zenpundit.com

Sorry for the silence but I had to attend to matters related to the day job. This weekend should see some good posts up here and and at associated sites, plus…. a cool announcement coming very soon. 🙂

Heh.

Entitled Let’s Not Rush into Cold War II:

…In the earnest desire to help a beleaguered ally and perhaps longing for the good old days of Reagan Doctrine moral clarity, conservatives may be losing sight of something important – namely America’s strategic interests. Moreover, their silence in regard to grave failures by our national security establishment in this crisis is bewildering. The results of the Russo-Georgian war are a debacle. Either our State Department, CIA, and the Pentagon failed to accurately assess a likely Russian reaction to an attempt by Georgia to retake South Ossetia by force – an act that provided Moscow with a pretext to attack Georgia – or the war caught us completely by surprise. The former possibility is worrisome; the latter is inexcusable.

President Bush should be commended for his very firm but restrained moves to try and end this crisis and in the process salvage Georgia’s sovereignty and Mikheil Saakhashvili’s position as president of Georgia, both of which were close to being lost, mainly through Saakashvili’s own incompetence. Unfortunately, the president does not have much leverage to work with, having been maneuvered into a dispute with Russia at a time and place of Putin’s choosing rather than ours – a game where Putin and Medvedev hold all the good cards and can deal from the bottom of the deck.

Amusingly, some of the commenters there seem to believe that I am a) a liberal and b) a Russian shill and c) fit to be a member of The New York Times editorial board, perhaps the unkindest cut of all. 🙂

Sorry boys, if the Georgians had bloodied the Russian invaders, I’d have stood up and cheered with everybody else. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and that reality needs to be accepted on it’s own terms without pretending the Russian military is now ten feet tall. Giving limited aid to Georgia here is fine but the urge to rush in American troops to fight Russia for Saakasvili, as some would like to do, while the Europeans and Georgians sit and watch is simply asinine.

UPDATE:

Similar views from William Lind and Thomas Barnett. See also Spengler.

UPDATE II:

Much thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking to my PM post – Nice! ( Hat tip to blogfriend Purpleslog in the comments)

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.

A fast one:

Thomas P.M. Barnett – Response to Georgia conflict: firm but moderate

The Wizards of Oz – Reorienting “Effects” Focus

SWJ Blog –  On Advisors and Advising (Nagl) and Considerations for Organizing for Future Advisory Missions (Maxwell)

MountainRunner – Rethinking Smith-Mundt: responding to Sharon Weinberger

Global Guerillas – OPEN SOURCE WARFARE: Cyberwar

ERMB – The Russian/Georgia Conflict and Globalization

Threatswatch – Scientific Research: Objectivity vs Emotion & Politics (Fraser)

Rough Type – Easy does it

Permanent Innovation Blog – Buckminster Fuller Called for a Design Revolution

Soob has a new look.

New Yorker in DC has done an excellent region by region breakdown of the effect of the Russo-Georgian War on Russia’s “Near Abroad” as well as neighboring states, some which were formerly part of the Eastern Bloc and others, such as Turkey, that are NATO allies. It’s a very long post with many links but I wanted to highlight one particular section, from the introduction:

The situation in the Caucasus is slowly deteriorating. First, Poland and the United States reached an agreement on the missile shield to include 10 interceptor rockets at a base in northern Poland, and seemingly in response, Russia’s military pushed deeper into Georgian territory. Moreover, Russia also raised the ante by hinting that the US would have to choose, and soon, between what it refers to as its “Special Project” or issues which are more important to the US and the international community; mainly, Iran and North Korea. According to the AP, the US agreed in the deal with Poland, and in defiance of Russia’s recent victory, to include a declaration that the US will aid Poland militarily in case of a threat from a third country, and will establish a permanent American base on Polish soil.

The negotiations regarding missile defense have been ongoing but the sudden agreement with Poland was most likely intended by the Bush administration as diplomatic retaliation against Moscow for failing to adhere to the cease-fire agreement in Georgia.

In one sense, this might be a useful move to demonstrate that Russia’s policy in Georgia will come with a set of costs and that Poland’s swift adherence, after much earlier footdragging by Warsaw, indicates the unhappiness and alram of Russia’s neighbors. Unfortunately, it also represents more “flailing about” by the Bush administration to grab something that was already in the pipeline that the Russians would find particularly irritating in a country that is deeply anti-Russian for very good reasons.

Easy to do but putting an anti-missile unit in Poland really does not accrue us any new diplomatic leverage in the crisis. Or military advantages ( unless we are to believe that Putin intends to attack Poland, a member of NATO, with just one or two nuclear missiles -if so, problem solved!). In terms of reaching a declared goal of getting Russia out of Georgia this move was probably a net loss. But in the absence of any overarching strategy in Washington for Russian-American relations, the best that can be managed are tactical moves in isolation.