Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 285 – Public Intelligence Blog

Top Ten Book. Moral Legitimacy, Inter-Agency Unity of Effortt, Deep Language & Cultural Skills,

March 17, 2006

John T. Fishel

Max Manwaring is one of my heroes, and it upsets me to see the publisher do such a lousy job of posting information about this book, which is a gem. This book was a classic when it was first published, and it is even better now that it has been updated and the SWORD model slightly refined. Along with The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century and Max's other edited work, which I cannot find on Amazon, “Environmental Security & Global Security,” this book is about all any professional needs for a good clear appreciation of how to address low intensity conflicts, complex emergencies, and operations other than war.

The authors understand what Will and Ariel Durant emphasized in their summative The Lessons of History when they said that morality is a strategic value. The heart of this book is about the non-negotiable value of moral legitimacy to govern as the precursor to addressing root problems and preventing terrorism and instability. Winning uncomfortable wars is an IO/psychological and sociological challenge, but you cannot win them, regardless of how much might, money, or message you put on target, if you are not moral in the first place (and if your supported government is not moral).

The other two core messages in this book focus on the urgency of unity of effort across all agencies and the coalition, and the desperate need for LONG-TERM operations with LONG-TERM funding and LONG-TERM commitments from the leaderships of the nations as well as the United Nations and other NGOs. The authors are damning of both the US Congress and the UN for failing to be serious about budgeting for long-term stabilization and reconstruction operations.

The SWORD model has seven parts: unity of effort; legitimacy of the coalition and the supported government; interdiction of support to the belligerents; effective supporting actions by the coalition; military actions by the coalition; interactions between the coalition and the belligerents; and finally, actions tailored to ending the conflict.

Ambassador Corr could easily be credited with being the third author. His forward provides a sweeping review of history while his conclusion emphasizes that we cannot win without first having “a deep understanding of the cultures and languages…”

A few case studies round out the book. Colombia, where my mother was born, has long been one of Max's special interests. His identification of the three wars (narcos, insurgents, and paramilitaries) reminds me of Tony Zinni's elegant distinctions among the six Viet-Nam wars a) Swamp War, b) Paddy War, c) Jungle War, d) Plains War, e) Saigon War, and f) DMZ War.

Max is far more polite and diplomatic than I am, but his message is clear: US policy is in la-la land when it comes to crop eradication. On pages 197-198 he points out that farmers make four times more from narcotics than from the next available legal crop, and that they are trapped in circumstances where even if they had a profitable legal crop, there is no credit, there are no roads, there is no market, there is no security, for them to evolve legally. Credit, roads, market, security–for the LONG TERM.

Another book that really drives home the ineptitude of our short-term interventions is the one by William Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict Two other nuanced books I recommend with this one are Robert McNamara and James Blight's Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century and Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.

2006/03/172009/12/04

Review: The Quest For Viable Peace–International Intervention And Strategies For Conflict Transformation (Paperback)

Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class

Five Pillars of Peace a Great Start–USG/DoD Start with the Last, No One Manages the First Four!,

March 17, 2006

Jock Covey

This is a first rate long-overdue book, and has motivated me to take a close look at other US Institute for Peace publications, such as “Engineering Peace.”

The book presents, with varied contributions, a clear-cut model with four parts: moderating political conflict, defeating militant extremists, institutionalizing the rule of law, and developing a legitimate political economy. As William Shawcross teaches us in “Endless Conflict,” most humanitarian interventions are so inept that they create an instant black market and make continuing conflict even more profitable than it was before.

Throughout the book, reading the polite observations here and there, it is clear that we no longer lack the knowledge needed to execute complex emergencies, but rather than the United Nations and its Members nations are still refusing to be serious about providing the manpower and resources in both a timely and sustainable fashion. Throughout the book one reads of clear-cut situations where the force commander knew precisely what was needed in the way of people, tools, and dollars, and “the system” simply refused to provide it for years at a time.

The concepts are now mature: Pillar I is Humanitarian Assistance; Pillar II is Civil Administration; Pillar III is Democratization and Institution Building; and Pillar IV is Reconstruction and Economic Development.

I was especially impressed by two aspects of the book early on:

1) A comprehensive list of intelligence requirements for advance inter-agency planning, **all** of which could be satisfied by open sources of information; and

2) A list of eight coalitions needed for Kosovo that could serve as a model for any Combatant Commander: political, military, relief, rule of law, democratization, reconstruction, human rights, and donor.

The book comes with an interesting poster useful for classroom environments.

I put the book down thinking to myself that we need to split the Special Operations Command in two: a black hat side for dealing with bad guys one on one, and the traditional black behind the lines skulduggery; and a white hat side to serve as a hub for stabilization and reconstruction missions, in partnership with the Northern Command, which is correctly seeking to recast the National Guard as both a homeland defense force and a short term foreign stabilization force with military police, combat engineering, medical, PAO, JAG, and other capabilies. The only problem with that is that they are mostly white boys that have never left their counties. Combining them with an over-lain special operations force with deep inter-agency collaboration and foreign langauge and area skills, might be workable proposition.

I also put the book down believing that Ambassador Bolton needs a three star military deputy and a very big stick. We have to clean out the fat-cat first-class junkies from the UN, and replace them with serious people capable of doing real-world campaign planning with military precision and discipline. We need a UN Decision Support Centre with a global open source information collection and processing network, supported by regional Multinational Information Operations Centers (MIOC) funded by and supported by each regional Combatant Commander.

Bottom line: this book is quite excellent, but it loses one star for not having detailed of manning and organization as well as detailed budgets for notional complex emergency planning and operations staffs and force structures.

This book should be translated into French immediately, for the half of the UN that hates English.

2006/03/172009/12/04

Review: Strategery–How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media (Hardcover)

3 Star, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Politics, Strategy

Useful Apologia, Disingenious and Misleading,

March 17, 2006

Bill Sammon

This book is a useful apologia for the President, and provides a superb context for understanding how the extreme right can see their man as “doing no wrong.”

This book is, however, shockingly hateful and disrespectful of those who seek out the truth of any matter. I was absolutely stunned to see the manner in which this author treats the initiative of the reporter and the integrity of our Armed Forces person who in combination gave our nation the photos of the Abu Gharaib attrocities.

This book is inflammatory, delusional, and glib. The author labels Seymour Hersh, one of the most extraordinary and accomplished investigative reporters in American history, as a “leftwing polemicist.” Perhaps the author did not like it when it was Hersh who revealed that Rumsfeld gave the order allowing the Pakistani's to evacuate 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda personnel from the Tora Bora trap. This author probably thinks the CIA officers who went into Afghanistan in advance of our troops (“First In,” and “JAWBREAKER”) were left wing pinkos for not being happy when the military refused to close the trap and let Bin Laden and key aides walk out to Pakistan after being tracked on the ground for four days.

The author repeats known falsehoods, such as Bush saying that no one in government ever envisoned anyone flying airplanes into buildings, when anyone who reads knows that this is precisely what was envisioned in the Hart-Rudman report over a year earlier. Fast forward to Hurricane Katrina, and Bush saying no one told him, and presto, a video is leaked of someone doing precisely that.

If you are an extreme rightist, you will love this book. If you are a moderate Republican (as am I), an Independent, Green, Libertarian, conservative Democrat, or moderately well read, there is one reason and one reason only to buy this book: to completely understand the depth and breadth of the ideological fantasy land that these extremists inhabit.

2006/03/152011/10/22

Review: Take It Back–Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (Hardcover)

4 Star, Democracy, Politics

Found smarter democrats were available, this is now a TWO (3 Feb 08),

March 15, 2006

James Carville

Edit of 3 Feb 08 to add comment and links (I have read and reviewed each):

Carville's jumping on board with Hillary Clinton (“I love her to death”) is a substantive confirmation of my earlier comments when this review was first written. Now that we know there ARE smarter Democrats, i.e. both Senator Obama AND his wife (whose brain and demeanor I love to death–and I am an estranged moderate Republican and Latino), I drop this book to a TWO. See the links below, as well. Huckabee-Obama, with Bloomberg funding Bradley-Collins, a transpartisan cabinet for the people (not to be confused with any actual future cabinet) and a balanced budget online for a national “conversation that matters,” and we have our country back.

Bottom line: Carville is totally consistent with the bi-partisan spoils system and top-down elitist mandates that continue to treat the voters as “marks” whose pockets can be picked. Furthermore, it was Bill Clinton and his brain-dead “Republican” Secretary of Defense and his “travel bug” Secretary of State of no substance, who allowed terrorism to flourish for eight years, in essence setting the stage for the neo-cons to rip off the Nation and take the world from 75 failed states in 2005 to 177 in 2007.
ENOUGH! Both the Clinton and Bush dynasties, and the Democratic and Republican “machines,” need to be BURIED.

I absolutely love to hear James Carville go at it, and I respect Paul Begala. Their book is definitely worth buying and worth reading, and it makes a lot of good points. However, if there were smarter more organized Democrats around, this book would only merit two stars. It gets four when compared to some of the other garbage that is being published with a foreword by Howard Dean and absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

The authors do a fine job of focusing on jobs, health care, oil, and security, but they do it in a glib incoherent way that is not backed up with budget numbers.

Worse, they ignore the only dog-catcher issue around: whether or not everyone's vote counts, and consequently, whether or not this is still a democracy.

This is a book that draws on Op Eds and Google searches, that combines the intellect and wit of two men with a glossy cover, and that provides good read but not much more. This is NOT going to win any votes, nor can it be used by any candidate as a serious guide.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans stink at leadership, and both appear to be completely corrupt and bereft of any grand strategy that is backed up by either a coherent real-world budget or a moral commitment to a coalition cabinet and electoral reform.

This book and its authors are part of the last gasp of the Democratic Party: those that think that with just a little bit more money from George Soros and just a little bit more charm from Bill Clinton, that the Democratic base can beat the Republican base, and go issue on issue. Dream on. As a moderate Republican who is completely disenchanted with the extremist Republicans and actively looking for an alternative, I would suggest that if this is the best the Democrats can do, we may as well all move to Costa Rica.

Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

2006/03/152009/12/04

Review: Get This Party Started–How Progressives Can Fight Back and Win (Paperback)

3 Star, Democracy, Politics

A real loser of a book, TIRED, not even close to being progressive,

March 15, 2006

Matthew Kerbel

This book was a huge disappointment. A real loser of a book, very TIRED. I doubt that Howard Dean even read this loose collection of short articles by different people, before he agreed to lend his name to it.

There is no real discussion of any issue in this loosely edited work, most of the focus is on sub-elements of the democratic constituency and abouit “the message.”

Even worse, for anyone actually familiar with progressives and the new progressives, it is infuriating to not see any mention of Paul Ray and the Cultural Creatives, and the New Political Compass (Google it to get a grip). These people don't even mention the New America Foundation and that brilliant book on “The Radical Center.”

LOSERS! This is why the Democratic Party is not a credible alternative to liars with money to burn.

2006/03/152009/12/04

Review: Twilight in the Desert–The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (Hardcover)

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Environment (Problems), Priorities, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Reveals both US Senate and Oil Executive Dishonesty,

March 15, 2006

Matthew R. Simmons

This book, does, as at least one reviewer notes, “drag on,” but it does so because it is a meticulously presented case, a case that would stand up in Court, on the death of Saudi Arabia and its oil reserves.

The book concludes with an Appendix C, “The 1974 and 1979 Senate Hearings,” that I believe should be used to impeach, retrospectively, the Senators then responsible for Energy oversight. The documented public record is quite clear, and the Senate and media and banking and industry cover-ups are also quite clear and carefully documented: all of the Brahmins, including Dick Cheney, knew in 1974 and then again in 1979, that Peak Oil had been hit and we were on a downhill slope. For purely short-term political and profiteering motives, the oil industry and the U.S. Senators responsible for energy oversight, conspired to keep silent. This is, in a word, treason.

Exxon's CEO today, on the basis of this book, is either stupid, mis-informed, or a world-class criminal. I don't think he is stupid. I do think he is mis-informed. I also think that if he does not come to grips with reality soon, he will be proven to be a world-class criminal before 2008. The other energy CEOs, with British Petroleum a possible exception, are clearly duplicitous and in my own mind, display behavior that demands a nationalization of the energy industry, and a draconian criminalization of information withholding on this extraordinarily vital aspect of national security and prosperity.

This book has a world class bibliography, a world class index, and is, alone, sufficient to indict the energy company CEOs for high crimes against the Nation and the rest of the world.

For the reviewer upset that the author did not offer alternatives, I would make two points: 1) that is not the point of the book, it is about revealing the decrepitude of Saudi Arabia and the dishonesty of both the U.S. Senate and the oil industry executives in America; and 2) go to the two WIRED magazine articles, the one on doubling electrical output by creating a two-way system and localizing production; the other on the price points at which oil makes all other energy alternatives cheaper.

For those who want alternative views:

on Oil and 9-11: Michael Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

on Oil and Other Converging Catastrophes: James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century

on Saudi Arabian and US corruption, Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism and Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

on US Political Incompetence and Corruption, Peter Peterson, Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It William Greider, Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy and Tom Coburn, Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders as well as The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy).

See my 1000+ other books. This book is the tip of the spear that just went into the heart of the CEO of Exxon and his pals, all of whom will be held accountable by the American people, as will the corrupt politicians that have sold out to Wall Street and to bribery from lobbyists. We are in for a very rude and rough 20 years.

2006/03/152009/12/04

Review: The Coming Economic Collapse–How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel (Hardcover)

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Economics, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Get out of oil-dependent assets, as long as politics corrupt, energy policy will never be real,

March 15, 2006

Stephen Leeb

I am giving this book a 5 instead of a 3 or 4 because I believe that it does a superb job of laying out some facts that every normal adult needs to understand, and I want to encourage everyone to buy and read this book.

That having been said, I also found it disappointing. The author's main points can be summed up in this review, and take less than an hour to absorb in the actual book:

1) Peak oil and the need for alternative energies are being over-shadowed by myopic media and lack-luster academics that focus on poverty, climate change, terrorism, everything but the core Achilles heel of the Western world, its addiction to cheap oil which is no more.

2) Cheap oil is made possible by blatant political and financial maneuvers that enrich a few and set the rest of us up for life long poverty. Government subsidies and tax breaks purchases by expensive lobbyists giving expensive gifts and cash bribes to our politicians are directly responsible for pre-determined failure of our energy policy and the lack of an energy strategy.

3) The catastrophic nature of the collapse of cheap oil is dramatically enhanced by the combination of the *huge* U.S. deficit and by the increased prospects of war over oil.

The author concludes with some bottom line advice for investors: get out quickly from stocks associated with high oil usage (airlines, autos, chemicals; followed by cosmetics, food requiring processing and transport, and retail dependent on far away factories and raw materials).

I disagree with one key point he makes. He assumes that Wall Street and the media have been ignoring this problem because of “group think.” I certainly do agree that the larger mass of the public and the average bureaucrat that do not know any better have fallen prey to unethical propaganda, but I am quite persuaded by Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy; Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil; The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century and other books that this catastrophe in the making was clearly understood by the White House and the US Senate in 1974-1979, and a very deliberate selfish even treasonous decision was made to profit in silence and let the people fry.

This is a much simpler book than most of the others I have read and recommend, but I give it a solid five stars because if you can only afford to buy and read one book, this is the one that will be easiest and most to the point.

And just to drive the point home, when WIRED had the cover story on alternative energy, Cheney was meeting secretly with Enron and Exxon, and went on to amass 25 documented high crimes, 23 of itemized in my review of this book (Cheney makes Agnew and Johnson look like wall-flowers–this is the guy that put HIGH into “High Crimes.”
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

Category: Reviews (Books & DVD)

Review: Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (International and Security Affairs Series) (Hardcover)

Review: The Quest For Viable Peace–International Intervention And Strategies For Conflict Transformation (Paperback)

Review: Strategery–How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media (Hardcover)

Review: Take It Back–Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (Hardcover)

Review: Get This Party Started–How Progressives Can Fight Back and Win (Paperback)

Review: Twilight in the Desert–The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (Hardcover)

Review: The Coming Economic Collapse–How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel (Hardcover)