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 Sunday begins The Clausewitz Roundtable hosted at Chicago Boyz, starting with commentary on “Book I.” from On War (Oxford World’s Classics) by Carl von Clausewitz. We have a distinguished list of participants and I am going to crib from the latest post of our host, Lexington Green:

THE CLAUSEWITZ ROUNDTABLE: 

Mathew Borton is a Graduate student of technology at Purdue University Calumet, studying rules of engagement and law of war as they pertain to cyber-warfare. He served with 3d Marines in the late 90s before returning to the civilian world and a variety of technical consulting jobs. Mathew has a strong interest in all things geek as well as a mild addiction to military history and science.

Shane Deichman has spent nearly two decades in the national security field as both a scientist and a manager. He is a 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval War College, where he was first introduced to “On War”. He spent four years in the Fleet Marine Force as a science and technology advisor. He founded his own company in 2008 (EMC2 LLC, a consulting company focused on emergency management and disaster preparedness). He blogs at Wizards of Oz, Dreaming 5GW, Antilibrary and ChicagoBoyz.

“Fester” is a paper-thin pseudonym. He graduated with a masters in public policy with a strong focus on urban economics and policy analysis. He is interested and fascinating by boundary condition problems and non-traditional analytical approaches, although he worries about the ‘gnossis’ effect of this approach on my thought process. “Counter-insurgency can often be conceptualized as decentralized neighborhood development” is a great beer bash discussion starter. Fester blogs at Newshoggers.

“josephfouche” is a software engineer and system administrator slaving away for a technology startup somewhere in flyover country. He’s been reading military history since age nine and talking about it since his fourth grade teacher, asking a pro forma question, inquired if any student in the class knew anything about the Crimean War. (She got more than she bargained for.) He blogs at The Committee of Public Safety, a group blog dedicated to understanding the subtle interplay of human nature, culture, war, and power.

“Lexington Green” is a lawyer in Chicago. Lex blogs at ChicagoBoyz and Antilibrary. Lex graduated with an overall GPA of 2.9 from the University of Chicago. He has been reading military history his entire life.

“Historyguy99? is a historian, and U.S. Army veteran of the war in Vietnam. After having a 30 year career in global logistics, he earned an advanced degree in history and began to teach. Currently he is an adjunct history professor with the University of Phoenix and Axia College. He blogs as historyguy99 and hosts HG’s World, a blog devoted to history, connectivity, and commentary. He is a co-author of soon to be published, Activist Women of the American West and contributing author to The John Boyd Roundtable.

Critt Jarvis is a former U.S. Army medic (91B), airborne, Korean/Russian linguist (98G), with tactical and strategic assignments in Korea (Det L) and the former East Germany (Field Station Berlin.) Today, a social media platform and communications expert, he is best known publicly for helping NYTimes best-selling author Thomas PM Barnett establish his personal brand as an international thought leader in the field of national security. Now 59, founder of Conversation Base LLC, he works quietly in the background, reducing cost opportunity and general friction for innovative entrepreneurs. Critt blogs at crittjarvis.com, scans Twitter, and has a presence on LinkedIn and Facebook. His personal goal for 2009 is to establish a physical presence in Basra, Iraq, and initiate a conversation that might “educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.”

“Kotare” is a New Zealander with interests in global affairs, outdoor pursuits, reading, and single malt whisky. As a government official he has worked in the national security and nation-building fields. He blogs at The Strategist and is a contributor to Antilibrary.

Nathaniel T. Lauterbach is a Captain of Marines. He fought in Afghanistan in 2004, and in Iraq in 2005-6, each time deploying with the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit. While on deployment he was responsible for air support operations. He has led three platoons, filled several staff assignments, and served as a detachment commander. In 2006 he was selected by the Field Accession Board to transfer from a ground officer’s MOS to aviation. After completing Naval Flight Training he was designated a Naval Aviator, and is currently flying the UH-1Y Huey. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He is an avid reader of all things military. Nathaniel is married and lives in southern California.

Samuel Liles is a tenured associate professor at Purdue University Calumet, and he is currently attending Purdue University (West Lafayette) as a PhD student. Samuel started his career in the Army National Guard, was inter-service transferred to the Marine Corps, and has worked in two different sheriff department correction divisions. In 1993 he left law enforcement and embarked on a consulting career in information technology and started up the ladder of academia. Samuel is interested in the spectrum of information operations and how cyber warfare realistically impacts the broader scope of conflict. Samuel blogs at Selil blog.

Jay Manifold attended the University of Chicago as a physics major in the late ’70s and became a co-blogger at ChicagoBoyz after attending a blogbash in November of ‘03. His relevant interests are complex adaptive systems, organizational behavior, and risk management; his irrelevant but often predominant interest is amateur astronomy. He is a board member-at-large of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City and a keyholder at Powell Observatory; an alarmingly active member of Covenant Chapel Evangelical Presbyterian Church; and an alarmingly inactive member of the Project Management Institute. He feigns productivity as an IT project manager at an unnamed but easily guessed telecommunications company and resides in Kansas City, Missouri. Jay blogs at A Voyage to Arcturus and ChicagoBoyz.

“Carl Ortona” received his BA from the University of Chicago (still a point of pride) and his PhD from the University of Toronto (including a year in Germany at LMU in Munich). Both degrees were in political science with an emphasis on political philosophy. He has since taught at several universities in Canada as well as in Louisiana. Much to his chagrin and surprise as a stern, joyless Midwesterner, he has found living in the ‘Deep South’ to be pleasant and enjoyable. He is excited about the prospect of re-acquainting himself with (to quote Mark Twain) “the awful German language” and Clausewitz.

William F. Owen is a former British Army. Middle East Editor for the Shepard Group, and military theorist. He is a Clausewitz adherent, and a Liddel-Hart, Sun-Tzu, Boyd, MW and EBO sceptic. He posts on Small War Council.

Jay Parker is a project coordinator who lives in and works from Vermont. His interests include foreign policy, politics, history and generally theorizing about the state of global affairs. He blogs at Soob, Dreaming 5GW and Antilibrary.

“PurpleSlog” lives in the Milwaukee area. He has interests in pop culture, economics, Information technology, information security, national security issues and US public policy (though he does not blog about them all equally). Purpleslog says: “To put it the Ann Althouse way, I am an IT guy and sometimes I blog about IT.” He blogs at PurpleSlog and Dreaming 5GW.

Chris Rasmussen is a social software knowledge manager and trainer within the US Intelligence Community (IC). Chris says “I may be a ‘tech guy’ during the day now, but my educational background is History and National Security Studies. I want to balance social science back into my life.” See this and this about Chris.

Cheryl Rofer’s career has moved from the hard sciences to the social sciences, the hard sciences informing her analysis of international relations. With an A.B. from Ripon College and an M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley, both in chemistry, she has worked on the nuclear fuel cycle, fossil fuels, lasers, technologies for destruction of hazardous wastes and decommissioning of nuclear weapons, and management of environmental cleanups from New Mexico to Estonia and Kazakhstan. Her travels have taken her to both countries, and she is learning Estonian. She blogs at WhirledView

Mark Safranski, holds an MA in diplomatic history and is a teacher, educational consultant and an adviser to a privately held internet platform company, Conversationbase, LLC. He was the editor of The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy, and War, published by Nimble Books as well as having been a contributor to Nimble’s soon to be released, Threats in the Age of Obama. Mark blogs at Zenpundit. Mark can also be found at several well-regarded group blogs including, ChicagoBoyz, Progressive Historians and at a U.K. academic site, The Complex Terrain Laboratory. Mark is a free-lance contributor to Pajamas Media.

“Seydlitz89” is an American male over 50. He is a former Marine Corps officer and US Army intelligence officer who served in a civilian capacity in Berlin during the last decade of the Cold War. He was involved as both an intelligence operations specialist and an operations officer in strategic overt humint collection. This experience sparked his serious interest in strategic theory. He is now involved in education. He has published two papers on Clausewitzian strategic theory, both at the DNI website. He is also involved in the theoretical application and case studying of Clausewitzian strategic theory and Max Weber’s social action theory to education. He will be presenting at a conference in Cardiff Wales, UK in March of 2009. He is interested in the many connetions between not only Clausewitz and Weber, but also between Clausewitz and Svechin. He attended the Clausewitz conference at Oxford in 2005.

Tim Stevens is a postgraduate student in War Studies at King’s College London, researching strategic aspects of information environments. Aside from studying, and his day job at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation & Political Violence, he helps run the Insurgency Research Group, is managing editor at the Complex Terrain Laboratory, and writes his own moderately unsuccessful blog, Ubiwar. He’s old enough to know better but young enough to still say “yes”.

Aled Roberts Tien is a graduate of the University of Chicago in economics. He has been working and living in Asia (HK, China and Singapore) for the past 14 years in the high technology sector. He has always been interested in the history and politics of war.

“Sir Francis Younghusband” is a contributor to the current affairs group blog ComingAnarchy.com. Since accepting that assignment in 2004, he has gotten altitude sickness in the Pamir Plateau, suffered through gastrointestinitis in the Tonle Sap basin, been subjected to “exploding” chicken in Chinese Turkestan, wandered lost and moneyless through Shiraz, and most recently obtained a master’s degree in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. Younghusband currently lives in Japan and is preparing diligently for his next adventure

Join us at Chicago Boyz tomorrow!

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.

Briefly, here is a juxtaposition of posts worth looking at that portray war through the lens of the social scientist:

Rethinking Security – The Study of War as A Social Science

…Rather, it would be better to re-concieve the study of strategic affairs as a multi-disciplinary social science major combining sociology, international relations, philosophy, political science, cognitive science, economics, history, and “pure” military theory. This would be intellectually rigorous enough to banish forever the stereotype of the armchair general and the wargamer.

I see learning about strategy in itself as the key aim of such a curriculum–the goal would be to produce a student able to either apply his or her learnings in a think-tank or government, join the armed forces, come up with reasonable anti-war critiques as an activist, resolve conflict as a humanitarian, or apply strategy in the corporate world.

War as a social science akin to sociology or economics would bring empirical and quantitative rigor into the study of military history and affairs on the undergraduate level as well as a focus on the mechanics of war (tactics, operational art, strategy, and grand strategy) rarely seen outside of a Professional Military Education (PME).

SWJ Blog –  The Genetic Roots of the War on Terrorism

….In the article, titled “A Natural History of Peace,” Stanford Professor Robert M. Sapolsky compares and contrasts human aggressive tendencies with well-documented propensities for violence among several species of primates, and develops a case suggesting that human aggression of the kind that produces warfare mainly stems from the genetic impulses rooted in humans as primates (not a new suggestion of itself). But more significantly, he offers proof extracted from a now robust body of field work that even strong genetic tendencies for violence in certain species of primates can be mitigated by exposure to the equivalent of “cultural” forces. He singles out from the body of such observations the case history of one group of baboons (a particularly aggressive and violent species of primate) that he calls the Forest Troop, the intensely aggressive behavior of which was ameliorated after exposure to the more peaceful and tolerant “mores” of another baboon troop of an identical species with which the Forest Troop had come in contact. He concludes by asserting that “some primate species can make peace despite violent traits that seem built into their natures.” He goes on to muse, “The challenge now is to figure out under what conditions that can happen, and whether humans can manage the trick themselves.”

Sapolsky’s argument frames the issues associated with the current global conflict in which the United States is now engaged in a potentially very useful light: as a biological problem best understood and dealt with using means specifically tailored to deal with human genetic tendencies in order to promote cooperation and tolerance instead of competitive violence. This stands in contrast to the current approach which appears to assume that the conflict mainly results from a combination of cultural and economic factors that can be dealt with by a strategy that combines selected violence, targeted monetary investments mixed, and cross cultural messages through so called strategic communications.

The Social Sciences are a powerful but fractionating, reifying lens. Individually, they unearth certain aspects of large and highly complex phenomena albeit at the cost, at times, of distorting the proportional importance to the whole of the aspect that the social scientist chooses to study. The sociobiological perspective is a radical and controversial one but it is a position that is far more open to empirical investgation in a scientific sense than are many traditional components of strategic theorizing.  At Rethinking Security, Adam wisely tries to balance the heavy load of quantitative methods in his proposed program with at least a few qualitative disciplines; input from military practitioners and security experts would also be helpful to the prospective student in this regard as well.

Perusing the latest news on the Russo-Georgian War via the always excellent SWJ Blog, I fear some of my analysis from the other day will come to pass, simply because the only restraint on Putin’s disposition to use force against Georgia thus far is Putin’s self-restraint. Of which I’m not seeing much.  If something constructive in terms of statesmanship is to be done to end the crisis, we ought to move toward doing it while the Georgian Army is still intact.

 Western bluster is not going to help Saakashvili as much as would quietly putting the squeeze on the far-flung economic interests of the siloviki clique in Putin’s inner circle, or of the Russian state itself. That would be a practical and proportionately useful response to signal displeasure with Moscow’s actions. Far moreso than invoking comparisons with Hitler or Saddam Hussein or other rhetorical nonsense by folks who know better.  But doing that would require that the Europeans – the nations that wanted the BTC pipeline, after all – rapidly act as a diplomatic united front with Washington and accept some risk of retaliation – say, a 100 % increase of gas prices by Gazprom.

Kudos to President Sarkozy ‘s efforts but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

Adam Elkus suggested that we may be seeing an example of military theorist Frank Hoffman’s hybrid war in action. Possibly. Or we may see a combined arms version of an EBO attack by Moscow against the Georgian state. The critical variable will be if the Russians try for an occupation of Georgia proper, which will likely result in an open-source insurgency, or if they are engaged in what used to be called a “punitive expedition” and intend a prompt departure while they are still ahead.

Addendum:

In addition to linking to me ( gracias!) Galrahn is chasing down some very interesting rumors regarding Israelis and also of threatened executions of POWs. 

Addendum II.

Discussion at Small Wars Council rises to the occasion.

Addendum III.

Registan has a series of informative posts and lively commenters (some anti-Barnett mania as well). Dr. Dan Nexon has a good post up at Duck of Minerva with a priceless quote:

“We don’t look very good,” said a former Pentagon official long involved in Georgia. “We’ve been working on [Georgia] for four years and we’ve failed. Everyone’s guilty. But Putin is playing his cards brilliantly. He knows exactly what he’s doing and the consequences are all negative.”

That kind of truth telling is good. The fact is that if you look at Georgia and the U.S. backed Ethiopian intervention, there seems to be a systemic failure to anticipate and plan a response for the likely eventualities when carrying out proxy operations. It’s almost as if there’s a rule somewhere forbidding the raising of “What if ”  questions during the interagency process.

Dr. Chet Richards has reviewed the latest translation of one of the world’s oldest and greatest military classics:

The Art of War, trans. Thomas Huynh

One significant difference between Huynh and the other two is how they handle comments. Both Griffith and Cleary include remarks by the “canonical” commentators, a group of Chinese generals and pundits from Sun Tzu’s day through about the 12th century. They both also limit their own commentary to introductory remarks, 62 pages in the case of Griffith, 37 for Cleary. Huynh does not provide any of the canonical commentary. He does have a fairly brief introduction and translator’s note (totaling 18 pages), but most of his commentary is incorporated into the even-numbered pages that face the text on the opposite (odd numbered) pages.

Whether you like this is a matter of personal taste. It does allow for a smooth, uninterrupted reading of the Sun Tzu text itself, which is difficult in translations that have commentary interspersed with the words attributed to Sun Tzu. This is a huge plus. As for Huynh’s comments, they fall into two categories. One, which all readers will appreciate, concerns his insights into the language of the text and the environment of Sun Tzu’s day.

….A new translation of Sun Tzu from original sources is a major event, and this one would make a good addition to any library. If you get only a half dozen new insights – and you will (I did) – the book will repay its price many times over. Add it to the translations you’re using now and you’ll gain another source of ideas.

Read the rest here.