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RECOMMENDED READING

Shooting for the provocative today, my linking here does not constitute an endorsement of the following views, except where explicitly indicated. Merely that they will get you thinking:

Colonel W. Patrick Lang – “War Against the Boogey Men“

A strong strand of anti-globalization, paleoconservatism, runs through this analysis combined with some frank observations about Islam and Iran-Israel. As an added bonus, Dave Schuler and Collounsbury are in the comment section ( though so far, Lang has yet to address the pointed remarks of either). Hat tip to John Robb.

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II of The Strategic Studies Institute -“CHALLENGING TRANSFORMATION’S CLICHÉS “

I am not finished reading this one ( indeed, I was, last night, as a courtesy, sent a truly massive tome being issued by the Defense Science Board, by a respected scholar connected with the Department of Defense -sorry, no link as it is not yet available online. I’m now buried under PDF files) and will comment specifically at a later time. But if you have read Dr. Echevarria’s previous slash and burn attack on 4GW then you know that he is a defense intellectual who pulls no punches. Hat tip to Fabius Maximus of DNI.

Dr. Chet Richards of DNI – “Science, Strategy and WarThe Strategic Theory of John Boyd“

Dr. Richards, the “keeper of the flame” of the ideas of the late military strategist Colonel John Boyd reviews the work of Colonel Frans P. B. Osinga, of the Royal Dutch Air Force. Richards calls the book “magnificent”. An erudite review that I much enjoyed, so much so that I grant it this excerpt:

“Is it a tough read? Do you know of anything really worthwhile that is easy? Just as there is no royal road to mathematics, there is no royal road to Boyd. I was present at the creation of many of these charts, and I found a lot in this book that was new and helpful in broadening my understanding (for one thing, I have not, as Osinga did, read Boyd’s original notes in the source books).”

I’m impressed. Osinga evidently takes no shortcuts in his scholarship.

From Coming Anarchy, long one of my favorite blogs to read, two posts:

From Curzon – “Kaplan on Thucydides v.s. Herodotus“

A great post for history buffs, classicists and fans of Robert Kaplan.

From Chirol – “Chirol’s Take on a 51st State“

Chirol is known for having the periodic ” Big Post”. Good for me, as I know beans about Puerto Rico.

From Nonpartisan at Progressive Historians, for whom I am developing a soft spot despite wide differences in political philosophy, two posts ” Three Humble Suggestions for the History Blogosphere” and ” Is America nearing, or averting, a social revolution? “.

I endorse without qualifications all of Nonpartisan’s suggestions for the history blogosphere. The second post I enjoyed for it’s focus on the much underrated but influential Brooks Adams, before Nonpartisan descended into -well – let’s just say he descended.

Dan of tdaxp – ” Evolutionary Cognitivism, Part I: Selection and Cognition“

While many blogs plateau or stagnate, tdaxp keeps getting better and better ( despite a blogspirit induced case of italics) and I’m following Dan’s synthesizing of evolutionary psychology with political science and education. This new series reviews a book, The Origins of Human Nature, that Dan considers ” almost flawless”. Though Dan finds a few.

New Blogs on the Blogroll:

SWJ Blog

Soob

Complexity and Social Networks Blog

THE SMALL WARS JOURNAL BLOG

Via email, Dave Dilegge let me know that The Small Wars Journal has begun its own blog , which featured a post, “A Framework for thinking about Iraq Strategy“, by LTC David Kilcullen, a special adviser to the Department of State and an expert on counterinsurgency warfare. An excerpt:

“This is a model, not a strategy. That is, it is a systematic oversimplification, designed to clarify an extremely complex, rapidly-changing reality. It does not tell us what to do in Iraq, but is a basis for evaluating options. It is wrong – all models are – but applied tentatively, with skepticism, and with constant and rigorous “ground truth” from first-hand observation in theater, I have sometimes found it useful.

an underlying nation-building problem, resulting from the fact that Iraq is a weak and fragile state, and three overlapping security problems that sit “above” that underlying problem, and make it harder to get at it. The three problems are:

Terrorism – that is, the presence of terrorist entities including (but not limited to) AQI who seek to exploit the situation in Iraq to further extremist or trans-national aims

Insurgency – the (primarily Sunni) rebellion against the new post-Saddam order in Iraq, including rebellion against both the coalition presence and the new Iraqi government, and

Communal Conflict – including sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shi’a elements, and ethnic conflict between Kurds, Arabs and other ethnic groups.

These three security problems overlap: incidents may involve elements of more than one dimension – for example, some terrorism is “pure” AQI activity, while other terrorist acts are insurgent-motivated, and yet others incorporate a sectarian dimension. Most incidents in fact include elements of two dynamics, or all three. You might think of the three problems as a Venn diagram of overlapping circles, each constantly changing in size, with any incident able to be plotted somewhere within the interaction of the three dynamics – terrorism, insurgency and communal conflict.“

It is a post of high quality and significant length which you can read in full here. Kilcullen references Iraq as a “wicked problem”, a subject I have blogged about previously for those interested in the term.

If I may make a suggestion, one element that needs to be added for clarity’s sake is some sort of “about us” that is germane to the blog rather than the SWJ as a whole. Who is/are/will be the regular bloggers at the SWJ Blog ? Dave Dilegge promises a varied stable of contributors so I’m looking forward to making SWJ Blog a regular read.

AN ECONOMY BUILT ON HORIZONTAL THOUGHT?

An interesting PDF -“Creating Creative Children” by the Drs. Eide of The Neurolearning Blog, cites shifts in the information economy as creating demand for insight-generating, horizontal thinkers with what the Eides term “creative expertise”, and a (relative) economic devaluation of vertical thinking niche experts.

While the Eides are using some different terms than I have on past posts on cognition, metacognition, creativity and learning, they have a document that is conceptually rich and in which I find substantial agreement. Their points on the importance of visualization and tolerance for ambiguity in are only part of a collection of ” ten habits” that serve as categories of cognitive strategies. A much larger brief in terms of scope than the title suggests.

Well worth your time.

LINKS:

Steve DeAngelis – Pattern Recognizers and Solution Simplifiers , The Medici Effect

Zenpundit –Creating a Culture of Mediciexity, Complexity vs. Simplification in Cognition

THERE’S MORE SURGING IN DC THAN BAGHDAD

The President outlined his plan tonight, along the lines of the much discussed “surge” option. The comments required here on this plan can be brief and on the response by the Democratic Majority, I will get by with even less.

The President’s intention to clear and secure Baghdad is a long overdue tactical move to address a problem that never should have occurred in the first place. In itself, this is appropriate and I have no doubt that, if it is planned and executed by the military without being required to cut operational corners to appease idiotic political concerns in Congress, they will succeed in doing so. Albeit with pockets of very bloody fighting with stay-behind suicide-terrorists (the al Qaida in Iraq leadership having long since decamped, no doubt). This will get the government of Iraq at least to the level of controlling its own capital city, most of the time.

The real question is more strategic: what do we have ready to implement as the next three steps after we ” clear and hold”? This is the point of concern that will determine what progress, if any, becomes permanent. Simply buying time is not an appropriate answer. Changing the situation requires making very hard political choices in reference to Iraq’s sectarian communities and regional diplomacy that “surging” will not allow the administration to ultimately escape. My vote is to throw in with the Kurds and cut a deal with the Shiites that creates a viable medium term, containment plan for an Anbar ” Sunnistan” until the U.S. -backed tribals can chew up the nuttier elements. We don’t need a city on the hill right now, just manageable levels of violence.

The Democrats have no ideas for what to do with Iraq and scant interest in dividing their party in an effort to find any, so they are limiting their blind opposition to empty gestures. If the Democrats really wanted to bug out of Iraq they’d be all for the surge in order to secure the capital so we could leave without the risk of the city imploding on our exiting soldiery like Blackhawk Down on the Euphrates.

Pelosi and company should be rooting for the Bush administration to get Iraq down to a low roar by 2008 or a possible Democratic president may find themselves in the same position as Nixon taking office after Tet.

SURGE LINKS -UPDATED AGAIN !!:

American Footprints -New!

Rightwing Nut House -New!

Middle East Perspectives -New!

Whirledview (PLS) -New!

Glittering Eye

Argghhh!

Armchair Generalist

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Global Guerillas

Counterterrorism Blog

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Small Wars Council

Bruce Kesler

American Future

MountainRunner & MountainRunner’s “11 Steps”

Defense Tech

Don Surber

Dean Barnett

Kevin Drum

UNCERTAINTY, INTELLIGENCE, PUZZLES AND RISK

Gunnar Peterson, the security expert who blogs at 1 Raindrop was kind enough to alert me to an excellent, link-rich, post of his that where the worlds of the internet security and analytical intelligence come together – “Vulnerability Puzzles and Mysterious Threats“. Some excerpts:

“To help focus and find action steps, I advocate for my clients to separate their activities into several categories, two important categories are threats and vulnerability management. How to differentiate the two? Well, first off, it is helpful to understand where you can be proactive (most desirable) and where you must be reactive. I explored the difference of risk and uncertainty in a paper on Identity Management Risk Metrics

” The national-security expert Gregory Treverton has famously made a distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts are a puzzle. We can’t find him because we don’t have enough information. The key to the puzzle will probably come from someone close to bin Laden, and until we can find that source bin Laden will remain at large.

The problem of what would happen in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein was, by contrast, a mystery. It wasn’t a question that had a simple, factual answer. Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much…”

Superb post. Had my wheels turning.

I have written on a few occasions in the past on questions of uncertainty as have experts like that Art Hutchinson. Deep Uncertainty is very problematic for forecasting but in making economic decisions -i.e. decisions for rational allocations of time, resources, systemic redundancy etc. – for disaster prevention, we can arrive at a functional and useful, if imperfect, decision making process.

Furthermore, regarding contemplation of uncertainty, I am also very intrigued by the ideas of Nissam Nicholas Taleb, who John Robb has posted about recently, both for the Black Swan concept and the longitudinal, non-zero sum, aspect. They indicate a far greater degree of analytical blindness and limitations produced by our worldviews, frames and methodologies, than are generally realized.

What we consider to be an epochal disaster might just be the least significant characteristic of a far larger phenomenon that goes unrecognized.

UPDATE:

Eerie, the charming mistress of Aqoul, has helpfully pointed out her review of Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and the Markets.