zenpundit.com

Top Billing! Sebastian Gorka in the National Post – “Understanding the jihadis, by way of Sun Tzu“

The Taliban are not al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda is not the Taliban. Yes, the Taliban gave safe-haven to Osama bin Laden and his organization after he was expelled from Sudan in the late-1990s. Yes, members of al-Qaeda and even bin Laden’s own family have intermarried within Taliban power-groups, including the so-called Quetta Shura. But the Taliban must be understood as a heterogeneous group of warlords with variegated pasts and disparate interests. Some are former members of the governing regime that was dislodged by U. S. special forces and the CIA after 9/11. Others are primarily narcotraffickers, while some are tribally defined and established masters of regions which have proved impossible to domesticate for centuries

Professor Gorka teaches at National Defense University and is a fellow at Joint Special Operations University.

AFJ – Frank Hoffman – Striking a balance:  Posturing the future force for COIN and conventional warfare

Analyst Frank Hoffman on the biggest debate in the defense community for the next four years – if not ten.

DNI – How Would Boyd Analyze Afghanistan? and Chuck Spinney’s piece in Counterpunch.

John Boyd’s acolytes Chet Richards and Franklin “Chuck” Spinney on Afghanistan, the OODA Loop and COIN.

David Ignatius – Kicking The CIA (Again)

Ignatius nails the specious nature of the charges being leveled by House Democrats.

The Left wing of the Left wing of the Democratic Party is quietly engaged in a concerted effort, outside of public scruitiny, to check presidential authority in foreign policy and shift America’s stance sharply leftward by gaining greater Congressional power over the IC and diminishing the bureaucratic leverage of the DoD through Senator Carl Levin’s bill proposing an unwanted, unasked for, “reorg” of deputy secretary positions. The GOP appears to be asleep. Or perhaps just dead.

SWJ Blog – Small Wars Journal $8,000 Writing Competition – Warning Order

$ 8000 ain’t hay.

Red Team Journal – Interrogating the “Evil Futurist”

Foxes and Hedgehogs of the 21st century.

ubiwar – Secrecy and Cybersecurity

Secrecy has a point of diminishing returns.

That’s it!

Top Billing! SWJ – Robert S. McNamara Dies at 93 and Information Counterrevolution by Adam Elkus.

Robert Strange McNamara was a seminal and highly controversial figure of the 1960’s who managed the unusual feat of being wrong on both sides of the Vietnam War issue. Aside from Vietnam, admittedly a very large event to set aside, McNamara had a transformative impact on the Pentagon as Secretary of Defense for both good and ill.  SWJ has an uber-round up on McNamara’s death and legacy.

Adam has a sharp analysis of social media tech and their uses or abuses during recent political upheavals, that goes against conventional wisdom. Take a look!

Outside the Beltway (Dave Schuler)- Is the World Smiling Back?

Dave gets to the heart of the problem that bedevils what passes for foreign policy analysis by most Americans – an egocentric belief that the US is the prime mover in the world and all other states simply react to what have done, are doing, will or will not do. That isn’t the case. As Dave illustrates with Russia, most states with any appreciable leverage and resources pursue their own interests – generally with greater focus and consistency than the United States can muster.

Scientific American – Are certain genders or body types better at the art of persuasion?

I’ll say.

Bruce Kesler – Vietnam Views Confuse Iran-Iraq Views and I’m A Lesbian

Bruce’s posts range from the seriously analytical to the bitingly polemical to those that are amusing, so I thought I would give you a couple of examples for the newer readers yet unfamiliar with Mr. Kesler ( who is not actually a lesbian BTW).

HNN –  Stalin’s Wars: An Interview with Professor Geoffrey Roberts

This one is a must read in a car crash sense. Professor Roberts is deeply invested in the steeply uphill – and most likely ideologically motivated- project of rehabilitating the historical reputation of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin through an examination of Stalin as the warlord of the  20th century ( an intriguing perspective, and overdue). I have yet to read his book, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 , but from the buzz and this interview I’d say it’s a fascinating mix of getting some angles insightfully correct while being horrifyingly and disengenuously wrong on the bigger picture.

Progressive Historians (AndrewMc ) – What The Fourth of July Means

A. is right. I fear what might happen if the Constitution were put up for a vote today. In toto it might pass muster with approval in the low 50 % zone. If we went article by article, amendment by amendment, for voter approval, most of it would be voted down by large majorities of shortsighted partisans and ignorant, drive-by voters. I suspect that even the almost sacred 1st amendment, the touchstone of American liberty, might be a close call.

Does social complexity cause people to adapt and become smarter?  Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

Foreign Policy – The Death of Macho

Twitteramigo Reihan Salam is wrong by about – I will wager – 180 degrees. Results of trends here in the medium term are likely counterintuitive and potentially nasty, if the trends are accurate.

That’s it.

Top Billing!  Information Dissemination – Theories and Considerations

Missed this when Galrahn originally posted it. It’s a “must read” post for understanding where US Navy strategy could go in the next decade. First rate work!

Thomas P.M. Barnett –  “Why Ahmadinejad Is Better for the U.S. Than Moussavi”

I strongly agree here with Tom that the Pasdaran clique of Iranian “siloviki” from the IRGC and security ministries have now gained the upper hand over the clergy as a whole, by aligning with the hardest line minority of clerics. Guns trump turbans.

Whirledview (CKR) – Turning Points

Cheryl Rofer’s next post in our 1913 discussion.

Edge Perspectives with John Hagel- Shift Happens Redux

John details his new longitudinal Shift Index.

The Committee of Public Safety – The Soviet Package of Liberty

The Soviets as strategic spoilers.

Rough Type – The sour Wikipedian

Nick Carr makes the argument that Wikipedians – and by extension, social media user types – are basically loner a-holes. Thanks Nick! 😉

Zero Intelligence Agents – Interstate Conflict and Genetic Similarity; Consequences for COIN  and Fog of COIN

The second post is not by Drew Conway, but is a guest post by Thomas Zeitzoff of NYU and a review of David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla.

Progressive Historians (Ellman) – Living On $2 A Day: An Interview With Economist Jonathan Morduch

A fascinating look at the often sophisticated market activity of the world’s “bottom billions”.

SWJ Blog (Dilegge) – War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age

Book review.

physicsworld.com – In search of the black swans

Is the professional and institutional culture of scientists discouraging future paradigm shifts ?

Howard Bloom – In Praise Of Consumerism – Bees, Bacteria And The Value Of Wasted Time

The latent creativity and discovery for the many in the “wasted” time of the few.

PARAMETERS –    “The End of Proportionality” and    “Responsibility and Proportionality in State and Nonstate Wars”

Jonathan F. Keiler and Michael Walzer discuss how the concept of “proportionality” in the Laws of War are applied and (more frequently) misunderstood and misapplied.

SEED – Did Cooking Make Us Human?

Did a piece of cultural evolution – cooking food – drive human evolution ?

The Jamestown Foundation – Mystery Surrounds Alleged Hezbollah Links to Drug Arrests in Curacao

A somewhat older article. It begs the question of  to what degree has Hezbollah penetrated the Lebanese and Arab diaspora in Latin America?

RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

Paul Collier on “Post-Conflict Recovery” – salvaging failed states (2009).

Iran’s internal politics,  a conversation with Karim Sadjadpour (2007)

Top Billing! PART I.  CNAS – Triage:The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan (PDF)

Released in anticipation of a heavy-duty, A-List CNAS conference on Thursday that includes CENTCOM chief Gen. Petraeus, I consider this paper by Andrew Exum, Nathaniel Fick, Ahmed Humayun and David Kilcullen  to be a must-read for the reverberations it will have in the USG’s national security community ( I do not agree with Exum-Kilcullen’s earlier proposed end of all drone attacks  BTW – swinging the pendulum too far. Here they say “strictly curtail” instead, leaving the window open for targeting AQ leadership and key operatives). From the introduction:

….To implement this strategy effectively, the United States must rapidly triage in both countries. For the United States, NATO, and the governments involved, winning control over all of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the coming year is not a realistic objective; setting priorities is paramount. But because populations in civil wars tend to side with whichever group exercises control, protecting the population must take precedence over all other considerations. What counts, for now, is controlling what we can with the resources we have. Thus, this paper recommends that the United States and its allies pursue an “ink blot” strategy over the course of the next 12 months on both sides of the Durand Line, securing carefully chosen areas and then building from positions of strength.2

The tasks facing Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus—as well as their civilian counterparts, Ambassadors Karl Eikenberry and Richard Holbrooke—are complex and difficult. Yet, they must recognize one crucial thing: in insurgencies, momentum counts. The Taliban is pursuing a strategy of exhaustion designed to bleed away public support in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe for continued Western engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the United States and its allies are unable to halt the downward trajectory of the war in Afghanistan over the next year, then public support for the war effort in the United States will surely ebb. That decline in popular support for the war is likely to be even sharper in allied nations. Regaining momentum will allow the United States and its allies to sustain public support both in Afghanistan and at home, prerequisites to defeating the Taliban.

Top Billing! PART II. Kings of War (Beitz) – 100 Years of COIN: What new have we Learned?

A phenomenal post on COIN by David Beitz. Then again if you write 50,000 word essay, cut that to a 10,000 word chapter and then distill the chapter into a blog post, then the blog post should be pretty impressive. Note Beitz’s mention of yet to be released The Insurgent Archipelago. Hat tip to Lexington Green.

On a lighter note, Drew Conway offers up The Five Demons of Twitter

Smart Mobs (Howard Rheingold) – Designing Choreographies for the “New Economy of Attention”

Of interest to anyone who teaches, preaches, presents or briefs 1.0 in a 2.0 world.

The National Security Archive – The first national intelligence estimate (1960), on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program (PDF)

NIE # 1 is refreshing in it’s lack of weasel word phrasing and its realpolitik analysis of the implications of an Israeli  A-bomb that are free of the comical, politicized, contortions involved in reporting or analyzing Iran’s similar nuclear efforts today. The refusal to examine logical probabilities in the IC had not emerged yet.

Coming Anarchy –The House of Cards Trilogy

I share Curzon’s enthusiasm here.

9,000-year-old brew hitting the shelves this summer

Cool.

RECOMMENDED FUTURISM VIEWING:

Futurist Jamais Cascio’s presentation “Mobile Intelligence”

Mobile Intelligence

View more PDF documents from Jamais Cascio.

The Talk:

Pete Alcorn on the world in 2200:

That’s it!

Top Billing! BLACKFIVE – for their Memorial Day series of posts

Many personal tributes. Go visit!

HG’s World – Memorial Day 2009 and Memorial Day II

A historically-minded tribute from a veteran and a historian.

Fast Company -“I Can See You” by Jamais Cascio

Radical transparency

Abu Muqawama – Greatest. Red Team. Ever.

Yep.

Thomas PM Barnett – WPR column – The New Rules: The Good News on the Global Financial Downturn

Tom’s “in-your-face-pessimists!” survey on the state of post-meltdown globalization and war.

ArmsControlWonk – Essential Reading? (Also check out their coverage of the North Korean nuclear test)

Michael Krepon gives us an excellent reading list for those interested in nuclear strategy and Cold War history.

AFJ – A deterrence we need by Gene Myers

On the folly of nuclear abolitionism

Sic Semper Tyrannis – Haaretz Article on Iranian Realities

The logistical and operational difficulties of an Israeli conventional-only strike on Iranian nuclear facilities without US help and Col. Lang’s opinion that Iran’s leadership is doing all it can to make Israel’s case for help look good.

James Fallows – Back to the gaokao….

Where standardized testing – or rather “the” standardized test – is the educational system and China’s officialdom is starting to wonder if that rigidity isn’t killing creativity and innovation. If only the advocates of NCLB here knew as much as Red Chinese bureaucrats.

SEED – Creation on Command

Neuropsychological inhibition and creativity – how does relaxing control yield ideas?

RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely demonstrates how adding complexity to choice dramatically skews decision making in irrational ways.  A few years back, Scientific American had an article with research on choice and happiness that demonstrated that the optimum number of choices for human happiness was relatively low. Ariely takes that one step further, many choices often equates to bad decision making because of our tendency to operate on “autopilot” (he does not use that term but it is what he describes).