Last year I posted this fantastical map of WWI Europe from Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. This week I read the book, which I found to be an excellent escape. It was supposed to be nightstand reading, but I couldn’t put it down.

Rather than a graphic novel in the Dark Knight and Watchmen style, this is an illustrated novel. The hardcover is thick, but is a quick read with black and white illustrations every 5 or 10 pages. I think the audiobook would be really entertaining, but the illustrations make the printed version worthwhile. If you have an imaginative 15 year old in the house, this book is highly recommended. I am sure many in the CA community — steeped in history, science and technology — would also get a kick out of this book.

The only criticisms I have — aside from the negative characterisation of Churchill — are technical: character development is rather unsubtle, and mixed metaphors run rampant as a school of fish. That said, this book is not supposed to be Chaucer. It is meant for young readers and is thus fast-paced with lots of action. It is a fantastical adventure that is also character building. Westerfeld’s strength is in descriptive detail. He has filled his alternate reality with historical hooks and clever technological innovations. As stated in the Epilogue: “That’s the nature of steampunk, blending future and past.”

The world of Leviathan is highly imaginative and engaging. I can’t wait for the second installment.

Below is a trailer featuring many of the illustrations in the book. See more at Scott Westerfeld’s blog.

For the past couple of weeks I have had some extra time and have been missing my days at graduate school. I decided to pretend like I was a student again, flex the muscle between my ears, and catch up on some history. This has resulted in a World War kick.

I have been listening to two lecture series from The Teaching Company: World War I: The “Great War” and World War II: A Military and Social History. Both are great overviews with very engaging lecturers. When I can get a quiet moment to sit and read I have been going through B. H. Liddell Hart’s Strategy to get his commentary on the wars. Next on the reading list is John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, which has long been in my anti-library. Interspersed between the listening and the reading I have been taking in war movies to “relax”. I rewatched All Quiet On The Western Front for WWI. As a Canadian, I really want to see Passchendaele but I have no access to it here in Japan. For WWII I rented Valkyrie which is probably the only WWII movie made in the last 30 years that I haven’t seen. During the daytime I have been watching the amazing 1973 British television series The World at War. With simultaneous audio, text and video I am getting fully immersed in the topic.

Many of our commenters are more steeped in the World Wars than I. As an undergraduate a decade ago I only took one western military history course. Like everyone I am familiar with all the major battles and personalities, and have seen all the movies and tv shows. But listening to courses like these puts everything in perspective. Combine that bird’s eye view with a book like Strategy which focus on specific events in the wars, and your mind is challenged. Unfortunately, there is so much going on in my mind that I have nothing solid to blog about! I will, however, have some notes from Strategy to post in a week or so, which may spark some conversation.

Just prior to this World War kick I was on a navy kick (after rewatching Master and Commander and listening to the Modern Scholar series High Seas, High Stakes: Naval Battles That Changed History. I hope to return to that topic soon as I have a long post on the evolution of naval strategy that has been in draft mode for about two weeks.

Anyways, back to the front!

So Craig Mullaney quotes Cormac McCarthy in his highly regarded memoir The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education. Very fitting for a story of a young idealist that discovers the price of leadership in a tragic firefight in Afghanistan.

First things first: The Unforgiving Minute is a memoir. It is the coming-of-age-story of the authour. You will not get any insight into US policy in Afghanistan, nor military strategy. In fact, what military theory that is presented in the book, is unsophisticated. The book is written for a civilian audience, with detailed explanations of US military tradition and ceremony. It is for the “average American” who has limited knowledge of the military or what goes on beyond US borders. On the other hand, the book is confessional, acute with the guilt of Mullaney’s Catholic upbringing. It is an explanation and a call for forgiveness to the parents of a soldier that died under Mullaney’s command. Mullaney’s introspectiveness makes this book so endearing. The writing is good with flashes of true excellence. Mullaney is well read, and it shows in his writing.

The book is split into three parts: life at West Point as a cadet; life at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; and life at the front in Afghanistan as a platoon commander. The final chapters are a sort of epilogue that tell of Mullaney’s return home to the US, his marriage, and his ambivalence towards his younger brother’s future. At the very end of the book, Mullaney attends his younger brother’s graduation ceremony at West Point — exactly where Mullaney was seven years previous, except this time with Iraq looming ahead.

I enjoyed the book more the further I read. The West Point section is not as entertaining as Bonk on the Head, the infamous “fictional” memoir of life at the Royal Military College of Canada. Furthermore it suffers from the forced modesty of those that attend milcol, those that are told day-in and day-out that they are the best. At Oxford Mullaney begins to unwind and becomes much more introspective. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the book, which made me nostalgic for my own days at the pub debating with academics. Like the rest of the book, Mullaney’s account of Afghanistan is told with deep emotion. The frustration he feels is palpable: frustration with Pakistani soldiers who implicitly support the Afghan resistance; and frustration with Big Army, which sits idle in concrete bases enjoying lobster and flatscreen televisions. Mullaney offers his thoughts succinctly (pp 362):

The best thing we could have done for Afghanistan was to get out of our Humvees and drink more green chai. We should have focused less on finding the enemy, and more on finding our friends.

The editorial reviews of this book are a roll call of foreign and military affairs experts. Wesley Clark’s comment that “[e]very young man and woman in America should read this book” may be prophetic. The book is accessible and lauded enough that we may see it read by every highschooler in the the US. That is, if Americans were truly interested in what goes on in war, a rhetorical question asked throughout the book itself. Obviously, the kind of people who read ComingAnarchy.com are interested in these topics, and thus will enjoy this book I think.

Below the fold I have embedded a speech at a bookstore in Washington, DC. You can watch the clip or download the MP3. Mullaney draws upon excerpts of the book and also offers some insight into why he wrote the book. It is worth a listen, even if you don’t plan on reading the book.

Also, see the book trailer, Mullaney appearance on The Daily Show, and other information about Mullaney and the book at craigmmullaney.com.
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Last autumn I read the scifi classic Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Well, I listened to the audiobook which features an amazing ensemble cast of narrators. Highly recommended.

Ender’s Game is a story about taking extremely young, extremely intelligent children and training them to be military geniuses. The training takes place in a highly controlled, highly sterile environment called “Battle School”, a military academy/space station which floats in the orbit of the Earth. Card based the book on his brother’s experience training for the Viet Nam war. The book has some interesting things to say about strategy, and even ruminates on the “strategic corporal” a full 12 years before Krulak’s famous speech. The book is even on the Marine Corps Reading List.

While listening to the book I began to think about my own experience growing up, and my child’s future education. I “discovered” international politics at the relatively late age of 21. While growing up in small town Canada, politics was never a dinner table discussion topic. Only one of my parents graduated highschool. In my own children I hope to instill an awareness of international politics and economics, and a wonder of science. Is this wishful thinking? Children grow up with their own personalities and interests. In fact, finding out who your child will be is one of the joys of parenthood. The last thing I want to do is force my own thoughts and opinions on my impressionable children. On the other hand, I think all parents look forward to having some common interests with their children.

My child is too young to be reading The Economist just yet, but I am already thinking about how I can introduce her to these various topics and spark her curiosity. My questions for you all are: What kind of activities influenced your interest in international politics growing up? And, for those with children, how have you dealt with these topics with your own kids? I look forward to reading your replies.

Psychic spies, special forces Jedi warriors, astral warfare with Noriega, and the threat of invasion by pregnant martians. That is just a sample of the kind of crazy detailed in The Men Who Stare at Goats, as story about the more far out elements in the US military.

The book follows British journo Jon Ronson on his quest to root out the mysterious Goat Lab, a secret facility on a US military base where SOF psychics trained to stop a goat’s heart simply with a stare. During his journey he runs into a number of strange characters. Ronson questions the level of respect the American public gives its military and intelligence organizations when such characters have gained impressive rank and influence. His point, if I may brutally paraphrase, is that crazy people are everywhere. No organization, no matter how high-caliber, is free of nutters. Thus, no organization should be above the scrutiny of the public.

Despite this message Ronson is able to approach his subjects without cynicism. Displaying an almost naïve acceptance, he gets deep within the non-mainstream communities inside the military. Where do these communities come from? One argument is that in the aftermath of Vietnam, during the psychedelic seventies, soldiers turned to “alternative” approaches of being a soldier, and details how this thinking influenced policy in later years (including interrogation techniques at Guantánamo).

I first heard about this book at milcol, so when I saw a copy of it a couple of weeks ago I snatched it up. Some of the characters described in the book remind me of a few US military personnel I met during my first trip to Japan more than a decade ago. Somebody introduced me to Masaaki Hatsumi, Japan’s most famous “ninja”. There was a gaggle of nutters surrounding him, all in uniform. Anyways, I am about halfway through the book, but there is too much crazy not to share it now.

The First Earth Battalion was a 1970s proposal for a New Age military unit which Ronson discusses in detail. As often as modern day military futurists are denigrated for being “too out there”, I don’t think they have ever gone this far (pp. 38-39):

In Jim Channon’s First Earth Battalion, the new battlefield uniform would include pouches for ginseng regulators, divining tools, foodstuffs to enhance night-vision, and a loudspeaker that would automatically emit “indigenous music and words of peace.”

Soldiers would carry with them into hostile countries “symbolic animals” such as baby lambs. These would be cradled in the soldiers’ arms. The soldiers would learn to greet people with “sparkly eyes.” Then they would gently place the lambs on the ground and give the enemy an “automatic hug.”
…
Back on base, robes and hoold would be worn for the mandatory First Earth Battalion rituals. The misogynistic and aggressive old chants (“I don’t know what I’ve been told, Eskimo pussy is mighty cold…”) would be phased out and replaced by a new one: “Om.”

First Earth Battalion trainees would (pp. 40):

fall in love with everyone, sense plant auras, organize a tree plant with kids, attain the power to pass through objects such as walls, bend metal with their minds, walk on fire, calculate faster than a computer, stop their own hearts with no ill effects, live off nature for twenty days, be 90%+ a vegetarian, have the ability to massage and cleanse the colon, stop using mindless clichés, stay out alone at night, and be able to hear and see other people’s thoughts.

If you want to learn more, or even read the manual, check out the official(!) FEB website. Also, The Men Who Stare at Goats movie is in production to be released December 2009.

Foreign Policy Magazine released its first ever Think Tank Index (Full report, PDF) which catalogues and categorizes 5465 think tanks from across the world.

Map by The Economist

The report looks at the recent expansion of the think tank business around the world, the types of organizations that exist, the types of work that they do, and finally it ranks them based on “influence” (The Brookings Institution features prominently in the various top five lists). This is no fly-by-night operation, but a proper academic study with the methodology published in the full report.

The emerging issues section is particularly interesting for those of us interested in the global market of ideas. The report also introduces other types of think tanks including “hybrids”, “phantoms” and think tank networks. The Internet is credited with “having a profound impact on think tanks” but the author refuses to expand on that topic just yet. I look forward to more work done in the field of so-called “blogtanks”. However, I maintain that the Internet will never overcome the advantages of proximity to knowledge.

For the Japan-hands in the audience, the major Japanese think tanks included in the report are:

• Japan Institute of International Affairs
• Institute for International Policy Studies
• Asian Forum Japan
• National Institute for Defense Studies
• National Institute for Research Advancement
• Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry
• Institute of Energy Economics Japan

Japan Institute of International Affairs ranked 21 of the top 50 think tanks in the world. While doing field research for my masters I was able to visit both the IEEJ and NIDS for interviews.

Internet television has been slowly rolling out around the world. However, garden walls still remain as national television corporations can’t figure out how to deal with the inherently global internet. Sites like Hulu and apps like the BBC iPlayer are brilliant if you are in America or Britain, but if you are an expat outside your own borders you are out of luck.

For those like me that like to watch their morning news with their coffee and live outside their own country I would like to introduce you to Livestation.

You no longer have to go to the websites of each of your favourite news outlets. This free app (Windows, Mac or Linux) aggregates the live streams of news (and other) channels from around the world into one app. Get CNN, C-SPAN, Bloomberg, BBC, Al Jazeera etc. on your computer — live. It also offers desktop alerts for breaking news and chatrooms for each channel. I have been playing with this all day and am loving it. Download it from Livestation.

Robert D. Kaplan’s Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground offers an entertaining outsiders-view of everyday life in the military. The daily grind of paperwork and firedrills on a submarine; the endless minutiae of an Un-Rep; the mundane logistical problems in getting food and gear to the front: these are the aspects of military life that the public do not learn from movies. Kaplan does a wonderful job of embedding the reader with US soldiers all over the planet.

Ever the travel-writer, Kaplan uses eloquent similes to describe his surroundings. In a tent in the hot Algerian desert, Kaplan writes: “The Saharan wind came through the flaps like bad breath.” The Chief Warrant officer of the SOF team Kaplan was embedded with expressed the same sentiment in a less erudite manner. He wrote on the dry erase board: “It’s hot as balls.” Telling the story of the troops using their own words has been the explicit goal of Kaplan for this entire series on the US military.
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