What Are You Currently Reading? 2007

[SteveMetz]

I am currently reading “Finding the Target” by Kagan, a very good analyses of transformation.

“The End of Iraq” by Galbraith is very informative, yet comes across as an apologetic for Kurdish independence.

I should have listed Fred's book in my queue as well. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Weekly Standard about Fred's most recent Iraq essay for them. I hope they run it next issue. Here's what it said,

I've just read Frederick Kagan's "The New Old Thing" in the June 11 issue. While I normally agree with Fred on most things, I take issue with his argument that the Abizaid-Casey strategy which focused on training Iraqi forces "failed" and the current approach of using American forces to protect Iraqi civilians is better. I base this on the history of insurgency over the past fifty years. In almost every instance where insurgents succeeded, the immediate precipitant was not violence against civilians, but a collapse of will on the part of local security forces. The key is not whether Iraqi security forces can themselves substitute for American forces in short term, but that they retain their morale, and coherence. That should be our primary goal over the next few years. Perhaps the Abizaid-Casey strategy was not the best way to assure that. If so, we should adjust our efforts to bolster the Iraqi security forces, not abandon them.

[T. Jefferson]

I should have listed Fred's book in my queue as well. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Weekly Standard about Fred's most recent Iraq essay for them. I hope they run it next issue. Here's what it said,

I've just read Frederick Kagan's "The New Old Thing" in the June 11 issue. While I normally agree with Fred on most things, I take issue with his argument that the Abizaid-Casey strategy which focused on training Iraqi forces "failed" and the current approach of using American forces to protect Iraqi civilians is better. I base this on the history of insurgency over the past fifty years. In almost every instance where insurgents succeeded, the immediate precipitant was not violence against civilians, but a collapse of will on the part of local security forces. The key is not whether Iraqi security forces can themselves substitute for American forces in short term, but that they retain their morale, and coherence. That should be our primary goal over the next few years. Perhaps the Abizaid-Casey strategy was not the best way to assure that. If so, we should adjust our efforts to bolster the Iraqi security forces, not abandon them.

I certainly agree that we ought not to abandon Iraqi security forces in general. The main question seems to be where and how to utilize our limited resources both military and political. Seems to me that only have a very small window left in which to effect many desperately needed changes.

[Ironhorse]

I recently read John Stewart's (et al) America.

T. Jefferson, great work on the forward. That was sheer & epic genius. That and the paragraph summarizing the working of Congress were Pullitzer material.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Now that I finished my book on Iraq I am taking a look at some others ... I am almost finished Assassin's Gate ... I ran across this guy and the charachters in that book so many times its like reading my own Iraq bio! Excellent book in my very biased estimation.

[SteveMetz]

Now that I finished my book on Iraq I am taking a look at some others ... I am almost finished Assassin's Gate ... I ran across this guy and the charachters in that book so many times its like reading my own Iraq bio! Excellent book in my very biased estimation.

How about come over here and finish *my* Iraq book then! I've got 300 pages and am waiting to hear if Potomac Press wants to sign it.

I sat next to Packer at the Chilis in Leavenworth during the famous February 2006 meeting to vet 3-24. Brilliant guy. I loved his piece on Kilcullen in last December 18th New Yorker. And I even made brownie points with my teenager who was impressed that I had dinner with someone who had been on the Daily Show a few weeks earlier.

If you haven't read it, I think Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine is one of the most important books to come out over the past few years.

[Abu Buckwheat]

How about come over here and finish *my* Iraq book then! I've got 300 pages and am waiting to hear if Potomac Press wants to sign it.

Good luck with Potomac. I got told that no one wanted to read a book on the insurgents... by nine publishers over two years. Said Iraq was unmarketable and not likely to last as a political subject! However they all wanted a personal narrative story of my time in the Palace!

I loved the sourcing in the One Percent Doctrine but hated his writing ... terrible prose.

[SteveMetz]

Good luck with Potomac. I got told that no one wanted to read a book on the insurgents... by nine publishers over two years. Said Iraq was unmarketable and not likely to last as a political subject! However they all wanted a personal narrative story of my time in the Palace!

I loved the sourcing in the One Percent Doctrine but hated his writing ... terrible prose.

The project Potomac is looking at isn't really about the insurgency per se. It's called Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy and looks at the way we used our conflict with Iraq as a lesson and a model from at least 1991 on. In other words, it first drove RMA thinking and transformation in the Cebrowski/Owens mode, then drove a revised version of transformation that we're in the midst of today.

My Learning From Iraq will be one chapter.

[Tom Odom]

How about come over here and finish *my* Iraq book then! I've got 300 pages and am waiting to hear if Potomac Press wants to sign it.

I sat next to Packer at the Chilis in Leavenworth during the famous February 2006 meeting to vet 3-24. Brilliant guy. I loved his piece on Kilcullen in last December 18th New Yorker. And I even made brownie points with my teenager who was impressed that I had dinner with someone who had been on the Daily Show a few weeks earlier.

If you haven't read it, I think Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine is one of the most important books to come out over the past few years.

I really enjoyed Packer's insights on the evolution of the neo-cons and their rise to influence. Pages 30-31 are especially interesting.

His writings on Chalabi are on the mark; funny that we dismissed pretty much out of hand in the early 90s reports sourced to the "Iraqi resistance". Packer's book does much to explain how that all changed.

Tom

[Culpeper]

I recently read John Stewart's (et al) America.

T. Jefferson, great work on the forward. That was sheer & epic genius. That and the paragraph summarizing the working of Congress were Pullitzer material.

I have a copy of that book. My sister in San Francisco sent it to me for Christmas. She gets all her news from John Stewart. She seems very happy. No joke.

[Stevely]

I just finished Brave New War and recently before that, My Life Among the Deathworks by Philip Rieff, which is long and depressing indictment against modern anti-culture, written by a member of the culture establishment (professor of art and sociology IIRC at UVa, recently deceased). Unfortunately Rieff spent too much time in the belly of the beast, and his writing has much of the stilted, somewhat disjointed, jargon-ridden style found amongst po-mo culture types, but it was a rewarding read nonetheless. I will post something about it when I have the time/ energy. Probably join the BNW discussion at some point, too...

Currently reading Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict.

[Old Eagle]

Just re-read The Ugly American. I still have my 55cent original copy. Lederer & Burdick use irony in the title, of course, because the chapter on the "ugly American" is actually about a true hero, while many of the beautiful people are really the ugly ones. Military comes off pretty well.

Gotta re-read Hofer now that Tom has dredged that out of my memory.

[goesh]

The Little Green Book: Sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini

[Ski]

Mostly focused on Master's degree related reading:

Stonewall in the Valley by Robert Tanner
Maurice's Strategikon translated by George Dennis
Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565-1204 by John Haldon
Storm of Steel by Mary Habeck
The Training of Officers by Martin Van Creveld (have read this many times)
Technology and War by Martin Van Creveld
The Russian Way of War, Operational Art 1904-1940 by Richard Harrison