Review: Business Stripped Bare–Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur

Inspirational and Practical as Well October 31, 2009 Richard Branson I picked this up half-price at Copenhagen airport, and I liked it so much I have ordered Screw It, Let’s Do It (Expanded Edition): 14 Lessons on Making It to the Top While Having Fun & Staying Green. I must note that normally I would …

Journal: Strategic Analysis & Culture Matter

The Afghanistan Problem The huge cultural misunderstandings between Western forces and the Afghan people make it unlikely any counterinsurgency mission in the countryside will succeed. By Gilles Dorronsoro In the countryside, Westerners are essentially perceived as corrupt and threatening to traditional Afghan or Muslim values. Contrary to our self-perception, the villagers see the foreigners as …

Journal: Multinational Operations 101

Italian Troops Denied Access To Intelligence Reports, Minister Says Richard Owen  TimesOnline (UK) October 20, 2009 Italy is denied full access to intelligence assessments in Afghanistan, a restriction that affects its troops’ ability to operate safely and hampers allied co-ordination, the Italian Foreign Minister said yesterday. The lack of co-ordination and pooled intelligence between Nato …

Review: The Secret Sentry–The Untold History of the National Security Agency

by Matthew M. Aid. Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00 REVIEW BY James Bamford The New York Review of Books (5 November 2009) Pre-released in The Huffington Post (Full Review Here) Bamford on Detail, Steele on Impact–Solid Five Stars October 17, 2009 Phi Beta Iota: James Bamford is without peer in his understanding of the NSA. He …

Review: Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect

Erudition Demanding Concentration–Need Lay Chapter or Pamphlet October 12, 2009 Paul A. Rahe This is an extraordinary book offering a very detailed and superbly integrated examination of the consistencies and differences among Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, both to illuminate precisely what was in the Founding Father’s minds when they sought to create a Republic of, …

Journal: US IC Re-Discovers the Davies J-Curve

15,000 Affected By Intelligence Community Server Shutdown Atlantic POLITICS Oct 8 2009, 9:53 am Marc Ambinder EXTRACT: A CIA analyst who works on open source projects with state and local law enforcement officials said that uGov provided the only secure way to provide them with critical homeland security information. Several Defense Intelligence Agency employees wrote …