Mark Steyn, reflecting on the brutal prosecution of Conrad Black, makes excellent suggestions:
USA
Review of John Robb’s Brave New War
Dan from Madison has written a thoughtful review of John Robb’s Brave New War
Excerpt:
Most urgently Robb almost begs for the US to radically restructure the electricity grid. Again, those who can afford it will simply go off the grid – through the use of wind, solar and other types of generation. Another interesting point he made is that some municipalities may just go ahead and create their own power generation and distribution. A wonderful example he provides is suburbia – I think Chicago. Many suburbs are breaking apart from large cities as we speak to ensure their own safety and care. This is an excellent point. IIRC there is a suburb in Atlanta doing this exact thing right now and I would argue that many suburbs in the Chicago area will eventually break away from the black hole that is Cook County. Do you honestly think that people in places like Downers Grove will ever send their kids to the Chicago Public Schools? On the flip side, what sort of parent, if they have the resources and live in the City of Chicago wouldn’t send their kid to a private school? That would be borderline child abuse.
De-centralization of everything seems to be Robb’s key point.
Read the whole thing.
Reflections on the Boyd 2007 Conference
Recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the Boyd 2007 Conference held at the Gray Center at Quantico. Dedicated to the memory and strategic theories of the late Colonel John Boyd, the conference was organized by a number of his former associates, notably Dr. Chet Richards and attracts primarily defense scholars and military personnel (active/reserve/retired) who are professionally interested in counterinsurgency, counterterrorism and unconventional warfare.
I have been to many conferences and seminars, primarily historical or for educational issues in my time but few approached this one in terms of intellectual seriousness and lack of pretense on the part of panelists and audience. The ideas clearly mattered most, not ego; four star generals mixed easily with graduate students, bestselling authors with bloggers, scholars with Iraq war veterans. The Marines and civilian employees I met at Quantico could not have been more cordial or helpful to the many visitors in their midst.
I strongly encourage those interested in military history, strategy or 4th generation warfare to consider attending next year ( and reserving a slot early – they go fast). It was a wonderful experience from which I learned a great deal and met many interesting people.
A selection of links that provide more background on Boyd 2007:
Shloky: Overview, Osinga and Boydian influences, Boydian Influences,Gudmundsson On The ANG,Lind on Barnett and IR, Hammes on 5GW, Hoffman on Modern/Future COIN
Zenpundit: Part I., Part II. and Some Things I Missed
Millennial Boyz
I’m on a mission from Lex. On Thu 12 Jul at 5:34 PM CDT, he wrote me:
> Are the Millennials Different?
>
> I know you are a fan. Any response must be cross-posted on CB!
I can think of nothing better to do on a fine Bastille Day evening — having missed the concert by virtue of being 400 miles to the southwest — than consume modest quantities of ethanol in the form of Boulevard Lunar Ale and compose a rambling post for infliction on the readership here. By way of my usual thinning out of my prospective audience, graze on over to Arcturus for what has become known as the Baby Boomer Apocalypse post, which will 1) impart what I think is the most important aspect of Strauss & Howe’s model and 2) very likely cause you to decide you’ve got better things to do than read the rest of this.
Oren — Power, Faith, and Fantasy
Oren, Michael B., Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present
History, at its most useful, steadies the nerves and provides perspective on the events splashed daily across TV screens and PC monitors. It should also give us a feel for the problems amenable to solution and those that are permanent (or, at the very least, enduring).
By these criteria, Michael Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy is a history book that should be on the shelf of most American homes … and available at every public library.
The author has made an explicit attempt to write a history of America’s relations with the Middle East that serves the general reader rather than just an academic audience. Practically speaking, this means drawing more extensively on biography and the popular culture of each period of American history to illustrate relations with the Middle East. To better organize the book’s contents, he employs the three themes listed in the title. Power references American trading initiatives, commercial interests, and security concerns. Faith refers to the Christian and Jewish religious interests in the Middle East (as home to Holy Places, putative location for Christ’s reappearance, potential source of converts, and national homeland for the Jews). Fantasy describes the American representations of the Middle East, first triggered by the anonymous 1706 English translation of the Arabian Nights, and elaborated in subsequent years in many books, exhibitions, social fashions, and movies.
Oren weaves the impact of these three themes through the different eras of American history … from the turbulent post-Revolution, pre-Constitution time up to our own. Post-WW2 American involvement in the Middle East is already very thoroughly documented in English, so Oren provides a quick summary of the most recent period in his book. It’s a worthwhile coda but primarily serves those not already familiar with the details. The bulk of Power, Faith, and Fantasy focuses on the period 1776 to 1950.
Risking gross over-simplification of a very large and careful summary, I’d like to highlight the historical phases in America’s relations with the region, as presented by the author.