Review: How to Run the World–Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance

5 Star, Diplomacy, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy
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Parag Khanna

5.0 out of 5 starsExtraordinary Personal Effort, Constrained by Publisher

February 21, 2011

I received a copy of this book at my request from the author himself (I am unemployed, and globally available).

I gave the author's first book, The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century, a five star leaning toward six review. This book is carried from a high four to a low five because of the concluding insights, but it also disappoints in relation to both the contributing experiences (as recounted in the Acknowledgments), and the broader literature that is not evident in this book, very possibly because of page limits set by the publisher. For more, see my Worth A Look: Book Review Lists (Positive) and also Worth A Look: Book Review Lists (Negative) at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. Indeed, the author's work, his professional network, and his multi-cultural insights are a perfect complement to my own–he knows much that I do not know, and vice versa. The index is mediocre–that is on the publisher, not the author, and I suspect that other publisher constraints kept this book from being all that the author would normally have offered. The publisher has also been remiss in not offering “Look Inside the Book” details to Amazon, a free service.

The author's focus is on the failure of state-based diplomacy and the emergence as well as the need for more mega-diplomacy, which he quite ably defined as a constantly shifting mélange of hybrid relationships that full integrate nations, states, businesses, and non-governmental organizations–what they know, what they can share, and what they can do TOGETHER. Although the author is clearly a strong proponent of public-private partnerships, this is an area where others have done more nuanced work, generally limited to one sector. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, and Paul Hertzog's work (Panarchy.com) are where we are all headed. On a second reading I picked up an easy to miss and rather startling emphasis, not fully developed, on the need to re-map colonial territories to diminish incentives for the military-industrial complex while boosting cross-border economic collaboration. The author sees, better than most, the harm done by artificial boundaries inconsistent with natural and tribal boundaries.

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Review: Why Leaders Lie–The Truth About Lying in International Politics

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Communications, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Leadership, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
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John J. Mearsheimer

5.0 out of 5 stars Cornerstone, Not the Whole Building

January 2, 2011

By no stretch should this book be dismissed as a three. While I might normally have gone with a four, I am settling on five for balance and because the author not only covers an extraordinarily important topic in a sensible measured way, but his endnotes are another book all by themselves–I recommend all readers start there.

Where the author falls short is in lacking a strategic analytic construct for measuring the true costs of lying in blood, treasure, and spirit. He tends to ascribe pure motives to leaders (for example, not at all confronting the raw fact that Dick Cheney committed 23 documented impeachable acts (see my review of Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency for the itemization) and Dick Cheney also led the telling of 935 documented lies best covered by TruthDig but also in Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq.

The book disconnects grand strategy (global engagement) from domestic prosperity in a manner I find disconcerting, and while the author is most able in documenting the costs to a democracy of lies to the public, I do not see nor feel the deeper reality: lies destroy the Commonwealth. Lies allow a two-party tyranny to sell out to the Arabs (not just the Israelis), to Wall Street–lies permit the mortgage clearinghouse fraud, the derivatives fraud, and the Federal Reserve fraud on the one hand, while also fooling the public into a national security policy that is clinically insane, catastrophically costly, and ultimately a self-inflicted wound that could be fatal.
Continue reading “Review: Why Leaders Lie–The Truth About Lying in International Politics”

Review: Governing Water–Contentious Transnational Politics and Global Institution Building (Global Environmental Accord–Strategies for Sustainability and Institutional Innovation)

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular–An Original Priceless Contribution

August 29, 2010

Ken Conca

I've been reading for a week to clear twelve water books for shipping before I leave Guatemala, this is next to last and perhaps the most valuable of the lot in terms for actually doing something useful in the future. The last, The Evolution of the Law and Politics of Water I will look at tomorrow, but I already do not recommend it for two reasons: its utterly outrageous price, and its narrow focus on the law in isolation from all else. This book is the “capstone” book in my twelve book program, and I will rate it as 6 Star and Beyond at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where you can see all my reviews on water books with one click.

I am impressed very early on as the author discusses how institutions not only restructure within their existing paradigms instead of in novel ways, but they have the greatest say at the table. This is a death sentence for society. For an understanding of how important this insight is, that we must stop doing the wrong things righter and do the right things instead, see Reflexive Practice: Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World and its root book by Russell Ackoff, Redesigning Society (Stanford Business Books).

Three quotes merit sharing immediately.

QUOTE (3): One motive for writing this book is to examine the stark disconnect between the [corporate/UN] forum's blueprint for forging a global water regime and the contentious politics surrounding water all around the world.

QUOTE (5): We have been witnessing the development, proliferation, and growing embeddedness of rules, roles, and practices that shape water-related policy decisions and political struggles all over the world.

QUOTE (7): Unlike most conventional international environmental regimes, these emerging institutions have found a way to incorporate more pluralistic understandings of authority, more flexible conceptions of territorial sovereignty, and more heterogeneous ways of knowing about problems and solutions.

HERE I WANT TO STRESS: HYBRID COALTIONS & INFORMATION-SHARING. This is the consistent theme I have seen over the past 12 books. It CAN be done by multiple stake-holders who come together to share information and make-sense together–it is TRUE COST information, and completely truthful information about all concerns and interests, that makes trust and consensus possible.

QUOTE (10): Global environmental problems result from the poor fit between national borders, and a planetary ecology that ignores those borders.

HERE I WANT TO STRESS: There's only one person I have read who has it right and that is Phillip Allot out of Cambridge. See my review of his brilliant book, The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State. The artificial boundaries imposed by the colonial powers should not be allowed to stand. It's time for the tribes to come back to the fore and do three things: exile dictators; nationalize colonized property including land and water; and kick IMF, WTO, and World Bank out of town.

The author is way ahead in both his ethics and his intellect in understanding that stupid predatory laws and treaties will not stand the test of time. We are all now moving at Internet speed. He specifies that instead of laws or treaties, what hybrid groups must construct are “a bundle of common understandings, shared expectations, and cooperative norms.” That is precisely what Stewart Brand, Howard Rheingold, Art Kleiner, Harrison Owen, Peggy Holman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Tom Atlee, and Jim Rough, among many others, have been developing for the past three decades. It's called Conscious Evolution. See all those books easily at Phi Beta Iota.

The author backs into systems thinking with a discussion of how local systems in the aggregate comprise a global system that no one regime can control. Normally I would go “duh” but in the context of this book and the other discussion the author provides, that's not the right answer. He's on to a serious approach to the most serious problem we all face, and this book merits a full reading. Of course, one should also reach across Buckminster Fuller, Medard Gabel, Russell Ackoff, and the late John N. Warfield. They wrote the book on how to do this, along with Richard Falk and many others in the 1970's, the difference is that now people are starting to realize they were right and SHOULD have been listened to.

The author deconstructs and reconstructs the three core themes of knowledge (what Earth Intelligence Network calls public intelligence), territoriality, and authority. In all three instances, intelligence and ethics play huge roles. He devotes a chapter to the destabilization of knowledge (not “owned” by anyone), the hybridization (his word, very important) of authority, and the deterritorialization of nature (or recognition of reality 101).

Throughout the book I see clear evidence that the author is current with ecological economics, true cost, cradle to cradle, and the many other green to gold ideas, and what he is bringing into play here is a theory of gaming–of institutionalizing roles that states have ignored, or blending hybrid alliances, etcetera.

I am pressing ahead to the conclusion but see throughout the book a connection between legitimacy and shared knowledge or knowledge agreed to be in common, i.e. valid. This is hugely important and applies to every aspect of water governance. See Max Manwaring's edited work, Environmental Security and Global Stability: Problems and Responses.

In his concluding chapter, alone worth the price of the book and naturally “cutting to the chase,” the author addresses:

01 Acknowledging social conflict associated with environmental issues, rather than papering over it (IPCC) or mis-labeling it as ethnic conflict (India et al)

02 Establishing a global dispute resolution authority. While the International Tribunals are by no means the right model, I can clearly see how a hybrid regional organization that is intelligence (decision-support) driven could allow the UN and others to “Deliver As One” while addressing all ten threats across all twelve policies regardless of who is paying or doing what. INTELLIGENCE IS THE KEY–PUBLIC INTELLIGENCE.

03 Citing Ronnie Lipschutz, he describes an emergent system that sounds to me like Panarchy–everyone has a voice, all of the complexities are brought forward, diversity and respect and dignity are paramount. The Native Americans called this “seventh generation thinking.”

In his concluding two pages he brings up the term “politics by other means” and I find that absolutely fascinating. To me it means a rejection of the two-party or one-party tyranny's that subvert so many countries, and the emergence of participatory budgeting and Open Everything (see my brief by that title at Phi Beta Iota). He diplomatically slams political science for equating regimes, institutiions, and states, and generally calls for a broadening of the governance model to include all humans with access to all information all the time. I'm putting the last bit in, but we are clearly on the same track.

I cannot do this book justice in the time I have. It is a graduate level text that precocious under-graduates could handle, and it is continuing education for under-imaginative policy and political and economic leaders. It could easily be read multiple times, but I will content myself with concluding that this author is one mind that cannot be ignored.

Best three books on water from my point of view:

The Atlas of Water, Second Edition: Mapping the World's Most Critical Resource
Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource
When the Rivers Run Dry: Water–The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century

Strategic level essential reading:

High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change [Free online, look for it]

And of course the books that I have published, all free online, go to Phi Beta Iota and click on Books at top of middle column.

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Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man’s Epic Journey for Love and Peace)

6 Star Top 10%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Affairs, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Information Operations, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Star and Beyond–Deep Soul-Moving Raw Truths

August 26, 2010

Joseph David Osman

I had the privilege of reviewing this book before it was published. Below is what I provided for use in publicizing the book, followed by my more detailed summary review provided here for the first time.

I have goose-bumps as I contemplate this book that I have just finished in galley form. The author is unique, a mix of Philip Caputo (Rumor of War), Robert Young Pelton (Come Back Alive), and Ralph Peters (Wars of Blood and Faith), with one huge difference–this man, this author, this son of Afghanistan who is red, white, and blue American–has given us the definitive book on all that is wrong with the American “way of war,” at the same time that he so clearly, so explicitly, so very simply, outlines the alternative path of how we can, we must, “wage peace” in Afghanistan. I am reminded by this author of Bonheoffer, of Gandhi, of Nelson Mandela. This is a book in which the souls of two nations come together, both dark and light, and we see in very personal terms, with deep cultural intelligence, that Afghanistan is unconquerable by force, but desperately seeking to connect and respond to kindness. It shames me that our government is so inept–and our population so abjectly disconnected from reality–that we have repeated Viet-Nam. Bagram Air Base is the Binh Hoa Air Base of my time; we once again seek to win hearts and minds while looking and acting like Darth Vader; and our military prisons are again filled with individuals framed by their enemies, imprisoned by gullible naïve uninformed Americans who mean well, but who are simply not trained, equipped, nor organized to wage peace.

Robert David STEELE Vivas
Co-founder USMC Intelligence Center, #1 Amazon Reviewer for Non-Fiction, Author on Intelligence

Highlights for me personally as a former Marine (1976-1996) who lived in Viet-Nam as a pre-teen from 1963-1967:

Continue reading “Review: Surrender to Kindness (One Man's Epic Journey for Love and Peace)”

Review (Guest): Bureaucracy–What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It

5 Star, Budget Process & Politics, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Education (General), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Information Operations, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
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James Wilson (Author)

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Guide To Government Bureaucracy, January 1, 2002
By Tansu Demir (Springfield, IL) – See all my review

This book is really a “comprehensive” (in the literal meaning of the word), clearly written, richly supported by concrete cases (mostly, federal agencies) guide about government bureaucracy mainly in the United States. From introduction to the end, Wilson clearly and convincingly demonstrates the reasons what the government agencies do and why they do that in the way they do.

The book is organized into six parts: Organizations, Operators, Managers, Executives, Context, and Change. In the first part, Wilson's thesis is simply that organization matters. Organization must be in accordance with the objectives of the agency. In the second part, the author examines the operators' behavior (say, street-level bureaucrats) and how their culture is shaped by the imperatives of the situation they encounter in a daily basis. The third part deals with the issues peculiar to managers of public agencies. In this part, attention is focused upon the constraints that put the mangers in a stalemate (see chapter 7, this chapter is completely insightful!!). The fourth part is devoted to the Executives. This part clearly illustrates why the executives of government agencies compete with other departments and which strategies are used in the process of competition and/or cooperation (especially see the 10th chapter about Turf, insightful!!). In the fifth part, Wilson focuses on the context in which public agencies do their business (Congress, Presidents and Courts). In the last part, Wilson summarizes the problems and examines alternative solutions (the market alternatives to the bureaucracy) and concludes with reasonable and “little” propositions.

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Review (DVD): Unthinkable

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Crime (Government), Democracy, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Reviews (DVD Only), Secession & Nullification, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Sheen Director: Gregor Jordan

And Carrie-Anne Moss (Amazon stinks at listing all authors and actors)

5.0 out of 5 stars

Astonishing–Riveting–Thought Provoking–Beyond Five Stars

May 28, 2010

EDIT of 27 August 2010: The Intelligence Science Board, the top advisory board to the Director of National Intelligence, has just come out with firm documented conclusions against coercive interviewing and absolutely demanding non-coercive interviewing. People like Col stuart Harrington and I have known this for decades, but it is nice to have the following (full links at Phi Beta Iota):

The ISB study notably dissected the “ticking time bomb” scenario that is often portrayed in television thrillers (and which has “captured the public imagination”). The authors patiently explained why that hypothetical scenario is not a sensible guide to interrogation policy or a justification for torture. Moral considerations aside, the ISB report said, coercive interrogation may produce unreliable results, foster increased resistance, and preclude the discovery of unsuspected intelligence information of value (pp. 40-42).

Bottom line: all of you that hate this review (shoot the messenger) have the best of intentions but you have absolutely no clue about real-life. Intelligence, not ideology, should be restoring America the Beautiful. That will not happen until We the People wake up and recognize that there is a two-party tryanny owned and operated by Wall Street, and we are being treated as expendable pigs.

Edit of 28 June 2010: the voting on this review appears to mirror the divide in America between left of center and right of center, with no dialog. I encourage a dialog in the comments section and will respond on a daily basis. The world is NOT “win-lose,” it is only “lose-lose” or “win-win” or what one author calls “Non-Zero.” We can either die as a species, or live as a species, there is no “eugenics” possible as much as Henry Kissinger (who can never return to France) might like the term. There is only one “we.” What we lack right now is educated leaders with open minds who have integrity. This topic–torture–and this review–against torture of Americans by Americans–and these votes–American against American–are a window into our soul and what I am seeing is no basis for happiness.

– – – – – – –

I am 57 years old, been a spy, did Viet-Nam (63-67) as the son of an oil man going through ten coups d'etat, did El Salvador where I was personally threatened with assassination by the guys running the country who did not like me talking to leftists, and so on. I am also one of the handful of Americans who signed the letter to Senator John “POWS in VN? What POWs” McCain against torture. The thousand five hundred non-fiction reviews I have done all serve as a foundation for saying that this movie is a MUST SEE for every American.

For some time now I have felt that the US Government is out of touch with the American public, out of touch with reality, and out of touch with ethics. Ethics is a really important word that has been central to my life these past twenty years as I along with a number of others have realized that most of what the US Government does in the way of both secret intelligence and global military operations is unethical, unprofessional, unrealistic, predatory, and generally a waste of the taxpayers' money.

This movie is not like Sum of All Fears or Live Free or Die Hard (Unrated Edition) or any of the other good guys win in the end movies. This movie focuses on our soul as seen in torture, and it very ably calls into question the idiocy of US foreign policy these past fifty years.

Continue reading “Review (DVD): Unthinkable”

Review (Guest): Dishonest Broker–The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Consciousness & Social IQ, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

Book by Nasser Aruri

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Important book on the US role in the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
March 5, 2007
By  Edgar Hopida (San Diego, CA United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

It seems like its the same negative reviews coming from the same people who have a seemingly blind support for Israel. Professor Naseer Aruri uses mainstream US, Israeli, and Palestinian sources to analyze whether in fact the United States government has been an honest broker in the Israel-Palestine conflict. According to the mounting evidence, US has in fact NOT been an honest broker, tilting more toward the side of Israel and placing any failure to the peace process on the Palestinians and their representatives. Also according to the documented history, Israel has enjoyed an immunity that is unprecedented in the international arena. For 40 years now, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been uncontested due to the fact that every meaningful international solution to the conflict has been vetoed by the US. US also continues to give over 3 billion dollars in military aid to the Israeli government to continue a very illegal occupation. According to the preambular paragraph of UN Security Council Resolution 242, “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Therefore, Israel's occupation of West Bank and Gaza are illegal by international law. One also should look at Israeli scholars like Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pape, Simha Flapan, Yosef Gorny, and others to corroborate such information. For human rights abuses that Israeli government commits on Palestinians go to the Israeli human rights organzation B'Tselem and other mainstream human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Once you compare the data to what the book presents and see that its dead on accurate, all the negative reviews on this site will seem ridiculous and show a blind following for Israel right or wrong rather than standing up for the truth regardless of who has it.

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See Also:

Review: Palestine–Peace Not Apartheid

Review: The Road to 9/11–Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America

Review: Painful Questions–An Analysis of the September 11th Attack

Review: Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush

Review: A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

Review: The Power of Israel in the United States

Review: They Dare to Speak Out–People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby

Review: Palestine Inside Out–An Everyday Occupation

Review: The Attack on the Liberty–The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship

Review: The Health of Nations–Society and Law beyond the State

Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture

Review: Democracy Matters–Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (Hardcover)

Review: 101 Myths of the Bible–How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History

Review: Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire

Review: In the Name of Democracy–American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond

Review: Devil’s Game–How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (American Empire Project)

Review: When the Rivers Run Dry–Water–The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover)