zenpundit.com

Top Billing! Mike Few – Blood Done Signed My Name

Major Mike Few takes leave of editorial duties at SWJ for a guest post at Carl Prine’s Line of Departure:

….Duke professor Timothy B. Tyson’s Blood Done Signed My Name: A True Story describes the 1970 murder of Henry “Dickie” Marrow, a 23-year-old black man who once served as a paratrooper in Fort Bragg.  The memoir them limns the acquittal of his three white killers, and what the aftermath of that injustice wrought on the tiny town of Oxford, N.C.

So, you ask, what does this have to do with small wars?  Well, I could start by reminding you that U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis recommends that we study the works of Martin Luther King as if they were texts about strategy, and Blood Done Signed My Name certainly is a tale about the civil rights movement.

But if we agree that Mattis is right, then don’t we have to look at how King’s strategy played out at the micro-level of villages and neighborhoods, towns like Oxford?  And isn’t that perhaps what an entire generation of soldiers and Marines already has done overseas, albeit when prosecuting quite a different strategy to very different ends?

When I was conducting recon in Iraq, I found it helpful to think of a town as an eco-system.  Once I understood how the caste, theological, ideological, linguistic and kinship relationships entangled the village in violence, my job became the commander who tried to untie them, or the pacification process wouldn’t work.

Various types of counter-insurgency theory were important, but it was always vital to keep an independent mind about them while I explored the hard realities of life and death in these Iraqi villages.   Experience with violence caused me to rethink a lot of those theories, just as Blood Done Signed My Name has made me reassess the role violence played in the larger civil rights movement.

Global Guerrillas – OCCUPY NOTE 11/20/11: The HIDDEN logic of the Occupy Movement

….Using John Boyd’s framework as a guide, this media disruption did have an effect across all three vectors:

• Physical.  No isolation was achieved.  The physical connections of police forces remained intact.  However, these incidents provided confirmation to protesters that physical filming/imaging of the protests is valuable.  Given how compelling this media is, it will radically increase the professional media’s coverage of events AND increase the number of protesters recording incidents.
• Mental.  These incidents will cause confusion within police forces.  If leaders (Mayors and college administrators)  back down or vacillate over these tactics due to media pressure, it will confuse policemen in the field.  In short, it will create uncertainty and doubt over what the rules of engagement actually are.  IN contrast, these media events have clarified how to turn police violence into useful tools for Occupy protesters. 
• Moral.  This is the area of connection that was damaged the most.  Most people watching these videos feel that this violence is both a) illegitimate and b) excessive.  Watch this video UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walking from her building after the incident.  The silence is eerie.

The Chronicle – The Kennan Industry

A less laudatory view of George F. Kennan than Henry Kissinger gave us, from David Engerman:

….In other cases, Kennan went far beyond handwritten reminders. Soon after he authorized Princeton to open his personal papers to researchers in 1970, Kennan was, apparently, shocked that a young historian, C. Ben Wright, would focus so closely on a 1930s draft essay called “The Prerequisites.” It called for “an authoritarian state” that denied suffrage to those unable to wield it properly-that is, to immigrants, women, and blacks. Wright, who greatly admired Kennan, quoted extensively from “The Prerequisites” in his dissertation. Wright also had the temerity to suggest that Kennan’s version of containment might have a military component after all, using Kennan’s letters and speech drafts from the 1940s to support his interpretation. Kennan flew into a rage, trying to strike the offending quotations from Wright’s work and-in Gaddis’s telling-ultimately driving Wright out of the profession. The offending documents (if that is the right description) were removed from Kennan’s papers, and photocopying from the remainder of the collection was forbidden.

Hat tip to Lexington Green.

Chicago Boyz (Bruno Behrend) –A must read for every Conservative/Libertarian

Mother Jones –Inside the Corporate Plan to Occupy the Pentagon

AFJ – Polyglot Dragon

Foreign Affairs –The Problem Is Palestinian Rejectionism

Recommended Viewing:

Hat tip to longtime ZP reader Morgan:

Top Billing!SWJ Blog – Finding Petraeusism in Naglandia

What one SWJ editor calls “their most controversial article ever”:

….Today, we could use the term “Petraeusism” to mean “U.S military efforts conceived in disregard or ignorance of U.S. military limitations.” Likewise, we could use the name “Naglandia” to describe Afghanistan, a place where, much like Ford had attempted to do in the Amazon, the U.S. has attempted to establish a “New America,” albeit with the modern and contradictory political correctness that comes with our current obsession with “absolute tolerance” and our culturally-biased interpretation of Galula’s population-centricity in counterinsurgent activities. As if in some kind of twisted Shakespearean comedic tragedy, the U.S. military, traditionally an organization filled with political conservatives and Peace Corps-doubting Thomas’s, has turned itself into an organization that believes there is a Thomas Jefferson inside every Afghan and the solution to jump-starting an economy is to throw money at it. If only our losses could be capped in another seven years at the similar $240 million (inflation-adjusted figure) of Ford’s Amazon experiment.

Regardless of what General Petraeus’ and John Nagl’s concept for countering an insurgency actually was when they wrote the Army’s Field Manual on Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, the manifestation in the military was one that had tactics dictating strategy, gave nation-building as the only option, and forced upon us all an assumption that has since become dogma: that bad governance is at the root of all discontent, followed closely by disgruntlement at not having a job. In addition, instead of stressing supporting a government’s internal defense when they align with our objectives and a population centricity that means an understanding- and not a protection- of the people, the U.S. went the opposite direction: emphasizing our own objectives and a “for their own good” attitude towards protection of the people. This operational paradigm does not, in and of itself explain all of our failures in Afghanistan-the lack of a clear goal and plan in the beginning probably holds most of the blame for that-but in the absence of a strategy in 2009 and after the very public vindication of General Petraeus’ textbook execution of FM3-24 in Iraq, it makes sense that the military brass turned very quickly to something they like at least slightly better than no plan: a bad plan.[4]

In defense of Henry Ford, in 1922, long before the advent of synthetics, naturally grown rubber along with oil was a natural resource of critical strategic military value with a high market price due to a British-Dutch-Belgian imperialist rubber oligopoly that left US producers eking out a market share from subpar plantations in Central American banana republics. Afghanistan isn’t quite as valuable as that.

John Hagel – Cognitive Biases in Times of Uncertainty

The rise of threat based narratives

But, there’s more.  Zero sum mindsets naturally lead us to focus on threat, rather than opportunity. If there’s only a fixed set of resources and rewards, there’s limited upside. Our attention shifts to protecting what we already have, however little it might be.  In a zero sum world, we are constantly vulnerable to the efforts of others to grab our share of the pie.

Threat based narratives take root – enemies are gathering force and intent on destroying or appropriating what we have.  We need to be vigilant and band together to protect our interests.  A quick look at the political narratives dominating the discourse in the US – whether on the Right or the Left – reveals the growing prevalence of threat based narratives.  Threat based narratives lead to polarization – if you’re not with us, then you must be against us.

Threat based narratives again have a pernicious effect – they reinforce our tendency to focus on the short-term.  They lead us to further magnify risk and discount potential rewards. The threat is imminent – we must focus on protecting ourselves now from the enemies gathering force.  We can’t afford to be diverted by longer-term issues – the battle is here and now. If we don’t win today, we will have no tomorrow.

Threat based narratives lead to a further consequence. They motivate us to seek out those who agree with us.  We can’t tolerate divergent views when we are under attack.  We must all come together under the same banner.  Uniformity of thought and perspective is highly valued and rewarded.  This pressure to conform reduces the potential for creative thinking and new ideas which further reinforces our sense that we live in a static world with a given set of resources and wealth. The passion of the explorer gives way to the passion of the true believer. Once again, we find reinforcement for a short-term mindset.

This is congruent with what I have been reading about intractable problems in Coleman’s The Five Percent

Recommended Viewing:

Wikistrat’s “The World According to Tom Barnett” 2011 brief, Part 8 (Q&A on global economic crisis)

More Q&A from my presentation of the current Brief to an international military audience in the Washington DC area in September 2011.

Audience question was about the global economic crisis and role of China in global economy.

Referenced from: http://thomaspmbarnett.com/#ixzz1dMqQSbVh

RSA Animate – “Drive” by Dan Pink

Top Billing! John Fonte (FPRI) – Sovereignty or Submission: Liberal Democracy or Global Governance?

Hudson Institute scholar John Fonte critically analyzes how the ideology of “global governance” and R2P erodes American sovereignty as well as liberal democratic norms. Normally, I give the “top billing” post a generous excerpt, but FPRI copyright mandates posting in it’s entirety, which is not feasible given the length of the essay. However, I give it a strong recommendation to be read in full ( Hat tip to Col. Dave and Bruce Kesler).

Global Guerrillas –AMERICA IS BROKEN, WHAT NOW?

The US is broken.  In the years after WW2 the US made tangible the American dream.  It did so through by connecting incomes to improvements in productivity.  Simply:  If you do more work per hour, your income should go up (see chart).  

The result was a decentralization of economic decision making on a scale never seen before in the history of the world.  

It was AMAZING.  Tens of millions of financially prosperous households making decisions on what they should buy and invest in.   Most of what America still is today was built during that period….

Bruce Kesler –Critique of Cordevilla’s “The Lost Decade”

….There are two core arguments in Cordevilla’s almost 8,000 word essay, a self-serving, misfocused and exclusionary US elite that failed to identify or act against domestic and foreign threats. Instead, they enriched themselves and intruded into all Americans’ freedoms with the overly expensive and expansive, ill-suited to US liberties, feeble Homeland Security, and got bogged down in self-limited wars of illusory nation-building that distracted funding from the major weapons systems necessary to US strategic superiority and failed to confront real enemies. Combined with irresponsible profligate domestic spending and programs that have led to our deep ongoing recession, our means and will to continue our foreign engagements or rebuild our needed future weaponry and military has deteriorated. No wonder most Americans distrust these elites and the federal government.

….Cordevilla’s essay first sentence says, “America’s ruling class lost the war on terror.” Cordevilla looks below tactical disagreements to say of this class of Democrat and Republican leadership, “It is more or less homogeneous socially and intellectually.” Democrat and Republican elites created a public-private industry that expanded their own powers over our lives while not focusing on the root of our adversaries’ antagonism toward our way of life, Moslem societies dysfunction and anti-Western propaganda, that was further encouraged by our feeble reactions. “But U.S. policy has made things worse because the liberal internationalists, realists, and neoconservatives who make up America’s foreign policy Establishment have all assumed that Americans should undertake the impossible task of changing such basic facts, rather than confining themselves to the difficult but vital work of guarding U.S. interests against them.”

Here’s where I have reservations on Cordevilla’s analysis and prescriptions….

The Atlantic (Howard French) –E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything

Studies in Intelligence (Dennis C. Wilder) –Improving Policymaker Understanding of Intelligence *An Educated Consumer Is Our Best Customer [95.7KB**]

Recommended Viewing:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Occupy Wall Street

Richard Resnick: Welcome to the Genomic Revolution

“China is winning the race to the new moon”

Conversations with History – Philip Bobbitt

Top Billing! SWJ Blog The Natural Law of Strategy (Wm. J. Olson)

…Perhaps this is because there is a disconnect between policy formulation and strategy, which is meant to bridge the gap between intention and action. If so, then the idea of incorporating „ends? into strategy seems amiss. Strategy, as such, is not about ends, which are provided by another, perhaps mysterious, process and handed off. There is no trinity of ends, ways, and means. All of this may be semantic confusion, since „strategy? is a slippery term that everyone knows the meaning of but doesn?t recognize it when they see it. Or perhaps the distinction lies in the difference between Grand Strategy and strategy, the former concerned primarily with ends the latter mostly with ways and means. In this case, strategy merely restates the ends of Grand Strategy with the intent of now adding ways and means to get the job done. This hardly seems an improvement or a clarification that clarifies.

Grand Strategy, as such, derives its ends from policy. Thus it does not-cannot–provide its own ends. It only reflects them. Perhaps the distinction and the difference lie in the level of detail expected in the respective precincts of activity. Grand Strategy, then, is closest to policy and policy formulation, an intermediate step, and while less abstract than policy it begins the process of translating intent into effort. Strategy, the next step down, then concerns itself with details once the big ideas are set. But again, including ends in strategy, except to note that they have been imported from elsewhere from a process unrelated to strategy, suggests that strategy is really about ways and means.

Thomas P.M. Barnett –  Some serious heavyweights join Wikistrat’s global lineup of strategists

I’ve spent much of August now making pitches to analysts/thinkers/strategists I deeply respect, asking them to join Wikistrat’s community of strategists.

And I’ve got to tell you, we’ve got some real stars coming our way:  Dmitri Trenin from Carnegie Moscow, Daniel Pipes from the Middle East Forum, Robert Kaplan from the Center for a New American Security, and Michael Schueur of “Imperial Hubris” fame. From the blogging world we’ve attracted Lexington Green of Chicago Boyz, Mr. “Anglosphere” James Bennett, James Joyner from Outside the Beltway and this blog’s “neighbor” ZenPundit. We’re also signing up a number of World Politics Review writers like Frida Ghitis and editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein.

Always nice to get a public nod in a group of names like that!

Jamais Cascio –  About Foresight (a minor rant)

Thomas Rid – Quoting URLs in Academic Papers 

Not exactly a super exciting topic, but useful.

Global Guerrillas –JOURNAL: Open Source Education

This fills a useful niche. Breaks down where feedback is required for student mastery or growth ; a brilliant instructor cannot meaningfully respond to questions from 50,000 students (call it the “Robert Scoble on twitter” effect) but where intrisic motivation can do it, this is a great concept.

The Glittering Eye –Alter for the Defense

….Rhetorically, this is called “burden shifting”. The burden of proof is on the affirmative and in this case the affirmative position is that President Obama should be re-elected and it’s up to the president to make his case. The case against him can be observed just by looking around.

Daniel Drezner- Why Libya is not a template for future military statecraft

Drezner takes Zakaria to task.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

Wilf Owen on Britain, Israel and the use of force.

I have to say, I am largely in agreement with Wilf here.

Have not done this in a while…

Top Billing! Thomas P.M. Barnett –Rogoff’s “second great contraction” and why I’m mad as hell at Washington

….Worse, I have a White House that claims I’m the problem because I don’t pay enough taxes and so it wants to soak me because that’s an evil state of affairs.  Funny thing is, I pay the Fed a whopping sum every year – about three times as much as my dad ever made in a year while he supported us seven kids.  So naturally, when more than one out of every three dollars I make goes to the government, I feel like I’m supporting all sorts of programs for the needy, plus I’m doing the right thing by the mortgage, plus I keep up my charity donations, plus I pay 3 private grade school tuitions (saving the public schools) and two public college tuitions (eldest daughter and wife).  I don’t ask for any hand-outs from the government.  Hell, I fund them and am glad to do so.  But then I’m told I’m the reason why the government is so in debt (not enough taxes from the “rich”) and yet I’m the dupe who continues honoring that mortgage from another era while paying for the bail-outs of those who can’t. And you know, I don’t feel like I’m the problem – or evil for doing all that.

In short, I’m doing everything I can to help this economy. I’m working my ass off, I’m honoring all long-term debts and keeping myself out of any short-term credit. But you know what that takes in this economy?  It means I am as stingy as possible on consumer spending. It means I put off business investments for as long as possible.  It means I’ve got nothing for venturing investments.  It means I’m more incentivized than ever to stuff as much into retirement funds to avoid the tax man.  It means I will vote for anybody who seems to spell reasonable restraint and relief – and that sure as s–t ain’t Obama.

I’m not a Tea Partier.  I’m very middle-of-the-road: a conservative Democrat on domestic and a liberal Republican on foreign. I crave compromises in Washington because our political elite’s inability to make those deals happen reasonably means I compromise across the board.  They do nothing to lift the economy out of its doldrums and I reciprocate. Everything I read from them says, “Screw you” and I can’t help wishing them the same.

President Obama is managing to lose foreign policy experts from his own party who were invited to his inauguration festivities. That’s a neat political trick I don’t think I have seen since Jimmy Carter.

Small Wars Journal –Interviews with Stephen P. Cohen and C. Christine Fair

Octavian Manea continues his outstanding series of interviews with leading COIN, strategy and foreign policy experts

Two new blogs on the blogroll, The Mellow Jihadi and iRevolution.

Sultan Knish –The Warrior’s Tale

…Before there were cities or nations, and railways and airports, computers and telephones– the tale was told around campfires. Acted out in pantomime, dressed up in animal furs and cave paintings. But the tale was the same. The people were confronted with a threat and they called upon the best and strongest of their men to go out and fight it. These were their warriors. What they did in the face of that threat is the tale.

Hat tip to Morgan.

Metamodern –My next book: Radical Abundance, 2012

Radical Abundance will integrate and extend several themes that I’ve touched on in Metamodern, but will go much further. The topics include:

• The nature of science and engineering, and the prospects for a deep transformation in the material basis of civilization.
• Why all of this is surprisingly understandable.

This country needs a book with some kind of optimistic narrative. 

SEED – Full Steam Ahead on CS-STEM

Mark Cuban – If you want to see more jobs created – change patent laws and My Suggestion on Patent Law

How “innovations” in patent law keep lawyers employed, Americans out of work and real innovations off the market

Recommended Viewing:

Steven Pressfield on creativity and writing.

That’s it.