War & Face of Battle – Page 25 – Public Intelligence Blog

2003/08/172009/12/04

Review: War is a Racket–The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier

6 Star Top 10%, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, War & Face of Battle

Decorated Marine General Cannot Be Ignored,

August 17, 2003

Smedley D. Butler

EDITED from 17 Aug 03 to add book links.

This book is a real gem, a classic, that should be in any library desiring to focus on national security. It is a very readable collection of short essays, ending with a concise collection of photographs that show the horror of war–on one page in particular, a pile of artillery shells labeled “Cause” and below is a photo of a massive pile of bodies, labeled “Effect.”

Of particular interest to anyone concerned about the current national security situation, both its expensive mis-adventures abroad and its intrusive violation of many Constitutional rights at home, is the author's history, not only as a the most decorated Marine at the time, with campaign experience all over the world, but as a spokesperson, in retirement, for placing constitutional American principles over imperialist American practice.

The following quotations from the book are intended to summarize it:

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil intersts in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.” [p. 10]

“War is a racket. …It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” [p. 23]

“The general public shoulders the bill [for war]. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.” [p. 24]

General Butler is especially trenchant when he looks at post-war casualties. He writes with great emotion about the thousands of tramautized soldiers, many of who lose their minds and are penned like animals until they die, and he notes that in his time, returning veterans are three times more likely to die prematurely than those who stayed home.

This decorated Marine, who understands and documents in detail the exorbitant profits that a select few insiders (hence the term “racket”) make from war, proposes three specific anti-war measures:

1) Take the profit out of war. Nationalize and mobilize the industrial sector, and pay every manager no more than each soldier earns.

2) Vote for war or no war on the basis of a limited plebisite in which only those being asked to bear arms and die for their country are permitted to vote.

3) Limit US military forces, by Constitutional amendment, to home defense purposes only.

There is a great deal of wisdom and practical experience in this small book–Smedley Butler is to war profiteering what S.L.A. Marshall is to “the soldier's load.” While a globalized world and the complex integration of both national and non-national interests do seem to require a global national security strategy and a means of exerting global influence, I am convinced that he is correct about the fundamentals: we must take the profit out of war, and restore the voice of the people in the matter of making war.

The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
Why We Fight
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Lessons of History
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past

2003/07/092012/10/27

2003 Information Peacekeeping & The Future of Intelligence: The United Nations, Smart Mobs, and the Seven Tribes

Articles & Chapters, Civil Affairs, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Chapter 13: “Information Peacekeeping & the Future of Intelligence: The United Nations, Smart Mobs, and the Seven Tribes” pp. 201-225

2003/07/052009/12/04

Review: Asymmetrical Warfare–Today’s Challenge to US Military Power

3 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Force Structure (Military), Information Operations, War & Face of Battle

Re Unfettered Conventional Violence, NOT Asymmetric Warfare,

July 5, 2003

Roger W. Barnett

There is nothing objectionable about this thoughtful and well-documented book except its title. It is simply not about “asymmetric warfare” as Ralph Peters, G.I. Wilson, Bill Lind or any of a dozen other authors including myself might speak. This book provides a reasoned and respectable argument against limiting in any way the degree to which strategic nuclear and conventional forces might be utilized. The author systematically discusses operational, legal, and moral constraints that, if permitted to stand, could in effect give a challenger relying on asymmetric means something of an advantage.The book does not, however, consider for a moment that our existing heavy metal military is anything other than the ideal blunt instrument with which to wreak our will. It does not discuss asymmetric challenges as a range, it does not evaluate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness (whether operationally, or in terms of cost and sustainability) of varying alternatives for dealing with asymmetric challenges (e.g. soft power including covert action), and therefore the book should more aptly have been titled “The Curtis Lemay Handbook for Squishing Mosquitoes with Multiple Nuclear Bombs” or even better, “Don Rumsfeld's Press Briefing on Why B-2 Bombers Were Called in Against 18 Taliban Guerrillas in Afghanistan.”

Asymmetric warfare, this is not…

2003/07/042009/12/04

Review: The Search for Security–A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century

6 Star Top 10%, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Culture, Research, Force Structure (Military), Future, History, Military & Pentagon Power, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Brilliant, Coherent, Holistic, and Above All, Sane,

July 4, 2003

Max G. Manwaring

This book is a gem, and it is worth every penny, but it is a pity that it has not been priced for mass market because every U.S. citizen would benefit from reading this superb collection of chapters focused on how to keep America both safe and prosperous in a volatile world of super-empowered angry men, ethnic criminal gangs, mass migrations, epidemic disease, and water scarcity.President David Boren of the University of Oklahoma, himself a former Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provides a non-partisan foreword that clearly indicts both Democrats and Republicans for what he calls a “zig-zag” foreign policy that is guided by TV images and weekly polls, rather than any coherent and calculated evaluation of ends, ways, and means.

Divided into three parts, the book first addresses the Global Security Environment (2 chapters), then discusses elements of a grand or total strategy (5 chapters), and concludes with a prescription (2 chapters). Every chapter is good.

Chapter 1 by Richard Millet does an outstanding job of discussing the global security environment in terms that make it crystal clear that the highest probability threats are non-traditional threats, generally involving non-state actors in a failed state environment. These are not threats that can be addressed by a heavy metal military that is not trained, equipped, nor organized for humanitarian or constabulary operations. Among his most trenchant observations: America can not succeed when the local elites (e.g. Colombia) are not willing to pay the price for internal justice and stability; sometimes the costs of success can exceed the costs of failure (Afghanistan?); what America lacks today is any criteria by which to determine when to attempt coalition building and when to go it alone; the real threat is not any single government or non-state organization, but the millions of daily decisions (e.g. to buy cocaine or smuggle medicine) that incentivise crime and endless conflict.

Chapter 2 by Robert Dorff dissects existing U.S. national security “strategy” and shows clearly, in a non-partisan manner, that the U.S. does not have a coherent inter-agency capability for agreeing on ends, ways, or means. He calls what we have now–both from the past under Clinton and in the present under Bush, “adhocery” and he makes the compelling point that our failure to have a coherent forward-looking strategy is costing the U.S. taxpayer both money and results.

Chapters 3-7 are each little gems. In Chapter 3 Max Manwaring suggests that our existing assumptions about geopolitics and military power are obsolete, and we are in great danger if Americans cannot change their way of thinking about national security issues. He suggests five remedies, the most important of which is the establishment of a coherent inter-agency planning and operational control process for leveraging all sources of national power–political, diplomatic, economic, military, and informational–simultaneously and in balance. In Chapter 4 Edwin Corr and Max Manwaring offer a fine discourse on why legitimate governance around the world must be “the” end that we seek as a means of assuring American security and prosperity in the face of globalization. Chapter 5 by Leif Rosenberger addresses the economic threats inherent in globalization, including free flows of capital, concluding that fixed exchange rates divorce countries from reality, and that the US must sponsor a global early warning system dedicated to the financial arena. Chapter 5 by Dennis Rempe is good but too short. He clearly identifies information power as being the equal of diplomacy, economics, and military power, going so far as to suggest an “International Information Agency” that could eventually become a public good as well as an objective arbiter of “ground truth.” I like this idea, in part because it is consistent with the ideas I set forth in NEW CRAFT, to wit that we need to migrate from secret intelligence intended for Presidents (who then manipulate that intelligence and lie to their people) toward public intelligence that can be discussed and understood by the people–this makes for sounder decisions. Chapter 7, again by Edwin Corr and Max Manwaring, discusses deterrence in terms of culture, motive, and effect–they are especially good in pointing out that traditional deterrence is irrelevant with suicidal martyrs, and that the best deterrence consists of the education of domestic publics about the realities of the post-Cold War world.

The book concludes with 2 chapters, the first by Edwin Corr and Max Manwaring, who discuss how values (education, income, civic virtue) must be the foundation of the American security strategy. They then translate this into some specific “objectives” for overseas investments and influences by the U.S., and they conclude that the ultimate investment must be in better educating both domestic and international audiences. They recommend the legitimacy of all governments as a global objective; End-State Planning (ESP) as the way to get there; and a new focus on holistic and long-term programs rather than “adhocery” as the best way to manage scarce means. One can only speculate how differently Afghanistan and Iraq (and Haiti, now discarded for a decade) might have turned out if the US had rolled in with a Marshall Plan or Berlin Airlift equivalent the minute organized hostilities ceased. Robert Dorff closes the book by pointing out that state failure is not the root cause, but rather the symptom, and that the U.S. must intervene before a state fails, not after.

I recommend this book, together with Colin Gray's “Modern Strategy” as essential reading for any national security professional. The publishers should consider issuing a more affordable paperback (books cost a penny a page to produce, perhaps a penny a page to market, so anything over $5 on this book is pure profit). This is a book, like Harry Summers on strategy, that should be available for $15 in paperback–if it were, I would buy 200 for my next conference.

2003/01/312009/12/04

Review: War in a Time of Peace–Bush, Clinton, and the Generals

5 Star, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, War & Face of Battle

Important Piece of the Puzzle,

January 31, 2003

David Halberstam

I look for three things in a book on national security in the information age: 1) does it offer deep insights into specific personalities or situations not available from any other book; 2) does it highlight deficiencies in the process or substance that are not well understood by the public; 3) and finally, does it add anything to the larger discussion of war and peace in the 21st Century. On all these counts, Halberstam satisfies. Indeed, having read his book several months ago, I have put off reviewing it because I wanted to spend more time pulling the nuggets out–as those who follow my reviews know, they are both evaluative and summative.This book validates most of what General Wes Clark says in his own memoir, “Waging Modern War,” and thus in that sense alone it has great value: the Army was unwilling to trust the US General walking in Eisenhower's shoes with either ground troops or helicopters, and also unwilling to fight in mountains. This is such a terrible self-condemnation of America's most important Armed Service that every citizen should be shuddering.

The second major theme I drew from this book was one that the author highlights toward the end of the book when he quotes Madeline Albright, then Secretary of State, as saying (on page 409), “We're just gerbils running on a wheel.” For this the U.S. taxpayer pays $500 billion dollars a year? For gerbils? In combination with Pentagon deception of the President in railroading General Clark out of NATO early, and a wide variety of other practices between personalities in Washington that would get you fired in any serious corporation, the overall impression that one draws of the Washington foreign policy and national security establishment is one of inattention alternating with craven back-stabbing. This is not an environment that is operating at peak efficiency, nor can it be trusted to act in the best interests of the voter and taxpayer.

A third theme, and this impressed/depressed me tremendously, is that of journalism and open sources of information getting it right early, only to be ignored. The author–Halberstam–takes great care to tell a story of respect for the accomplishments of another journalist, Roy Gutman of Newsday, whose headline on 21 November 1991, “Yugoslavs Need West's Intervention,” was the beginning of a series of insightful articles that had little impact at the time. Joining the insights of journalists was the ignorance of history by politicians–Halberstam comments particularly on the lack of European understanding of just how recognition of Croatia was the opening of a Pandora's Box of genocide. I was especially struck, throughout Halberstam's accounting, as to how crafty the Balkan players were, how able they were at deception and distraction, and how inept the Americans and the Europeans were at interpreting the situation and the ploys–with massive genocidal consequences.

A fourth theme that was not emphasized by the book, but which I would highlight based on a passing observation by the author with regard to the lack of television coverage, has to do with the absolute imperative for America and Europe to have both a strong television industry that can go into the dark places where today only adventurers like Robert Young Pelton (“World's Most Dangerous Places”) dare go–while at the same time governments need a “ground truth” cadre of observers who are accustomed to and can survive instability and combat, and are not trapped like rats in Embassies, reporting reality second or third hand. We simply don't know. We simply do not have trusted observers–or TV cameras–in 80% of the places where we most need to have reliable independent observation.

Finally, there were a number of recurring points across the whole book, points where I ended up making annotations:
1) Civilian-military relationships are not marked by trust
2) Presidential teams tend to lack depth, have no bench
3) Washington promotes the least offensive, not the most talented
4) Bush Sr. got no bounce from Gulf War–this is suggestive today, as the son follows the father's path.
5) Satellite imagery was used to detect Haitians building boats–this struck me as so symbolic of all that is wrong with the US intelligence community–rather than someone walking the beaches and seeing and sensing directly, we use satellites in outer space, at great cost, to do remote viewing…
6) Trust, Truth, and Morality–Halberstam may not mean to say this, but my reading of his book, influenced by Joe Nye's book on “The Paradox of American Power,” was just this: all the money and all the military hardware in the world will not win a conflict in the absence of trust among the civilian-military players; truth about the fundamentals on the ground; and a morality that empowers tough decisions early enough to prevent genocide.

The book ends on a mixed note–on the one hand, observing that prior to 9-11 (and many would say, even after 9-11) America has distanced itself from the world; and on the other, noting that this is a very strong country, slow to anger, slow to rouse, but when roused, capable of miracles. More upbeat than I expected, I was almost charmed by the author's optimism, especially in light of the many books he has written about the corridors of power and the pitfalls of American adventures overseas.

2003/01/232009/12/04

Review: Dreaming War–Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Military & Pentagon Power, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, War & Face of Battle

Jeffersonian Voice of the People–Not Wearing Blinders,

January 23, 2003

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal speaks truth bluntly and clearly. He addresses points that need to be addresses by every voter, for the people of America are losing their birthrights–their freedoms, their power over their own fate, their control of the resources of the nation that have been–quite literally–hijacked by a mandarin wealthy elite that would sooner cut deals with terrorists and their oil-field sponsors, than look after the best interests of the American public.Interestingly, this book emphasizes something I had not considered that bears emphasis: although there were numerous intelligence failures in detail, Vidal suggests that the Director of Central Intelligence is correct when he claims that 9-11 was not (at root) an intelligence failure–but then leaves unsaid what Vidal says explicitly: it was a policy failure in that Bush-Cheney decided not to alarm the people and not to share the warning information, in part to avoid turbulence and in part because such an attack would be welcome–as Pearl Harbor was welcome–as a means to remilitarize foreign policy.

Indeed, Vidal focuses relentless on the fact that all of the terrorist planes were allowed to run their course, without being intercepted and shot down by any of the military aircraft in the area. Although it would have taken a “strip alert” aircraft to be really effective, and it may not have been possible to load and launch aircraft on standby status in a hanger, it does appear that both the civilian and military chains of command avoided any active efforts to stop the airplanes from hitting their intended targets.

There are some extraordinary truths in this book that bear public discussion during the forthcoming Presidential campaign. I list just a few:

1) It is the US, in its obsessive anti-communism (perhaps aided by the desire of those in power to accummulate wealth and extend their power) which really kicked off the Cold War and were willing to support any dictator, commit any crime, violate any oath, in pursuit of anti-communism. The number of US attacks within an *undeclared* war status is over 250–and this does not count the secret bombing runs into the Soviet Union in the early years when we were just testing their vulnerability.

2) Japan was trying to sue for peace, and the US not only refused to receive their emissaries, but chose to drop the atomic bombs (two of them) to intimate the Russians rather than finalize the Japanese. He also addresses measures the US undertook to force the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor.

3) Vidal talks about the number of covert wars that have been fought using taxpayer dollars, but without the knowledge or the approval of the taxpayer-voter. This is really a vital point–the people, and their elected representatives in Congress, have lost both the power of the purse and the power over war.

3) Coming further forward, Vidal addresses some stark truths about the current American condition that include the incredible percentage of the population that is either in prison or on parole; the continuing abuse of black citizens, especially in Florida; the continuing censorship of the media in relation to the interests of its advertisers–to include the deceptive and manipulated findings of the polls sponsored by the media; the erosion of individual rights; and the continuing gutting of the US economy by the combined emphasis on arms sales (including to ourselves) and cheap oil that the elite managers of the commonwealth persist in pursuing.

Vidal ends with two notes: first, that a Constitutional Convention, demanded by the people, would allow a complete overhaul of the system–once “we the people” are assembled, they have all the power and can recast the system as they wish–what an exciting idea; and second, that the logical direction for a free people is toward a Swiss like confederation of cantons or city-states (or, as Joel Garreau suggested, “Nine Nations of North America”).

In my view, Vidal stands alone, with Chomsky, in terms of speaking truth to power. Others, like Joe Nye, Jeffrey Garten, Max Manwaring, and Howard Rheingold dance around the issues of policy, credibility, and survivability in capable ways, but Vidal cuts to the heart of the matter: do the people wish to think for themselves and take back the power, or cower as slaves in the gutter? This is very refreshing reading.

2002/12/222009/12/04

Review: Afghanistan–A Russian Soldier’s Story

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, War & Face of Battle

Heavily Censored, Touching in Its Way,

December 22, 2002

Vladislav Tamarov

As with many other Amazon[.com] reviewers, I received a personal appeal from the author of this book to buy and read his book, and did so. As a former infantry officer who also served in the CIA and knew something of the CIA's support for the anti-Soviet effort there, I was looking forward a deep look at what went wrong.The book appears to have been censored, both with respect to its content and with respect to its photographs, none of which actually depict Soviet encampments, combat results, or anything beyond the most mundane equipment. It offers little in the way of lessons learned or deep insights comparable, say, to “Afghan Guerrilla Warfare: In the Words of the Mujahiddeen Fighters.”

Having said that, I do recommend it for purchase because it is a personal memoire with many excellent black and white photographs of young Soviet men in Afghanistan, and represents, for the author, financial survival and emotional salvation.