that have all been very similar in progression ...