War & Face of Battle – Page 14 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/01/20

Review (Preliminary): Drugs and Contemporary Warfare

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Country/Regional, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Economics, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

Strongly Recommended by BGen McMaster in Talk at ODNI

January 20, 2010

Paul Rexton Kan

This is one of two books strongly recommended, with deep admiration, by BGen McMaster, USA (Ret) speaking to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on 19 January. The four page trip report on his remarks about improving intelligence in support of the multinational mission in Afghanistan has been posted to Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.

I have bought this book and will review it within two weeks. CIA got its start in drug running and money laundering in Viet-Nam, and has at best facilitated the expansion of the drug zone and at worst financed it–at least half of the billion dollars a year that were channeled into Afghanistan by CIA via the Pakistani Intelligence Service are assumed (by me) to have been stolen, and today Pakistan is the primary site for the processing of Afghan opium into #4 heroin for onward shipment to Europe and elsewhere.

General McMaster also recommended Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond. In my own review of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 From that review pending my doing a complete proper review of this book:

The most important point in the book is not one the author intended to make. He inadvertently but most helpfully points to the fact that at no time did the U.S. government, in lacking a policy on Afghanistan across several Administrations, think about the strategic implications of “big money movements.” I refer to Saudi Oil, Afghan Drugs, and CIA Cash.

The greatest failure of the CIA comes across throughout early in the book: the CIA missed the radicalization of Islam and its implications for global destabilization. It did so for three reasons: 1) CIA obsession with hard targets to the detriment of global coverage; 2) CIA obsession with technical secrets rather than human overt and covert information; and 3) CIA laziness and political naiveté in relying on foreign liaison, and especially on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

My bottom line: the $75 billion a year for secret intelligence is not producing intelligence, only waste and profit. We are killing our troops in the field by being incompetent at intelligence. That breaks my heart.

2010/01/202010/01/20

Review (Preliminary): Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Culture, Research, Insurgency & Revolution, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle

Strongly Recommended by BGen McMaster in Talk at ODNI

January 20, 2010

Abdulkader H. Sinno

I have bought this book and will review it within two weeks. The key point that General McMaster made in referencing the book is that the author of this book has it right, there is no such thing as a leaderless jihad, and it is vital to be able to identify, understand, and interdict the often obscure means by which a jihad “organization” is formed and operated.

General McMaster also recommended Drugs and Contemporary Warfare. In my own review of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 From that review pending my doing a complete proper review of this book:

2010/01/14

Worth a Look: Eastern Way of War by H. John Poole

5 Star, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Insurgency & Revolution, Strategy, War & Face of Battle

Wikipedia Page

H. John Poole is an American military author and Marine combat veteran of Vietnam, specializing in small unit and individual tactics. His books focus on the role, training, and skills of the individual infantry soldier and marine, and on those of the combat junior NCOs (non-commissioned officers).

Review: The Tiger’s Way–A U.S. Private’s Best Chance for Survival (Paperback)

Review: Phantom Soldier–The Enemy’s Answer to U.S. Firepower

Review: Tactics of the Crescent Moon–Militant Muslim Combat Methods (Paperback)

See also:

2010/01/12

Review (Guest): Bathtub Admirals (Hardcover)

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Force Structure (Military), Leadership, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Reviewed by BookList

Jack Hogan and Buzz Rucci are a couple of buddies in the modern U.S. Navy. They signed up to risk their lives defending their country, but instead they’re risking their sanity playing at war in a series of military maneuvers and preparedness exercises. They are “bathtub admirals,” performing meaningless exercises in the name of global peace . . . or something like that. In the spirit of Phillip Jennings’ recent Nam-A-Rama (2005), or Joseph Heller’s classic Catch-22 (to which Huber makes a brief reference, acknowledging his novel’s pedigree), this is a witty, wacky, wildly outrageous novel that skewers just about anything you’d care to name, from military budgets to political machinations to America’s success as the self-appointed guardian of the world. Considering that Huber, a career navy man, has mostly written for military publications and Web sites (although he has turned out some short satirical pieces), and especially considering that this is his first novel, it is a remarkably accomplished book, striking just the right balance between ridicule and insight. –David Pitt

Jeff Huber's Joint Coalition Blog

About the Author:

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) commanded an E-2C Hawkeye squadron and was operations officer of a Navy air wing and an aircraft carrier. Jeff's essays have been required reading at the U.S. Naval War College where he earned a master of arts degree in neoconservative studies in 1995. His satires on military and foreign policy affairs appear at Military.com, Antiwar.com, Aviation Week and Pen and Sword. Jeff's novel Bathtub Admirals, a lampoon of America's rise to global dominance, is on sale now.

2009/12/212009/12/21

Review: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Phenomenal–Ref A Relevant to Everywhere Else

December 21, 2009

Ali A. Allawi

The author has achieved extraordinary synthesis and summation, with gifted straight-forward language.This book is not only a capstone reference, but demonstrates why we need to LISTEN–none of us could learn–in a lifetime–all that this author has in his head. That's why multinational engagement is a non-negotiable first step toward the future.

Key notes and quotes:

+ Bush Senior should not have left Saddam Hussein off the hook in Gulf I, should have finished off the regime while we had enough troops on the ground to make the peace.

+ US blew Gulf II from the moment of victory onward. “Incoherent” is a word the author uses frequently in describing virtually every aspect of US operations in Iraq. The one element that gets high marks from him is the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) but the fact that the bulk of the “reconstruction” money was mis-managed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) makes AID's excellent a footnote in this sorry tale.

+ Book covers 2003-2006; the author was Minister of Defense and then Minister of Finance during the reconstruction period.

+ “Too few Americans actually cared.” Fred Smith (parent agency not clear) gets high marks from the author for caring and competence as the CPA-appointed advisor to the Ministry of Defense in the 2004 timeframe.

Continue reading “Review: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace”

2009/11/242009/11/25

Review: The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon

4 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Country/Regional, History, Politics, War & Face of Battle

Important but Tedious Detail, First Book Probably Better

November 25, 2009

I was so pleased to get this book today that it went right to the top of my reading pile and I spent the afternoon and evening with it. I lived in Viet-Nam from 1963-1967, going through ten coups d'etat as the son of an oil engineer and executive, and Viet-Nam has always been special for me.

Sadly, the book, while full of extraordinary detail at a personal level, is extremely tedious. It *felt* like it took a century to read, and my eyes just glazed over with page after page of names of relatives, classmates, town, etcetera.

The author's first book, Autopsy: The Death of South Viet Nam is probably a much better book for anyone other than a student of the genealogical details.

The photos were disappointing, and while the strategic maps were helpful there was little to enliven the thirteen chapters.

Over-all I formed three impressions:

Continue reading “Review: The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon”

2009/11/212009/11/21

Review: Cash on Delivery–CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Biography & Memoirs, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), War & Face of Battle

The Real Deal–Gripping Details & Lessons Learned & Lost

November 21, 2009

Thomas Leo Briggs

I served with the author in the clandestine service, saw the galley of this book in its early form, and was delighted when I received a copy of the finished book in the mail.

This is an absorbing detailed reference work, professional lessons learned document, “oral history” of the hidden war in Laos and Cambodia, and above all a patriotic “after action” report that should be–but has not been–absorbed by both Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Special Operations Forces (SOF) “leaders” and program managers.

Portions of the book are somewhat numbing in *necessary* detail, and other portions of the book gave me goose bumps. The book is something of a counterpoint to Blond Ghost, about Ted Shackley and his war in Laos, the most famous quote being his deputies, “We spent a lot of money and got a lot of people killed,” Lair remembered, “and we didn't get much for it.”

I take this officer at his word, and have absolute confidence in this book and its details. The two most important points: