Good-bye Abu Muqawama?

[William F. Owen]

Apparent flash of light from Abu -M here,

My friend and boss Nate Fick, meanwhile, accurately described me last week as being someone who enjoys taking a more deliberate approach and digging deep down into an issue before offering comment. Blogging forces me into more or less split-second reactions to complicated policy events before I have had the opportunity to research and weigh opposing views. In addition, the AD/HD nature of this medium -- as well as its format -- has harmed both my research abilities as well as my ability to write in the long form. Blogging, like any medium, is one you get better at with practice. As I have become a better blogger, my long-form writing skills have atrophied.

Really?
Any CNAS guys post here?

[Fuchs]

Blogging cannot force the blogger to do anything.
It's his editorial decision to write about current affairs or not.

He changed his decision, that's all.

Current events are overestimated anyway. You do usually not get a good picture of events until months later. Many "breaking stories" are simply a waste of time, for their content is wrong or misleading due to insufficient time for research and analysis.


I also disagree on the atrophy of long form skill due to short blogging in general.
It may have happened to him, but do we seriously lose long form writing skills by writing in short form? Think of letters, e-mails, press releases, forum texts, blog comments - do all this short form writing hurt your long form writing skill? I don't think so. The opposite may even be the case; you train yourself to get to the point.
The only thing that suffers is the comprehensiveness of long form writing. You may train yourself to get to the point in long articles without casting light on an issue from ten different angles.

[Schmedlap]

I think the real problem is that when you blog about one narrow topic then you run out of material quickly. I only read the blog over the past few months. During that time, I noticed that it was the same topic everyday - really no new information - and the comments generally were the same handful of people carrying on with the same arguments, regardless of what the thread was about.

[Rex Brynen]

I've always very much enjoyed Andrew's blog. However, since it moved to CNAS there's been a noticeable shift in the trolls:thoughtful discussion ratio towards the former. I understand well how that makes the blogging far less enjoyable and productive for the blogger (not to mention the reader--I had pretty much stopped commenting there).

I'll continue to look forward to whatever Ex writes (including, if you're reading this, that thesis--hint, hint).

[Steve Blair]

I've never been a huge fan of blogging for the reasons that he identifies, as well as what I consider to be the somewhat sterile nature of the medium. And I would also agree that focusing on a specific type of writing (especially in a medium where content isn't always the point) does hurt your ability to create longer, more complex pieces (more because you retrain or recondition your thought process to compose short, supposedly pithy blog bits). You may be able to get to the point quickly, but is it the correct point? Have you missed something while rushing to that pithy post?

Not everyone writes or composes in the same way. If he feels that blogging is hurting his ability to perform complex analysis, then stepping away from it is the right thing for him to do. The noise to signal ratio in blogging is far too high, and it's easy to see where that would get distracting.

[William F. Owen]

I was just intrigued by the assertion that blogging

"Blogging forces me into more or less split-second reactions to complicated policy events before I have had the opportunity to research and weigh opposing views."

So writing about something while not understanding it, risks saying stupid things? Wow. Who'd have known.

....and besides this just isn't true. There is no requirement to comment. Clear writing is a product of clear thinking. You either understand what you are looking at or you don't . If not, stay silent, until you do.

I just cannot see how "blogging" creates the problems Abu-M seems to be suffering from.
Being a poster here on SWJ/C maybe a bit different but it has changed my military thought life completely! Love it!

[Steve Blair]

I just cannot see how "blogging" creates the problems Abu-M seems to be suffering from.
Being a poster here on SWJ/C maybe a bit different but it has changed my military thought life completely! Love it!

I think it probably has something to do with his writing process. His assertion that he feels compelled to provide "split-second reactions" speaks strongly to that. Plus the dynamic of blog posting is different from the SWC interaction process. To me blogs are more like editorial writing (more of a one-way discussion framed around a simplified or rambling point) while message boards are more akin to discussions with a better feedback loop. They develop and shift over time, while blogs seem (at least to me) more static and snapshot oriented.

[slapout9]

I just cannot see how "blogging" creates the problems Abu-M seems to be suffering from.

Yea, hasn't bothered me any.....

[jmm99]

from Steve
Plus the dynamic of blog posting is different from the SWC interaction process. To me blogs are more like editorial writing (more of a one-way discussion framed around a simplified or rambling point) while message boards are more akin to discussions with a better feedback loop. They develop and shift over time, while blogs seem (at least to me) more static and snapshot oriented.

an hour after Steve posted this - and before I got down to his post.

Very true and amen.

Mike

[Fuchs]

I was just intrigued by the assertion that blogging

So writing about something while not understanding it, risks saying stupid things? Wow. Who'd have known.

It's not even only about the knowledge on the subject and the time between event and comment.
I found that it's also useful to have several days if not weeks between writing and publishing. Some of my blog texts were deleted weeks after being written without ever having been published. Others get a major improvement days or weeks after I wrote the text.

Quality takes time - that rule has exceptions, but they're rare.


The reason may have been their area of interest, of course.
21 links to other blogs are on my blog, about 80 are bookmarked in my browser. AM not - I had it bookmarked a year ago or two, but found it quite uninteresting and deleted the bookmark.

[William F. Owen]

So why does Abu-M not join in here? If you want to "up your game", here is a good place to start. Can someone send him a ping?

[Fuchs]

The reason may have been their area of interest, of course.
21 links to other blogs are on my blog, about 80 are bookmarked in my browser. AM not - I had it bookmarked a year ago or two, but found it quite uninteresting and deleted the bookmark.

Now that should have been in different order:
21...uninteresting...
then
The reason...

This kind of thing happens when you mis-use copy & paste to work on a few lines...

[SWJ Blog]

The Adventures Of Abu Muqawama

Entry Excerpt:



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[davidbfpo]

Well, well via FP's e-briefing today:

FP confirmed Tuesday morning that former Camp C-NAS think tanker and Army Ranger Andrew Exum is trading in his Abu Muqawama title to become Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy. He'll replace Matthew Spence, who had held the position since February 2012. Exum -- who once played paintball with Hezbollah in Beirut -- was recently a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and special advisor for Middle East policy at the Pentagon, is a fluent Arabic speaker and holds a Ph.D. from King’s College.