Getting past a Binary Perspective

[slapout9]

Did you ever get the training with the "hostile to police couple" where you use the "somebody is going to jail you all pick", and flip the triangle into a binary? I always worried about that as a training mechanism/strategy.

Hi selil we did not use "you all pick "but we would arrest both and let the court figure it out.

[Rob Thornton]

John, Slap,
Thanks for the references. John, that is a mighty expensive book - I'll have to wait on that one for awhile - even the used ones come up at $40. At my current pay grade I'll have to stick to the online articles.
Best, Rob

[John T. Fishel]

that the CARL has a copy,

Cheers

JohnT

[Rob Thornton]

Hi John,
You know because I'm not here for school, I actually forgot about the incredible library here. I'll go in this week after I get back from Bliss (more interviews for a Case Study on SFA). I think I already owe you a beer - I just need to get out to "La Espada" to pay up Best, Rob

[Stan]

Hi John,
You know because I'm not here for school, I actually forgot about the incredible library here. I'll go in this week after I get back from Bliss (more interviews for a Case Study on SFA). I think I already owe you a beer - I just need to get out to "La Espada" to pay up Best, Rob

Hey Rob !
There's a few freebies out there to get you started:

Mount Holyoke College
Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Fifth Edition, Revised

...And the Swiss normally give the UN tons of freebies too
UN Jobs...A Swiss Association

Regards, Stan

[John T. Fishel]

I'll have the beer waiting - ice cold.

JohnT

[Ron Humphrey]

Hi John,
You know because I'm not here for school, I actually forgot about the incredible library here. I'll go in this week after I get back from Bliss (more interviews for a Case Study on SFA). I think I already owe you a beer - I just need to get out to "La Espada" to pay up Best, Rob

Only one copy so I picked it up considering you were out right now.
Get with me when your back. Also sent you an email about a couple of others I found.

[Rob Thornton]

Ron, Many Thanks - I'll give you a call Th Aft.

Stan, thanks, good to hear from you.
Best, Rob

[Rank amateur]

I think I mentioned that I was trying to define the limits of COIN using a Newtonian physics model. That didn't work out, because it couldn't handle the political complexities. All I succeeded in doing was irritating a few people.
I now have a humbler objective - contributing to the debate about the limits of COIN theory - and will try to tread more carefully, but I think that “binary” may have been the word that I was looking for.

Kinetic operations are binary: you pull the trigger or you don’t. You call in CAS or you don't. (Binary doesn't mean simple. All the world's electronic data is stored in binary form. Complex military concepts/actions are still binary.)
Diplomacy is the government tool designed to deal with an infinite number of factors/factions. COIN doctrine is a kinetic/diplomatic hybrid, but it was still developed in a binary environment: a government versus anti government insurgents. The only time it's been truly successful in Iraq was in a binary environment: an established governing system considered legitimate by the population– the Sunni tribal system – versus AQI.

What I'm suggesting - I think - is that the only way to be less binary is to be more diplomatic.