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Nothing like a change in administrations to generate a string of excellent books on strategy and national security.

I’ve just ordered Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy by  Dr. Steven Metz  of the Strategic Studies Institute ( and also of the Small Wars Council ). As I do not yet have a copy of Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy, which also contains a foreword by Dr. Colin Gray, I will yield the floor to the comment  of Lt. General Paul K. Van Riper:

“Two institutions failed the American people in the run-up to the ongoing war in Iraq. Neither the Congress nor the media provided oversight of the Executive Branch, which is constitutionally required of the first institution and expected of the latter. As a consequence a fundamentally flawed strategy was implemented by an equally flawed military plan. The results have been tragic and costly. Dr. Steven Metz does our nation a great service by exploring the causes of this U.S. strategic debacle, one that may well exceed that of the Vietnam War. Recognizing a problem and its cause are the first steps in setting things right. In this book Dr. Metz identifies the problem, explains what caused it, and most importantly, shows us a better path for the future.”

One for the top of your bookpile.

I’ve finished reading Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland. The Persian Wars are the ur-narrative in the recesses of the West’s cultural imagination and Holland does his usual superb job of translating ancient conflict into a modern context without losing the authenticity of the former. It’s a jarring but a probably accurate analogy for Xerxes to view the Spartans, who murdered his ambassadors in an unprecedented act of blasphemy, as a “terrorist state” on the far-flung fringes of civilization. This Persian viewpoint is interwoven by Holland with the traditional historiographic Greek view of Persia as the harbinger of Eastern tyranny and slavery. A fun read!

Still reading The Discourses of Epictetus – The Handbook – Fragments (Everyman’s Library) roughly one section per night. Epictetus translates well, unsurprising as the former slave turned philosopher was the ultimate up by his bootstraps thinker. Willl comment further when finished.

Started reading my review copy of Thomas Barnett’s Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. I can see the significant changes in editing, revision and updating from the rough draft I read months ago. Great Powers is going to pack a punch and will spark debate because Tom is departing sharply from the unimaginative, Left-Right, Dove-Hawk formulaic debate over Iraq/GWOT and his argument will either be embraced ( because there are ideas in Great Powers a wide spctrum of the population will like) or be bitterly attacked ( because there are many ideas that will infuriate robotic partisans) or both. It won’t be ignored.

I also see that more changes may be coming and that my uncorrected proof edition isn’t the final iteration, either. Look for a full review here in late November or early December.

Tom Barnett posted up on his foreword to  The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy, and War:

…To truly think in grand strategic terms is hard because, in order to communicate concepts to the universe of relevant players, one needs a sort of “middleware” language able to traverse domains far and beyond the most obvious one of warfare. As America heads deeper into this age of globalization-a global order fundamentally of our creating-our need for such bridging lexicons skyrockets. In a networked age, everything connects to everything else, so most of what constitutes strategic thinking nowadays is really just the arbitraging of solid thinking regarding the dynamics of competition, leveraging the surplus of conceptual understanding in one realm to raise such understanding in others….

Read the rest here.

Barnett and Boyd shared a teaching modality, “the brief”. Here’s a head to head comparison:

Colonel John Boyd:

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett:

I find that I have fallen criminally behind on reviewing books in the past six or so months and I’m going to try to make an effort to post on at least some of what I have been reading. Time to begin:

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) by Garr Reynolds

 Garr Reynolds has done more than write a book about design; he has taken Zen principles and used them to design the book that he wrote. Zen Presentation is an aesthetic pleasure to read, a truly beautiful book where the author walked his talk.

Specifically, Reynolds will show you how you can make your slideware presentations better but Presentation Zen is really more than that; it’s about effective communication.  Understanding your own message and then crafting an authentic and persuasive vision. The principles Reynolds articulates while discussing sound design work equally well for the writer, the artist, the salesman or the organizational leader. Here are a few sections particularly worth your time to read:

What makes Messages Stick? 

The Art of Working With Restrictions ( all the Boydians out there will grasp this concept immediately) 

Two Questions: What’s your Point? Why Does it  Matter ?

Kanso, Shizen, Shibumi

Signal to Noise Ratio

The Need for Solitude

Many times, as the text itself is intentionally broken up visually by images and white space, I found myself reflecting at length on the implications of the passage before moving on to the next. Now that’s something that happens with reading certain classics – The Art of War,  Meditations (Penguin Classics), The Prince and so on – but far more rarely with modern authors, indicating that Reynolds effort  to discern and expound on the importance of the fundamentals was well executed.

If messages are meant to “stick” then Presentation Zen is a sticky book.

Two review copies sent to me the other day both of which I will review over at Chicago Boyz sometime this summer.

But first, I owe a review to my esteemed collegeague Dan of tdaxp:

So many books….