Recommended Reading

Been too long since I have run one of these compendiums…..

Top Billing! Goes to my amigo Michael Lotus for breaking into the big league level of MSM op-eds. Congrats Mike!:

The transformation of the USA — here comes America 3.0 

The recent political deadlock and government shutdown, and the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare, show that something is seriously wrong in Washington, D.C. 

What’s going on?

America is going through a transformation, on a scale that few people now realize. The last such fundamental change was from the rural and agrarian society of the Founding era (America 1.0) to the urban and industrial society which is now coming to an end (America 2.0).

That transition was disruptive and painful, but ultimately led to a better America

We are now making a similar transition to a post-industrial, networked, decentralized, immensely productive America, with a more individualistic, voluntarist, anti-bureaucratic culture (America 3.0). 

Congrats to John Robb on starting Home Free America ! ( also read his Is making a policy decision in the “National Interest” smart anymore? Probably not.)

SWJ – (Anderson) The End of the Peace of Westphalia: Fourth Generation Warfare and (Hoffman) Into the Cities; Dark, Dense, and Dangerous 

This question is often raised. Although traditional insurgents have adopted many of the tactics of 4GW, they differ from non-state Fourth Generational warriors in that insurgents are looking to replace the current government of a country with another fairly traditional and recognizable government, usually one with a different ideological bent. When they gain enough strength, traditional insurgents generally form fairly conventional third generation military forces rather than continue guerilla and terror operations. Some insurgencies try to oust foreign occupying forces, but still look to replace them with nation-state governmental norms. Fourth Generational actors generally have far wider regional and even global visions or look to impose entirely new social systems based on their religion or ideology. Of the three major non-state actors operating in the world today, the Taliban comes closest to acting like a traditional insurgency, but even it has transnational aspirations of uniting the Pashtun peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan onto one political-unit. A captured Taliban once told me that if the Taliban could unite “Pashtunistan”, he didn’t care about the rest of Afghanistan.

Abu Muqawama is gone but not forgotten. A great blog – best wished to Dr. Exum and we will see Adam and Dan blogging elsewhere soon I’m sure.

War on the Rocks – (Tankel) GOING NATIVE: THE PAKISTANIZATION OF AL-QAEDA and (Ollivant) MALIKI’S VISIT: THE THREE S-WORDS 

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