Power (Pathologies & Utilization) – Page 55

2004/06/292009/12/04

Review: Shake Hands With The Devil–The Failure Of Humanity In Rwanda

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Biography & Memoirs, Diplomacy, History, Humanitarian Assistance, Insurgency & Revolution, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Genocide is SYMPTOM–Lack of Public Intelligence is CAUSE,

June 29, 2004

Romeo Dallaire

I read this book with the eye and mind of a professional intelligence officer long frustrated with the myopia of national policy constituencies, and the stupidity of the United Nations Headquarters culture. General Dallaire has written a superb book on the reality of massive genocide in the Burundi and Rwanda region in 1994, and his sub-title, “The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda” is where most people end up in reading this book.

I see things a little differently. I see this book as a massive indictment of the United Nations culture of “go along gently”, as a compelling documentary of how ignorant the United Nations is about impending disasters because of its persistent refusal to establish a UN intelligence secretariat as recommended by the Brahimi Report, and as a case study in how the Western nations have failed to establish coherent global strategies–and the intelligence-policy dialogues necessary to keep such strategies updated and relevant.

According to the author, 15 UN peacekeepers died–over 800,000 Rwandans died. The number 15 is not larger because Belgium, Canada, and the US explicitly stated that Rwanda was “irrelevant” in any sense of the word, and not worth the death of a single additional Western (mostly white) soldier.

Although there has been slight improvement in the UN since LtGen Patrick Cammaert, NL RM became the Military Advisor to the Secretary General (see General Cammaert and other views in Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future, the reality is that the UN is still unintelligent and unable to muster the strategic intelligence necessary to get the mandate right; the operational intelligence necessary to get the force structure right; and the tactical intelligence necessary to achieve the mission on the ground. Just about everything General Dallaire writes about in this book with respect to UN culture and UN lack of intelligence remains valid today: they still cannot get decent maps with which to plan a campaign or execute the mission; UN administrators are still anal-retentive bureaucrats that will not issue paper and pencils, much less soft drinks for diplomatic encounters; UN “seniors” still like the first class lifestyle on the road (they pretend to be austere only in NY); UN civilian mission leaders still misrepresent military reporting, as Booh-Booh did to Dallaire; and the UN is still ineffective in creating public intelligence with which to communicate directly to national publics the reasons why humanitarian operations must take place early and in force.

General Dallaire concludes his excruciatingly detailed book, a book with enormous credibility stemming from the meticulous manner in which he documents what happened, when it happened, and what everyone knew when (including advance warning of the genocide from the “third force” that the UN leadership refused to take seriously), with two thoughts, one running throughout the book, the second in the conclusion only:

First, and perhaps because of the mental toll he himself paid for this mission, there are frequent references throughout the book to the urgency of understanding the psychology of groups, tribes, and cultures. This is not something any Western intelligence agency is capable of today. The closest I have seen to this is Dr. Marc Sageman's book on Understanding Terror Networks We urgently need a global “survey”, with specific reference to the countries plagued by ethnic conflict and other sources of instability, and we need to start taking “psychological intelligence” very seriously. We need to UNDERSTAND.

Second, he concludes the book by emphasizing the urgency of understanding and then correcting the sources of the utter RAGE that characterizes hundreds of thousands if not millions of young men around the world, all of whom he says have access to guns and many of whom he says will ultimately and unavoidably have access to weapons of mass destruction.

As I contemplate the six-front hundred-year war that America has started by attacking Iraq instead of addressing the social networks and sources of terrorism, I cannot help but think that this great solider and statesman has hit the nail on the head: Rwanda is coming to your neighborhood, and nothing your policy makers and military leaders are doing today is relevant to avoiding that visitation. Remember the kindergarten class in Scotland? The Columbine shootings and Oklahoma disasters? Now magnify that by 1000X, aggravated by a mix of angry domestic militants, alienated immigrant gangs, hysterical working poor fathers pushed into insanity–and the free availability of small arms, toxins, and simple means for collapsing the public infrastructure….

The complexity of society, which has lost its humanity, is leading to unpredictable and difficult to diagnose and correct collapses of all the basic mechanisms of survival. General Dallaire's book is not about Rwanda–it is about us and what will happen to us if we persist in being unintelligent about our world and the forces that could–if we were wise–permit billions to survive in peace.

In addition to this book I recommend the PKI book mentioned above, Jonathan Schell's book on The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People Bill Moyer's on Doing Democracy, and Tom Atlee on The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All. If we do not take back the power and restore common sense to how our nations behave and how our nations spend our money around the globe, the plague of Rwanda will visit our neighborhoods within the decade.

2004/06/272009/12/04

Review: A Pretext for War–9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies

4 Star, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

The one book to read if only one, not a substitute for many,

June 27, 2004

James Bamford

I know Jim Bamford personally, and consider him to be one of the most capable of researchers and most objective of writers on intelligence matters. His deep personal relationships across the U.S. Intelligence Community make him the best possible reporter.For those of us steeped in the literature, that routinely read both the daily reporting and the regular books, much of what Jim has put together here will be repetitive. This is, however, the very best book to read if you only have the time for one book on the topic of 9-11, the failure of U.S. intelligence, and the corruption of U.S. policy in using 9-11 as a pretext for invading Iraq and giving Bin Laden the best possible (i.e. most stupid) strategic response to 9-11.

This is the ideal book for any citizen who wants a professional “once over” tour of the various intelligence and policy pieces that broke down and allowed 9-11 to happen, and then allowed the entire “balance of powers” construct from our Founding Fathers to fly out the window. If you want to go deeper, see my thirteen Lists and 479+ other reviews of national security non-fiction.

The book is especially strong on the Rendon Group being used to illegally propagandize American citizens with U.S. taxpayer funds, on the abject failure of George Tenet in revitalizing U.S. clandestine operations, on the failure (treated more kindly) of Mike Hayden to bring the National Security Agency into the 21st Century, and on the very unhealthy merger of the U.S. neoconservatives that captured the White House, and well-funded Zionists in both America and Israel who essentially bought themselves an invasion of Iraq–a remarkable coincidence of interests: Jews paying to invade Iraq, Iranians using Chalabi to feed lies to the neo-cons so they would be deceived into thinking Iraq would be a cake-walk, and Bin Laden never daring to dream the entire U.S. population and all arms of government–including a passive media–would “sleep walk” into what this book suggests is one of the dumbest and most costly strategic errors in the national security history of the USA.

This book is not, despite some of the ideologically-motivated reviews below, an attack of George Bush Junior, as much as it is an appalled and informed review of how a complex government collapsed in the face of 9-11, and a handful of ostensibly patriotic and very myopic individuals were able to abuse their personal power because all of the professional counter-forces: the diplomats, the spies, the military professionals, the Congress, the media–every single one was not sufficiently competent nor sufficiently motivated to mandate a more balanced policy process that could understand the many global threats (terrorism and Iraq are actually two of the lesser ones), devise a comprehensive long-term strategy, and execute that strategy using *all* of the instruments of national power, including strong global alliances that lead all governments to fight all gangs in the most effective fashion possible.

We let kids play with matches, and they burned down the house.

2004/06/212009/12/04

Review DVD: The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

6 Star Top 10%, Biography & Memoirs, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Insurgency & Revolution, Military & Pentagon Power, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Reviews (DVD Only), War & Face of Battle

Every Miltary Person, and Ideally Every Citizen, SHould View,

June 21, 2004

Robert McNamara

This is the only documentary film to make it on to my list of 470+ non-fiction books relevant to national security & global issues. It is superb, and below I summarize the 11 lessons with the intent of documenting how every military person, and ideally every citizen, should view this film.As the U.S. military goes through the motions of “transformation” while beset by the intense demands of being engaged in a 100-year war on six-fronts around the world, all of them against asymmetric threats that we do not understand and are not trained, equipped, nor organized to deal with, this film is startlingly relevant and cautionary.

LESSON 1: EMPHATHIZE WITH YOUR ENEMY. We must see ourselves as they see us, we must see their circumstances as they see them, before we can be effective.

LESSON 2: RATIONALITY WILL NOT SAVE US. Human fallibility combined with weapons of mass destruction will destroy nations. Castro has 162 nuclear warheads already on the island, and was willing to accept annihilation of Cuba as the cost of upholding his independence and honor.

LESSON 3: THERE'S SOMETHING BEYOND ONESELF. History, philosophy, values, responsibility–think beyond your niche.

LESSON 4: MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCY. Although this was McNamara's hallmark, and the fog of war demands redundancy, he has a point: we are not maximizing how we spend $500B a year toward world peace, and are instead spending it toward the enrichment of select corporations, building things that don't work in the real world.

LESSON 5: PROPORTIONALITY SHOULD BE A GUIDELINE IN WAR. McNamara is clearly still grieving over the fact that we firebombed 67 Japanese cities before we ever considered using the atomic bomb, destroying 50% to 90% of those cities.

LESSON 6: GET THE DATA. It is truly appalling to realize that the U.S. Government is operating on 2% of the relevant information, in part because it relies heavily on foreign allies for what they want to tell us, in part because the U.S. Government has turned its back on open sources of information. Marc Sageman, in “Understanding Networks of Terror”, knows more about terrorism today than do the CIA or FBI, because he went after the open source data and found the patterns. There is a quote from a Senator in the 1960's that is also compelling, talking about “an instability of ideas” that are not understood, leading to erroneous decisions in Washington. For want of action, we forsook thought.

LESSON 7: BELIEF & SEEING ARE BOTH OFTEN WRONG. With specific reference to the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as the failure of America to understand that the Vietnamese were fighting for independence from China, not just the French or the corrupt Catholic regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, McNamara blows a big whole in the way the neo-cons “believed” themselves into the Iraq war, and took America's blood, treasure, and spirit with them.

LESSON 8: BE PREPARED TO RE-EXAMINE YOUR REASONING. McNamara is blunt here: if your allies are not willing to go along with you, consider the possibility that your reasoning is flawed.

LESSON 9: IN ORDER TO DO GOOD, YOU MAY HAVE TO ENGAGE IN EVIL. Having said that, he recommends that we try to maximize ethics and minimize evil. He is specifically concerned with what constitutes a war crime under changing circumstances.

LESSON 10: NEVER SAY NEVER. Reality and the future are not predictable. There are no absolutes. We should spend more time thinking back over what might have been, be more flexible about taking alternative courses of action in the future.

LESSON 11: YOU CAN'T CHANGE HUMAN NATURE. There will always be war, and disaster. We can try to understand it, and deal with it, while seeking to calm our own human nature that wants to strike back in ways that are counter-productive.

For those who dismiss this movie because McNamara does not apologize, I say “pay attention.” The entire movie is an apology, both direct from McNamara, and indirect in the manner that the producer and director have peeled away his outer defenses and shown his remorse at key points in the film. I strongly recommend the book by McNamara and James Blight, “WILSON's GHOST.” In my humble opinion, in the context of the 470+ non-fiction books I have reviewed here, McNamara and Bill Colby are the two Viet-Nam era officials that have grown the most since leaving office. He has acquired wisdom since leaving defense, and we ignore this wisdom at our peril.

2004/01/172009/12/04

Review: Winning Modern Wars–Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire

5 Star, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, War & Face of Battle

Ideal Primer for General Public, Satisfying on Key Points,

January 17, 2004

Wesley K. Clark

Much of this book is a blow-by-blow account of the recent US invasion of Iraq, with generally complementary comments about the performance of the US military.National security professionals will have every reason to skim most of the book, but they would be very unwise if they failed to read it. On balance, the author comes out as the only Presidential candidate who actually has deep experience in modern war, in managing very large complex coalition operations, and in handling the nuances (Bush has said he does not do nuances) of complex European relationships such as characterized his tenure as commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, during which time NATO dramatically expanded to embrace the Eastern European (Partnership for Peace) nations and the Mediterranean Dialog nations.

A few key points on the author's perspectives that satisfied me:

1) He understands that reconstruction cannot be successful unless internal security, stability, and legitimacy are established first.

2) He emphasizes the urgency of operating with other nations in strong alliances, not only to be successful in unilateral operations, but in avoiding competing crises elsewhere.

3) He is very critical of the manner in which the Bush Administration represses participatory democratic discussion of the threat and the new strategy. America was “shut out” from both the facts and the discussion in the path to war on Iraq.

4) He is sensitive to the enormous damage that America's arrogance (as reflected in the actions being done “in our name”) is doing to our interests abroad. He notes, interestingly, that there is a huge difference between the messages carried by the US versus the international media (and implicitly, in our public's unawareness of that difference).

5) He is accurate and insightful in expressing concern about two simultaneous failures of the Bush Administration: first, failing to prosecute the war on terror instead of the sideshow in Iraq, and second, failing to actually make America any safer here at home.

6) He helps explain how the Bush Administration got off track by reminding us that missile defense, energy, and the Chinese incident with the US naval reconnaissance airplane all consumed the early months of the new Administration.

7) He provides useful perspective on the *considerable* challenges of terrorism that faced Germany (Baader-Meinhof), Italy (Red Brigades), Spain (ETA), England (IRA), Greece (November 17th group), Turkey (PKK), and other nations including Israel. He notes that these were defeated by constructive law enforcement campaigns, not unilateral military invasions. I found this section of the book to be extraordinarily mature, worldly, and sensible.

8) His account of the early planning process for the war against Iraq (never mind the policy process that misled America) slams Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for being disruptive and unprofessional, resulting in “an irregularly timed patchwork process that interspersed early-deploying units with those needed later, delayed mobilization, hampered training, and slowed overall deployments considerably.” One example: 4th Infantry Division spent 45 days at sea *after* they arrived.

9) He provides incisive commentary on the failure of both Turkey and Saudi Arabia to provide much needed ports and airheads for the war. [Although General Clark refrains from making this point, the best minds at the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute have publicly noted that we won more as a result of Iraqi incompetence than US effectiveness.]

10) There are many small signs throughout the book that General Clark is a strategist. As one who feels that John Boyd is a hero whose work must be honored in our future deliberations, I was glad to see the author emphasize the value of leadership and training over technology.

11) The author corrects existing doctrine and advances the thinking by pointing out that the air supremacists were correct but not in the way they expected. Air versus C4I was not the decisive factor in the Iraq war, but rather air in support of ground forces, something the Air Force hates to do but the Marine Corps has always understood.

12) On page 79 he discusses how a B-1 bomber was dispatched to attack a reported place where Saddam Hussein might be, unleashing two 2,000 lb. bombs. This is so sadly a repeat of the Afghan story, where a B-2 bomber was called in against 18 men in a cave, that we want to highlight it. We have a heavy metal military unsuited for manhunts or gang warfare.

13) If there is one weakness in this book, it is that it glosses over the many information and intelligence deficiencies that characterized the planning process, the operational campaign, and the post-war peace and reconstruction endeavor.

The author does not fail to give the current Administration and its operational arms (including intelligence) credit for successes against terrorism in 2002 (incidents fell by half, key people killed and captured). This is appropriate, and provides a good lead-in to his very detailed critique of how we are failing in the war on terrorism, the second half of his book. This can be generally summed up, in his words, with “We needed new thinking, and we needed to retarget our intelligence and adjust our means…” What I find most fascinating about the second half of the book is that the author is clearly charting a sensible course that is equi-distant from the incompetent neglect of the Clinton Administration, and the lunatic militarism of the Bush Administration. He makes specific reference to the now-public plans of Rumsfeld and his aids to follow up the attack on Iraq with attacks on Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. This is what we have to look forward to if there is a second Bush Administration.

The author provides enough in the way of specifics (buying in, for example, with an explicit reference) to Joe Nye's views on the importance of using soft power in the context of multinational strategies for peace) to be very reassuring that his national security strategy, once fully developed, would be summed up with one word: balanced.

2003/11/302009/12/04

Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025

6 Star Top 10%, America (Anti-America), Congress (Failure, Reform), Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Single Most Important Work of the Century for American Moral Diplomacy,

November 30, 2003

Mark Palmer

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links and new comment,

New Comment: In my view, this is the single most important work of the century with respect to American moral diplomacy. I note with concern that under Bush-Cheney “Failed States” have increased from 75 in 2005 to 177 in 2007. We've lost our mind, and our morals, as a Nation.

Ambassador Mark Palmer puts to rest all those generally unfair stereotypes of Foreign Service Officers as “cookie pushing” softies who fall in love with their host countries and blame America for any flaws in the bi-lateral relationship. With this book he provides an inspiring model for precisely what every Foreign Service Officer should aspire: to understand, to articulate, and then to implement very great goals that serve democracy and help extend the bounty of the American way of life–moral capitalism and shared wealth–to every corner of the world.

This is a detailed and practical book, not just visionary. It is useful and inspiring, not just a personal view. It is also a damning indictment of fifty years of US White House and Congressional politics, where in the name of anti-communism and cheap oil America–regardless of which party has been in power, has been willing to consort with the most despotic, ruthless, murderous regimes in the history of mankind. Still alive today and still very much “friends” of the U.S. Government are dictators that think nothing of murdering millions.

There has been some improvement, offset by an increase in partly free countries. From 69 countries not free at all in 1972 we now have 47. From 38 countries partly free in 1972 we now have 56, many of those remnants of the former Soviet Union. Free countries have nearly doubled from 43 to 89, but free and poor is quite a different thing from free and prosperous.

The level of detail and also of brevity in this book is quite satisfying. On the one hand, Ambassador Palmer provides ample and well-documented discussion of the state of the world, on the other he does not belabor the matter–his one to two-paragraph summative descriptions of each of the dictatorships is just enough, just right.

He distinguishes between Personalistic Dictatorships (20, now less Hussein in Iraq); Monarch Dictators (7, with Saudi Arabia being the first in class); Military Dictators (5, with US allies Sudan and Pakistan and 1 and 2 respectively); Communist Dictators (5); Dominant-Party Dictators (7); and lastly, Theocratic Dictators (1, Iran).

Ambassador Palmer makes several important points with this book, and I summarize them here: 1) conventional wisdom of the past has been flawed–we should not have sacrificed our ideals for convenience; 2) dictatorships produce inordinate amounts of collateral damage that threatens the West, from genocide and mass migrations to disease, famine, and crime; 3) there is a business case to be made for ending U.S. support for dictatorships, in that business can profit more from stable democratic regimes over the long-term; and lastly, 4) that the U.S. should sanction dictators, not their peoples, and we can begin by denying them and all their cronies visas for shopping expeditions in the US.

The book has an action agenda that is worthy, but much more important is the clear and present policy that Ambassador Palmer advocates, one that is consistent with American ideals as well as universal recognition of human rights. Ambassador Palmer's work, on the one hand, shows how hypocritical and unethical past Administrations have been–both Democratic and Republican–and on the other, he provides a clear basis for getting us back on track.

I agree with his proposition that we should have a new Undersecretary for Democracy, with two Assistant Secretaries, one responsible for voluntary democratic transitions, the other for dealing with recalcitrant dictators. Such an expansion of the Department of State would work well with a similar change in the Pentagon, with a new Undersecretary for Peacekeeping Operations and Complex Emergencies, my own idea.

This is a very fine book, and if it helps future Foreign Service Officers to understand that diplomacy is not just about “getting along” but about making very significant changes in the world at large, then Ambassador Palmer's work will be of lasting value to us all.

Forthcoming on Amazon in February and also free at OSS.Net/CIB:
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, edited by Mark Tovey with a Foreword by Yochai Benkler and an Afterword by the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada. I have high hopes for all of us finally getting it right (Winston Churchill: “The Americans always do the right thing, they just try everything else first.”) Now is our time to get it right. We can start by electing Senator Barack Obama as our forward-thinking always listening open-minded President.

2003/09/242009/12/04

Review: Intelligence and the War in Bosnia–1992-1995 (Perspectives on Intelligence History)

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Force Structure (Military), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Unique Blend of Lessons Learned and Tutorial on Intelligence,

September 24, 2003

Cees Wiebes

This is a superb publication. An American, who would never have received the kind of direct official support provided to the author by the government of The Netherlands, could not have written it.This is the only book that I know of that fully integrates deliberate studies of UN intelligence; Western and NATO intelligence (which the author correctly notes does not exist); Dutch intelligence; and belligerent party intelligence.

Several recurring themes of lasting value emerged from my reading of this book:

1) The UN is dangerously devoid of intelligence qua decision-support. The culture of the UN leadership, the UN bureaucracy, and the UN delegates is one that places a higher priority on the semblance–the mockery–of lip service to open sources and legal methods, while sacrificing the lives of UN forces in the field. One cannot read this book, and its superb documentation of how UN Force Commander after UN Force Commander pleaded for intelligence support, only to be told no by the staff in New York, without becoming very angry. This book makes it perfectly clear that the UN leadership failed the Croats, the Serbs, and the international peacekeepers, in every possible way. Toward the end of the book the author also focuses on the UN as a source for the belligerents, i.e. UN incapacity for operational security and secure communications in fact makes it a primary source for belligerents seeking to kill one another.

2) The West failed in Bosnia in part because it became over-reliant on technical intelligence (which it could not process or analyze with sufficient speed and reliability), and did not have adequate numbers of competent clandestine Human Intelligence (HUMINT) or even ground-truth observers in the region. A contributing source of failure was the evidently deliberate decision on the part of the Clinton White House to downplay the conflict and to withhold such intelligence warning as they did have from the UN, in the misplaced belief that sharing such information would interfere with the peace process. Tens of thousands died because of Clinton White House irresponsibility.

3) Intelligence “liaison” or structured sharing across national boundaries, was an ungodly mess made worse by the inherent biases and rose-colored glasses worn by the Americans and the British on one side, and the French and the Germans on the other. “Wishful thinking” by policy makers interfered with proper assessments of the relative condition and intentions of the various belligerents.

4) The CIA clandestine endeavor was split, with one Station operating out of Sarajevo and another out of Zagreb, and no overall coordination or integration of sources and reports.

5) Civil Affairs (CA) as a military occupational specialty is blown forever by CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) abuses, most without the permission of the U.S. European theater commander. CIA/DO managers should be disciplined for this breach of internal US government protocols.

6) The Dutch were not ready to field a major operational or tactical intelligence support architecture, and in-fighting among various elements prevented the various analysts from making the most of what little they could glean from varied sources. The same was actually true of all Western intelligence communities–all had other priorities and too few resources [although language deficiencies are not emphasized by the author, one presumed a grotesque lack of required competencies across the Croat and Serb dialects as well as Yugoslavian, Turkish, and Arabic]. In the view of a senior officer whose quotations close Chapter 3, heads should be rolling for dereliction of duty–although the subject refers only to the Dutch, the reviewer would add US and British heads as well.

7) The book excels–is remarkable and perhaps unique–for its discussion of the secret arms supplies–not only the routes, the providers, the landing zone delivery means–but the active violation by the US of the embargo, and the active role of US Special Forces in violating the embargo without a covert action “finding”, and hence also in violation of US law. Other nations were equally at fault. It is clear from the book that the UN needs not only operational and tactical intelligence for the specific area of operations, but an extended intelligence and operational capability sufficient to *interdict* incoming arms to the belligerents. This book may well be the single best reference on this topic.

8) The sections of the book on signals and imagery intelligence are a work of art, combining historical scholarship with original research and a very fine tutorial aspect. The listing of the 11 disadvantages of SIGINT (pages 224-228) is the finest I have ever seen. The bottom line in both instances is: too much collection, too little processing and analysis. The author uses a remarkable quote from a former Director of the National Security Agency to make this point: good news is that we can exploit a million messages a day; bad news is that we don't know which million out of the billions we capture to do… Also interesting is the detailed accounting of belligerent party competencies in SIGINT and IMINT, to include the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and advanced methods.

9) The book ends with two notes that I choose to emphasize, although the author makes many valuable observations in his conclusions that I will not repeat here: first, support to UN operations was the *fifth* priority for Western intelligence, coming after force protection, after ground truth observation, after support for air targeting, and after support for NATO ground troop planning; and second, Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental organization, was the *only* entity to get true validated warning of the Srebrenica genocide.

The index is terrible-names only. Properly indexing the book for references to all intelligence sources and methods as well as events and practices, would make it 2X to 3X more valuable as a basic reference.

This book is highly recommended and a “must have” for every national security and international affairs library, and for every professional interested in peacekeeping intelligence.

2003/08/312009/12/04

Review: Defense Facts of Life–The Plans/Reality Mismatch

6 Star Top 10%, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Military & Pentagon Power, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Core Ideas Relevant to Imminent Defense Reform,

August 31, 2003

Franklin Spinney

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add comment and link.

Comment: This book should be updated and reprinted in time for November 2008.

Chuck Spinney, who made the cover of TIME in the 1980's as a whistle-blower on defense waste and mismanagement, has in this book presented a readable, well-documented and well-illustrated account of how virtually every single weapons and mobility system now in the Pentagon system is over-priced, over-weight, over-budget, and not able to perform as advertised. Although out-of-print, there are hundreds of copies of this book that can be obtained via Amazon's used book channels, and the author is writing a sequel that will be easier to understand if this book is digested first.

In addressing the plans reality mismatch, the author is very effectively demonstrating that doctrine, technology and the budget are completely divorced from both real world threats, and real world logistics.

With superb assistance from the editor, James Clay Thompson, who has converted the author's Pentagon-speak to plain English, the author documents the insanity and the irresponsibility of how we continue to spend the taxpayer dollar on so-called defense. I say so-called because the Emperor has no clothes. We can invade a country, but we cannot stop terrorism or keep our electrical system going reliably.

Just one little vignette illustrates how jam-packed this book is with facts. Discussing the F-15 and the move toward replaceable units as a means of reducing forward-deployed repair specialists and spare parts, the author blows the lid off the whole system. It all comes down to the three computers each squadron of 24 F-15's needs to diagnose its 1080 line-replaceable units. 1) It turns out the three computers work 80% of the time. 2) It takes up to 30 minutes to connect the computer to an interface test adapter. 3) It takes an average of three hours and as many as eight hours for the computer to carry out a diagnostic reading of a single line-replaceable unit. 4) Very often the computer fails to replicate the problem, with lack of resolution fluctuating at between 25 and 41 percent of the time. 5) At the time Spinney wrote the book, and probably still today, not a single Air Force avionics technician was re-enlisting, because they could get three times the money, and a much better quality of life, by taking their taxpayer-funded training into the private sector.

Spinney ends his book by saying, “In a nutshell, Pentagon economics discount the present and inflate the future. Put another way, the future consequences of today's decisions are economically unrealistic plans that reduce current ability to meet the threat in order to make room (hopefully) for future money to meet a hypothetical threat. … The across-the-board thrust toward ever-increasing technological complexity is simply not working.”

It is not the book's purpose to propose an alternative national security strategy and a commensurate change in how America devises its concepts, doctrine, and capabilities for making war and enforcing peace, but if one reads the book by Robert Coram, “BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War” and also the book edited by Dr. Col. Max Manwaring et al, “Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the 21st Century,” a picture will emerge. People first, ideas second, hardware last. The ideas in this book, although ignored in the 20 years since they were first articulated, are certain to play a large role in the redesign and redirection of the U.S. national security community over the next ten years.

More recent books:
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy