zenpundit.com

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.

Spent much of the day working on an important outside project as well as tedious grad school assignments. Hit probably 2500-3000 words but unfortunately that was interspered with having to read and look up specific details, footnote etc. Plodded along steadily though.

Normal blogging will resume in a day or two.

I’m getting errors in trying to download the Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World from the DNI.gov/NIC site despite having up to date Adobe Acrobat/Reader. Is anyone else having a similar problem ?

UPDATE:

Thanks Charles and Dan. 

In the meantime, while we wait for the USG to post a working link, here is some early analysis by Jeff at IntelFusion.

UPDATE II.

Courtesy of Shlok Vaidya –  Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed. Thanks Shlok – Fingar should offer you a job.  Will have comments on the report later tonight.

UPDATE III.

Commentary on 2025 in a series of posts at Atlantic Council by James Joyner, by Dr. Barnett and SWJ Blog,

UPDATE IV.

I’m still sifting the report but I’m not impressed. Aside from the cautious positions on possible developments heavily rooted in presentist analysis I kind of get the drift that the possibilities have not been looked at too closely as to how their interactions might or might not be countervailing with one another. Sort of an implicit assumption of synergism.

I’d say “Ouch” except that Matt is absolutely right. Here’s his post taking Dipnote and America.gov  to task.

Ayman al-Zawahiri’s racial epitaph

State’s foreign media hubs are one thing, but what about online? I’ll wager Defense has already started to respond to this the Zawahiri message on the Internet. State needs to respond both to U.S. audiences (ostensibly DipNote’s mission) and abroad (America.gov’s mission). Seriously, even China is implementing an agile response capability.

I don’t think we’ll see anything from DipNote or America.gov on this. It would be great to be wrong.

Judging from looking at Dipnote, if trouble breaks out in Oltenia or Transylvania, Dipnote has the Romanian beat covered! The lesser Carpathanians is an absolutely vital area these days. 🙂

At Chicago Boyz.

I am pleased to announce that in January, 2009 Chicagoboyz will begin hosting a roundtable discussion of the classic work of military theory, On War by Carl von Clausewitz.
 

I will be participating, as will a robust group of bloggers, scholars and military practitioners.

Join us.