Received a courtesy review copy of WAR yesterday from the publisher, due entirely to the kind offices of Kanani.
Read the first 50 pages this afternoon and found it it interesting because as a book, it exists on the opposite end of the spectrum fromMackinlay and Kilcullen. Where the former are giving a panoramic or telescopic view of COIN as strategic-operational-grand tactics, the author of WAR, journalist Sebastian Junger, is using a microscope to show COIN in the Korengal valley, Afghanistan as seen by an Army platoon, squad and individual soldier. Maybe an electron microscope would be a better analogy. Gritty.
Will write a full review when I am finished. If any active duty or veteran readers were in Korengal or Afghanistan or have read WAR and care to sound off in the comment section, you are cordially encouraged to do so.
Posts have been slow here lately because my real-life workload has temporarily increased. Irrationally, I’ve attempted to compensate for my lack of blogging by ordering yet more books; perhaps I should order more free time instead!
In any event, esteemed readers, @cjschaefer and @CampaignReboothave requested a full accounting of what is new and here it is:
Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett is not only his own man, he’s his own webmaster.
Having embarked on a major overhaul of his longstanding and very successful blog, which had been steered previously by Critt Jarvisand then Sean Meade, Tom rolled up his sleeves, engaged his creative eye and went “hands-on” and shaped the new look himself ( he is still tinkering with it), an impressive decision given the magnitude of the details involved.
It’s good. I find the redesign to be warmer but still crisp. A much more personal, less “corporate”, look with greater balance between text, visual imagery and negative space. It reflects more of Dr. Barnett’s different interests. Check it out:
I also like the long margin Twitter-feed, a nice wrinkle that puts two web 2.0 platforms together well. Much better than a little window plug-in would work in terms of reader attention.
Steven Pressfield, author, historian and this year, blogger has made a major revision of his blog, originally an Afghan War-centric site known as “It’s the Tribes, Stupid!”. Pressfield has relaunched the blog today with a sharp new site redesign, a broader focus and a new expert co-blogger, as:
Steve has enlisted scholar-soldier William S. “Mac” McCallister to apply his experience in military affairs and irregular warfare at Agora, a page which will cover the subjects and news formerly housed at “Tribes, where Mac has already put up his first post:
Often, ideas are discounted because they don’t mesh with someone else’s concept of reality. I was on the receiving end myself recently, related to my latest recommendations for prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. And, well, I’ve shot down the ideas of others in the past, too.
End of day, we have to consider the different realities-because the one thing I think we can all agree on is that, in Afghanistan in particular, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, because the realities on the ground vary so greatly.
“Agora” is a place to consider all of the realities.
Steven will be blogging on “Writing Wednesdays” creativity and other themes on his page, The Creative Process and, I expect, popping in from time to time on Agora as well when the mood strikes.
Sadly, my effort to “stay on the wagon” and refrain from the purchase of books until I wade through some of my unread shelves is failing miserably. I also think this will be a COIN heavy year for the 2010 reading list.
ADDENDUM:
My colleague, Lexington Green, points to this fine review of The Human Factor by fellow Chicago Boyz blogger, James McCormick:
….Other reviews of this book have proclaimed Human Factor a rather boring recollection of examples of institutional ineptitude and better as a guidebook for potential employees than a useful description of the CIA but I feel this is in fact the most useful book on the CIA’s clandestine service since:
which covered clandestine case officer activities, first person, in Vietnam and Latin America.
Like these two aforementioned titles, Human Factor focuses on the day-to-day challenges of being a covert case officer … the “teeth” in any intelligence organization. It is noteworthy that the Director of Central Intelligence has rarely, if ever, been one of those covert (non-State Department) officers. It’s as if your dentist was being overseen by experts in small-engine mechanics.
Ishmael recounts the minutiae of what reports he needed to write, the porous e-mail systems he had to manipulate, and the permissions he needed to gain. The timing and delays of decisions from Langley … the phrasing and terminology that was necessary to get anyone back in the US to allow any activity whatsoever. As a former stock broker, Jones was entirely comfortable with the challenges of “cold-calling” and dealing with “No” over and over again. But this wasn’t the case for his fellow trainees or for any of his superiors. At every turn, he was able to contrast his experience in the Marines (and military culture), and with Wall Street’s “make the call” ethos, with what he was experiencing as one of the most at-risk members of the Agency
Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security,strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits.
by 
by “
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, Simon & Schuster, 1990, 294 pp. 
, Atheneum, 1977, 309 pp.
