The Insurgent Archipelago by John Mackinlay
Learned about the book from SWJ. The author contends:
1) Jihadism is but one phase of a worldwide insurgency that will bedevil us for decades and that is an expression of alienation of 3rd world immigrant communities within rich nations. A future phase, he says, may involve millions of destitute 3rd world refugees from global warming-induced inundation of their homelands, who will have found their way to western cities.
2) Thus, the most important theater of the conflict is within the western nations, not in some Middle Eastern or Central Asian land. Not least, he posits, because the "expeditionary approach" of taking the fight overseas is stillborn by the western nations' obsession with an exit strategy even before we charge through the entrance. So, he argues, as domestic politics forecloses a winning strategy overseas, we are left to focus on the domestic threat..which is the main one in any case.
3) He cites as a potential model a UK op involving LE cum the whole of gov't
approach in engaging the Islamic immigrant community.
Opinion: May provide some insight into a Weltanschauung prevalent in some European circles. ....Also, no problem for a retired guy like me, but if your time comes at a premium you might want to weigh the opportunity cost of reading....
Cheers,
Mike.
The Baader-Meinhof Complex by Stefan Aust
I have just finished reading the fully revised English edition of The Baader-Meinhof Complex by Stefan Aust (Pub. 2008), which also became a film.
The Baader-Meinhof gang in West Germany started in 1970 and ended in 1998. At one time the gang had six members engaged in a campaign of terrorism and was described as "the war of six against sixty million". The early gang was captured in 1972, a prolonged trial started in 1975 and ended in 1977 when three died in custody - after the famous GSG-9 (and SAS) hostage rescue at Mogadishu.
A really good book covering radicalisation, the state response (much still shrouded in secrecy), international links and the impact on Germany.
UK Amazon:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baader-Meinh.../dp/1847920454
USA Amazon, with good reviews:http://www.amazon.com/Baader-Meinhof...0086711&sr=1-1
Kipling's 1899 Classic: " The White Man's Burden"
Hard to believe this was written 111 years ago regarding the US operation to build an empire with the Philippines and not just last week:
"Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!"
horde it through the grapevine
Mayhap be interesting perchance or somesuch.
Online participatory novel masterminded by Neal Stephenson (Snowcrash, Cryptonomicon).
Quote:
The Mongol takeover of Europe is almost complete. The hordes commanded by the sons of Genghis Khan have swept out of their immense grassy plains and ravaged Russia, Poland, and Hungary... and now seem poised to sweep west to Paris and south to Rome. King and pope and peasant alike face a bleak future—until a small band of warriors, inheritors of a millennium-old secret tradition, set out to probe the enemy.
...
We are presenting The Mongoliad first as an online serial novel for a few reasons. One is that it lets us share an intimacy with readers that isn't possible when the books come out every three or so years, all at once, in doorstop format. When something gets you excited or bores you, we want to know. Another reason is that we are energized by the possibilities for creating parts of this novel not only as words, but as illustrations, graphic novels, maps, and eventually games and movies.
...
The Subutai Corporation is named after Genghis Khan's strategic commander, a man who rarely lost a battle and who eventually grew so obese that horses could not carry him. And you know a Mongol has to be somebody pretty special if he can't ride a horse and still gets treated with respect. So that's our guy.
The Mongoliad
Futurist and theoritical only
An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion
Travis S. Taylor (Author), Bob Boan
(Author), R.C. Anding (Author), T. Conley Powell (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158...SIN=1581124473
For extreme modern warfare geek only… :D
What Are You Currently Reading? 2010
Moderator at work
New thread created to enable easier searching, so now split into years, started with 2007.