5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 5 Stars, Epic, Poetic, Startling, Reasoned,September 9, 2011
I am the one who urged the author to get his book into Amazon's excellent CreateSpace. As much as I personally hate electronic books, I absorbed this book in electronic form and can only say that in print it has got to become a collector's item. This is hard truth, straight up. It should certainly be translated into Arabic, Chinese, and other languages. This book goes into my top ten percent “6 Stars and Beyond.” See the others at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, under Reviews (middle column).
Right up front, let me give the author and this book my highest praise: both have INTEGRITY. Integrity is not just about honor, it's about doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing righter, it's about being holistic, open-minded, appreciating diversity, respecting the “other.” There is more integrity in this book than in the last thousand top secret intelligence reports on Afghanistan, all full of lies and misrepresentations.
One of the most humble and honest telling of a personal story. Kevin pulls no punches and does not hide behind any excuses for what he did and why he did it (I pulled the fire alarm on my first day of kindergarten to see what it would do). He fully acknowledges the consequences of his actions and atones for them by giving back in this book. This story is the true and original definition of hacker, not what the media has twisted it into. A must read for anyone wishing to understand the mindset and drive of a hacker. Thank you Kevin for bringing to the light (even though geeks tend to avoid light) what it is we strive for – knowledge.
5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars–A Nation-Changing Public Mind Opener of a Book,September 2, 2011
I generally take a very jaundiced view of books that emerge from Washington Post columns I have already read, but this book surprised, engages, and out-performs the columns by such a leap that I have to rate it at six stars (10% of what I read and review), and call it a nation-changing book.
Early on the book captures me in a way the columns did not–this is a book with integrity. It is a book that sees the corruption in Washington and the inter-play of political fears of losing elections and the need to arouse public fears of the unknown. It is not just a book about the massive waste of taxpayer expenditures on a security state that harms more than it hurts, it is a book about loyal, sensible employees who are anguished at the idiocy of what they are asked to do, and in the many cases of those who broke ranks to speak to the authors, eager to have the public know the truth of the matter.
This is a book that seeks to arouse the public to do its duty, to have a conversation, to demand of the politicians in Washington a serious conversation, a serious assessment, of what it is we are about–as a nation, and with this pervasive security state program.
5.0 out of 5 stars In the Ada Bozeman Tradition–a Vital Stepping Stone,August 16, 2011
EDIT of 10 Sep 2011 to add more specifics and a concluding judgment.
I am delighted to see that Look Inside the Book has been activated and urge one and all to look over the table of contents and then buy the book. This is a preliminary review, mostly because it causes me pain to see no review at all on this important work. A copy of the book is on the way to me from the publisher. I will insert my substantive additional comments in a few days.
The book is in the Ada Bozeman tradition, and brings back to mind my continuing recommendation that no one be allowed to graduate from any serious international studies or international security course without reading at least the 25-page introduction, but ideally the full work:
She is to intelligence and statecraft what Will and Ariel Durant are to the study of history.
It distresses me to observe that we have not come far since this book was published, with many failures across the fifteen slices of human intelligence (HUMINT) among which are included the Human Terrain Teams (HTT) that I believe should be absorbed into the new active duty Civil Affairs Brigade with regional battalions. This would be an excellent time to hold a conference and do a follow-on book, this time integrating both the full spectrum of HUMINT capabilities, and the new meme, Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2).
Within this book, several of the chapters stand out for me:
“Hybrid Wars” by Col John J. mccuen, USA (Ret)
QUOTE (75): “Hybrid war appears new in that it requires simultaneous rather than sequential success in these diverse but related ‘population battlegrounds.'”
“Avoiding the Cookie Cutter Approach to Culture: Lessons Learned from Operations in East Africa,” by Maj Christopher H. Varhola USAR and LtCol Laura R. Varhola, USA
QUOTE (156): Inadequate preparation and planning (today) “Despite the lessons learned in Iraq, operations like those ongoing in Kenya and Tanzania are marked by high personnel turnover. Moverow, most of the personnel desployed there have received little or no training on the region, have no Swahili language ability, and do not have a chain of command insisting that they learn the indigneous language in situ [which would not matter since they rotate out so quickly.”
Key lessons not learned in Africa Command (AFRICOM):
01 Mistaking the power of tribal identity
02 Overlooking cultural complexity
03 Dubious public affairs efforts
04 Misunderstanding religious influence
05 Ignoring economic and power relations
I am stunned–stunned beyond belief–that military commanders desperate for a culture belly-button have tended to appoint the predominantly Christian chaplains to that position. Talk about the blind leading the deaf.
“Fourth Generation Warfare evolves, Fifth Emerges,” by Col T. X. Hammes, USMC (Ret).
QUOTE (312): Fifth-generation warfare will result from the continued shift of political and social loyalties to causes rather than nations.”
Col Hammes provides a very tight opening on how most of the US Government refused to take 4th Generation warfare seriously (even after Al Qaeda stated that this was their focus), and does a nice job of showing how all generations of warfare continue to be present while fifth generation emerges in which the emphasis is on a global strategic narrative (information operations) with supporting violent actions.
The book ends with an all too short piece from Antulio Echevarria II, one of the top scholars at the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), on “Wars of Ideas and the War of Ideas, and that is perhaps the irony of this superb work brouight together by editor Juliana Geran Pilon: despite the excellence of this specific book, and the coherence of the contributions from all of the authors, the US Government generally, including the Department of State, and the Department of Defense more specficially, are in the toilet when it comes to recognizing the cultural nuances of confrontation in the 21st Century.
I am reminded of Tony Zinni's brilliant distinction among the six different wars that were waged in Viet-Nam all at the same time depending the geographic and demographic terrain, this author takes the concept a step further to posit something that does not exist but should: Whole of Government Multinational Multifunctional War-Peace Spectrum Operations–full court press on all fronts, not just the military front.
Here are a tiny handful of books that I respect along with this one, on this topic. The US Government is massively ignorant about reality and especially about cultural nuances, so all of these books are vital to anyone who has aspirations of public or private service in the international arena, who wishes to display integrity in all respects. Any fool can lecture the “other,” understanding them is quite another matter.
This book provides an excellent description of the personal, organization and mission of what are called Special Operations Forces (SOF) and their relationship to conventional forces. More importantly it introduces the concept of `cultural intelligence' as the precise type of intelligence information that SOF unit need to successfully execute their missions.
Cultural Intelligence which Spencer refers to as “CQ” (to avoid confusion with Counter Intelligence (CI)) is a combination of ethnography, sociology, and psychology. As Spencer makes clear successful counter-insurgency operations (COIN) and counter-terrorism (CT) programs depend on understanding the cultural environment in which they are conducted. That is it is necessary to understand the underlying social structures, beliefs, and motivations of the populations constitute what she refers to as the Contemporary Operating Environment within which SOF missions are conducted. This important insight is one of those concepts which appear obvious, but only have somebody has developed it.
Activist, philosopher, teacher, and leading voice of uncompromising dissent, DERRICK JENSEN holds degrees in creative writing and mineral engineering physics. In 2008, he was named one of the Utne Readerās “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” and in 2006 he was named Press Actionās Person of the Year for his work on the book Endgame. He lives in California.
LIERRE KEITH is a writer, small farmer, and radical feminist activist. She is the author of two novels, as well The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability, which has been called “the most important ecological book of this generation.” She's also been arrested six times. She lives in Humboldt County, CA.
5.0 out of 5 stars finally, a book to meet the scale of our predicament,June 7, 2011
5.0 out of 5 stars , Innovative, Technical, Leverages Open Sources to the Fullest July 27, 2011
Springer needs to make it clear to Amazon that the book ships from a US-based warehouse. I have urged the lead editor and conference organizer to ask Springer to correct the error. The book is available within the US and should be delivered within the week once Springer corrects the way the book has been registered on Amazon. I anticipate that a paperback version will be offered at a more affordable price for individuals–this is the library or institutional “trade” price.
I am very glad to see the publisher make use of Look Inside the Book, and encourage all interested parties to use that feature and study the table of contents. I have to articulate my profound respect for the conference organizer and senior book editor and for those contributing to this book, all of whom I met at the conference for which this content was created.
I have never seen a better collection of scientific and mathematical approaches to leveraging open sources of information to identify precursors and patterns of terrorism. This is an original book, and the first major effort of the new counterterrorism center at the University of Southern Denmark.
Including my alternative perspective, as one other senior participant put it, “makes our job harder.” One reason I particularly like Nordic professionals is because of their integrity. There is a great deal of intelligence and total integrity in this book; it is an honor for me to have been included. I am not competent in the way the other authors are, and my regard for their pioneering is unlimited.
