4 Star – Page 47 – Public Intelligence Blog

2005/06/282009/12/04

Review: Squandered Victory–The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (Hardcover)

4 Star, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power

Somewhat tedious, speaks truth, reveals our shortfalls,

June 28, 2005

Larry Diamond

The bottom line is this book is on page 290: “We never listened to the Iraqi people, or to the figures in the country that they respected.”

While some reviewers are critical of this author for representing all that is wrong with our post-war approach (he doesn't speak Arabic and knows nothing of the Middle East) I do not hold that against him–he tried to help, and he was the best we had. It is the fault of a long series of US Administrations, and multiple generations of Congress, that have chosen to ignore the real world and to short-change American education to the point that we are literally clueless as a Nation about the real world and how billions of people in the real world hold mixed feelings about America: admiring much of what we represent, while despising our immoral corporate and unilateral government behavior.

The U.S. Army, both before the war and in the post-reconstruction period–and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army–come out of this book looking very professional. The Army got it right, both in its pre-war estimates of what would be needed, and in its post-war recommendations. The author places the blame for the post-war deaths and disasters squarely at the feet of a naive President that empowered a Secretary of Defense inclined to go light, and side-lined a Department of State whose own intelligence estimates on Iraq have been consistently superior to those of either the Central Intelligence Agency or the Department of Defense.

I put this book down with a heavy heart, coincident with Secretary Rumsfeld announcing that we will be in Iraq and be taking losses for another twelve years. The good news is that Iraq will over time achieve its own balance, its own form of democracy. The bad news is that, as Winston Churchill has said so famously, “The Americans always do the right thing–they just do it last (after making every other possible mistake).”

2005/06/132009/12/04

Review: First In–An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Superb First Person Account, Lacks Context & Avoids History,

June 13, 2005

Gary Schroen

EDIT of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

This is a superb first-person account. I have absolute and total respect for this officer, his team, his courage, and what he accomplished within weeks of 9-11, setting the stage for a new form of warfare in which CIA opened the door, Special Forces turned on the lights, and conventional Air Force leveled the place.

The book provides some extremely useful insights from the field with respect to Washington's failure to understand local politics and ground truth despite frequent detailed field appraisals from the Chief of Station, and the book makes it clear that Pakistan lobbied Washington strategically and ably to “sell” its plan for taking over Afghanistan with its own allies, against both Russian and US (and for that matter, Chinese) best interests.

There are five substantive military insights in this book:

1) Despite their enormous personal courage and high level of training, the US military special forces are handicapped by a joint defense-level policy that will not do deep bombing unless a Search & Rescue (SAR) capability is readily available. I recall the original Office of Strategic Services dropping people behind enemy lines (the pilots understood they might be shot down as part of the deal) and I just think to myself, shame on DoD, this force protection zero tolerance for casualties has gone too far. We need a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with the balls to change the military culture back to one that is mission oriented rather than casualty averse.

2) Partly as a result of Pakistani influence [the author notes that the Pakistanis co-opted the CIA Station in Pakistan, not just the State Department and NSC in Washington] and point one above, the targeting authorities (CENTCOM and the Air Force) were very slow to act professionally on the targets identified by the Northern Alliance and the CIA field teams. I was enormously impressed by the GPS field surveys that the CIA team carried out, and under-whelmed by the Air Force focus on warehouses near Kabul rather than specified armed forces blocking the Northern Alliance path toward Kabul. I also noted in the margin, having some experience with provincial and tribal intelligence, that the US decision system is still too focused on state to state Ambassadorial level negotiations, and largely ignorant of and uninterested in the nuances of sub-state tribal views and concerns. That needs urgent fixing.

3) The Special Forces, despite their reputation for fearless operations behind enemy lines, were led by officers who insisted that they wear their proper military uniforms and shave every day. I have met the two-star general that gave and then enforced this order, and consider him a superb–absolutely top-notch–officer in terms of military skills, but the man is so culturally clueless as to give new meaning to the term oblivious. As a side note, thinking back to Steve McQueen in the great escape, it occurred to me that we need to establish a protocol under the Geneva Convention in which military personnel and overt intelligence personnel can blend into the local population to avoid cultural dissonance, but wear a small patch, clearly visible to those they see face to face–something like a SOF spear, with miniature rank on one side and miniature service seal on the other side, all within a two-inch wide circle.

4) PAVE LOW missed the Landing Zone (LZ) during the first and most critical Special Operations team insertion. Now, this could have happened if CIA provided the military with the wrong coordinates (or used Russian coordinates while the Americans were on another system), but this should never have happened. It also points out that the military and CIA evidently did not have the ability to talk to each other tactically on the final approach, which reminds me of our Marines not being able to talk to the US Embassy in Somalia as they completed their 400 nautical mile run just in time to stop the people from over-running the place. How is it that something as critical as masked inter-agency tactical communications can still not be achieved? INTER-4 Tacticomps with S-MINDS and CISCO AONS for all hands ASAP.

5) Air Force blew the first food-drop, dropping the packets from 27,000 feet without parachutes. What this made clear to me is that we have a peacetime Air Force (see my review of “Rules of the Game” by Andrew Gordon) that has forgotten how to do nuanced missions, especially those requiring that they do something other than deliver cargo conventionally or drop bombs.

The author ends the book more or less on page 363, where he suggests that a combined CIA and SOF campaign circling Waziristan, is needed. While he underestimates the denied area aspect of this zone, I agree that the Pakistanis are playing the Americans for fools, and I agree that there should be no area of the world where US forces cannot operate if they must.

The author loses one star, with some understanding, for failing to provide context and failing to acknowledge that his heroic mission was required because CIA did not take Afghanistan seriously before and after Charlie Wilson. Three other books, at least, must be read to understand this:

Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB

The compansion to this book is Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander

I had a chance to talk to a CENTCOM officer informally about all this, and welcomed his observation that CIA does not always have the facts when it comes to their perception of military “mistakes.” We also talked about the need for a new approach to global intelligence. It is crystal clear to me that we need to have CIA/SOF bases all over the world that are under non-official cover and that work every major tribe and province. For every province, including especially provinces in denied areas, there must be at least one SOF-qualified sleeper able to receive a clandestine arrival, or provide the first stop for a SAR exit.

I'm glad they made it back-this was true grit and deep honor in action.

2005/05/232009/12/04

Review: Freakonomics–A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything [ROUGH-CUT EDGE] (Hardcover)

4 Star, Economics

Oversold–modestly provocative vignettes,

May 23, 2005

Steven D. Levitt

This book is about 75% solid thinking and 25% hyped up marketing and clever packaging. I certainly do not begrudge the award winning authors their success, but I was truly expecting something a little deeper and more broad-reaching. One sixth of the book is about children's names correlating with success and scores–I was reading about that in the 1970's, when folks were proving that the same paper by a David would get a half point better score than one attributed to Moonbeam.

Bottom line: an excellent airplane book, by all means worth the time it takes to read (lots of white space), but over-sold.

Better books include:
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
Information Payoff
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

2005/05/032009/12/04

Review: Winning The Future–A 21st Century Contract with America (Hardcover)

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Future, Politics

Powerful Focal Point–Not Perfect But Best Available Vision,

May 3, 2005

Newt Gingrich

EDIT of 20 Dec 07: adding links.

The author provides a litmus test up front by which one can decide if they want to read the book–ten questions. I agreed with 94% of his propositions. The issues he has chosen to highlight here are not perfectly reasoned, but they are the best available and worthy of support.

In the one area where I have spent a lifetime, that of intelligence, Newt Gingrich is flawed on the one hand–suggesting that we need to triple the amount of money we spend on intelligence is certainly well-intentioned but understandably uninformed about the nuances of national intelligence–more money just makes these people worse [see my book On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World, with a Foreword by Senator Boren, and The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption with a Foreword by Senator Roberts]–and brilliant on the other. When he writes so clearly about how we need to monitor all knowledge being created worldwide, with virtual real-time translations services, a Google for science & technology, and no publication overseas going more than ninety days without being translated into English, I am just blown away. This is what the national Open Source Agency recommended by the 9-11 Commission is supposed to do, but CIA is trying to “capture” that mission, which they have consistently screwed over since the end of World War II. Where it really matters, Newt Gingrich not only gets it, he is leading us. He also focuses on our lack of participation in global knowledge forums across all domains, and he champions nothing less than a global presence and global monitoring of all knowledge. This is *powerful* stuff.

I miss Ronald Reagan. No one now running as a Republican candidate, except Ron Paul, comes close. Somewhere in there, Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan have important roles to play. They have earned the right to share–but not monopolize–leadership in America.

2005/04/212009/12/04

Review: Decisions of the Highest Order–Perspectives on the National Security Council (Paperback)

4 Star, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Classic–Contains Useful Material Not in the New Edition,

April 21, 2005

Karl F. Inderfurth

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

This is the orginal gold standard book on the National Security Council, now “replaced” but not fully so, by the new edition, “Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council,” just published in February 2004.

However, this original edition contains two sections, one on “Disorders” (of the NSC) and the other on “Remedies” (for NSC dysfunctionalities) that have not been fully migrated to the new book, and for that reason, I recommend that this version of the book also be bought, as a supporting element for the value of those two sections and a few other items of significant historical value in understanding the NSC.

Readers should be aware that both books focus on the NSC as primarily a “big stick” actor obsessing with the use of military “hard” power to impose America's will, and while there are helpful mentions in both books of “soft” power options, by and large neither book really addresses the full range of instrumental of national power (commercial, cultural, religious), nor does each book address how one understands and orchestrates all the non-Federal actors including American evangelical organizations, chambers of commerce, multinational corporations, etcetera, in stabilizing and reconstructing the world.

Never-the-less, this is standard book in the field, bringing together the very best minds available in America, and the updated version, while updated, does not completely replace it.

The editors and publishers might usefully consider a new volume on “comparative national security decision-making” in which sections address how Arab, Chinese, European, South American, South Asian, and Russian national security decisions are made.

2005/04/212009/12/04

Review: Fateful Decisions–Inside the National Security Council (Paperback)

4 Star, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Updated Improved Version, But Dropped Some Good Stuff,

April 21, 2005

Karl F. Inderfurth

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

This is an updated and improved version of the 1988 version, “Decisions of the Highest Order: Perspectives on the National Security Council,” a book that remains, in its original form, a gold standard in the field.

The new improved version is both that–new and improved, with updated perspectives all the way into the first Bush Administration, recognizing the end of the Cold War and the new Global War on Terror, and I venture to say there is no finer book available for orienting both undergraduate and graduate students–as well as mid-career adult students–with respect to the vital role that the National Security Council plays in orchestrating Americas foreign and national security policies.

I have just two modest criticisms, both easily addressed through the use of other readings, but which would take this excellent book to a full five stars if the next edition integrated more material:

1) The original had some really excellent pieces Disorders and on Remedies, and the new version, while more timely and current, has left some useful historical perspectives on the cutting room floor. I would have preferred that the editors add as they have, but with less deletion from the past.

2) The book still has the flavor of the Cold War in that the NSC is looked upon as a largely military “big stick” get our way in the national security arena book, and it does not orient its readers to the full range of national capabilities, all of the instruments of national power including the economic, cultural, and religious. It does not fully reflect the growing role of non-state actors and the emerging appreciation for national security as a multi-cultural arena in which non-governmental organizations such as Doctors without Borders, and Chambers of Commerce, have at least as much to contribute to stabilization and reconstruction as do the U.S. Armed Forces.

In my view, this book is the standard, but I would like to see a third edition that addresses these last two points.

2005/04/112009/12/04

Review: The World Is Flat–A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (Hardcover)

4 Star, Future, History

Massive Op-Ed, Some Food for Thought, Not a Full Meal,

April 11, 2005

Thomas L. Friedman

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

I confess to being mildly disappointed whenever I encounter a massive Op-Ed without references, and can see in every page ideas that are undoubtedly the author's own, but have also been very ably explored by others–Kevin Kelly in Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World; Thomas Stewart, The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization; or Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, to name just three of hundreds of bleeding edge sources.

The core idea in this book, that individuals are now empowered and able to practice “C2C” (consumer to consumer or citizen to citizen), is not new. Most of us have been focusing on it since the mid-1990's when we started to tell the Pentagon that top-down command and control based on secret sources and unilateral action was history, being replaced by multilateral bottom up consesus based on open sources.

The heart of the book, the discussion of ten forces that flattened the world (basically, inter-connected the world in a manner unlike any seen before), makes it a solid airplane book, a fine way to spend a few hours.

The following sentence, on page 283, is alone worth the price of the book: “If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, in one fell sweeop he would dry up revenue for terrorism, force Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia onto the path of reform–which they will never do with $50-a-barrel oil–strengthen the dollar, and improve his own standing in Europe by doing something huge to reduce global warming.”

The book provides a good overview of the economic and intellectual challenges from China and India, and makes this memorable by jumping from “eat your dinner and think of the starving children in India” to “do your job well, or lose it to smarter more motivated young men and women from India.”

Other more intellectually rigorous books (added 20 Dec 07):
Modern Strategy
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom