Category: Officers Call

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2010 PhD Author Dissects Intelligence Reformer Robert Steele [Click on Cartoon for 5 Pages]

About the Idea, Ethics, Hacking, Officers Call, Worth A Look
CLICK HERE For Myers on Steele 5 Pages

As published in Kent C. Myers, Reflexive Practice: Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World (New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan, 2010); pp. 82-86.

Cartoon Credit: Inebriated Press also quoted below

My first post was on June 21, 2007: “Mad Cows Terrorize London“   For all I know they still do.

PS: Hang tough and live your beliefs.  Remember what Edmund Burke said:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Phi Beta Iota: Alvin Toffler in “The Future of the Spy” (1993) and Anthony Kimery in “Vet with a Vision” (2009) are the precursors to Dr. Myers' definitive dissection.  Browse the many items in About the Idea for a broad overview.  The concluding quote from Steele by Myers can be found at Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both as posted 13 October 2009.

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Review (Preliminary): Reflexive Practice–Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Best Practices in Management, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Operations, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Officers Call, Public Administration, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

6 Star Plus, a Foundation Work

11 August 2010

Dr. Kent C. Myers et al

In combination with the other books that I am reading this week, the first by David Perkins, Making Learning Whole, the second by Curtis Bonk, The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education, this book I have read in galley form, by Dr. Kent C. Myers [strategist and process historian, a disciple of Russell L. Ackoff] with contributed chapters from a number of other  individuals, gives me hope.  This is an extraordinarily diplomatic and measured book, a book that can nudge even the most recalcitrant of know-it-all stake-holders toward the “aha” experience that what they are doing [doing the wrong things righter] is NOT WORKING  and maybe, just maybe, they should try Reflexive Practice (or at least begin to hire people that think this way).  This is *the* book that could-should lead to the first-ever Secretary General of Education, Intelligence, & Research….IMHO.  The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest, done with Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) was a proponency book.  This book by Dr. Myers et al is a praxis book absolutely up there with the other 6 Star and beyond books that I recommend.  As soon as I receive a printed copy, I will publish a detailed review.

AMAZON HAS THE BOOK ON SALE, $30 off from the list price of $95.  As opposed as I am to the doubling of book prices, this is one book that is easily worth $65, and it is the one book I will be interested in discussing with all comers when I return to NCA in September.

Blurbs at Amazon

“An important book which illuminates, with practical and readable lessons, the path to top performance.”—Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership

“A quiet but powerful critique of professions and professional education, with a glimpse of how experts could participate in open and engaged dialogue and actually help us adapt our way through today's crisis.” —Carol R. Hunter, Associate University Librarian, University of Virginia

Publisher's Product Description

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Journal: DoD Falling…30-50% Cut in KR, Cuts to Benefits Next

10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

(COMMENT:  Retirees being targeted again…)

Tom Philpott | August 05, 2010

Advisory Panels Say Military Benefits Unsustainable

A consensus is building among current and former military leaders and defense industry executives that rising military personnel costs threaten the viability of the all-volunteer force.

FULL STORY, Excellent Quotes from MajGen Arnold Punaro, USMC (Ret) former Staff Director, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC)

Phi Beta Iota: Health benefits would not be a problem if Congress did not insist on paying 100 times more for the top 75 prescription drugs as paid by all others (Canada only pays 10 times more).  DoD can be saved, but someone somewhere is going to have to get a grip on reality, strategy, acquisition, and Whole of Government operations.  We are not holding our breath.

See Also:

Continue reading “Journal: DoD Falling…30-50% Cut in KR, Cuts to Benefits Next”

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Journal: Virginia Sink or Swim

03 Economy, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Military, Officers Call, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Virginia stands to feel the most pain from defense cuts

Rosalind S. Helderman, The Washington Post, Tuesday August 10, 2010

RICHMOND — Virginia officials reacted with bipartisan dismay on Monday to Defense Department budget shifts that will cost the state thousands of jobs in coming years and will dramatically impact the economies of the Norfolk area and Northern Virginia.

Most of the immediate reaction revolved around Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's proposal to close the U.S. Joint Forces Command. It is a major employer in Hampton Roads, including Norfolk and Virginia Beach, whose elimination could translate into the loss of 6,100 military, civilian and contractor jobs in the region.

Read rest of story

Phi Beta Iota: SecDef is no fool–Virginia can win BIG.  We need (and Virginia can provide):

Continue reading “Journal: Virginia Sink or Swim”

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Search: Handbook First Earth Battalion Field Manual

Historic Contributions, HUMINT, Officers Call, Searches, Stabilization, UN/NGO
Amazon Page ($25)

This Handbook entry is inspired by the search <first earth battalion operations manual>.  We really appreciate searches of this nature, as they cause us to add entries that *should* be here.  Thank you for the search.

First Earth Battalion Home (Current!)

Wikipedia Page First Earth Battalion

First Earth Battalion Field Manual Free (Display & PDF for Print or Download)

Alternative Source of Field Manual Free (PDF)

First Earth Battalion Field Manual Text Only

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Free Republic: US Grand Strategy? List of 11 No-Nos

Articles & Chapters, Methods & Process, Officers Call, Strategy

Phi Beta Iota: Free Republic came to our attention today, as a good example of the common sense of We the People.  We have added  them to Righteous Sites.  Below found there on Grand Strategy.

FPRI-Temple University Consortium on Grand Strategy • The Telegram No. 3

Can the United States Do Grand Strategy?

April 2010

By Walter A. McDougall

Excerpt: Angelo Codevilla, who says that what passes for strategy in the U.S. government is mostly wishful or sloppy thinking, made the same point in operational terms. “Because doing the right thing is important to Americans as to no other people, American politics is like politics nowhere else…. Basing statecraft on the American people’s penchant for trying to do the right thing, as did Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, brings forth awesome energy…. But using the American people’s righteousness as a propellant for private dreams, as did [Woodrow] Wilson, or as cover for tergiversation, as did George W. Bush, is ruinous.”

Related piece same title, with bibliography, by McDougall in Orbis, Journal of World Affairs:

Excerpt: “So whatever buzz words become the shorthand for a new American strategy, I expect the most we can hope for is that our national security agencies and their consulting firms just post on their walls the business strategist Richard Rumelt’s list of ten strategic blunders and meditate on them every day.[32] They are:

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