Worth a Look: Berto Jongman Recommends….

05 Civil War, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Worth A Look

Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Researcher Berto Jongman recommends 6 monographs, 5 articles, 3 books.

EDIT of 24 Nov 09: 6 monograph recommendations added.

Russia: A Promising Market for Islamic Finance
21/11/2009By Lahem al Nasser

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat- There are around 47 million Muslims in Russia, which means that Muslims make up around one third of Russia's overall population. This figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2050 due to the high birth rate among the Muslim community, the decrease in the non-Muslim Russian population which is decreasing at a rate of 1 million people per year, as well as the immigrations of Muslims from central Asia into the Russian Federation. The Islamic presence in Russia is centered in the Caucasus, Siberia, and Moscow.

Survey of Pakistan’s Young Predicts ‘Disaster’ if Their Needs Aren’t Addressed
By SABRINA TAVERNISE,   November 21, 2009

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan will face a “demographic disaster” if it does not address the needs of its young generation, the largest in the country’s history, whose views reflect a deep disillusionment with government and democracy, according to a report released here on Saturday.

Crime and Terrorism Small Wars Journal
4 November 2009 by Colonel Robert Killebrew

According to a panel of experts at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, terrorism and crime have now merged, to such an extent that all terrorist movements – all of them — have become partly criminal organizations to fund their operations, expand their reach – and incidentally make the people on top extremely rich, while lower-level zealots continue to be recruited for suicide missions.

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Review: Strategy–The Logic of War and Peace, Revised and Enlarged Edition

5 Star, Strategy

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the Detractors, This Book is Brilliant,

November 14, 2003
Edward N. Luttwak
Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links.

My own discovery of how the threat changes depending on the levels of analysis would not have occurred without this brilliant book by Edward Luttwak. It was his careful and reasoned discussion of how specific capabilities and policies might not make sense at one level of analysis, but do when combined with others, that helped me understand why US (and other) intelligence communities continue to get so much wrong.

First to credit Luttwak: anti-tank weapons make no sense in isolation (tactical level), but if they slow the tank down enough to allow artillery and close air support to have an impact (operational level), they might close gaps and win victories (strategic level). Bottom line: nothing in war can be considered in isolation (including, one might add, the post-war needs that enable an exit strategy).

It was from Luttwak's work that the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (today the Marine Corps Intelligence Command) developed the new model for analysis that distinguished between the four levels of analysis (strategic, operational, tactical, and technical), combined that with the three major domains (military, geographic, and civil), and then cross-walked that against every single mission area (infantry, artillery, tanks, aviation, etcetera).

One simple example of the importance of Luttwak's work to intelligence: at the time (1990) the Libyan T-72 tank was considered by the US Intelligence Community to be a very high threat because it was the best tank that money could then buy–but on reflection, we found this was true only at the technical level of optimal lethality. At the tactical level the tank was being stored in the open, poorly maintained by poorly trained crews, parts cannibalization occurring regularly, this dropped the threat to low. At the operational level there were a significant number of the tanks scattered around and available, this raised it to a medium threat at that level. At the strategic level, the tanks could not be sustained in battle for more than two weeks, and dropped again to low.

Edward Luttwak, in company with Colin Gray, Martin van Creveld, Ralph Peters, and Steve Metz, is one of the most brilliant and clear-spoken of the strategists writing in English, and this book will remain–for years to come–a fundamental building block in the learning and maturation of national security strategy.

Other recommended books at this level:
Modern Strategy
Transformation of War
The Changing Face of War: Lessons of Combat, from the Marne to Iraq
Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century
Security Studies for the 21st Century
Strategy: Process, Content, Context–An International Perspective
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
The Sword and The Pen – Selections From The World's Greatest Military Writings
War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

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