War is inherently risk-intense, and therefore is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly. The more comprehensive the engagement the less predictable the outcome. So it is with the Saudi Coalition’s present intervention in Yemen. Nothing is more important than having clear, strategically valid goals and absolute imperatives before engaging in warfare. Moreover, given its unpredictability, direct conflict should be initiated as a course of last resort. Any power initiating a physical war automatically engages target and contextual factors beyond its control, quite apart from the mastery which an initiator must have over its own population, resources, and capabilities. Factors of strategic, geographic, and industrial depth, and coherently managed willpower increase in significance as the scale of the conflict increases. And the nature, duration, and scope of a conflict and its ramifications mostly evolve in ways little considered at the outset. Few wars, however, are begun […]