The Algerian

William Palafox is a retired naval officer who after over two decades of service to this great republic came to the distressing realization that he had paid far too much attention to enemies foreign and far too little to those domestic.  It was as a civil affairs officer in Iraq that he first recognized the sizable divergence between the goals of American foreign policy and the interests of average American citizens, the very citizens called upon to fight our wars.  While in Afghanistan, serving as an embedded military advisor in Kandahar, he quickly understood that however benighted Afghan culture might be, they were instinctively repelled by the moral degeneracy they saw attached to American attempts at democratization, a degeneracy the average American has foolishly accepted as the price of a free society.  As a lifelong student of military history and as a distinguished graduate of the United States Naval War College, he has a keen interest in understanding the circumstances attendant upon the rise and fall of great powers and believes we are witnessing the first stages of the decline of the United States, a decline precipitated entirely by the venality and hubris of its ruling class and the inattentiveness and laxity of the ruled.  He is convinced that reform through the electoral process is highly unlikely and that civil war is inevitable.  His novel The Algerian posits what one possible scenario for the conflict to come could look like. He enjoys upland hunting and saltwater fishing and resides in Central Virginia with his family.