Have not done one\u00a0of these in a while. Fortunately, that means there’s lots of good material.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Top Billing! Steven Pressfield<\/strong> – An Interview with an Afghan Tribal Chief, Part #1<\/a>\u00a0and Interview with a Tribal Chief, Part 2: Warlords<\/a><\/p>\n Ah, I am a sucker for posts<\/a> on<\/a> warlords<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Chief Zazai: A tribal leader is elected by the tribes. A warlord is a self-imposed body on the tribes and the people. A tribal leader does not get elected if he has blood on his hands. A warlord cannot survive unless he has killed many innocent people, looted people’s livelihoods and been involved in the opium and drug trade. A tribal leader only gets elected when he, his father and grandfather have been servants of the community. A warlord does not need these recommendations. A warlord gains his position by force of arms and is only interested in personal gain. A warlord has no problem with reelection as this summer’s so-called election has shown. In this case the gun is mightier than the pen.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Steve has an amazing set of interviews with Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai<\/strong>, an elected tribal leader in Paktia province Afghanistan who was educated partly in Canada and fought in the Soviet War.<\/p>\n Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett<\/a><\/strong> – 10 Reasons Why Sanctions on Iran Won’t Work<\/a><\/p>\n Tom weighs in with an Esquire<\/em><\/strong> column on all the serious countervailing trends against a hardline policy squeezing Iran sufficiently to make the regime cave on nuclear programs, short of war. Dr. Barnett is right here; if there was an easy or cheap policy solution on Iran, we’d have done it already.<\/p>\n …Used to be that hardcore sanctions focused on weapons of mass destruction. But post-Bush, 21st-century sanctions offer “a pretty rich list to pick from,” as <\/strong>Robert Gates put it<\/strong><\/a> – Iran’s energy sector with bans on foreign investment and travel, the elimination of shipping insurance, and possibly the prohibition of oil-and-gas exports. But expect Tehran to activate workarounds wherein it reduces profit margins while muddling through with these wonderfully fungible assets. For example, Iran is vulnerable because it imports one-third of its gasoline, but ravenous Chinese oil companies are already filling the kinds of voids that sanctions could create, meaning that Europe’s temporary market loss will be China’s permanent strategic gain. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The wild card though, is the Mahdist\u00a0Hojjatiyeh<\/a> strand within the Pasdaran clique that seized power from the clergy in the wake of the stolen election. Are these IRGC powerbrokers more secular, corrupt, neofascist thugs or are they millenialist true believers?<\/p>\n Frank Hoffman<\/strong> –AFJ<\/em><\/strong> – Hybrid vs. compound war<\/a><\/p>\n “I would like the Pentagon and the defense community to use the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review to debate the range of threats we face and their potential combination. We need to assess today’s likely irregular threat and potential for high-end asymmetric threats. But this raises a critical issue in our evaluation of the emerging character of conflict: Is the character of conflict diverging into lower and higher forms, or converging, as the hybrid threat suggests? Defense Secretary Robert Gates appears to embrace the convergence of threats and assesses this as likely and dangerous”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n David Ronfeldt –<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0TIMN: some implications for thinking about political philosophy and ideology<\/a><\/p>\n Rand<\/strong> emeritus David Ronfeldt applies his post-political spectrum TIMN Model to analyze capitalism, democracy and radical ideologies.<\/p>\n Dr. David Kilcullen<\/strong> – NYT<\/strong><\/em> –\u00a010 Steps to Victory in Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0( Hat tip DNI<\/a><\/strong> )<\/p>\n Col. Kilcullen is very brief here, focusing on legitimacy and good governance.<\/p>\n Joshua Foust<\/a><\/strong> – NYT<\/em><\/strong> – “Maladies of Interpreters<\/a>”<\/p>\n Major kudos to Josh for snagging a high-profile op-ed on an important and generally mishandled problem of the USG giving due diligence to helping those who help us, usually at great risk to themselves. From the Montagnards and Hmong to Afghans and Iraqis, we need to institutionalize our response. If we can lard money on contractors who move toilet papers and MRE’s, a compensatory package for locals should be a no-brainer.<\/p>\n Strategic Studies Institute<\/strong> – Dr. Max G. Manwaring<\/strong>\u00a0 – A “New” Dynamic in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment: The Mexican Zetas and Other Private Armies<\/a><\/p>\n This is good. Why Mexico and the war next door gets less media coverage than Iraq amounts to a case of national denial. Things are getting worse south of the border and we are not prepared.<\/p>\n Dr. Sebastian L. v. Gorka<\/strong> – How to Win in Afghanistan<\/a><\/p>\n A back to basics approach on historical COIN examples; an\u00a0Afghan war strategy\u00a0the fits well with Steve Pressfield’s posts above.<\/p>\n Jamais Cascio<\/a><\/strong> – Fast Company<\/em><\/strong> – “The Singularity and Society<\/a>”<\/p>\n “….And that’s a problem, as the core of the Singularity argument is actually pretty interesting, and worth thinking about. Increasing functional intelligence–whether through smarter machines or smarter people–<\/strong>will<\/em> almost certainly disrupt how we live in pretty substantial ways<\/strong><\/a>, for better and for worse. And there have been periods in our history where the combination of technological change and social change has resulted in quite radical shifts in how we live our lives–so radical that the expectations, norms, and behaviors of pre-transformation societies soon become out of place in the post-transformation world”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fabius Maximus –<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Theories about 4GW are not yet like the Laws of\u00a0Thermodynamics<\/a><\/p>\n ….The value of these kinds of insights was well expressed\u00a0by a post\u00a0<\/strong>Opposed Systems Design<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(4 March 2008):<\/strong><\/p>\n A deeper understanding of these dynamics deserves an organized research program. The first concept – an artificially binary distinction between “foreign COIN” and “native COIN” – has served its purpose by highlighting the need for further work on the subject.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n One reason for our difficulty grappling with 4GW is the lack of organized study.\u00a0 We could learn much from a matrix of all insurgencies over along period (e.g., since 1900), described in a standardized fashion, analyzed for trends.\u00a0 This has been done by several analysts on the equivalent of “scratch pads” (see IWCKI for details), but not with by a properly funded multi-disciplinary team (esp. to borrow or build computer models).<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0We are spending trillions to fight a long war without marshaling or analyzing the available data.\u00a0 Hundreds of billions for the F-22, but only pennies for historical research.\u00a0\u00a0It is a\u00a0very expensive way to wage war<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Christopher Albon<\/strong> – The Social-Systemic Consequences of War<\/a><\/p>\n Diaspora and social network effects.<\/p>\n TDAXP<\/strong> – Review of “Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World” by Margaret MacMillan<\/a><\/p>\n Good review by Dan\u00a0of an important book on the China opening by the author of 1919<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Coming Anarchy (Curzon)<\/strong> – The Hakka People, China’s Leadership\u00a0Caste<\/a><\/p>\n This is a remarkable ethnographic marker of which I had not been aware. Akin to the\u00a0disproportionate influence of\u00a0Ashkenazi Jews in science or medicine.<\/p>\n Critt Jarvis<\/strong> – Why evangelize for Honduras? Energy and guts<\/a><\/p>\n Critt is back from Honduras and preaching the word.<\/p>\n John Hagel<\/strong> – A Labor Day Manifesto for a New World<\/a><\/p>\n A call for “passionate creatives” to organize to reform and innovate the dead hand of hierarchical, taylorist, institutions.<\/p>\n Major Mehar Omar Khan<\/strong> – Small Wars Journal<\/a><\/em><\/strong> – “Don’t Try to arrest the Sea: An Alternative Approach for Afghanistan<\/a>” (PDF)<\/p>\n Major Khan is a Pakistani officer on exchange in the U.S. and he argues that COIN strategies that ignore or attempt to “reform” major cultural-historical aspects of Afghan society in top-down fashion\u00a0are less likely to succeed than strategies that flow with the cultural current and start with small but acheivable “lighthouse” projects.<\/p>\n