Category: Reviews (Books & DVD)

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Review: Sudden Justice – America’s Secret Drone Wars

4 Star, Atrocities & Genocide
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Chris Woods

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Historical Overview of the US Government's Drone Assassination Program, November 23, 2016

This is one of three books on drone assassination that I am reviewing, the other two are Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict: Ethical, Legal, and Strategic Implications and We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age. I was limited in my choices to the books offered by a professional journal for whom I am writing an integrated review, if I had had unlimited choice I would have included Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins and The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program.

All three books — and I suspect the others focused on this topic as well — agree on three things:

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Review: Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict – Ethical, Legal, and Strategic Implications

4 Star, Atrocities & Genocide
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

David Cortright, Rachel Fairhurst, Kristen Wall (eds.)

4.0 out of 5 stars Academic-Legal Perspective on the US Drone Assassination Program, November 23, 2016

This is one of three books on drone assassination that I am reviewing, the other two are Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars (Terrorism and Global Justice) and We Kill Because We Can: From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age. I was limited in my choices to the books offered by a professional journal for whom I am writing an integrated review, if I had had unlimited choice I would have included Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins and The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program.

All three books — and I suspect the others focused on this topic as well — agree on three things:

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Review: We Kill Because We Can – From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age

4 Star, Atrocities & Genocide
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Laurie Calhoun

4.0 out of 5 stars Cultural-Ethical-Legal-Practical Indictment of US Drone Assassination Program, November 23, 2016

This is one of three books on drone assassination that I am reviewing, the other two are Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars (Terrorism and Global Justice) and Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict: Ethical, Legal, and Strategic Implications. I was limited in my choices to the books offered by a professional journal for whom I am writing an integrated review, if I had had unlimited choice I would have included Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins and The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program.

All three books — and I suspect the others focused on this topic as well — agree on three things:

Continue reading “Review: We Kill Because We Can – From Soldiering to Assassination in the Drone Age”

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KINDLE: Global Reality – Overview of Planning and Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations

Atlases & State of the World
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Reality bats last — the US military has not been designed in the context of a Grand Strategy, nor has it been designed with any attention at all to Global Reality.

The US military is too slow, too heavy, too expensive, too complex, and spread too thin to be effective — it cannot deter, defend, or defeat. From the F-35 in the US Air Force to the USS Gerald Ford in the US Navy to the varied cancelled and cumbersome systems of the US Army, the US military is good for one thing and one thing only: enriching the military-industrial complex and the banks behind that complex.

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Review: Margin of Victory – Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War

5 Star, Force Structure (Military), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Col Dr Doug Macgregor

Speaking Truth to Power — Senator McCain Agrees, the Flag Officers Do Not

5 Stars

Margin of Victory is a hugely important book that should be required reading in all of the war colleges, as well as all national security programs in political science and international relations courses across the country.

In sailboat racing the race is often won or lost before the boat ever hits the water. If the hull is not perfectly formed; perfectly painted; and perfectly clean before it gears up, then the boat starts with an automatic embedded penalty factor – it goes slower. What the author has done with this book is demonstrate that wars are won or lost 10-20 years before they are fought, based on whether the nation-state devises an effective grand strategy and properly develops a balanced approach to organization, technology and human capital, with human capital being most important.

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Pre-Order Review: The Art of Peace – Engaging in a Complex World by Juliana Geran Pilon

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Diplomacy, Humanitarian Assistance, Peace Intelligence, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5 stars

Compelling, Insightful, Useful – Glosses Over Some Fundamentals

This book excels at offering a compelling overview of the severe deficiencies in US national security strategy, policy, and operations – it is one of the strongest indictments I have seen of our total inability to wage peace instead of war. Among the many high points covered by the author and included in my extensive notes:

01 USA has no Grand Strategy and no process for creating and executing a Grand Strategy. Deep in the book the author observes that not only is Grand Strategy the only means of fully employing all sources of national power, but it is also how one anticipates and avoids unintended consequences.

02 The elements of the US Government (USG) nominally responsible for waging peace – the Departments of State and Commerce, the US Agency of International Development (USAID), the US Information Agency (abolished in 1999) are under-trained, unsynchronized entities unable to deter conflict or build a lasting peace.

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Review: Islam vs. ISIS – Why the True Islam is the exact opposite of the Islamic State

5 Star, Country/Regional, Intelligence (Spiritual), Misinformation & Propaganda, Religion & Politics of Religion, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Recommended, Some Flaws, But Many Illustrations and an Easy Read, September 29, 2016

I rate this book as a solid five because it is a very important collection of insights — including a buried but all important indictment of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism and Western Imperialism as the true roots of ISIS. The graphics are so exceptional that I urge the author to offer this book in Kindle form where color graphics and the easy jumps from picture to brief test to picture will make this book twice as valuable as its present form limited to black and white photos.

There is absolutely no question about the author's erudition or integrity. This is a man deeply steeped — as an observing Westerner — in Arabic culture, history, and language; in the political-economic history of the region; in the role of Islam as the foundation and the glue for society and the Islamic economy; and in the contributing factors including the US invasion of Iraq and the US dismantling of the Sunni officer corps in Iraq leading to ISIS. A solid five on intent and substance.

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