Want To Write For ‘The Long March’? We Want To Hear From You

Editor’s note: The Long March will be closed for inventory the month of August. We regret any inconvenience this causes our loyal customers. In an effort to keep you reasonably content and focussed, we are offering re-runs of some of the best columns of the year. We value your custom and hope you will stick around for . . . the Long March.

I am interested in new and different voices to write about military affairs and national security. What works best is something that uses your own experiences and knowledge. It could be a short memoir. It could be an analysis of current news. It could even be a book review. (I plan next week to run a review of the new collection of “Terminal Lance Corporal” strips. But I’ll also run an excerpt on how British strategy worked in the 19th century.)

What works best is around 600 words (people stop reading after that). The tone should be clear but not breezy — like you were talking to your girlfriend or other intelligent friend over a bottle of wine at the end of an interesting day. Make your point in the first sentence, then explore it, and support it with some evidence, in quotations or anecdotes or numbers. Then maybe briefly give a nod to the counter-arguments. Then wind it up with a one or two paragraph look at the way forward—the implications or your recommendations. As for opinion, say whatever you like–I don't have to agree with it. It just needs to make sense.

Then e-mail it to me at ricksblogcomment(at)gmail.com.

You also can use that address to ask if a subject would be of interest.

It helps to read the column a bit to get a sharper sense of what works, and how to write for it. And of course I’d be pleased if you read it every day, to get a sense of what already has been written about. Responses to items also are good.