Recommended Reading
Top Billing! Crispin Burke at Best Defense – How to Deal with Libyan Ambiguity: Define the Problem, Not the End State
….Traditionally, the military has valued an engineering approach to problem-solving. Formulaic methods, such as the Military Decision-Making Process, focus on well-structured, tactical problems. While an MDMP-formulated plan might be complicated, it’s by no means complex. For most tactical problems, there is generally one established solution. The mission, purpose, key tasks, and end state spelled out in an order from a higher headquarters.
Most importantly, the environment is relatively free from outside influence.
Using similar methods, the German General Staff, under the direction of Alfred von Schlieffen and Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, meticulously planned the opening stages of the First World War. The vaunted Schlieffen Plan, much like its French counterpart, Plan XVII, was meticulous.
Yet, the Schlieffen Plan failed when subjected to the messy complexity inherent at the strategic level. The plan’s underlying assumptions — a mere six-week offensive in France, followed by a sudden re-direction towards the Eastern Front — would prove to be untenable. France was able to halt the Germans at the Marne, and the Russians were able to swiftly mobilize their army, trapping Germany in a two-front war.
TDAXP, PhD. –Review of “A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962,” by Alistair Horne
….The Fourth Republic, the democratic French state, inherited from its pre-war predecessors a dicey situation in Algeria. The millet system, inherited from the Ottoman Empire upon France’s conquest of Algeria in 1830, let the initial Muslim community live under Sharia Law while the European community lived under French law, voted in French elections, and so on. The increasing power of the French state, however, made this situation decidedly unequalal. The Fourth Republic’s mission was to essentially reestablish the status quo before the rise of the French state, to allow the Pied Noir to be full citizens of the Republic while also allowing the Algerians to effectively government themselves.
Each of these three factions had specific challenges. The FLN, paranoid, fratricidalal, uneducated, and given to a degree of sexualized hyperviolence that would make al Qaeda in Iraq blush. The Pied Noir, demographically the weakest faction, were (barely) an over-class in Algeria while suffering the lowest living standards of any group of French citizens. The Fourth Republic, established after Petain’s collaborationist military dictatorship, attempted to avoid a return to tyranny by creating a weak executive.
S. Anthony Iannarino – The Competitive Advantage of Being Human
….When you are on a sales call, in sales meeting, or at any point engaged with another human being for whom you are supposed to respect and care for, close the laptop.
I recently started doing this myself, and it is remarkable the difference it makes.
The first thing you will notice is how uncomfortable it makes the other person; it’s like they are not sure that they haven’t done something wrong. You will most likely have to explain that nothing is wrong and that you are just trying to give them your full and undivided attention. You will also notice that they get straight to the point, and they behave as if your time is valuable.
Steven Pressfield – The Will to Victory
…. The will to fight, the passion to be great, is an indispensable element of the Warrior Ethos. It is also a primary quality of leadership, because it inspires men and fires their hearts with ambition and the passion to go beyond their own limits. Epaminondas, the great Theban general, was the first to beat the Spartans-at the battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. …
GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD –Winning Pretty
Adam Elkus at Red Team Journal –Red-Teaming and Contingency
Seydlitz89 –The Libyan Intervention after the First Week, or a Nation Bushed?
SEED –Buddhism and the Brain
Russia Blog-Do Putin’s All-time Lowest Ratings Have Something to Do with Denouncing the Coalition’s Efforts in Libya?
Shlok Vaidya-Tennis Playing Flying Robots
John Hagel- Anticipating the Next Wave of Experience Design
PARAMETERS – Politics and War: Clausewitz’s Paradoxical Equation
That’s it!
April 4th, 2011 at 3:56 am
Thanks for the shout-out!
April 4th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Thanks for inclusion on this killer list! Reading all of these posts cost me half my morning!Anthony
April 4th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Well, I am impressed that TDAXP has remained utterly nchanged over the years, and managed to write a review of a book I know well that so amply illustrates the phrase "fun house mirror."
April 4th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Thanks Zen, btw Part II is up . . .
April 5th, 2011 at 12:35 am
The Hagel piece is quite good, however his treatment of scaling at the end seemed more statement of the challenge—-which is enormous. Like Seely Brown, he offers a gaming example—which is ok, I guess. I’ll quote from my Amazon review of a recent Seely Brown work: "Gaming is an excellent example of self-organized communities gathering to meet a challenge for entertainment, but in reality it is also a consequence free environment." At the end of the day, I don’t believe the missing link of scalability will be found in such an environment. Great list, thanks for sharing!
April 5th, 2011 at 3:29 am
Not a huge fan of the Burke article, primarily because I don’t think he really understands what Design doctrine is all about. Most of the comments on Ricks blog are also ignorant of what Design doctrine is supposed to do and what it is not supposed to do.
That is not a surprise since the Army decided to implement a greatly watered down version of Design in FM 5-0.
Design is only really being taught at two schools within the Army – SAMS and the War College. Most of the instructors at CGSC/ILE were adamantly opposed to Design when I went through ILE in 2008, by the time I graduated from SAMS in 2010, the watered down Design doctrine had been implemented in FM 5-0 and many of the comments I’ve noticed over the last few months were predicted by many of my fellow SAMSters.
Libya is a direct result of an interventionist foreign policy, nothing more, nothing less. Trying to Design a campaign plan and operational plan around airpower is folly, especially when the political and strategic objectives are so muddled and vague.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
@Lounsbury, youch! I was actually reflecting on some things you had said a while ago… Could you share a little more of your thoughts?