Military thinkers are generally very good historians, but they tend to marginalize literature as "just fiction." I think it's also important to study a culture's literature to increase cultural awareness. When I read Fouad Ajami's "Dream Palace of the Arabs" I was struck by his constant references to poets and novelists, e.g., the Syrian exile Adonis (pen name). After reading the poems of Adonis I do feel like I have a better of the alienation of the modern Arab.