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:
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
Exum has some interesting reads on his desk and in his kindle that readers might find intriguing.
Andrew is, it would seem, a closet linguist of the vanished, old-school, variety that study real languages instead of investigating the neurocognitive building blocks of language:
1. Someone sent me a complimentary paper copy of Greg Gause’s new book on the international relations of the Persian Gulf states, and I cannot think of a better introduction to the region. I have only met Gause once, back in 2007, and thought him both really smart and also kind of a smart-ass. So naturally, I liked him. I also have a reading packet prepared by the CSIS, which is leading this trip, crammed full with useful CRS reports and such.
2. I convinced the team here at CNAS to buy me a paper copy of Buying National Security: How America Plans and Pays for Its Global Role and Safety at Home, which readers of this blog will remember I’m excited about. Cindy Williams and Gordon Adams are both really smart and write about something — the national security budgeting process — that is rarely understood by policy geeks like me but really important.
6. Finally, I downloaded the ESV Study Bible and Phil Ryken’s commentaries on Ecclesiastes alongside Tarif Khalidi’s new translation of the Qur’an. That may seem like an odd combination of books, but both Ryken and Khalidi have been mentors* of sorts through the years: Ryken was a pastor at the church I attended in college, and Khalidi is, well, my scholarly hero. Despite his wicked sense of humor and light-hearted spirit, Khalidi is the most intimidating intellectual I have ever met. His command of English, Arabic, Greek and Latin is simply awe-inspiring, especially for someone like me who struggles with all four, and his new translation of the Qur’an is a remarkable achievement. I’m not about to get into the different ways in which Protestant Christians and Muslims approach their respective holy texts, but I will say that I someday hope to approach at least the New Testament with the erudition with which Khalidi tackles the Qur’an. Really impressive. Khalidi’s humility** and interest in younger scholars also sets an example for others to follow.
What should I be reading? Not in terms of books, I’m buried there, but periodicals, e-zines and blogs? We all can get in a rut with what we read and the topics we look at; I am no exception.
Nominate any suggestions in the comments section, if you have the time.
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.
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, Simon & Schuster, 1990, 294 pp. 
, Atheneum, 1977, 309 pp.
