Recent examples in favour of patience

I didn't write much in the blog lately. The reasons are twofold; motivation/distraction and my own standards for quality.


I may drop a few 'light' topics in between, but I won't fill large gaps with 'light' topics.

Another quality standard is a feeling in the area of my stomach: It's an impressively reliable warning indicator when something is a poor idea. It advised me to be patient in regard to several recent topics recently:

The MV Arctic Sea mystery, for example. I want(ed) to wait till the story becomes reliable. it's enticing as an anecdote, but even mere anecdotes should be right.

The Mistral story was another example. It did apparently turn out to be a completely overblown story.

The articles about equipment deficiencies of German troops in Afghanistan were apparently only about already solved problems (good from an OPSEC point of view) and therefore not what they seemed to be as well.


This shows how being a multiplier for "breaking news" isn't necessarily a good thing. Sometimes you should simply have enough patience and wait for a final result before spending much attention on a story. Some stories take weeks, others even years till they're reliable.

And then there's the really old stuff that still holds valuable lessons without any relation to recent events...


I expect to stay away from the current Afghanistan strategy discussion as well. It's quite likely that there's no readiness for a new political Afghanistan strategy, and I have little confidence that a new military Afghanistan strategy will yield much net improvement.
The West seems to be stuck in that place and its troubles more for political reasons than for any other reasons, and generals are likely not in the right position to overcome this fundamental problem.


My "Freedom in Germany" series is struggling; there's much to write, but the motivation is lacking. It's quite depressing to mention all those worrying tendencies and developments.


An interest in operational theory and a lot of writing for other purposes than the blog keep me from writing daily posts as well.


Sven Ortmann

edit:
The Kunduz bombing incident is also such a case. So far all "info" about it should be treated as rumour, and rumours are only entertainment or inspiration for research. The real info value comes only once the affair is settled and reliable, stable information is available.
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