zenpundit.com

Well…..I didn’t quite get the time I expected this weekend to do much posting but I’ll see what I can manage in the next few hours.

Top Billing! CTLab Review – Notes Toward a Theory of Asymmetric Warfare (Dr. Tyrell)

My CTLab colleague Marc Tyrell, also a SWC member, is high on my list of mil theorists. CTLab itself is sporting a new look as the site moves toward “formal” roll out (in September, if I recall correctly).

Thomas P.M. Barnett –  What reviving Cold War will end up costing us

I’m in sync with Tom on this subject – legacy thinking is a form of national security escapism to get around the hard thinking needed to craft a foreign poolicy toward Russia that deals with frictions and opportunities.

On “Hybrid Wars”: 

Dr. Erin Simpson – Thinking about Modern Conflict: Hybrid Wars,Strategy, and War Aims

Frank Hoffman –  Lessons from Lebanon: Hezbollah and Hybrid Wars  and How Marines are Preparing for Hybrid Ears

( hat tip to Dave Dilegge writing from SWJ Blog and CTLab)

Jesserwilson’s Blog – Social Software Use in the Intelligence Community: Interview with Mr. Chris Rasmussen

This link is a couple of months old but, I think, of interest to many readers who are into Web 2.0 and/or IC issues.

Good Lord! Kent’s Imperative is back !! – Unintended learning objectives

I’ve never been in a formal intel program that KI describes but the “disease” of which KI speaks has deeply infected the field of history and the humanities for years. A result partly of cultivated dogmatism and partly from a longstanding decline in the frequency with which students are required to critically assess one another’s reasoning, their own – and that of their instructor – for errors of fact, logic, context and proportionality.  Michael Tanji has his say too.

John Hagel –  Stupidity and the Internet

Hagel never writes a bad post and this one is spot on.

Open the Future – Thinking About Thinking

Adapting ourselves (literally) to cognitively master changing environments

Foreign Affairs – The Next President’s Daunting Agenda by Richard Holbrooke

A possible future SecState takes a partisan swing at grand strategy and quickly drifts into diplomatic mechanics, pet causes and what appears to be a thinly veiled but longwinded campaign commercial for Barack Obama.

That’s it!

A fast one:

Thomas P.M. Barnett – Response to Georgia conflict: firm but moderate

The Wizards of Oz – Reorienting “Effects” Focus

SWJ Blog –  On Advisors and Advising (Nagl) and Considerations for Organizing for Future Advisory Missions (Maxwell)

MountainRunner – Rethinking Smith-Mundt: responding to Sharon Weinberger

Global Guerillas – OPEN SOURCE WARFARE: Cyberwar

ERMB – The Russian/Georgia Conflict and Globalization

Threatswatch – Scientific Research: Objectivity vs Emotion & Politics (Fraser)

Rough Type – Easy does it

Permanent Innovation Blog – Buckminster Fuller Called for a Design Revolution

Soob has a new look.

Georgia on my Mind: A Russian Round-up:

Thomas P.M. Barnett – Putin picks his moment on Georgia  and Actually, it was Georgia’s timing … and  Answering the inevitable question on Russia

Glittering Eye – South Ossetia (Updated) and The European Decision on Georgia (Updated)

Chicago Boyz – The Children of the Mountains Are Wild…

SWJ Blog – Flash Point: South Ossetia (9 -10 August)

Whirledview – News From Places You May Never Have Heard Of – Updated 8/9/08 and 8/10/08

Danger Room – Did the U.S. prep Georgia for War with Russia? and Russia’s Full Scale Invasion of Georgia

War is Boring – Russia’s Air Blitz over Georgia

tdaxp – How serious is the Russian invasion of Georgia? and McCain for Georgia, Obama for Russia

Fabius Maximus –  The Russia-Georgia war threatens one of the world’s oil arteries

Kings of War – Global patterns, local anomalies

Outside the Beltway – Kosovo and South Ossetia

Sic Semper Tyrannis – 5th Generation Warfare in Georgia?

Belgravia Dispatch – Georgia On My Mind

That’s it!

UPDATE: 

Some analysis: The Bush administration and the EU should really be psychologically prepared for Russia to attempt to “pull a Chechnya” or a “Czechosolavakia” here and try to topple Saakashvili’s government either by inflicting enough serious military reverses that Saakashvili is removed by Georgian  insiders looking to make peace with Putin or perhaps by an old fashioned conquest and installation of a puppet government.  The puppet state will have a short shelf-life and no international recognition ( except Russia and Belarus) but that will be cold comfort for Saakashvili.

Saakashvili’s options are few here. No foreign country is going to ride to his rescue. He can surrender by submitting to all of Putin’s demands, in which case he’s finished politically.  If Saakashvili wishes to strike back hard at Russia his best options are hitting Russia in the pocketbook by sending  covert-ops to sabotage Russian natural gas pipelines and power grids in Moscow and St. Petersburg but ultimately he will still need to negotiate a deal afterwards.  If Saakashvili hopes to avoid being removed from power he ought to arm as many able-bodied Georgian men as possible for a guerilla campaign ( the Russians are not respecting civilians anyway, so there’s little to lose here) to supplemernt the regular army and security forces.

Forces poorly correlated for the Georgians.

UPDATE II. :

Galrahn is doing an excellent job covering the war from a naval perspective

UPDATE III:

An old-time blogfriend,  New Yorker in DC merits a shout out with “Update on the Russo-Georgian crisis“. He’s spot on. Moscow has been bitten by the “mission creep” bug in Ossetia.

A Monday edition:

Top Billing! SWJ Blog – Book Review – Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide

The story of France’s despicable role in the Rwandan genocide is too little known. The reviewer, LTC Tom Odom has extensive on the ground experience in Central Africa in this time period.

Steve DeAngelis – Participatory Innovation

The “Medici Effect” in action.

Ross Mayfield – Diplopedia

“The art of diplomacy excels with shared context that wikis can support.  And while fundamentally State may gain productivity, particularly if they allow it to work across agencies, evolving from manufacturing era cable systems could evolve culture itself”

We can hope.

Thoughts Illustrated – ManyOne Survives – The New ManyOne Portal Network

Valdis Krebs – Twitter  and Twitter Maps

The microblogging concept is different from blogging.

HNN – Why Historians Should Write Books Ordinary People Want to Read by Jeremy Young

With not a few historians the question is ” Can they do it?”  🙂

Congratulations to my friend Shane Deichman in his new gig with the Missile Defense Agency !

George Orwell diaries to be published as blog (Hat tip SmartMobs)

That’s it!

Top Billing! Information Dissemination – Renaissance Men Are Evolving Into Renaissance Networks

Love the term. Wish I’d thought of it!

Coming Anarchy –  No Terrorism in Dubai? Just you wait!

Thomas P.M. Barnett – The chicken (happiness) gets you the egg (democracy)

In Harmonium – Building theories that make sense

The Strategist –  Weekend Reading: Mary Beard on the Emperor Hadrian

New book by Maj. Don Vandergriff –  Finding and Preparing Future Soldiers  (hat tip Shloky)

New search engine – Cuil

New Web 2.0 app – Socialmedian

That’s it!