zenpundit.com

[by J. Scott Shipman]

From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, by Jacques Barzun

In a year where I’ve not been able to read as much as normal and with 89 days remaining in 2013, these three titles are the best so far. I’m not finished with Dawn, but it seems like the late Professor Barzun is an old friend (here is a video from 2010). Barzun’s opus was published when he was 93 and was almost ten years in the making. Dawn has been sitting on my shelves for four or five years and I’d started it two or three times only to get bogged down and lose interest. Well over half way finished and I’m pretty sure I’ll be rereading this title for years to come (co-blogger Lynn Rees reports he’s read it four times). Barzun’s scope covers the gamut: religion, literature, poetry, theater, painting, sculpture, philosophy, and the aristocracy/life at court. Since many of these topics are interconnected he uses an ingenious method to assist the reader in keeping up. He uses this: (<page number)(page number>) to direct the reader to something previously discussed or something he will cover later. In the text, he will recommend “the book to read is” “the book to browse is” in brackets. I’ve found this method distracting as I’ve read three books he referenced since I started… Barzun also provides generous lift quotes in the margins to give the reader a flavor for a particular writer or idea/example. If the book had a traditional bibliography, I dare say it would cover a couple hundred pages–at least. Dawn has been a pleasure I’ve been taking in small doses and am in no hurry to finish. This is the best book of the genre that I’ve read.

Men, Machines and Modern Times, by Elting Morison

Elting Morison’s Men, Machines is reviewed at Amazon by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as “purely and simply one of the best books ever written on the process of innovation and the interaction of technology, culture, systems, and individual personalities.” I could not agree more. Morison’s book is a collection of essays dealing with change and man’s inherit but paradoxical reaction to it:

Yet, if human beings are attached to the known, to the realm of things as they are, they also, regrettably for their peace of mind, are incessantly attracted to the unknown and things as they might be. As Ecclesiastes glumly pointed out, men persist in disordering their settled ways and beliefs by seeing out many inventions…Change has always been a constant in human affairs…

From gunnery at sea to 19th Century railroads, Morison provides illustration after illustration of man, his institutions, and the almost universal resistance of both to change. Morison observes of inventors (real “disruptive thinkers’) [this was written in the early 1950’s]:

I once collected evidence on the lives of about thirty of these men who flourished in the nineteenth century. A surprising number turned out to be people with little formal education, who drank a good deal, who were careless with money, and who had trouble with wives or other women.

Morison devotes one essay to the characteristics and ills of a “bureau.” He describes the difficulty of getting anything accomplished within an average bureaucracy—largely because bureaucrats live for process and harmony. He says:

Taken together, a set of regulations provides a pattern of behavior for the energies bureaus are set up to regulate….Regulations are a way of keeping a system of energies working in harmony and balance…First it is easier to make a regulation than to abolish it.

Morison’s eighth and concluding essay provide Some Proposals for dealing with change and newness—in a word, solutions to many of the problems identified earlier. That said, only the most dedicated reader will complete the seventh (and longest) chapter, according the Morison, originally intended to be a book about the history of 19th Century American railroad innovation. Overall, I concur with Speaker Gingrich and highly recommend this title.

The Face of Battle, by John Keegan

A title needing no introduction at Zenpundit, I’ll only offer this title as one of the best books of the genre I’ve read. Keegan covers three battles across 500 years of history, Agincourt, Waterloo, and The Somme. In each, he brings alive the battlefield and provides the conditions faced by combatants—often up close and personal. Keegan’s scholarship, insight, and importantly, his humility in addressing a topic he admittedly had no first hand experience make this a must read for anyone in the profession of arms, and recommended for anyone seeking more insight into how we fight.

That’s a wrap, be back soon! 

Top Billing!!!  Pundita’s series “From Economic Collective to Police State”

Part I. From Economic Collective to Police State: Once Americans ceded control over their financial affairs they lost control of everything else, Part II. The Guardians of the Economy make their move: Part 2 of From Economic Collective to Police State, Part III. From Tofu to the Police State, Part IV Modern U.S. lawmaking and the original police state: Part 4 of “From Economic Collective to Police State”

….Mao famously said that all power comes from the point of a gun. Not in a republic it doesn’t. All power comes from the peoples’ control of their monetary wealth. Here wealth simply means an abundance — what money earners have left over after meeting all their expenses including taxes. Whoever controls this wealth rules because while taxation provides representation, only the crushing authority of wealth — how the people decide to spend, save, borrow, and invest their abundance of money — imposes the discipline on government that insures taxation produces honest and adequate representation.

So here is the bottom line about whether the United States will continue to exist as a republic: Just as there’s never been any such thing as a long lived monarch who doesn’t control his wealth, a “rule of the people” can’t last long unless the people control their wealth.

This control works out in practice to the people controlling their banking system. And by “people” I don’t mean “the government of the people.” I mean “the depositors.” I’ll expand on all this later but for any reader who thinks it can’t be that simple — tragically, it is that simple. The clearest indicator of where an independent nation stands on the freedom-oppression index is the state of its banking system, although the indicator is usually viewed, wrongly, as an effect and not a primary cause. But then how many American high school and college graduates have you met who know anything about  banking?

The bottom line was overlooked by political parties in the USA. Instead of focusing on the critical issue for a rule of the people, the parties encouraged voters to engage in distracting arguments about taxation and the size of government. All the while Americans ceded more and more control of their financial affairs by cooperating with fiscal and monetary policies designed to stave off another Great Depression.

For example, if the President appealed to the public to spend for the sake of the economy, Americans dutifully spent, even if this meant going into debt. If the Federal Reserve enacted policy that slashed the amount of interest banks paid depositors — policy meant to stimulate greater public spending and investment in the stock market — Americans who depended on income from the interest grumbled but didn’t picket the Fed or chain themselves to bank doors in protest.

In short, there was no need for a draconian regulatory regime or what people consider a police state because Americans were so cooperative with policies that eroded their control of their wealth. Then the Great Recession of 2008 struck. After that, everything changed. Many Americans ceased being cooperative. This alarmed the Guardians of the Economy.

I think Pundita has been reading John Robb….

Seydlitz89 –   President Putin’s Letter to the American People Regarding the Syrian Crisis 

….Along with Putin’s UN/international law argument he weaves the current situation in Syria and the greater Middle East. The conclusion a reader draws from this description is that overt US military involvement not only faces strong international opposition, but is difficult to see as being in the US national interest or even strategically coherent in terms of the forces our military actions would support. The implication is that this aggressive Syrian policy operates counter to the strategic narrative of the Global War on Terror which has dominated US foreign policy for over a decade.

….This specific crisis is then placed within the larger context of the US foreign policy emphasis on the use of force which has proved “ineffective and pointless”. Not only that, this proclivity has had the opposite effect on nuclear proliferation, since “if you have the bomb, no one will touch you”. So with this context in mind, Putin is inviting the US to “return to the past of civilized diplomatic and political settlement”, a past which the US was fundamental in building and maintaining.

….First, this is an appeal from Russia to the US to start acting once again as a great power. What we see today in US Syrian policy is a policy of strategic incoherence, of a power acting not in it’s own interests but in those of other powers which attempt to utilize US military force for their own ends. We have degenerated in terms of strategic effect to the point where the US acts as a “tool” of other powers. In the case of a US attack on Syria, the interested powers include Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel.

War on the Rocks – (Peter Munson)THIS IS NOT THE DIPLOMACY YOU’RE LOOKING FOR and (John Collins)NATIONAL SECURITY CAREER CHOICES and (Frank Hoffman)IT’S TIME TO THINK ABOUT  STRATEGY 

Choices are hard.

In a recent op-ed on the Strategic Choices Management Review (SCMR), I challenged those who expected more definitive choices in the review (or those I suspect want to avoid definitive choices).  The SCMR was really about establishing a framework for choices that the next QDR must actually make and explain.  It’s a two-step process, and I thought that review had set the stage for what will I think prove to be a critically important Pentagon effort for the remainder of this year.  We clearly need to match our aspirations more coherently with the resources we will be allotted.

Otherwise, we will remain “strategically insolvent” as my colleague at NDU, Professor Mike Mazarr, has argued in The Washington Quarterly. To improve our solvency, we will have to make some tradeoffs and come to appreciate risk better. 

SWJ Blog –José Mujica and Uruguay’s “Robin Hood Guerrillas”  and How to Improve U.S. National Security Strategies 

Eeben Barlow –THOUGHTS ON FRAGILE AND FAILED STATES Part 2 

Aeon Magazine – (David Barash) Is there a war instinct?  

The Scholar’s Stage – Independence and Rights

Ribbonfarm –The Exercise of Authoritah

Dave Maxwell –U.S., Republic of Korea and Allies Should Prepare for Eventual Collapse of North Korean Government 

Kings of War -(Jill Sargent) You Can’t Shoot Rioters* 

Michigan War Studies Review –Between Flesh and Steel: A History of Military Medicine from the Middle Ages to the War in Afghanistan 

That’s it

[by Mark Safranski a.k.a “zen“]

Top Billing! Galrahn If It’s Not “War,” It Sounds Like Checkers

….Words matter, and when they are not allowed to matter in policy, we are not being honest with ourselves. Over the last two days John Kerry described the political object with Syria as “to deter, disrupt, prevent, and degrade the potential for, future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction” by the Assad regime in Syria. The Obama administration has apparently convinced itself that a Desert Fox Part II action in Syria will produce the desired result, apparently ignoring that Desert Fox was in part what led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I do not know any serious expert who believes the Obama administrations military approach to Syria will achieve a positive political object for the US.

The Obama administrations national security leadership, in Congressional testimony, is promoting a delusion regarding the act of war, and is incapable of admitting they are about to start a war. Most troubling, they are intentionally dismissing consequences and the gravity of such action under the assumption that military superiority translates to strategic success. The United States does not have a strategy that political leaders can articulate publicly on Syria, nor is the Obama administrations national security leadership publicly seeking meaningful military objectives of consequence to conditions in Syria. The United States does not have a coalition of support to provide legitimacy for military action, a coalition that protects the US from escalation or retaliation. John Kerry, in front of Congress, described those who believe it unwise for the US to inject our nation into another nations civil war uninvited, as armchair isolationists. No one knew for certain the intelligence cited by Colin Powell was wrong in 2003. Every human being educated on the definition of war knows John Kerry is wrong in 2013, and no one credible on the topic of war will ever be able to argue otherwise.

War on the Rocks (Usha Sahay) –SYRIA, SIGNALING, AND OPERATION INFINITE REACH 

The emphasis on sending a message of resolve may explain why the Clinton administration glossed over spotty intelligence about proposed targets for the cruise missile strikes. The El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was targeted because it was thought to be a chemical weapons facility. It soon became clear that El-Shifa was nothing of the sort, and that intelligence reporting had in fact never shown definitively that terrorists were using the plant to manufacture WMDs. Part of the reason for this intelligence oversight was that the administration was searching a priori for targets to strike and, consequently, giving inadequate consideration to their actual relevance. The New Republic later noted that, along with the al-Qaeda training facility in Afghanistan, officials wanted to hit “another country, preferably in Africa, where al Qaeda’s terrorist network enjoyed support. [CIA director George] Tenet’s job was to provide targets” [emphasis added].

The symbolic function of the targets, then, was more important than their strategic relevance. Even the number of targets was determined by aesthetic considerations rather than strategic ones: analysts including Micah Zenko argue that the team wanted to hit exactly two targets in order to mirror the two embassies that al-Qaeda had attacked.

Edward Luttwak – In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins

….The war is now being waged by petty warlords and dangerous extremists of every sort: Taliban-style Salafist fanatics who beat and kill even devout Sunnis because they fail to ape their alien ways; Sunni extremists who have been murdering innocent Alawites and Christians merely because of their religion; and jihadis from Iraq and all over the world who have advertised their intention to turn Syria into a base for global jihad aimed at Europe and the United States.

Given this depressing state of affairs, a decisive outcome for either side would be unacceptable for the United States. An Iranian-backed restoration of the Assad regime would increase Iran’s power and status across the entire Middle East, while a victory by the extremist-dominated rebels would inaugurate another wave of Al Qaeda terrorism.

There is only one outcome that the United States can possibly favor: an indefinite draw.

William Lind -THE VIEW FROM OLYMPUS 8: WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE, DECEMBER 7, 2016

President Barack Obama today welcomed to the White House Mr. Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, for the formal signing of a pact of alliance between al Qaeda and the United States of America. The new alliance treaty envisions broad-scale cooperation between al Qaeda and the United States in the cause of destroying states. Following the signing of the treaty, President Obama will direct US government agencies, including the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA to work with their al Qaeda counterparts on projects of joint benefit, including generating phony intelligence to justify American military interventions, carrying out pseudo-ops to create humanitarian tragedies that can be blamed on state leaders, and generally spreading anarchy throughout the world.

The Glittering Eye –Is It To Be Isolationists vs. Militarists?

Bill Keller presents a false and vicious dichotomy. Although he’s a bit sheepish about it, he’s ultimately arguing that, if we are to be engaged with the world, it must be at the point of a gun ….

….I see barely a smidgeon of isolationism in contemporary America. There are millions of Americans living and working overseas, we import a huge proportion of our consumer goods and a lot of our food from abroad, and we have a higher proportion of immigrants presently living in the United States than at at all but a very few times in our history.

Who is he, Hideki Tojo? Is the only form of engagement with the world military engagement? That’s militarism.

Outside the Beltway (Matconis) –Are The Russians About To Outsmart Obama And Kerry On Syria? 

Chicago Boyz –Georgene Rice Interviews Lex about America 3.0, Review of America 3.0 by Arnold Kling, Daniel Hannan: Channeling America 3.0!, A Plea for America 3.0: “Can we just fast-forward to 2040? Please?”

Not the Singularity (Hynd) –Does The NSA’s General Alexander Have Too Much Power?

Campaign Reboot –What value to a poll? Syria edition

Brad DeLong – “Modern Greats”….

hbd chick –national individualism-collectivism scores 

Friend of Zenpundit Fred Leland had his LESC blog ranked # 3 out of all criminal justice related blogs. Congratulations Fred!!!!

That’s it!

[by J. Scott Shipman]

American Caesar, Douglas MacArthur 188-1964, by William Manchester

Often on weekends my wife allows me to tag along as she takes in area estate sales. She’s interested in vintage furniture, and I hope for a decent collection of books. A sale we visited a couple months ago had very few books, but of those few was a hardback copy of American Caesar. I purchased the copy for $1 and mentioned to my wife, “I’ll get to this again someday…” as I’d first read Manchester’s classic biography of General Douglas MacArthur in the early 1980’s while stationed on my first submarine. “Someday” started on the car ride home (she was driving), and I must admit: American Caesar was even better thirty years later. Manchester is a masterful biographer, and equal to the task of such a larger-than-life subject.

MacArthur still evokes passion among admirers and detractors. One take-away from the second reading was just how well-read MacArthur and his father were. When MacArthur the elder died, he left over 4,000 books in his library—both seemed to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of history and warfare. Highly recommended.

PS: I visited the MacArthur Memorial, in Norfolk, Virginia, recently while in town for business and would recommend as well.

[ by Charles Cameron — two books on war-gaming, and one highly unexpected tweet ]
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PAXsims: review of Hyde, The Wargaming Compendium http://t.co/xr1jBwtNY7 @battlegames

— Rex Brynen (@RexBrynen) August 25, 2013

and:

I've a weak background in mil history: unlike van Creveld, I've not seen "Gladiator Eroticus: The Warrior Lesbians" http://t.co/JYDllJlByw

— Rex Brynen (@RexBrynen) August 25, 2013

**

Gladiator Eroticvs, at $43.50, appears to be a movie. Directed by John Bacchus.

At these prices, forget the movie — I think maybe I’ll read van Creveld, $27.99, and wait for Henry Hyde, $60.00, to go to paperback.