Recommended Reading
Dr. David Kilcullen – NYT – 10 Steps to Victory in Afghanistan ( Hat tip DNI )
Col. Kilcullen is very brief here, focusing on legitimacy and good governance.
Joshua Foust – NYT – “Maladies of Interpreters”
Major kudos to Josh for snagging a high-profile op-ed on an important and generally mishandled problem of the USG giving due diligence to helping those who help us, usually at great risk to themselves. From the Montagnards and Hmong to Afghans and Iraqis, we need to institutionalize our response. If we can lard money on contractors who move toilet papers and MRE’s, a compensatory package for locals should be a no-brainer.
Strategic Studies Institute – Dr. Max G. Manwaring – A “New” Dynamic in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment: The Mexican Zetas and Other Private Armies
This is good. Why Mexico and the war next door gets less media coverage than Iraq amounts to a case of national denial. Things are getting worse south of the border and we are not prepared.
Dr. Sebastian L. v. Gorka – How to Win in Afghanistan
A back to basics approach on historical COIN examples; an Afghan war strategy the fits well with Steve Pressfield’s posts above.
Jamais Cascio – Fast Company – “The Singularity and Society”
“….And that’s a problem, as the core of the Singularity argument is actually pretty interesting, and worth thinking about. Increasing functional intelligence–whether through smarter machines or smarter people–will almost certainly disrupt how we live in pretty substantial ways, for better and for worse. And there have been periods in our history where the combination of technological change and social change has resulted in quite radical shifts in how we live our lives–so radical that the expectations, norms, and behaviors of pre-transformation societies soon become out of place in the post-transformation world”
Fabius Maximus – Theories about 4GW are not yet like the Laws of Thermodynamics
….The value of these kinds of insights was well expressed by a post Opposed Systems Design (4 March 2008):
A deeper understanding of these dynamics deserves an organized research program. The first concept – an artificially binary distinction between “foreign COIN” and “native COIN” – has served its purpose by highlighting the need for further work on the subject.
One reason for our difficulty grappling with 4GW is the lack of organized study. We could learn much from a matrix of all insurgencies over along period (e.g., since 1900), described in a standardized fashion, analyzed for trends. This has been done by several analysts on the equivalent of “scratch pads” (see IWCKI for details), but not with by a properly funded multi-disciplinary team (esp. to borrow or build computer models).
We are spending trillions to fight a long war without marshaling or analyzing the available data. Hundreds of billions for the F-22, but only pennies for historical research. It is a very expensive way to wage war
Christopher Albon – The Social-Systemic Consequences of War
Diaspora and social network effects.
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