{"id":3300,"date":"2010-01-05T05:56:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T05:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3300"},"modified":"2010-01-05T15:09:17","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T15:09:17","slug":"recommended-reading-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3300","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top Billing! Matt Armstrong<\/strong> – Hybrid Threats Require a Hybrid Government<\/a><\/p>\n

….The focus on improving the operational elements of national power, while necessary, ignores a critical national security actor that has received little to no attention or pressure to adapt to the new and emerging requirements: Congress. <\/strong>Blended threats require blended authorities and budgets to support the necessary hybridization of executive agencies. Congressional committees must have a common understanding of current capabilities, problems, and requirements. They should communicate among themselves, just as they are increasingly demanding of the executive branch, but the reality is something else.<\/strong>Congress must adapt otherwise many of the reforms suggested, required, and even implemented may face unnecessary delays and suffer from uninformed oversight. The Congressional committee system is a valuable scheme providing checks and balances and intentionally dilutes power. In practice, the lack of communication and coordination can create confusion and limit support, oversight, and understanding the requirements of various programs. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steven Pressfield<\/strong> – COIN in a Tribal Society: an interview with William S. “Mac” McCallister<\/a>\u00a0and Shame and Honor, not Hearts and Minds: an interview with William S. “MAC” McCallister, #2<\/a><\/p>\n

William McCallister<\/strong> is a former military officer, defense consultant, deep thinker and a\u00a0provocative voice at SWJ<\/a> <\/strong>and the Warlord Loop<\/strong>. Well worth your time.<\/p>\n

Schmedlap<\/strong> – The Graduate Level of Warfare<\/a><\/p>\n

….Ironically, the reason that some assert COIN to be some higher level of warfare is because those people misunderstand the root of our difficulty with it. They see inadequate training and conclude that our skills have been focused on a specific level of (less) complexity, rather than recognizing that our skills have been focused on one specific set of missions. If two grapplers prepare for a bout, but one bows out before the fight and a stand-up fighter replaces him, we do not say that the remaining grappler failed to prepare for the “higher level” of fighting. He simply prepared for the wrong type of fight. Likewise, our training thus far has been in preparation for the wrong type of operation.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I started reading Schmedlap<\/strong> after seeing his pragmatic and informed comments at SWJ Blog<\/strong> and recommend that you do as well.<\/p>\n

WIRED<\/em><\/strong> – Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2009<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thomas P.M. Barnett<\/a><\/strong> – The New Rules: The Naughties Were Plenty Nice<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom would have made a good “Open Door”\u00a0diplo historian as befits an alum of Wisconsin ( home of William Appleman Williams<\/a><\/strong>)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pundita<\/strong> –Whaddya mean there was no smoking gun, Mr Brennan? More nonsense from Abdulmutallab terror case<\/a><\/p>\n

…..ABC ferreted out the truth behind news reports that Umar Abdulmutallab’s father alerted the U.S. Embassy about his concern that his son had gotten involved with radicals. The way such reports were worded conveyed the idea that the CIA didn’t have a smoking gun to work with. Actually, the CIA had a smoking cannon handed to them.<\/strong>ABC learned that what really happened is that Umar phoned his father to say he was calling for the last time because the people he was with in Yemen were going to destroy his SIM card. That would make his phone unusable. And that was as much telling his father he was entering the final phase of training for a terrorist suicide mission.His father immediately alerted Nigerian intelligence officials that he was afraid his son was preparing for a terrorist mission in Yemen. The officials then brought him directly into the presence of the CIA station chief in Abuja on November 19.<\/strong>So it’s not as if some worried father wandered in off the street to unburden himself to a clerk at a U.S. embassy. And note that the Nigerian intelligence officials didn’t run the risk of getting trapped in voice mail hell or hearing, ‘I’m sorry your email got lost in the shuffle.’ They made Double Dutch sure the station chief heard the father’s statement and understood its import and urgency.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Top Billing! Matt Armstrong – Hybrid Threats Require a Hybrid Government ….The focus on improving the operational elements of national power, while necessary, ignores a critical national security actor that has received little to no attention or pressure to adapt to the new and emerging requirements: Congress. Blended threats require blended authorities and budgets to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}