Books - How War Ends

No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his minds what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.  

                                                                                          Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Shakespeare Quotes

"How you awake our sleeping sword of war"  Henry V, Act I, Sc. II


True caution lies not in timidity, but in the art of thinking things through.

Books -- The Violence of Peace

Excellent discussion of jus ad bellum and jus in bellum.

In describing intervention to stop genocide, Stephen L. Carter states that "the assumption, still, is that even if ground troops prove necessary, it is somebody else's job to provide them."  Somebody other than the United States, or even the West.  "Which leads us to the problem: There isn't anybody else."

He finishes with a poignant: "Seriously."

Powerful.

Books - The Origins of Political Order

"Political power is ultimately based on social cohesion." (42)

Fukuyama asserts that political power is the product of more than just resources and number of citizens, but the degree to which the legitimacy o the leaders and institutions is recognized by that society and the citizens.

More to follow...

More quotes:

"Human beings are rational, self-interested creatures, and will learn to cooperate out of pure self-interest as economists assert." (43)  There are structure pathways beyond this that give human politics it particular flavor.

• All human being gravitate toward the favoring of kin and friends with whom they have exchanged favors unless strongly incentivized to do otherwise.
• Human being have a capacity for abstraction and theory that generates mental models of causality, and a further tendency to posit causation based on invisible or transcendental forces.  This is the basis of religious belief, which acts as a critical source of social cohesion.
• Humans have a proclivity for norm following that is grounded in the emotions rather than in reason, and consequently a tendency to invest mental models and the rules that flow from them with intrinsic worth.
• Human beings desire intersubjective recognition, either of their own worth, or of the worth of theis gods, laws, customs, and ways of life.  Recognition when granted becomes the basis of legitimacy, and legitimacy then permits the exercise of political authority.  

Graduation

15 August 2011

American Military University

MA in Military Studies - Strategic Leadership

I will post the exsum to my thesis here one of these days.

Books - How We Fight

Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War by Dominic Tierney

Excellent account of the types of wars that Americans enter into and the types of wars that Americans are willing to continue to support.

Excellently research and a very detailed bibliography make this a great reference for answering the question on the way Americans fight wars.

He asserts, in his conclusion, that "all three traditions are useful.  The crusade tradition helps Americans mobilize for large-scale wars against foreign countries.  The quagmire tradition makes us sensitive to the very real risks and costs of nation building.  The foundation tradition highlights the wisdom of restraint during interstate war and promotes the military's involvement in a range of duties beyond conventional fighting." (p. 267)

The later is the tradition is the one that he recommends because of its use of the "full range of military alternatives--nation-building, limited interstate war, crusading interstate war--rather than just the most extreme and destructive option." (p. 267)

Throughout the book he uses examples of each of the national conflicts, in the nation's history, to discuss the different traditions and the way America has acted in all of them.

Highly recommended to help frame the discussion on the traditions of the American way of war.

Cheers

Books - Killing Rommel

Just finished Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield.  Great work.  He is an absolute master at explaining the camaraderie that is felt in a group of men during armed conflict.  This is one that I will recommend wholeheartedly for those interested in the moral dilemmas that warriors face.