Nothing Changes On New Years Day: DeMarco Banter

For years, I have posted this EVERY NEW YEAR'S--and I started thinking, does it mean anything new now? New Year’s Day has aged remarkably well precisely because it was never about a calendar flip. It was always about the tension between symbolic moments and structural reality—a problem leaders, strategists, and innovators are still wrestling with. Every New …

The Trap of Either/Or Thinking: Why Strategy Fails When We Mistake Dichotomies for Dialectics: DeMarco Banter

One of the quiet killers of strategy—especially in large institutions—is the false comfort of the dichotomy. Militaries are particularly prone to it. We divide the world into clean opposing bins: Strategy vs. Operations, Kinetic vs. Non-Kinetic, Conventional vs. Irregular, Innovation vs. Discipline, Speed vs. Rigor. These binaries feel decisive. They give leaders the sense that clarity has been achieved and choices have been made. But …

Regime Change Is an Event. Instability Is a Process: DeMarco Banter

I, along with so many of my peers, have been professionally involved in, adjacent to, or forced to reckon with American regime-change efforts since Panama. I was a young officer when Noriega was removed quickly, decisively, and—by historical standards—cleanly, an experience that would later prove to be the exception rather than the rule. From Panama …

 Icons in the Shadows: What Bowie, Dylan, Ozzy, and Idol Taught Me About Life at the Edge—DeMarco Banter

I just finished reading Dancing with Myself Billy Idol’s raw and intense autobiography. Around the same time, I watched the Ozzy Osbourne biography—No Escape From Now, an oddly moving portrait of the Prince of Darkness. Then there was A Complete Unknown, the 2024 biopic starring Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan and loosely based on Elijah …

 A Comparative Assessment of National Power: The U.S., China, and the DIME Framework in an Age of Strategic Compression: DeMarco Banter 

Understanding the current geopolitical landscape begins with examining the strategic chessboard defined by Washington and Beijing. Their rivalry now shapes the structure of global economics, the tempo of military modernization, the direction of technological innovation, and the alignment of diplomatic blocs. Few bilateral relationships in modern history have exerted such sweeping influence. The international system …