Blogosphere on Imperial Grunts, 1

Although the book isn’t out yet, the past three months have seen sporadic mentions of Imperial Grunts. Here is a complete list.

Democratic Vista gives a critique (that I strongly disagree with).

The trouble is, Kaplan seems to have gone along, rather uncritically, with the military’s automatic conflation of competitor with threat. As I wrote yesterday, China has reasons to compete with us, but it does not have reasons to endanger its relations with us—after all, they are as dependent on our economy (and perhaps even more so) as we are on theirs.

The worst part about this is that no one at the Atlantic seems to have been concerned with Kaplan’s objectivity. Although Kaplan has worked extensively within the American military, not only did the Atlantic not pause to wonder if perhaps his views were a little biased, they apparently ran his story carte blanche. Further, they ran it on the front cover, alongside what is surely one of the more nocuous caricatures they have ever printed. The result? The Atlantic as a whole, and not just Kaplan, ended up looking like nothing more than a propaganda arm of the U.S. military.

Book Buzz Girl (publishing insider) gives the book a short mention.

Insert Lame Joke Here gives us a V.D. Hanson article, where the author briefly mentions Kaplan’s new book. Also posted at Consul-At-Arms.

Brad Plumer gives us an amazing excerpt from the book on the USSR’s view of its soldiers and AK-47s (how the devil did he get that?!), but says Kaplan has other priorities than explaining the military today:

Kaplan’s book, by the way, is marvelous, although extremely annoying at times. He’s clearly a far braver man than I could ever hope to be, but ultimately his priorities seem to be: 1) printing stuff that will ensure his continued access to military sources; 2) going out of his way to prick at “delicate” liberal sensibilities; and finally 3) figuring out how the military works and how it needs to work. Once you figure that out, and filter accordingly, Kaplan’s basic thesis””?that small, highly specialized military units working without heavy bureaucratic constraint are the optimal way for America to run its far-flung empire, which, like it or not, exists””?starts to sound like something worth discussing seriously.

Worth discussing seriously, really? (Where else but ComingAnarchy.com!)

Infostacks mentions the book in this amusingly sophomoric analysis of world events:

Empires come, empires go. See Robert D. Kaplan’s new book Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (Random House). Then go watch Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, if you haven’t seen it already, and maybe the last installment of the Star Wars epic, if you can stand the dialog.

Mentioning two of the worst movies of the 21st century in the same breath as Imperial Grunts is supposed to tell us what about the state of the world? I have yet to read the book (as, I sense, have you), but I’ve seen both those movies. They say as much about world politics as Time and Newsweek. Well, maybe not that much.

And, of course, my own posts here, here, and here.