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A 4GW FESTIVAL OF RECOMMENDED READING

A hot topic, broadly defined, in the blogosphere these past few days.

Fabius Maximus at DNI has offered up some geopolitical predictions. An interesting piece – I found myself both nodding in agreement as well as disagreeing throughout. Fabius has a nice spread of geographic regions and topics in a relatively brief article.

LTC Dr. Thomas P. Odom has a great article in the new edition of The Small Wars Journal entitled “Guerrillas From the Mist: A Defense Attaché Watches the Rwandan Patriotic Front Transform from Insurgent to Counter Insurgent. Dr. Odom is not only an interesting writer and sharp debater, as the article shows, he’s put his boots in some of the world’s more hellish places.

The Grand Strategist reaches out to the Global Guerilla and the Global Guerilla reaches back.

Speaking of which….

John Robb had a strategic assessment of the terrorist bombing in Mumbai. Then, Lexington Green of Chicago Boyz disputed Robb’s interpretation, essentially pointing to the Strategic Bombing Survey that, as in the case of the Third Reich, a system’s resiliency is too easily underestimated. Then Tom Barnett weighed in, arguing that while Robb is correct that terrorists are pursuing “systempunkt” in the end “Terrorism is a strategy of the weak, and it earns them only what the powerful decide they no longer want.” I tend to agree; 4GW movements that remain locked into a 4GW mindset degenerate into nihilism, unless they can make the cognitive jump to becoming a constructive force that articulates what Colonel John Boyd called a “ theme for vitality and growth“.

Finally, to blow my own horn, the thread at the Small Wars Council, Theory & Practice , that became a guest post at the invitation of Bruce Kesler at Democracy Project, was placed by Eddie of Live From the FDNF at Mudville Gazette and picked up, again courtesy of Mr. Kesler, by Military.com. Nice !

Evidently, asking a question and getting the hell out of the way while smart folks respond is a good blogging strategy for me. Much thanks to Bruce as well as to Dave Dilegge and Eddie. A team effort from start to finish !

That’s it!

UPDATE:

John Robb offers rebuttal and clarification to Lex and Tom

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Out most of the day. In addition to hosting kiddies and consequent visit to the swiming pool, our new dog got hold of some kind of medication, ate it and had to go to the vet. Followed by a trip to the nearest animal hospital, many injections, tests and a $ 1300 bill. Ouch.

I am now drinking a cold Sam Adams. Cream Stout to be specific.

It won’t be the last.

DECLINE OF THE EDITORIAL STATE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ?

This guy is either a major admirer of Martin van Creveld, William Lind and John Robb or he owes somebody some serious royalties. This article could be Cliffs Notes for The Rise and Decline of the State. Yet not a word of acknowledgment. For good measure, he also borrows the term ” Gap” from Tom Barnett but mostly he just cribs from the 4GW school.

Uncool. Attribution is important.

EMERGENCE IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS

Had the pleasure of extended discussion over coffee with Dr. Von last night. A good part of our exchange revolved around the recent posts over the resilience of networked civilizations and complexity inspired by the Bar-Yam paper. A subject which in turn brought us to considering emergence and phase transitions and how that might apply to social networks.

Von made reference to an old post of his that I missed the first time around- “Our Universe:Continual Emergence“- that I think might be helpful to the bloggers who have been mulling over this topic. An excerpt that sums up the problem with a collective knowledge base built on the legacy of reductionism being applied to analyze systemic complexity:

“In other words, we know a lot about the basic rules and principles that govern individual components for each individual step of the evolution of the universe and life on earth. However, what we don’t understand very well is how steps make the transition to the next step. We don’t understand the organizational principles or the rules that govern the phase transitions between steps, which means we don’t understand the emergence of complexity in our universe. This is where we are now and, in my opinion, such studies will dominate whole fields of physical science, biological science, mathematics, economics, social science, behavioral science, technology, and even philosophy, for decades to come. To those who have suggested the end of science is near, think again.”

Read the post in full here.

LINK:

Dave at Thoughts Illustrated has a link to a podcast with Valdis Krebs

THE GREATEST HISTORIAN?

Clio, Muse of History

Rare question post….

Who might the greatest historian be ? A great dead white male like Herodotus ? Gibbon ? Thucydides ? Ranke ? A modern like Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles Beard or Richard Hofstadter ? A ” popular” historian like Stephen Ambrose, Howard Zinn or David McCullough ? Venerable and prolific men of letters like Bernard Lewis, C. Vann Woodward or Robert Conquest ? A non-Westerner like Ibn Khaldun ?

Who has most influenced us in terms of what we think history is, and should be ?