Recommended Reads for a Summer day

Crossroads, What path to take?

" Image Crossroads (C) by www.martin-liebermann.de"

http://www.martin-liebermann.de/

I have not posted a recommended reading list in quite a while and realized that this is one of the best ways to share ideas in the best traditions of the Medici Effect of convergent ideas meeting at an intersection to be discussed and pondered. The lead off post hails from the desk of Thomas PM Barnett, Chief Analysis for Wikistrat. Tom's post is in response to an inquiry he received from a reader asking for career advice.

As I read "The Pentagon's New Map", I see the book's content as a balanced amalgamation of data, research and insights. You are exactly what I want to be what I grow up.I would love to be that analyst who makes a difference in the way business and political decisions are made.

How do you recommend I get to that point in my career?

Dr. Barnett's response was concise regarding this specific inquiry, but has lessons for everyone contemplating their future.

Never turn down a chance to do public speaking. In fact, seek them out at every opportunity. Even if you do a lot of public speaking, it will take the usual 10,000 hours before you get really good.

Study as many foreign languages as you can fit in. Studying several languages is more important than mastering one. Good storytelling is ultimately translation, and the best-communicating experts are experts at talking to other experts from fields other than their own.

Write every day. If you don't get enough opportunities, then start you own blog or join a group blog.

Prepare to view good writing as a lifetime pursuit. It will take nonstop writing for about a decade before you really get good.

Whenever possible, seek out and work with professional editors on everything you write.

Read authors whose style you admire and work their tendencies into your own material.

Listen to what people say you do best and then do that as much as possible, getting others to do things for you that you do poorly. So if mentors you trust tell you're not a good writer and not a good speaker, then spending your life trying to overcome your weaknesses is probably not a great idea. You'd be better off sticking to what you're best at and trying to make those skills world class.

Nobody is good at everything. Life involves choices.

Read the whole post here

Innovators

Co-billing this week is shared by this post from Enterra Insights that zero's in on innovation and how the US can remain the nation of innovators. Steve DeAngelis begins with this opening paragraph.

I don't believe that any particular group of people or type of person has a stranglehold on innovation. Innovators can come from all races, genders, religions, countries, economic circumstances, and cultures. Even so, that doesn't stop people from trying to detect hot spots of innovation to determine why those hot spots exist. One thing that most analysts agree upon is that education helps create such spots. Specifically, more young people need to be educated in science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called STEM fields. In the search for future innovators, one group that has received a lot of attention is immigrants

The post is filled with insights and links that deserve reading and consideration of how we can ensure the future is one we all dream of for our children.
Read the whole post Innovators of the Future

This next post highlights the changing focus of our national defense and security back to the sea and our maritime heritage. Rimpac 2012 is wrapping up this week in Hawaii, where 22 nations naval forces came together to train and learn with the goal of preserving the free access to the worlds oceans. Here is the list from Information Dissemination, of the nations and vessels participating.

RIMPAC 2012

Rimpac 2012 Order of Battle

The focus on naval issues is most apparent when one considers these next recommended reads.

Iran Gearing up for naval fight in the PG versus US, ThomasPM Barnett

A Busy Week in the South China Sea, Center for International Maritime Security

And this trio of posts from a cracking new naval centric strategy blog, Flashpoints: Diplomacy by other means.

Military Strategy for an Unthinkable Conflict

The Land, the Sea, and History

Taiwan's South China Sea Plan

And finally, this on the latest growing boondoggle over whether the LCS can ever assume it's intended role.

Maintinance problems mount for the LCS

Battleships: America's Symbol of Becoming a Great Power

USS Iowa, passing Golden Gate, 2012

History has recorded the rise of empires that spanned continents, but it took the rise of naval power to see influence and power expanded to global proportions. Nations in the past have tried, but did not have the source code of being a maritime nation to found and sustain a navy capable of being a global force. Not until Great Britain established a navy to be reckoned with in the 17th century, did a nation first become a global power. It was not until American naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660-1783 in 1890, did nations begin to take measures to build strong blue water navies and saw Great Britain launch the for-runner of the modern battleship, the Dreadnought in 1906.

Roosevelt reviewing the fleet

The United States, in reality was a small nation that grew into what could best be described as a continental nation that had the geographic characteristics of an island, with two vast oceans on each side. Mahan's theory was adopted by then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, who moved to expand shipbuilding, and upon becoming President, launched the United States on the course that led to being a Great Power.

USS Iowa leading the battle line

The first, and most enduring symbol of the America's trajectory to becoming what Thomas PM Barnett wrote is, "The source code for this era's version of globalization, which superseded the colonial model of world integration after its collapse..." has been the battleship, which after four decades of being our symbol of naval force, saw the aircraft carrier and submarine, take the stage in projecting sea power and securing the sea lanes. However, battleships continued to serve alongside the carriers and add to the projection of force for the next five decades until the end of  the Cold War ushered in them into permanent retirement. Today, all of the surviving battleships stand as sentinels to the heritage that gave birth to a world that has seen more people achieve middle class status than anytime in history, and a world that has gone over half a century without a great power war.

Navy Seals visit Iowa at offshore

USS Decatur passes in review

This past week saw one of the last of these great battleships, the USS Iowa BB-61 taste the open sea one more time as she was moved south to the Port of Los Angeles to become a living history museum and education center. The passage of this great ship captured the attention of thousands who lined the shore as she passed under the Golden Gate. The active U.S. Navy stood in salute, and as she road at anchor having her hull cleaned off the coast of Los Angeles, Navy Seals and the USS Decatur cruised by to offer one more salute and pause to remember her service and the legacy of American naval sea power she represented.

Iowa coming into port

Iowa, doubling down

The interest in this great ship has continued; over 1200 have volunteered, to supplement the hundreds who worked the past seven months in Richmond, CA to make her ready to assume her new mission this July 7th, when she opens to the public. What makes battleships so special? Maybe it is because they are so powerful looking we stand in awe. Aircraft carriers look massive, but without air operations, seem benign and almost like visiting a floating city. Battleships on the other hand, bristle with all manner of fire power from their massive main guns, to the secondary weapons. American love their fireworks, and ships like the Iowa are a living symbol of the ultimate fireworks maker. Then there is the armor, as thick as 17" in some places, and inside the bowels, machinery that stand as a tribute to ingenuity and manufacturing skill of our forefathers. Those of you who read this on your computer might be surprised to learn that the first Mark I computers were designed and installed on the Iowa Class ships to calculate the firing solutions for their 16" guns.

The contributions of these great ships has been more than their intended role to slug it out with other battleships in great contests rivaling those that occurred two hundred years ago, as we remember the War of 1812. But it is well documented that without them, the history of our rise would not have been possible.