Recommended Reading, Abbreviated
[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]
There’s been a few posts out there recently in the broad strat-FP-mil blogosphere that were collectively so outstanding that I wanted to take a spare moment and highlight them:
Razib Khan – ISIS Will Win Many Battles But Lose the War
….The piece in Aeon is a necessary corrective to two vulgar and populist reactions to the rise of radical groups like ISIS. First, there is the materialist viewpoint, which holds that a lack of economic opportunities is the dominant causal factor driving the violence. The first order issue to address is the reality that many regions of the world (e.g., non-Muslim Sub-Saharan Africa) have larger portions of the population which are underemployed or unemployed than the Islamic world, and yet do they not serve as sources of violent politically or religiously motivated terrorism. In fact, the best ethnographic work indicates that a disproportionate number of the young men involved in violent religious and political terrorism are not from the bottom of society, but closer to the top. In particular those striving and moving up the socioeconomic ladder in cultures undergoing modernization. The rural peasantry and the established upper classes are relatively immune to radicalization, but those whose roots are in the country but attempting to situate themselves in the middle class or higher are subject to more social dislocation, despite lack of material want. Most of the 9/11 bombers were Saudi, a nation which has a cradle-to-grave system of benefits for citizens, and which has been shielded and enriched by an alliance with the United States. Certainly marginalization, social and economic, are necessary conditions for recruiting from the Islamic Diaspora in Europe, but even here they are not sufficient conditions. The Roma are more socially and economically deprived than Europe’s Muslims, but do not engage in organized terrorism of any sort.
BJ Armstrong – The Strange Words of Strategy
Today we face a world which some tell us is new and different. We have been assured by some that the ideas of the past have little relevance and must be changed to adapt to the future. Yet, if we discard the past, we are left with no foundation to build on. The most recent example of this is the growing use of a new concept labeled “gray wars” or the “gray zone.” Leaders from the special operations community are telling us that the world is new and different. But there are some very important concepts foundational to past military and national strategy that should not be ignored in the rush to the new buzzwords. As Colin Gray writes in his latest book, “problems in contemporary strategy are ever changing, but they all have common roots.”
….The gray wars dialogue is just the most recent in a trend toward turning our back on historical precedent and previous strategic concepts. This past summer in the pages of Infinity Journal (free subscription), I attempted to make a similar case regarding to the idea of Air-Sea Battle, (or JAM-GC as it is now called). Debate over the operational concept which came to be known as Air-Sea Battle has been a large part of naval strategic discussion of the past several years. Despite the volume of words that have been spent on the subject, few have engaged with the actual theory and classical concepts of naval strategy. In my article, “D-All of The Above: Connecting 21st Century Naval Doctrine to Strategy,” I make the case that a better understanding of contemporary naval discourse’s place within the ideals of classical naval strategy will not only help us better understand proposals and counter-proposals, but it will also help strategists to better evaluate and develop future thinking.
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