What Are You Currently Reading? 2016

**Backwards Observer** · 04-15-2016

The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention by Rajan Menon

Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era by Michael Mandelbaum

**Bill Moore** · 04-16-2016

Toward a New Maritime Strategy: American Naval Thinking in the Post-Cold War Era

by Peter D. Haynes

http://www.amazon.com/Toward-New-Mar...+navy+strategy

For those interested in the evolution of strategy, not just Maritime Strategy, since the end of the Cold War this is a fascinating read. I'll address elements of the book as I expand on the thread Strategy in the 21st Century at the following link.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...041#post185041

A few of key concepts that came out of this book, or walk through modern history.

Haynes is critical throughout this work, but not overly critical, and he explains the various points of pressure from the Chairman, Congress, etc. that limited the development of a viable naval strategy for the 21st Century based on legacy thinking and processes still tied largely to the Cold War.

In the beginning he suggests that the American military has adopted a Jominian approach to war, where the focus on battle relieved the military from the task of understanding how destroying things would lead to the desired political goals. We isolated war and strategy from its social and political context.

During the Cold War and since (now with our 4 + 1 focus) military thinking become strictly focused on threats as the only strategic factor. I see this in the intelligence community, they give short shift to the factors related to PMESII and focus on red, reducing war's complexity to a series of targets. Military planning post Cold War fundamentally became a targeting drill, the only that mattered was finding and hitting targets. There was little reason to relate the purpose of the military to U.S. interests in a changing world beyond what was required to wage war. After 9/11 the mismatch between the nature of the threat and tools available channeled the conduct of GWOT toward interstate war. Few in government imagined how GWOT would be won. Turns how much revolution in military affairs was a solution in search of a problem.

Strategy didn't appreciate the implications of globalization (a major focus throughout the book) and trends in international finance and trade, and how this led to a profound shift from a state-centric to a market dominated international economy and reconfigured political power.

The point of all this is that the survival of nations is largely dependent upon economic factors, so the author made a strong case that strategy should focus on national interests (mostly tied to the economy) instead of threats. Focusing on interests enables us to put threats in their proper perspective. This line of thought played into the evolving Navy Strategy "A Cooperative Strategy," but leaders in the Navy were concerned that the proposed strategy was too soft power centric (although that wasn't the intent), and added a good dose of war fighting back in.

It certainly didn't reject the other factors, as ADM Mullen was quoted saying, "First, to rid yourselves of the old notion – held by so many for so long – that maritime strategy exists solely to fight and win wars at sea, and the rest will take care of itself. In a globalized world the rest matters a lot.”

I found a couple of his many recommendations at the end of the book interesting.

For example, he noted most Naval Strategists have degrees in international relations, which he argued produces the wrong type of mind set for the 21st Century. It produces realists who are state centric, and in an ever more interconnected and interdependent world other forms of academic expertise are needed.

He also points out that most studies focused on the prevention of war, a key aspect of the new strategy, only focuses on coercion and deterrence. What is also needed is an equal effort on how to effectively assert influence in peacetime.

Highly recommended for those into this topic.

**AmericanPride** · 04-20-2016

Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough

Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War by Fred Kaplan

Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space by Keller Easterling:http://www.amazon.com/Extrastatecraf...xtrastatecraft

**Backwards Observer** · 04-21-2016

Bill "Centurion" Moore's recommendation, Toward a New Maritime Strategy: American Naval Thinking in the Post-Cold War Era by Peter Haynes

The End of Alliances by Rajan Menon

**Bill Moore** · 05-02-2016

Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism
by Maajid Nawaz

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Journe...mist+extremism

One man's story on how he came to embrace radical Islam, why he left it, and his subsequent efforts to organize Muslims to produce a counter narrative. It starts off with his time in England, the university, and eventually ending up in a brutal imprisonment in Egypt (hard to see why we embrace Egyptians as allies, when their government at the time differed little from Saddam's).

Maajid never became a terrorist, instead he was a recruiter and political organizer for HT and Islamism in general, and one who was quite good at it.

He describes how he became politicized by Hip Hop and Rap music, which in his view was music that had a political message to revolt against the system. In short, he said Public Enemy politicized him. He also read about Malcolm X because he could relate to his arguments. Political Islam came him a means to channel his new politicized views.

He bought into the global narrative that Muslims were being suppressed, not that Muslims were necessarily being suppressed in England. Once again the adage that all politics is local is called into question. He pointed out the importance of Bosnia in the 90s as one issue that politicized many Muslims.

A couple of interesting points, he wrote:

What Islamism had done in Europe was to set Muslim communities back an entire generation. It created a separatist agenda that became self-fulfilling. In an effort to protest discrimination, all it achieved was further segregation. Further social immobility created more discrimination, not less.

I have seen parallels with different minority groups in the U.S., people being exploited by their own people pretending to be their saviors, but in the end only increasing their personal wealth.

He then talked about the Monkeys in a Zoo, the white liberals who continued to push their liberal agenda and dismissed any other views about the causes of Islamic based terrorism.

On many occasions after my talks, people--usually white liberals--would stand up and declare that I had no idea what it was like to suffer as a victim of society. They would assert that there was no way someone like me, an educated, articulate English-speaker in a suit and tie, could ever understand people who felt so desperate that suicide bombing was their "only" option. I was told that terrorists reactions cannot be separated from their social causes and the blame lies squarely on society. I had invariably just spent half an hour telling my entire story, of violent racism and police harassment in Essex, of torture in Egypt, but because my conclusions didn't align with the angry "monkey" they were expecting to see, it was as if they hadn't heard any of it.

His story on imprisonment in Egypt, and how his interactions with Sadat's assassins (who came to the conclusion radicalized Islam was wrong) and his interactions with Amnesty International began to humanize him is worth the read.

There are insights throughout the book that readers who are interested in the topic will find of interest. In simple terms, he explains the dictators in the Middle East either used radical Islam to maintain power, or tried to crush it to maintain power, and both approaches enabled this toxic ideology to grow.

The author, I believe correctly, points out most Muslims reject political Islam, but the Islamists are well organized, which is why they're able to gain power and create the perception it is a popular movement. I know some reject our efforts to try to counter the violent extremism narrative, but the author believes it is essential to provide a counter narrative and organize politically more effectively than the Islamists if we're ever going to reduce this problem from a strategic to tactical level threat. Of course, it is Muslims that need to this, not white liberals in the U.S. State Department working on Facebook.

He has engaged in a number of efforts since rejecting Islamism to organize a counter narrative. One such effort was forming Quilliam with a friend of his.

http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/

Quilliam is the world’s first counter-extremism think tank set up to address the unique challenges of citizenship, identity, and belonging in a globalised world. Quilliam stands for religious freedom, equality, human rights and democracy.

Challenging extremism is the duty of all responsible members of society. Not least because cultural insularity and extremism are products of the failures of wider society to foster a shared sense of belonging and to advance liberal democratic values. With Islamist extremism in particular, we believe a more self-critical approach must be adopted by Muslims. Westophobic ideological influences and social insularity needs to be challenged within Muslim communities by Muslims themselves whilst simultaneously, an active drive towards creating an inclusive civic identity must be pursued by all members of society.

Quilliam seeks to challenge what we think, and the way we think. It aims to generate creative, informed and inclusive discussions to counter the ideological underpinnings of terrorism, whilst simultaneously
providing evidence-based recommendations to governments for related policy measures.

Bottom line, I found the book to be well written, painfully honest, and well written. I also recognize it is the perspective of one man, but his story is important.