Stabilization & Reconstruction – Page 12

2008/02/222009/10/30

Review: The Bottom Billion–Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Humanitarian Assistance, Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Stabilization & Reconstruction

Elegantly brilliant, incisive clarity, quite extraordinary, February 22, 2008

Paul Collier

I read a lot, almost entirely in non-fiction, and this book is easily one of the “top ten” on the future and one of the top three on extreme poverty, in my own limited reading.

The other three books that have inspired me in this specific area are:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

There is an enormous amount of actionable wisdom in this book, which is deceptively easy to read and digest. The author's bottom line is clear early on:

A. The fifty failing states at the bottom, most in Africa, others in Central Asia, are a cesspool of misery that is terribly dangerous to all others, exporting disease, crime, and conflict.

B. The responsibility for peace to enable prosperity cannot be expected from within–it must be provided as a common good from outside. In support of this point, toward the end of the book, the author posits a 15:1 return on investment from $250M a year in investment and aid, mostly technical assistance.

This book is a superb guide for regional authorities and international coalitions with respect to the value of non-military interventions.
The author provides compelling yet concise overviews of the four traps that affect the billion at the bottom:

A. The Conflict Trap
B. The Natural Resource Export Trap
C. Landlocked in a Bad Neighbors Trap
D. Poor and Corrupt Governance

The author describes the need for a “whole of government” approach, both among those seeking to deliver assistance, and those receiving it.
I have a note, a new insight at least to me, that AIDs proliferated so quickly across Africa because of the combination of mass rape followed by mass migration. There are many other gifted turns of phrase throughout.
A study on the cost of a Kalashnikov is most helpful. The author tells us that the legacy of any war is the proliferation of inexpensive small arms into the open market.

Across the book the author points out that the gravest threat to governance and stability within any fragile economy is a standing army.
Each of the traps is discussed in depth.

The middle of the book outlines nine-strategies for the land-locked who suffer from being limited to their neighbors as a marketplace, rather than the world as a whole.

1. Work with neighbors to create cross-border transport infrastructure
2. Work to improve neighbors' economies for mutual benefit
3. Work to improve access to coastal areas (the author points out that the sea is so essential, that landlocked countries should not* be* countries, they should be part of a larger country that borders the sea)
4. Become a haven of peace, providing financial and other services.
5. Don't be air-locked or electronically-locked (the first study of the Marine Corps that I led in 1988-1989 found that half of the countries of concern did not have suitable ports but all had ample C-130 capable airfields).
6. Encourage remittances
7. Create transparent investment-friendly environment for resource prospecting
8. Focus on rural development
9. Attract aid

Toward the end of the book I am struck by the author's pointed (and documented) exclusion of democracy and civil rights as necessary conditions for reform. Instead, large populations, secondary education, and a recent civil war (opening paths to change), are key.
$64 billion is the cost to the region of a civil war, with $7 billion being the minimal expected return on investment for preventing a civil war in the country itself.

Bad policies come with a sixty year hang-over.

Asia is the solid middle and makes trade a marginal and unlikely option for rescuing Africa UNLESS there are a combination of trade barriers against imports from Asia, and unreciprocal trade preferences from richer countries. In the context of globalization, only capital and people offer hope.

In the author's view, capital is not going to the bottom billion because:

A. Bottom of the barrel risk
B. Too small to learn about
C. Genuinely fragile

In terms of human resources, after discussing capital flight, the author concludes that the educated leave as quickly as they can. I am inspired by this discussion to conclude that we need a Manhattan project for Africa, in which a Prosperity Corps of Gray Eagles is incentivized to adopt one of the 50 failed states, and provided with a semblance of normal living and working conditions along with bonuses for staying in-country for ten years or more. As I reflect on how the USA has spent $30 billion for “diplomacy” in 2007, and over $975 billion for waging war, (such that the Comptroller General just resigned from a fifteen year appointment after telling Congress the USA is “insolvent”) this begs public outrage and engagement.

As the book makes its way to the conclusion the author's prose grabs me:

“We should be helping the heroes” attempting reform

We are guilty in the West of “inertia, ignorance, and incompetence.”

The “cesspool of misery….is both terrible….and dangerous.”

Several other noteworthy highlights (no substitute for buying and reading the book in its entirety:

Aid does offer a 1% growth kick

Aid bureaucracy, despite horror stories, adds real value in contrast to funds that vanish into the corrupt local government

Misdirection of unrestricted funds leads to militarization and instability.

The author touches briefly on the enormous value that industry can offer when it is finally incentivized to do so. DeBeers and its certification process are cited with respect, perhaps saving diamonds from going the way of fur.

The author stresses that top-down transparency enables bottom-up public scrutiny and the two together help drive out corruption (something Lawrence Lessig has committed the remainder of his life to).

There is an excellent section on irresponsible NGOs, notably Christian Aid, feared by the government and not understood by the public.
I put the book down with a very strong feeling of hope.

Other books I recommend, in addition to the three above:
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition

2008/01/272009/12/04

Review: How to Change the World–Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition

6 Star Top 10%, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Education (General), Leadership, Philosophy, Stabilization & Reconstruction

Single best book I have read in past five years

January 27, 2008

David Bornstein

I read a lot, almost totally non-fiction, and for the past several years, after accidentally becoming a top Amazon reviewer on the strength of 300 reviews lifted from the annotated bibliographies of my first two books, I have been dedicated, as a hobby, to reading in the service of the public. My goal in life at the age of 55, what I learned from this book is called an “encore career,” is to be intelligence officer to the five billion poor, and–I now realize from this book–to the social entrepreneurs that are changing the world on a scale and with a speed that governments cannot match.

This book blew my mind, literally. It has not altered my course, but it has dramatically accelerated my ability to make progress by illuminating a path I thought I would have to discover. This book is the first “map” of a completely new form of endeavor, profoundly individual in inspiration and global in scale, that of social entrepreneurship, not to be confused with non-profit or non-governmental, more traditional forms.

The author, apart from mapping examples (33, focused on education, health, protection, and access to electricity and technology), provides what I consider to be the single best preface/introduction I have ever read. Here are a few of the underlined bits:

+ hidden history unfolding
+ landscape of innovators
+ ratio of problem-focused information to solution-focused information is completely out of balance
+ reality distorted, people deprived of knowledge they could use
+ individual social entrepreneurs advancing systemic scalable solutions
+ new sector of social entrepreneurship now being taught, funded, and respected
+ two Nobel Peace Prizes (2004, 2006)–micro-finance now micro-everything
+ Ashoka, founded by Bill Drayton is the spine of the book
+ conceptual firewalls coming down, “whole brains” being used
+ influencing conventional businesses (going green, good) and governments (adopting unconventional education, kids teaching parents, etc)
+ “social entrepreneurs are uniquely suited to make headway on problems that have resisted considerable money and intelligence”
+ government are looking at problems from the outside, social entrepreneurs see problems–and solutions–from the inside
+ scale still a challenge, but coming
+ Students and local groups actively interested in hearing about this now
+ Students are leading the way, pushing for change in curriculums
+ optimism, hope, energy are being unleashed as never before–but not being properly mapped, reported, or appreciated outside small circles
+ new pathways being discovered every day in every place
+ changemakers far more numerous than any might have imagined
+ many levels of changemaker
+ charaqcterized by first-hand active engagement in reality
+ individuals driven to understand, and driven to remove shackles from others with shared knowledge (e.g. kids learning to fix pumps and spreading knowledge across villages with a speed and energy only quick-witten children could apply)
+ social entrepreneurship network now has sensors everywhere, millions of changemarkers, tens of thousands of organizations
+ far better mechanism to respond to needed than we have ever had before
+ decentralized and emergent force

BAD NEWS:
– not yet properly financed
– lacking holistic public intelligence for voluntary harmonization against the ten threats, with the twelve policies, with a special focus on the eight challengers. (Learn more at Earth Intelligence Network)
+ emphasis on metrics slows down the needed pace of funding for innovation

Core principles for social excellence (chapter twelve):
+ Putting Children in Charge
+ Enlisting “Barefoot” Professionals
+ Designing New Legal Frameworks for Environmental Reform
+ Helping Small Producers Capture Greater Profits
+ Linking Economic Development and Environmental Protection
+ Unleashing Resources in the Community You Are Serving
+ Linking the Citizen, Government, and Business Sectors for Comprehensive Solutions (this is where shared public intelligence and a shared Range of Gifts Table can harmonize disparate capabilities with a common interest in stabilization, reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and relief)

The book ends with a superb resource section including the following headings for lists of one-line access points:
+ Resources for People Seeking Jobs and Volunteer Opportunities
+ Organizations that Identify and/or Support (or Invest in) Social Entrepreneurs
+ Management, Funding, and Networking Resources for Citizen Organizations
+ Academic-Based Resources
+ Resources for Funders
+ Resources for Businesspeople

The notes and index are totally professional.

I put this book down with one final note: WOW!!!

This is an Earth-changing book, an utterly brilliant, timely, ethical, wonderful piece of scholarship, journalism, vision and information sharing. I actually have tears in my eyes. This book is Ref A for saving the Earth seven generations into the future and beyond.

Other books that support this one, but this one is unique:
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)

See also the books I have written, helped edit, or published, including our forthcoming COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, edited by Mark Tovey with 55 contributors. It will be on Amazon 1 March 2008, and is offered free online at Earth Intelligence Network.

In addition, I recommend the “52 Tough Questions” with transpartisan answers at Earth Intelligence Network, that address the ten high-level threats to humanity as identified by the UN study on “Creating a More Secure world” (free online and also sold via Amazon), the twelve policies that must be harmonized, and the eight challengers whom we must help avoid our mistakes of the past 100 years.

This book by David Bornstein could not have come into my life at a better time–the New York Times calls it a bible in the field, I consider it to be my inspiration for my encore career. Simply spectacular. AMAZING–not just the book, but every person and organization the book names and discusses. WOW!!!

2008/01/112009/10/30

Review: Plan B 3.0–Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

The Best and Most Essential Guide, Not the Whole Picture, January 11, 2008

Lester R. Brown

I have followed Lester Brown's dedication to evaluating the state of our planet for over a decade, and wrote to the Nobel Committee urging them to recognize him, Herman Daly, and Paul Kawkins and the two Lovins instead of Al Gore. They have all done a great deal more of the heavy lifting.

I decided to purchase this book when Medard Gabel, creator of the analog World Game with Buchminster Fuller, gave me a budget for saving the planet that totals no more than $230 billion a year (at a time when we spend $1.3 trillion waging war).

I've gone through the book and consider it to be a best in class effort, a seminal work no one else on the planet could have produced. In the author's chosen area of focus, there is no other book like this one. However, some other books are easier to read and understand, such as High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, and others do a better job of addressing all ten high-level threats to Humanity and Earth, such as A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

Here are a few highlights:

+ Book is offered free online (but the hard copy is much better deal, easier to work with, mark up and return to as a reference….use the online version to search for specifics.

+ The Introduction is clear and inspiring. This book is loaded with carefully collected facts ably presented.

+ $12 per gallon of fuel in “true costs” externalized and not billed

+ One 25 gallon ethanol tank takes enough grain to feed a person for a year. This means that those in hunger going to double from 600 million to 1.2 billion, as cars compete for grain (which is nuts).

+ Food-oil axis is developing into a triple crisis: oil, food, water. As 50% live in cities, the fuel intensity of food in the face of Peak Oil is becoming a major issue.

+ Stopping the ethanol program dead in its tracks is the single best thing US Government could do, followed my more wind farms and an end to coal plants.

+ Amazon reaching a tipping point, mega-fires are foreseen (as with New York City if its 1920's water system fails and a firestorm emerges)

+ Western model will not work for China or India (or Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and other Wild Cards)

+ Ice cap is melting fast, gfalciers are melting fast and causing small earthquakes.

+ 600 million refugees expected if sea level rises ten meters (33 feet)

+ Mortality has been reduced, but fertility has not, leaving persistent population issues.

+ 15 of 24 primary ecosystems degraded or pushed beyond their limits.

+ Climate has become more destructive, with 55 weather events costing $1.5 billion or more each since the 1980's.

+ Great discussion of the ecology of cities, Bioneers would resonate with all the author recommends.

+ Scarcity crossing national boundaries.

+ Excellent notes, heavy reliance on UN and other primary sources.

+ He proposes a budget of $190 billion a year to achieve our social goals and restore the Earth.

+ The only thing missing from this book are some of the positives, for example bacteria as an energy source, healing bacteria, eletrified water as a cleanser needed no other ingredients, the recovery of the Dead Sea with furrows that retain every drop of water.

I am so surprised to find only one review that I wanted to quickly add my praise for this author, while also pointing out three things that a handful of wealthy philanthropists could do tomorrow to execute this vision.

#1 We should all support the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER) as created by the Natural Capital Institute, and encourage colleges and universities around the world to begin loading the “true cost” information for all products and services (e.g. 4000 gallons of water in a designer T-shirt). Delivered to end-users via cell phone query at the point sale, this will dramatically affect markets.

#2 We should ask the 90 major foundations in the USA to host a summit to which all governments, non-governmental organizations, prominent wealthy individuals, and the United Nations are invited. The objective should be to create an online “Range of Gifts” Table that identifies specific contributions that can be made at every cost level, to eradicate the ten high level threats within fifteen years, by harmonizing the twelve policies such that ALL organizations and ALL individuals can opt in on a master budget that is strategically sound, operationally executable, and tactically open to all.

#3 We must absorb the wisdom of C. K. Prahalad, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and others listed below, and recognize that the only enduring sustainable solutioin lies in educating the five billion poor, who do not have the time or the money to sit in a classroom for 18-22 years. We can create today, using Telelanguage.com, an immediate registry of 100 million volunteers with Internet access, speaking 183 languages among them, who can educate the poor–who are not stupid, just illiterate–one cell call at a time.

I believe that Reuniting America, True Majority, and WISER are reaching critical mass. All we lack now is one well endowed champion who sees that it is our collective intelligence that will solve the world's problems, and there is no need to run for President. Here are the handful of books I would recommend to Michael Bloomberg if he were to ask me today how to fulfil his vision of political, educational, and philanthropic reform.

Visit Earth Intelligence Network for free public intelligence on the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers. The weekly report “GLOBAL CHALLENGES: The Week in Review,” will appeal to anyone interested in this book and its topic.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
The Future of Life

2007/01/282009/12/04

Review: The Great Turning–From Empire to Earth Community

6 Star Top 10%, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Information Society, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

People are the new super power–local resilience, global community,

January 28, 2007

David C Korten

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is unquestionably a five-star work of reflection, integration, and focused moral intent. On the other hand, while it introduced a broad “earth-friendly” literature that I was *not* familiar with, it does not “see” a much broader literature that I have absorbed, and so I want to do two things with this review: feature the highlights from this book, and list a number of other works that support and expand on the author's reflections for the greater good of us all.

Early highlights include the continued relevance of Dennis Kucinich and the emerging value of the Case Foundation and Revolution Health as funded by Steve Case, founder of AOL. The author posits early on the choice we have been a great unraveling and a great turning. He describes all our institutions as failing at the same time that we have unlimited potential. He concludes, as have many others, that centralized authority is not working, and suggests that we must confront that which does not work and devise new constructive alternatives (“for every no there must be a yes”).

In the middle of the book he describes the five levels of consciousness as magical, imperial, socialized, cultural, and spirirtual. I would have put socialized ahead of imperial, since the industrial era used schools to socialize us into both factory workers and conscripts for the armed forces. He concludes this section with a commentary on moral autism, which of course reminds us of nakedly amoral Dick Cheney.

The author moves toward a conclusion by pointing out that people are the new super-power, with the Internet and its many new features as the foundation for bringing people together and making people power effective.

A large portion of the middle section is a historical review of America, with its genocidal, slavery, and unilateral militant interventionist nature, and its extreme inequality now, which the literature on revolution clearly identifies (the latter, concentration of wealth) as a precurser to almost inevitable violent revolution).

The book ends with four strategic elements:

1) Awakening of cultural and spiritual consciousness
2) Resistance of the imperial empire's assault on children, families, communities, and nature
3) Form and connect communities of convergence
4) Build a majoritarian political base.

In parting notes he points out that the status of our children is the key indicator of our future, and that today one out of every two children is born into and lives into poverty (one reason why the High Level Threat Panel put poverty above infectuous disease and environmental degradation).

He ends by calling for local living economies at a human scale.

If you have the time to only read one book within the broad literatures of imagination, corporateism, and constructive prospects for the planet, this is probably that book. Below I want to a list quite a few that support this author's thesis, and for which I have provided a summative as well as an evaluative review within these Amazon pages:

The Corporation
WALMART-HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE (DVD/FF/FR-SP-SUB)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

See also:
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
“The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past”
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Deep Economy

There are many more should you wish to explore via my categorized lists, but the above both lend great credence to the author of this single book, and expand considerably on the reflections that he has distilled into this one book.

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2006/07/202009/12/04

Review: The End of Iraq–How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (Hardcover)

Congress (Failure, Reform), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Military & Pentagon Power, Stabilization & Reconstruction, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

Lack of Balance,Good Detail, First-Rate Personal Perspective,

July 20, 2006

Peter W. Galbraith

I recommend the other reviews, including the negative ones, for they accurately depict a lack of balance that might normally cause me to give this book one less star. However, because it has first-rate personal perspective including extraordinary travel that most US officials and journalists cannot claim, it gets the full five stars. I especially liked the “cast of characters” at the end, with names and titles and dates. A fine review.

The book can be quickly summed up by a quote from page 7: “Insurgency, civil war, Iranian strategic triumph, the breakup of Iraq, an independent Kurdistan, military quagmire.”

As the Administration continues to deny that Iraq is in a civil war, the author is compelling in citing the Iraqis themselves saying that they are–and that America lost it when it turned from liberator to occupying power. Two people come out of this book looking colossally ignorant: George Bush, who never heard of the Sunni-Shiite split before the war, and Paul “Jerry” Bremer. The author's basic proposition is that the American Republic has been undone by extraordinary arrogance, ignorance, and political cowardice.

The author is a good writer with a gift for clear phrases. He concludes that the White House and the Pentagon's politically-appointed leaders consistently “ignored inconvenient facts.” He concludes that Iraq may actually be better off in the long run, but the US is clearly not–we have gored ourselves near fatally.

I agree with the critics that suggest the author is in love with Kurdistan and overlooking some of their less rosy realities. The book is a clearly partisan document that admires the Kurds and makes the case for a free Kurdish state within Iraq (three states, one nation, not a division of Iraq as some critics loosely interpret). He is considerate of Turkish concerns and how a Kurdistan inside of Iraq but independent within Iraq, can meet their needs for a secular buffer.

There are some gems in this book that I have not found elsewhere, including a detailed accounting of the atrocities committed by Hussein against the Kurds, the Kurds rebuilding including English-speaking universities and doctors certified by the British Medical Board.

I was shocked to learn that the White House employs a CANADIAN speech-writer (who may well be one of the new Canadian clandestine case officers they are starting to field), and that this CANADIAN inserted the “axis of evil” line (which the author points out is ignorant both geographically and historically).

Overall the author could help inspire the impeachment of the Vice President. His book complements that of Ron Susskind, “The One-Percent Doctrine” and is replete with lines like “logic and facts did not stop the Bush Administration…” (page 80), “wishful thinking substituted for knowledge” (page 88, describing Undersecretary Feith), “contrary views were not just rejected, they were banned” (page 89), and “the ignorant are always surprised” (page 101).

In terms of historical documentation, the author is strongest in his detailing the incompetence of the Bush Administration in failing to plan for the war, and he lays much of the blame on Cheney for falling prey to Ahmad Chalabi's lies. The author says on page 86 that Chalabi's role cannot be overstated.

He trumps that with detail on the idiocy and arrogance of Paul “Jerry” Bremer who decided to run Iraq as his own fiefdom, and in his first two decisions, banned all Baaths from leadership positions, and dismembered the army and all security services. If there is one man to blame for all the American dead and disabled since the war “ended,” it is this well-intentioned but contextually inept person, who acted against the specific advice of the senior Army generals then serving in the field.

From an intelligence perspective, the author is credible when he points out that in the aftermath of the war and before the break-down of all order in Iraq, neither the Pentagon nor the CIA seemed to be aware of, nor interested in, the treasure trove of intelligence materials scattered in various locations throughout Iraq. This tracks with my own intimate knowledge of civilian and military intelligence, both preferring to stay in the Green Zone and not miss their evening cocktails, Robert Bauer and a few others excepted.

On page 118 the author absolutely floors me by pointing out that the Department of State spent an entire year creating a blueprint for securing the peace in Iraq, but the Department of Defense, which insisted on controlling “diplomacy” in Iraq, did not tell Bremer the detailed plan existed until a year after he arrived on the job. On page 117, the author details how the US inter-agency bureaucracy was and is out of control, with rival US factions pursuing policies that are diametrically opposed. He is particularly caustic in slamming the grotesquely incompetent manner in which the Administration threw together the nation-building team, including six young people from the Heritage Foundation who ended up running a $13 billion a year budget.

The author condems Bremer's gratuitous humiliation as having broken Iraq apart and spawned the insurgency. In the author's view, Bremer blew it in that he was a naked Emperor hiding in the Green Zone, and neither the Shiites in the south nor the Kurds in the north ever gave up their militaries or their power over their own terrain.

The book ends by stating that the US needs a strategy based on reality, not wishful thinking or ideological fantasy, and he concludes that three states comprising one nation, is the fastest way out of Iraq. I agree.

This is a solid professional account. I disagree with those critics who consider the author to be self-serving, embellishing, or otherwise deceiving the public. While he emphasizes some things more than others, and would clearly like an independent Kurdistan, on balance I consider this to one of the better first-person stories, right up there with “Squandered Victory.”

2004/01/142009/12/04

Review: Human Security and the New Diplomacy–Protecting People, Promoting Peace

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Diplomacy, Disaster Relief, Environment (Problems), Humanitarian Assistance, Stabilization & Reconstruction

Evolution of Man Demands Attention to Global Human Security,

January 14, 2004

Robert Grant McRae

In the mid-1990's the United Nations (learn to respect them, they stink at the details but work at the strategic level) declared human security to be a just cause for intervention. Since then a number of extremely thoughtful works have documented the links between failed states (where human security is non-existent) and direct threats to the homelands of the advanced Western states. See my various lists, especially the list on Stategy & Force Structure.This book, by an extraordinary duo including the man who may well be Canada's foremost authority in this arena, provides the first and as best I can tell only comprehensive discussion of why human security in every clime and place matters locally, that is, to the future of your children.

It places special emphasis on the importance of multi-cultural (i.e. not bully boy unilateral “we are the light and might makes right) approaches and large investments (commensurate with what we waste now on B2 bombers and nuclear carriers) in peacekeeping and stabilization operations which provide a vastly greater return on investment than funds wasted lining the pockets of military-industrial complex managers.

2003/10/092009/12/04

Review: Beyond Baghdad–Postmodern War and Peace

4 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Catastrophe, Force Structure (Military), Future, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle

Iraq a Mistake, Muslim Outlands More Important,

October 9, 2003

Ralph Peters

Edited 2003 review to add links and respond to comment.

I normally rave over Ralph Peter's books. He is America's Lawrence of Arabia and a brilliant intelligence analyst, especially on non-conventional threats. In this book (actually, a collection of clippings, most from the New York Post, which says something right off), he goes a bridge too far–on the one hand, he and his mentor, General McCaffrey) go several bridges too far in their praise for the “courageous” strategy of the Bush Administration (it's not a strategy, it's a mindless vendetta bought and paid for by Zionists), and on the other, he applies his superb mind to the realities of our global conflict with radicalized Islam.

The book is full of gems. I've said he is a soldier-poet before, and this book continues that tradition. The flashes of brilliance demand the purchase and reading of this book.

His most important point, one that merits its own book, is that America has misplaced its priorities in attacking radical Islam through Iraq (and passivity toward Saudi Arabia's sponsorship of terrorism, a neglect that will cost vastly more than the Iraq misadventure), and that it is the Muslim “outlands” from Central Asia to Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and India (with the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia) where America would be elevating women, nurturing secular states, and spreading the gospel of peace and prosperity.

The author takes the long-view, at least a 50-year view, and this is in sharp contrast to the “quick win at any cost (to the future)” of the current Administration. Indeed, when the author describes bin Laden as “ultimately a blasphemer against his own religion, having appointed himself God's instrument upon earth, assuming the license to kill by the tens or tens of thousands those who do not share his vision, to purge, to punish, to sanctify,” the author is in fact describing George W. Bush, not just bin Laden.

The author overcomes the limitation of New York Post hyperbole in many of his pieces. Among the most interesting is one on the five socio-psychological pools from which terrorists draw their membership: underclass, “course of conflict” joiners, opportunists, hardcore believers, and mercenaries. Also helpful is his coverage of monotheist cultures, including a subtle reference to neo-conservatism aligned with Zionism as a rising monotheist culture potentially capable of undermining American democracy and religious tolerance.

Deep in the middle of the book we find his discussion of a world divided into three strategic zones, apart from North America: the monotheist zone centered in the eastern Mediterranean; the Sino-Verdic(Indian) zone; and the postcolonial zone of Africa and Latin America. His discussion cannot be summarized and contains many brilliant insights, including a conclusion that China is not a regional threat, and China's greatest variable is not its external ambition but rather its potential for internal implosion. He is provocative in envisioning a huge “Afro-Latino-American” triangle of power emerging, with Brazil, South Africa, and the USA as the potential engines for this renaissance of the Southern Hemisphere.

The author joins Robert Baer, whose book Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude in calling for a complete withdrawal of US support for the despotic and sleazy Saudi regime that blatantly continues to support global terrorism and the radicalization of Muslim youth.

Where Ralph Peters falls short, I believe, and I say this with the utmost respect for this warrior-scholar who has placed his life on the line more than once, is in allowing his ultra-patriotism to shut out the discordant and sometimes dissenting view of other patriots who are perhaps more willing than he to acknowledge that we ourselves are part of the problem. This book is a one-man opinion piece with no reference to other works, such as those by Jonathan Schell The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, Mark Hertsgaard The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, or Michael Hirsh At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World, among the many other national security books I have reviewed here at Amazon. It falls prey, therefore, to the over-powering tuba effect, and loses some of its gloss in being so strident and so unabashedly “grind the bastards down, we are the light”–but then, we acknowledge that he was writing originally for the New York Post.

The author gets some big things right: Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, and Sandy Berger have much to answer for in their deliberate avoidance of the reality of terrorism and their failure to go to a war-footing as both Dick Clarke and George Tenet, among others, advised. He also gets some things wrong. He is wrong, for example, when he speaks on page 166 of Islam's failure to generate a single healthy state, to that we answer: Malaysia. He is half-right when he half-bakes the French, who welcome different dictators to their bosoms for different reasons, while opposing American unilateralism, and he is half-right when he dismisses all of the anti-war voices as ill-considered and cowardly. He is largely wrong in dismissing “Old Europe” as a voice of reason, and he is mostly wrong in assuming that all is right with U.S. intelligence and that everything U.S. intelligence produces is reliable. I realize he is writing hyperbole for the public and knows better, but the book must be judged on its substance.

To end on a most positive note, Ralph Peters is completely utterly correct when he points out that America has, in the past 20 years, surrendered the battlefield to our non-state enemies in advance, for lack of attention and insight and will. Ralph is one of perhaps ten people I listen to with rapt attention–his voice, when integrated with the voices of others with different perspectives, is a lifeline to reality, a voice we ignore at our peril.