Recommended Reading
Kind a quick today.
Top Billing! SWJ Blog – Is Counterinsurgency the Graduate Level of War? & Counterinsurgency Principles for the Diplomat
Sean Meade at ARES – Aviation Week F-22 Farnborough Video
An amazing plane, no argument. Next gen tech when our adversaries still don’t have last gen ( maybe the Air force will use it against the Marines 😉 )
The Duck of Minerva – War and punishment (Dr. Dan) & Why Not Assassinate Mugabe? Why Not To. (Dr. Charli)
Vibrant discussion in the Mugabe post, some CTLab compadres there as well.
Thomas P.M. Barnett – Globalizations means fewer wars, less death
A nice antidote to the Stiglitz I am reading.
CTLab – Afghanistan ’96: The Legacy of Information Failures (Bleuer)
Foreign Policy – The World’s Top 20 Public Intellectuals
Quite a weird list, dominated by Muslim scholars, some of whom are globally known like Tariq Ramadan and others who are obscure, at least to me. Few scientists or economists made the cut.
tdaxp.com – Some Thoughts on Creative Self-Efficacy
Dan drills down on creativity research
Sally K. Horn in Foreign Service – Rewarding Functional Policy Expertise
Horn takes on the cocked up personnel system and career incentives for FSO’s.
Dr. Steven Metz at SSI – Expand the U.S. Military? Not So Fast (PDF)
Op-ed piece. SWC member Metz calls for spending on a wider range of options than just more boots
Hayden B. Peake – Studies in Intelligence – The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf
Books of interest reviewed by Peake.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:11 am
It is all about self promotion!!
“No one spread the word as effectively as the man who tops the list. In early May, the Top 100 list was mentioned on the front page of Zaman, a Turkish daily newspaper closely aligned with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Within hours, votes in his favor began to pour in. His supporters—typically educated, upwardly mobile Muslims—were eager to cast ballots not only for their champion but for other Muslims in the Top 100. Thanks to this groundswell, the top 10 public intellectuals in this year’s reader poll are all Muslim. The ideas for which they are known, particularly concerning Islam, differ significantly. It’s clear that, in this case, identity politics carried the day.”
No offense to those chosen…but method used is no merit of true intellectual power of these twenty over the one hundred on the carefully selected list.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 am
Great catch HG – I assumed there was some kind of organized "bullet voting" going on here.
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Imagine if the Chinese had done that as opposed to the Turks 😉
July 24th, 2008 at 1:22 am
thanks, Mark. much obliged 🙂