On September 5th, Reason Magazine published a very strange assessment of the war in Ukraine, written by Paul Schwennesen, titled “The War in Ukraine Is Already Over—Russia Just Doesn’t Know it Yet.” In short, Schwennesen argues that, based on his experience recently traveling to the front in Kursk Oblast, Ukrainian will and high morale mean that the war is as good as over and that Ukrainian triumph is “inevitable.”Schwennesen’s analysis that Russia has as good as lost the war and that its conclusion might very well lead to a collapse of the Russian Federation rests on the premise that the material factors of war do not matter, and that, “A war’s end, after all, is a matter of will, of spirit” and, “Wars are won in the heart of a people, not through the rational calculations of military

There is little doubt that John Mearsheimer is one of the most prominent, and controversial, thinkers in the field of international relations alive today.

Between the ongoing war in Gaza and Houthi attacks on Western shipping in the Red Sea, the media has had plenty of gruesome foreign policy fodder for the content mill. However, this coverage has come at the expense of the ongoing grinding conflict in Ukraine, which has quickly gone from a euphoric cause célèbre to a now embarrassing catastrophe that is best shoved in the closet and forgotten like all the rest of America’s decades of costly foreign policy disasters.In recent weeks and months, the tone of coverage around the ongoing war in Ukraine has changed. At one point, any Russian advance was treated as a fluke and any Ukrainian success was seen as the precursor to an inevitable victory. The tone has now decidedly shifted, however, toward a more pessimistic view of

After an earlier article by Zachary Yost on a call by military “experts” to reinstate the military draft, the authors of the original paper are trying to back off on their original recommendation. But there is no doubt as to what they want the government to do.
Original Article: Coauthor of War College Journal Article Tries to Backtrack on Call for "Partial Conscription"

At the end of September, I reported how a recent article in the Army War College academic journal examined lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and that one of the most concerning was the claim that the military might need to reinstate the draft in order to wage a high-intensity war. I argued at length that this was an example of the military laying the groundwork to resume the draft and laid out the reasons why it might be necessary from the regime’s perspective.
This report garnered a good deal of attention online for understandable reasons; being press-ganged into the military to fight and potentially die in a war is one of the most extreme infringements on one’s liberty that can be imagined, especially since the US has a track record of fighting, and losing, pointless wars on the

Not satisfied with the futile and destructive wars it has fought in this century, leaders of the US Armed Forces now want reinstatement of the draft. Instead, perhaps our government should give peace a chance.

Original Article: The US Military Is Laying the Groundwork to Reinstitute the Draft

The most recent edition of the US Army War College’s academic journal includes a highly disturbing essay on what lessons the US military should take away from the continuing war in Ukraine. By far the most concerning and most relevant section for the average American citizen is a subsection entitled “Casualties, Replacements, and Reconstitutions” which, to cut right to the chase, directly states, “Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.”
An Industrial War of Attrition Would Require Vast Numbers of Troops
The context for this supposed need to reinstate conscription is the estimate that were the US to enter into a large-scale conflict, every day it would likely

The fight between Russia and NATO is not about "democracy versus authoritarianism." Rather both the US and Russian states are doubling down because they are doing what states do: seeking power.

Original Article: "The Ukraine War Isn’t about Democracy. It’s about States Seeking More Power."

Writing for The Volokh Conspiracy, hosted by Reason magazine, George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin argues that the war in Ukraine amounts to a clash between liberal democracy and authoritarian nationalism and that these stakes must be taken into account when continuing to support Ukraine.
Somin argues that the ideology of the winning side in a war receives a boost, pointing to the rise and then fall of fascism and communism. These examples are lacking, to say the least, and hardly prove that a wartime victory necessarily leads to the triumph of the winner’s ideology.
To begin with, Somin’s own examples of the rise of communism and fascism seem to refute his own point. The more or less liberal democratic Entente powers won the First World War, but rather than seeing liberal

In the early morning of July 6th, an explosion damaged a monument in Georgia known as the Georgia Guidestones. Because of the damage, the rest of the monument was demolished for safety reasons. The stones were erected by anonymous donors in 1980 and list ten principles for humanity. At the time of writing, it seems that the explosion was the result of purposeful sabotage.

From the darkened cinema to the football field to the airport screening line, the US government inflated the actual threat of terrorism and the necessity of an aggressive military response.

Original Article: "US Military Propaganda in Film, Sports, and TV: It’s Everywhere"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon. Narrated by Michael Stack.

Sohrab Ahmari’s new book The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in An Age of Chaos is so disappointing I don’t know where to begin. This may seem to be a harsh invective, but in reality, it is a confession. My previous attempts to review this book have resulted in little more than hours and hours of frustration and discarded drafts.

The Washington Post reports that a group of thirty-three current and former students at Christian colleges are suing the Department of Education in a class action lawsuit in an attempt to abolish any religious exemptions for schools that do not abide by the current sexual and gender zeitgeist sweeping the land.

Private property is an institution central to civilization and beneficial human interaction. When central banks distort this institution with easy money, the social effects can be disastrous. 

On February 4, 2021, Democrats in the House and Senate introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. Like many names in Washington, this one is an Orwellian misnomer that does the exact opposite of what it claims to be doing. If passed, the bill, which is basically a union wish list, would radically transform the nature of the labor market in the US with numerous sweeping and heavy-handed changes.

On January 19 it was announced that Joe Biden planned to nominate Rachel Levine, the Pennsylvania (PA) secretary of health, for the position of assistant secretary of health in the Department of Health and Human Services. This is potentially good news for Pennsylvanians, who will finally be rid of her after having had to endure her disastrous covid lockdowns and restrictions for nearly a year, but is likely bad news for the rest of the country.

“There are no libertarians in an epidemic” crowed Atlantic reporter Peter Nicholas back on March 10, as he listed the numerous economic interventions the Trump administration was undertaking in the wake of the mounting COVID-19 crisis. This intervention, Nicholas declared, just goes to show you that whatever antigovernment talk one might talk, government intervention in the economy is “nothing new and, as may well prove the case this time around, it’s often necessary.”