Recommended Reading

onparkstreet:

August 9th, 2011 at 12:21 pm

Steven Pressfield was on C-SPAN this weekend.
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http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Etho
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Regarding the Small Wars link:
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I’ve been unable to access the Octavian Manea interview with Drs. Cohen and Fair but when they’ve got the site up and running again (poor things, rough transitioning to a new website) I’d like to read through it.
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Random thoughts about the curious nature of DC Pakistan "experts"….
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1. Do you lose visa access if you don’t create an India-Pakistan parity in some way in your writings? Must be tough to formally study the army of an essentially illiberal regime. Not making any accusations, mind you, just wondering aloud. I enjoy what I’ve read online of both scholars, but I tend to disagree with their policy advice when given.
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2. Being a good scholar doesn’t necessarily make you a good policy advisor. A proposition to discuss, at any rate. How does one become a good policy advisor? What does that mean? Do you cultivate politicos, do you go for brute honesty, do you cultivate reporters who might quote you, and so on and so on. Again, not making accusations toward anyone, just wondering aloud about that strange town, D.C.
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3. I’m working part time now and have left my old associate professorship. When you crunch the numbers, look at what is looming, look at how much harder you have to work to make only a limited amount more money, "going Galt" looks like the better option. The sad thing about teaching medicine these days is that it might be easier to write and teach (you can do it online, you see) working outside the academic hospital environment. Big private labs, private hospitals, VA hospitals, etc. If you can find a nice "small" job within those settings, or work half-time, you can write and write and write in a way you cannot very well in academia. Provided your areas of interest are like mine and don’t require a lab or lab space.
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– Madhu

zen:

August 9th, 2011 at 3:15 pm

Hi Madhu,
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Good question. Every academic in the field over the age of 50 had their scholarly training on India-Pakistan shaped by the Cold War and were taught by mentors whose academic/government careers spanned the Cold War. This by itself created a built-in pro-Pakistan tilt because India and the ruling Congress Party were a) pro-Soviet, actually a de facto ally of Moscow, and b) anti-American and anti-China. I am sure this intellectual legacy persists in academia much as it does in the upper reaches of the US Army and USG but as it is not my field, I can’t cite specific examples ( a great data-free analysis, eh?)
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Query: I don’t think this directly affects you, given what I recall about your med specialty, but how does the astronomical cost of malpractice insurance impact medical academics? I know in the past, as my emeritus uncle was one of these, it was not unusual for them to see a small number of patients or a hospital practice, partly for working with their interns and residents outside of a lab with real people. Is this still done? Only under institutional umbrellas like research hospitals? Or is the part private/part academic physician a thing of the past?

Isaac:

August 9th, 2011 at 9:58 pm

WRT patents, good news:  http://www.geekosystem.com/courts-fin-patent-troll/ 

NavyOne:

August 10th, 2011 at 6:56 am

Thanks for the blogroll!

onparkstreet:

August 10th, 2011 at 12:17 pm

@ Zen,
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On the query: I don’t know the specifics because I’ve always worked for teaching hospitals in the past, I negotiated a salary and the hospital group paid for the group insurance, etc. My guess is that it adds to the overall inefficiency of running a hospital and cuts into salaries, number of overall hires, and money available for patient care.
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On the DC Pakistan "experts":
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DC seems a funny town from my perspective. I think there are lots of competing agendas and not everyone is on the make or take, you know? Even very well meaning people probably run into lots of nasty stuff.
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The issues include DC bureaucracies like State, the CIA, DOD, and others with a budget interest in "saving Pakistan," NGOs, congressionals that can be lobbied by a variety of companies to include defense contractors, and so on and so forth.
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Then there is the old Cold War tilt toward the Israel-Saudi-Pakistan "sunni" containment axis, first toward the old Soviet Union, and now toward Iran. Competing oil pipelines. NATO politics (Russia and Iran). Lots of money in Mideast sharia banks (I mean nothing negative about sharia banking, just that there is a lot of money in banking, sharia or otherwise. This is a factor that gets ignored in our dumbed down public domestic debate. But who am I to complain? I’ve enthusiastically taken part in much of the dumbing down myself and only now am I trying to change….an intellectual journey, you might say.)
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My personal opinion is that Abbottabad was the shot-across-the-bow for all of these old vested interests. The American people cannot be fooled anymore and they see that we are being dragged into a strange global proxy of business and political interests not always aligned with ours.
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– Madhu

onparkstreet:

August 10th, 2011 at 12:34 pm

At any rate, I think the powers-that-be see that the status quo is not sustainable. The most fascinating CSPAN thing I’ve every seen yesterday: "Simulations of oil supply disruptions response," by a bunch of old Bush admin officials sponsored by some domestic energy interests?
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At any rate, even if there are vested interests toward domestic drilling, the topic was fascinating and we as a country need to move forward on disentangling ourselves from a troublesome part of the world. One Al Q attack on Saudi plants, a new global oil crisis. They said only ten percent of the oil comes to the states, but Asian markets would be disrupted which would hurt us so Russia and Canada and others need to be brought into this process. Not just Opec anymore (in a rush, so typing all this out in an impressionistic way). The twenty first post NATO world is stirring….
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– Madhu

onparkstreet:

August 10th, 2011 at 12:37 pm

The twenty-first century post NATO world is stirring….
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Tom Barnett is right to do a wikistrat competition. I’m skeptical about the US-China-India thing (it’s easy to game people in the West, that’s been my experience growing up between two cultures) but I’m intrigued nonetheless. It’s the right start even if the specifics may need to be continually worked on.
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Fascinating.
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– Madhu