A New Friend Sets an Example

The Kitchen Dispatch Blog

Restrepo

Some have said that life in the first decade of the 21st century can take the quote from the classic Charles Dickens book, A Tale of Two Cities; "We live in the best of times and in the worst of times," and make it the mantra that describes our world today. In reflecting on world history, I would contend that it is true of the first part of that quote, "We live in the best of times." The positive changes for most of humanity since the end of the Cold War can be measured with the number of people worldwide who have moved from desperate poverty to gain a foothold on becoming middle-class in their own environs.

Technology designed for conflict has lent itself to connecting people as never before, and led to social and political transparency that makes it possible to be friends and have conversations between the most far-flung locations. This long introduction sets the stage to introduce a blog that I recently added to my favorite list. It is written by a women who after getting to know her appears to be a one person dynamo, who has taken on the challenge of raising a family, after her husband a successful surgeon for twenty odd years, joined the Army Medical Corp and after a tour of duty in Afghanistan, is taking care of soldiers at an army post stateside. In addition my new friend, took on the job of helping publicize the recent acclaimed documentary Restrepo. She also writes an excellent blog The Kitchen Dispatch where she hold forth wise commentary about moving from a surgeon's wife to an Army surgeon's wife and how it has transformed her writer's life. Kanani Fong is not only walking the walk, when she writes about getting involved. She recently stepped up to lead a writers workshop at a local Boys and Girls Teen Center in her community, where she is introducing young people to the joys of writing. She wrote this about her first day back on what she termed "terra firma."

4:00 came around, I braved the outdoor area where the teens were having a snack. I felt awkward and conspicuous.

Approaching a group of 14-17 year olds is always a dicey affair. One doesn't want to appear eager, look matronly , or even more disturbing --come across like an aging hipster. Teens can sniff out a phony in a second. After inquiring whether they were going to join me, several already knew today was the day. A migration started from the picnic tables to the classroom.

Kanani goes on to encourage the students and then explains her approach.

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce them to writing for the fun of it. I think school has a tendency to drill into people what is wrong and what is right. After enough red marks, the students start to give up. The problem is that while teachers are willing to put down a host of rules, they're usually unwilling to admit that every writer has broken them. And so the whole experience for the student becomes whether or not they will pass or fail. Writing becomes just another damned thing they have to do, and usually, they end up hating it. While I will agree that there are ways to communicate more effectively, if someone isn't enjoying the experience, they will never gain the confidence to do it well.

Take the time to visit Kanani's kitchen and not only enjoy reading about how she got these young people to feel the rythem or writing, then bookmark her link and visit her kitchen often.
The Gratitude Post: Feeling like a Teen in the Creative Landscape. Back on Terra Firma

This leads me to reflect on what Kanani wrote about how schools teach and how it might contribute to students giving up. I came across a book review at Economist.com which reviews Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It's Good for Everyone by  Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray.

The gist of the review is that.

Most twenty-somethings, however, are “treaders”, who simply replicate the lessons of their poorer, less stable, non-voting and hands-off parents, but to worse effect. The authors argue that when young adults invest in themselves and their careers before taking on the baggage of marriage, children and a job to pay the bills, they are equipped to make better choices down the road, for themselves and as citizens. Having a child too early can be one of the costliest barriers to advancement, whereas postponing nuptials until careers are in place leads to lower divorce rates.

“Not Quite Adults” offers a valuable portrait of the diverging destinies of young people today. In a country that prizes self- reliance and private solutions for social problems, more young adults are doomed to sink. Regardless of where one assigns blame, when nearly two-thirds of the next generation is struggling to find “a secure foothold in the middle class”, everyone ends up paying the price.

Even more troubling is what brought us to the point that such a large number of Americans are not equipped to assume their place in making a productive society. Regardless what the authors see that this is a good thing, I question the long term effects of having such a large precentage of the population treading water, with no plans in effect to learn how to swim. I can't comment on the thesis of the book, but am only reacting to the thread of thought expoused by the review.

Read more:
Left Out in the Rain

A Flashback: War, A Social Science.

Thomas Barnett has this post Iraq victory approximation where he comments on an AFTER ACTION REPORT by General Barry R. McCaffrey USA (Ret) on his recent visit to Iraq and Kuwait.

Tom Begins:

The latest from McCaffrey on Iraq. Note that it's addressed to Col Michael Meese, son of Reagan's AG, who served famously in Petraeus' brain trust during the surge and now wields his considerable influence as a new thinker at West Point. He was kind enough to send me a copy of On Point II after our F2F there last spring.

I would urge everyone to read every word of General McCaffrey's report. He serves up an eagle eyed view of the current conditions in Iraq. His bullet point critque of what went wrong is a lesson for the ages, in how not to win the peace.

What I found intriguing about the report is that it is addressed to Colonel Michael Meese, Professor and Head Dept of Social Sciences United States Military Academy. Note, the Social Sciences Dept. In an earlier post, War, A Social Science? I commented on this question, first raised by Adam Elkus of Re Thinking Security , after reading about it in a post by Mark of Zenpundit calling attention to Adam's post The Study of War as A Social Science.

Even though the U.S. Military Academy has a Military history section in their history department, they seem to be taking a page from Clausewitz, that "War is an extension of politics" and seeing the study of war, as an Elkus writes.

.....it would be better to re-concieve the study of strategic affairs as a multi-disciplinary social science major combining sociology, international relations, philosophy, political science, cognitive science, economics, history, and "pure" military theory.

Adam further comments.

War as a social science akin to sociology or economics would bring empirical and quantitative rigor into the study of military history and affairs on the undergraduate level as well as a focus on the mechanics of war (tactics, operational art, strategy, and grand strategy) rarely seen outside of a Professional Military Education (PME).

Major learning institutions would do well to borrow this from the service academies.

Elkus writes that this would serve every viewpoint.

I see learning about strategy in itself as the key aim of such a curriculum--the goal would be to produce a student able to either apply his or her learnings in a think-tank or government, join the armed forces, come up with reasonable anti-war critiques as an activist, resolve conflict as a humanitarian, or apply strategy in the corporate world.

Anyway, just a few musings on a thought thread pulled by Barnett's post.

A John Boyd Minefield at Small Wars Journal?

The release this week of The John Boyd Roundtable, Debating Science, Strategy, and War has sparked a spirited debate over at Small Wars Journal. One of their council members Cavguy
opened the following discussion thread, What's the big deal about John Boyd?

Cavguy begins by asking:

Okay,Probably stepping into a minefield here.

I was reading Selil's blog on the new Boyd book coming out and it got me thinking. First, I'll admit ignorance similar to I had on EBO a few months ago. I've heard of OODA (big shrug of shoulders, failed to see how it could change my life in any away) and know he was a deep thinking fighter pilot who concentrated on how to do things faster/better/more efficiently. I also understand he was a magnetic personality, kind of a Tony Robbins for the military.

Far from stepping into a minefield, Cavguy asked the kind of questions that any good officer should ask before following anyone into a proverbial or actual minefield. The ongoing discussion generated comments that John Boyd would have welcomed.

Council member Eden writes:

I have to say this has been one of the most stimulating threads I've followed in a while, and one of the reasons why I keep coming back here when I should be working. The references and explanatory notes have given me a better understanding of Boyd and his work - though I have to admit I have never been a fan.

Adding valueable insight to the discussion is William F. Owen.

He writes in part:

I have no beef with Boyd.

MY beef is with those who advocate him out of a sense of fashion, and mostly have little experience or knowledge with the wider and mostly more useful bodies of military thought.

Clausewitz is not simple either, but I get him. Most people criticising Clausewtiz haven't read his work thoroughly and/or discussed it with others. Boyd left very very little written work to "not get".

He left presentations that are now presented by others, and were constantly evolving.

The editor of the book which sparked this discussion, Mark Safranski writing as Zenpundit had this to add:

Great Thread! Now Boyd in context.....

This has been a marvelous discussion and I thank CavGuy for initiating it after reading Selil's review of the short book I edited. I've been following the thread carefully since Wilf gave me a head's up in an email and I wanted to put in a few words on some points of the debate on Boyd's relevance or importance to military thought.

I've learned a fair amount about John Boyd's thinking in the last few years though I do not have near the same level of expertise as do Boyd's collaborators like Chet Richards, Chuck Spinney or William Lind. Or that of Frans Osinga, whose book Science, Strategy and War is a must read for anyone who really wants to know what Boyd actually argued. I think that last point is one on which Wilf would agree.

There's been a discussion if Boyd merits being called "the greatest" or a "great" strategist or theorist. I think it's fair to say that Boyd himself would never have put forth such a claim of that kind or wasted time worrying about what people thought of him or whether he made a more significant contribution to the study of war than Colin Gray or Carl von Clausewitz. Boyd was more interested in learning, teaching and discussing conflict (moreso than just "war") and were he alive, I'm certain Boyd would be delighted with the Small Wars Council and the endless opportunities here for discussion and reflection.

Was he "great", much less "greatest" ? In his briefs, Boyd was trying to shift the paradigm of American military culture away from linear, analytical-reductionist, mechanistic, deterministic, Newtonian-Taylorist, conceptions that resulted in rote application of attrition-based tactics toward more fluid, alinear, creative -synthesist thinking and holistic consideration of strategy. Give the man his due, in his time these were radical arguments for a Pentagon where the senior brass of the U.S. Army had reacted to the defeat in Vietnam by purging the lessons learned of COIN from the institutional memory of the Defense Department.

To me at least, looking from a historical perspective, that's great. In a world with a population now close to seven billion, where the United States maintains a relatively small but expensively trained professional military, remaining wedded to attrition warfare would seem to be losing strategic bet. "Injun country" doesn't just have more Injuns than we have cowboys, they have more Injuns than we have bullets in the six-shooters our cowboys use. Moving the USMC away from an exclusive focus on attrition - and in the long run large portions of the Armed Services - by itself would lead me to use the word "great" in describing John Boyd's work.

Is Boyd a "strategist" or a "theorist" ? Historically, the 20th century is an anomaly because the Cold War and the advent of nuclear weaponry caused the center of gravity of strategic thinking to shift away from generals and admirals and toward statesmen and social scientists - except for George C. Marshall, our great postwar strategic thinkers were entirely civilian: George Kennan, Dean Acheson, Paul Nitze, Albert Wohlstetter, Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie, Thomas Schelling, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon and so on. The U.S. military reacted to the overriding strategic impetus of potential thermonuclear war by retreating psychologically away from the messy complexity of the world into a surreally compartmentalized military professionalism allegedly devoid of politics, economics and other questions considered routine variables by generals in past ages of warfare.

Boyd's briefs, however pedestrian this very self-selected group may find his military history, argued for that messy complexity properly being at the center of military thought. Moreover, and it's kind of amazing no one has mentioned it, Boyd hammered at how revolutions in science were changing society and were going to ultimately change warfare. I'll buy that there were a few other colonels or flag officers at the time Boyd was briefing who were deep reading military classics in an impressive way but I'm skeptical that the potential impact of complexity theory or Kurt Godel on operational art were frequent topics of discussion before Boyd wandered in with some briefing slides. He's a theorist. About what? Strategy.

Much of Boyd's work is modeling a process of dynamic synthesis, of continual learning and adapting competitively and reaching to fields further and further away from "pure" military concerns in order to generate new insights. That's been criticized in this thread repeatedly as lacking in "originality" ( except at the time, no one else was doing it). That was a feature, not a bug, gentlemen. If the U.S. military then or now was overflowing with creativity, novel problem solvers and was a true "learning organization" - to borrow Dr. Nagl's phrase - then Boyd would fail the "So, what" test.

In my humble opinion, the military, while a good sight better on the "learning" score in 2008 than in 2004, still has a ways to go.

Following this discussion, I was drawn to the theme of a column by Thomas Barnett: To rule high seas, make sea traffic transparent .

Barnett argues that:

One of the main problems in counterterrorism today is that there are so many people and vehicles and so much data and material moving through globalization's myriad networks that it seems virtually impossible to track it all effectively. Nowhere has this problem been more acute than on the high seas.

He writes about how former Adm. Harry Ulrich, then U.S. commander of NATO Naval Forces Europe addressed this problem:

Ulrich began stitching together a network of shore-based sensors ringing the Mediterranean. His naval command then began initial monitoring by tapping into the International Maritime Organization's existing Automated Identification System, transforming NATO's ability to track ship traffic in the Med.

Ulrich told Barnett in an interview in 2007.

"I don't do defense; I do security. When you talk defense, you talk containment and mutually assured destruction. When you talk security, you talk collaboration and networking. This is the future."

This led me to think about the evolving role of our military. Defense has been the mantra since the first family unit organized itself for protection against outside aggressors. As societies evolved so did the role of defense. When nation states find themselves interconnected by trade, culture and mutual collaboration, security becomes vital to ensure that those threads of connectivity remain secure. Much like a police force in a community, defense begins to move beyond guarding the walls to protecting the streets and networks beyond those walls.

To paraphrase both Tom Barnett and Admiral Ulrich the future, is security of those networks and threads of collaboration. Connecting the dots between the discussion at the Small Wars Journal's Discussion blog and Barnett, is that both represent a shift in the thinking of how we define the role of our military in the 21st century. In turn the contributions of those who take the time to share their thoughts on the Small Wars Journal blog adds much to this important subject.

Update: Defense and the National Interest has this post by Robert M. Toguchi an active duty Army colonel who draws a connection between Nassim Taleb's best-selling book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable and John Boyd's OODA loop theory.

Implications of the Black Swan

Toguchi writes in part:

In the case of responding to a Black Swan initiative, Boyd recommended several approaches to buy time and to regain the strategic initiative. They include: divert attention, use a multiplicity of options, create strategic depth, use rapidity, gain internal harmony, and magnify the adversary’s friction while streamlining one’s own. Using historical examples, Boyd demonstrated how these methods have great applicability to throw any adversary off of his game and to provide the breathing space for the U.S. to employ strategic options.

My Blogfather Sean Sends This Dispatch on The F-22

F-22
Eurofighter


One of the most instrumental people in encouraging me to blog, was Sean Meade, blog editor of Thomas Barnett's web site, and Interact, his own site. Sean also has a gig with Aviation Week, where he reports this week from the Farnborough airshow in Great Britian. Check the new F-22 out along with the new Eurofighter. I am privileged to share this dispatch from Farnborough.

Aviation Week's F-22 Farnborough Demonstration Flight Video

Eurofighter flight video.

The Aftermath of the "Global War on Terror"

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This past week I have written about our military and linked several sites that provide insight on the current status of our military and the lives of the men and women who serve. Both General Marshall and General Petraus have served with distinction and remained steadfast to serve the best interests of the American people. Recently others, have attempted to politicize the military. Is it a symptom that something is wrong with our direction, or the efforts of the military-industrial complex to continue to build for war as we knew it, not as it will be in the future?

Being Saturday morning, I sat down with a cup of coffee and began to read my favorite blogs. The first stop abu mugqawama made me sit up and take notice. The post, The Iraq Narrative(s) was about several articles that have appeared in the past week about the war and the changes and challenges that will come with a new president, Obama, McCain or Clinton.

The most thought provoking piece is the article by Richard Kohn on the coming crisis in civil-military relations, first posted by Dave at Small Wars Journal. Abu takes the article and mirrors it against narratives written by Fred and Kimberly Kagan, about the battle in Brasra and others who cover the whole spectrum of views right to left. Like the aftermath of Vietnam, where no clear cut victory can be declared the "Stab in the Back" syndrome will be color the dialogue for the next generation.

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Abu ends with a disturbing observation that as he notes would sicken anyone who understands and believes in the rule of law places our military under civilian control, where the military stayed out of politics until they retired.

But like Tom Ricks, Abu Muqawama lives in fear of this "stabbed in the back" narrative that the less scrupulous members of the Weekly Standard/National Review crowd will push relentlessly if Obama becomes president and starts moving troops out of Iraq to Afghanistan as he had pledged to do. This is not good for the country, it's not good for the military, and it's a disaster for civil-military relations.While we're on the subject, do you know what else isn't good for the country? The way this organization in particular has egregiously politicized Gen. David Petraeus. Abu Muqawama is glad George Catlett Marshall did not live to see this video. Sickening:

Returning to the article by Richard Kohn on the coming crisis in civil-military relations, Kohn describes the crisis as:

When a new president takes office in early 2009, military leaders and politicians will approach one another with considerable suspicion. Dislike of the Democrats in general and Bill Clinton in particular, and disgust for Donald Rumsfeld, has rendered all politicians suspect in the imaginations of generals and admirals. The indictments make for a long list: a beleaguered military at war while the American public shops at the mall; the absence of elites in military ranks; the bungling of the Iraq occupation; the politicization of General David Petraeus by the White House and Congress; an army and Marine Corps exhausted and overstretched, their people dying, their commitments never-ending.

Kohn asks two questions:

While civil-military relations at the beginning of the Republic involved real fears of a coup, for the last two centuries the concern has revolved around relative influence: can the politicians (often divided among themselves) really “control” the military? Can the generals and admirals secure the necessary resources and autonomy to accomplish the government’s purposes with minimal loss of blood and treasure?

The article is detailed and will require time to digest. It does not have all the answers, it's mission is to provoke thought and engage the public in a debate that as free citizens is their birthright to control.

Soldiers and civilians alike will have momentous decisions to make. Politicians will have to choose whether to lead or to hide, whether in the name of maintaining or establishing their bona fides as “supporters of the military” they will put off decisions that upend the current and unsustainable order of things. Military leaders face their most important choice in more than half a century: whether to cooperate and assist in this effort, or to resist past the point of advice and discussion, to the detriment of their service, national defense, and indeed their professional souls.

If this is not enough to provoke your thoughts then this post by Mark over at Zenpundit.com will toss another cup of fuel on the fire that our military and the citizens they serve are operating in different worlds. Seeds of a Caste Soldiery. Mark's concern is that:

Throughout history, civilized societies have basically fielded armies with three different orientations: caste, professionals and citizen-soldiers. The United States opted with the switch to the All-Volunteer Force under the Nixon administration to abandon conscription and adopt a professional ethos. The above policy of the U.S. Army is essentially a humane, on-the-spot, accommodation to demographic changes in the force and the exigencies of war in Iraq; but it also highlights an incipient trend toward the emergence of a military caste within American society.

My observation is that both posts and the attendant articles call attention to something that threatens us as a society as gravely as any outside threat. History is full of examples where the society lived large and it's military and government spent the countries treasury to the breaking point. France in the 18th century comes to mind. Louis XIV of France.

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His numerous wars and extravagant palaces and châteaux effectively bankrupted the State (though it must also be said that France was able to recover in a matter of years), forcing him to levy higher taxes on the peasants and incurring large State debts from various financiers as the nobility and clergy had exemption from paying these taxes and contributing to public funds. Yet, it must be emphasized that it was the State and not the country which was impoverished.

It might be noted that France never fully recovered. Less than a century later, her army stood aside as the citizens rose against a government that did not serve the best interest of the people.

I would not be so naive or stupid, to suggest that this is the path for the United States. Our system was designed to prevent power from becoming to concentrated at the top.

The bottom line is that we would not be the first great power to bankrupt ourselves trying to play "king of the mountain." Nor, am I suggesting that our military is out of touch with society. As a nation we need to find the strategy that remains flexible and able to innovate and evolve to meet the challenges and the nation's best interests.

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In a post that reflects the type of up and coming leaders our military is producing. I turn to Tom Barnett, who this week addressed the cadet corp at West Point, with accompanying pictures Tom's recent pix.

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The comment by James Chastian reflects that our future centurions get the message.

Dr. Barnett: Thank you for your lecture. It was the most exciting guest lecture of the year. I am posting a comment from one of our "Firstie" (Senior) high ranking cadets. Again, thank you. Representative cadet comment: My bottom line up front is that Dr. Barnett was by far one of the best academic lecturers I have seen in my time at the Academy. I am almost stunned by how good of a lecture that was. His breadth of knowledge and experience was incredible and the topics he covered were clearly extremely relevant to our future profession. Beyond that, he was a very captivating speaker and was able to use humor and delivery to keep the audience keenly interested. I feel the Academy needs to pursue more speakers like Dr. Barnett whose words force us to think critically about issues of strategic importance. I am grateful to Department of Geography & Environmental Engineering for acquiring such a remarkable speaker in Dr. Barnett and I hope that other departments will choose to do the same.
Posted by James Chastain April 4, 2008 8:34 AM

Enjoy your Saturday, as you digest this latest brain food.