Slavery, Terrorism and Islam is a slim volume that is an invaluable desk reference and primer for analysts addressing Islam as an ideological force. The contents of Hammond's second edition is described below.
DepositfilesBurjor Avari, "India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200"
Publisher: Routledge | 2007 | ISBN 0415356156 303 pages
This carefully crafted study presents the fascinating story of the development and establishment of India's culture and civilization from early pre-history through to the early second millennium. Encompassing topics such as Harappan Civilization, the rise of Hindu culture, the influx of Islam in the 8th and the 11th/12th centuries and key empires, states and dynasties, India: The Ancient Past engages with methodological and controversial issues.
Features of this illustrated guide include:
* a range of new maps illustrating different temporal and geographical regions
* selected source extracts at the end of each chapter, for review and reflection
* questions for discussion.
This comprehensive coverage of the political, spiritual, cultural and geographical history of India, presents a book that will be an enriching read for students of this period and a rewarding addition to the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in this captivating period of history.
Gareth Porter, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam"
Publisher: University of California Press | 2006 | ISBN 0520250044 | 423 pages |
Perils of Dominance is the first completely new interpretation of how and why the United States went to war in Vietnam. It provides an authoritative challenge to the prevailing explanation that U.S. officials adhered blindly to a Cold War doctrine that loss of Vietnam would cause a "domino effect" leading to communist domination of the area. Gareth Porter presents compelling evidence that U.S. policy decisions on Vietnam from 1954 to mid-1965 were shaped by an overwhelming imbalance of military power favoring the United States over the Soviet Union and China. He demonstrates how the slide into war in Vietnam is relevant to understanding why the United States went to war in Iraq, and why such wars are likely as long as U.S. military power is overwhelmingly dominant in the world. Challenging conventional wisdom about the origins of the war, Porter argues that the main impetus for military intervention in Vietnam came not from presidents Kennedy and Johnson but from high-ranking national security officials in their administrations who were heavily influenced by U.S. dominance over its Cold War foes. Porter argues that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson were all strongly opposed to sending combat forces to Vietnam, but that both Kennedy and Johnson were strongly pressured by their national security advisers to undertake military intervention. Porter reveals for the first time that Kennedy attempted to open a diplomatic track for peace negotiations with North Vietnam in 1962 but was frustrated by bureaucratic resistance. Significantly revising the historical account of a major turning point, Porter describes how Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara deliberately misled Johnson in the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, effectively taking the decision to bomb North Vietnam out of the president's hands
andGuido Giacomo Preparata, "Conjuring Hitler: How Britain And America Made the Third Reich"
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK) | 2005 | ISBN 074532181X | 333 pages |
Nazism is usually depicted as the outcome of political blunders and unique economic factors: we are told that it could not be prevented, and that it will never be repeated. In this explosive book, Guido Giacomo Preparata shows that the truth is very different: using meticulous economic analysis, he demonstrates that Hitler's extraordinary rise to power was in fact facilitated -- and eventually financed -- by the British and American political classes during the decade following World War I. Through a close analysis of events in the Third Reich, Preparata unveils a startling history of Anglo-American geopolitical interests in the early twentieth century. He explains that Britain, still clinging to its empire, was terrified of an alliance forming between Germany and Russia. He shows how the UK, through the Bank of England, came to exercise control over Weimar Germany and how Anglo-American financial support for Hitler enabled the Nazis to seize power. This controversial study shows that Nazism was not regarded as an aberration: for the British and American establishment of the time, it was regarded as a convenient way of destabilising Europe and driving Germany into conflict with Stalinist Russia, thus preventing the formation of any rival continental power block. Guido Giacomo Preparata lays bare the economic forces at play in the Third Reich, and identifies the key players in the British and American establishment who aided Hitler's meteoric rise.
John Schmeidel, "STASI: Sword and Shield of the Party (Studies in Intelligence)"
Publisher: Routledge | 2007 | ISBN 0415365899 | 225 pages |
The East German Stasi was a jewel among the communist secret services, the most trusted by its Russian mother organization the KGB, and even more efficient. In its attempt at total coverage of civil society, the Ministry for State Security came close to realizing the totalitarian ideal of a political police force. Based on research in archival files unlocked just after the fall of the Berlin Wall and available to few German and Western readers, this volume details the Communist Party attempt to control all aspects of East German civil society, and sets out what is known of the regime support for international terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s. STASI will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, German politics and international relations.
Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast Asia
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan | ISBN: 0230221580 | edition 2009 | 320 pages|
How did European imperialism shape the ideas and practices of religion in East and Southeast Asia? Casting Faiths brings together eleven scholars to show how Western law, governance, education and mission shaped the basic understanding of what religion is, and what role it should play in society. But as these essays show,Western ideas were not always imposed at gunpoint. In places like Burma or Indonesia, many of these changes were initiated by European imperialism . Yet they also reached places like China, which was never colonized, and Japan, which had an empire of its own. And decades after the empires were dismantled, we can still see their effects in Asian societies today.
A CODE OF THE TEACHINGS OF AL-QURAN: Muhammad Sharif Chaudhry; Rs. 600.
INDEX-CUM-CONCORDANCE FOR THE HOLY QURAN:
A.A Kherie; Rs. 995. Both the books pub. by Adam Publishers & Distributors, 1542, Pataudi House, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002.
Some years ago, I was watching on television, in New York, the legendary boxer Mohammed Ali’s interview, in which Ali was saying how self-contradictory are the contents of the Bible, whereas in the Koran there is no such contradiction. Looking at the way Islam is practised in the world, the Koran has a place in the life of Muslims that is vastly different from what many holy books of the other faiths have in their respective believers.
Misinterpretation
Unfortunately, some Muslim clergy and rulers have often brought bad name to Islam, by misinterpreting many of its key principles. A majority of Muslims have very little understanding of what Islam is according to the Koran and they often go by what the clergy say are its tenets and practices. It is partly because the Koran is written in Arabic and most followers see it as a holy book that should be read even without being able to understand it owing to their ignorance of the language. This is particularly true of Muslims of the non-Arab world. Such situations have also helped Muslim fundamentalists and Islam-bashers spread many flawed interpretations of the Koran, harming the members of the community in general the world over and projecting a wrong image of them as people with flawed behaviour.
Of late, there has been a welcome trend of getting the Koran published in different languages. This will be very useful in spreading the true knowledge of the Koran and enhancing the people’s understanding of Islam.
The book by Muhammed Sharif Chaudhury, under review, marks a step forward because it elaborates on principles affecting different aspects of human life enunciated in the Koran, which in modern terms is a constitution in itself. What the holy book has to say about the judicial, economic, social and political systems, war and migration, education, knowledge, science and so on has been analysed in detail.
For instance, the idea of ‘Zakat’, or a ban on the practice of collecting/levying interest in financial sector/monetary market, signifies the salutary objective of building a compassionate society and preventing any form of economic exploitation. When one looks at the modern world, it is apparent that interest is the foundation of modern banking, an area where the West is dominating and the poorer sections are being exploited.
On jihad
The chapter on war discusses jihad and the principles governing it. At a time when jihad is much talked about and looked at with a sense of fear and contempt, the brief analysis should serve to present jihad in proper perspective, demonstrating how different is the way the Koran expected it to be practised. I wish issues of this kind were discussed more elaborately.
When this book is read in combination with A.A. Kherie’s ‘Index-cum-Concordance for the Holy Koran’, one has the opportunity to grasp the context in which many enunciations of Islamic principles of life were made. These books offer English-speaking readers a great opportunity to get to know the real Islam, as distinguished from what is dished out by the clergy or its deviant advocates such as Osama Bin Laden. These are a valuable source of analysis for students of Islam and comparative religion.
ramana wrote:This is really about fractal recursivity! A-Gupta you might read this.
Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast Asia
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan | ISBN: 0230221580 | edition 2009 | 320 pages|
How did European imperialism shape the ideas and practices of religion in East and Southeast Asia? Casting Faiths brings together eleven scholars to show how Western law, governance, education and mission shaped the basic understanding of what religion is, and what role it should play in society. But as these essays show,Western ideas were not always imposed at gunpoint. In places like Burma or Indonesia, many of these changes were initiated by European imperialism . Yet they also reached places like China, which was never colonized, and Japan, which had an empire of its own. And decades after the empires were dismantled, we can still see their effects in Asian societies today.
Visionary social thinker Joel Kotkin looks ahead to America in 2050, revealing how the addition of one hundred million Americans by midcentury will transform how we all live, work, and prosper.
In stark contrast to the rest of the world's advanced nations, the United States is growing at a record rate and, according to census projections, will be home to four hundred million Americans by 2050. This projected rise in population is the strongest indicator of our long-term economic strength, Joel Kotkin believes, and will make us more diverse and more competitive than any nation on earth.
Drawing on prodigious research, firsthand reportage, and historical analysis, The Next Hundred Million reveals how this unprecedented growth will take physical shape and change the face of America. The majority of the additional hundred million Americans will find their homes in suburbia, though the suburbs of tomorrow will not resemble the Levittowns of the 1950s or the sprawling exurbs of the late twentieth century. The suburbs of the twenty-first century will be less reliant on major cities for jobs and other amenities and, as a result, more energy efficient. Suburbs will also be the melting pots of the future as more and more immigrants opt for dispersed living over crowded inner cities and the majority in the United States becomes nonwhite by 2050.
In coming decades, urbanites will flock in far greater numbers to affordable, vast, and autoreliant metropolitan areas-such as Houston, Phoenix, and Las Vegas-than to glamorous but expensive industrial cities, such as New York and Chicago. Kotkin also foresees that the twenty-first century will be marked by a resurgence of the American heartland, far less isolated in the digital era and a crucial source of renewable fuels and real estate for a growing population. But in both big cities and small towns across the country, we will see what Kotkin calls "the new localism"-a greater emphasis on family ties and local community, enabled by online networks and the increasing numbers of Americans working from home.
The Next Hundred Million provides a vivid snapshot of America in 2050 by focusing not on power brokers, policy disputes, or abstract trends, but rather on the evolution of the more intimate units of American society-families, towns, neighborhoods, industries. It is upon the success or failure of these communities, Kotkin argues, that the American future rests.
About the Author
Joel Kotkin is an internationally recognized authority on global economic, political, social, and technological trends. He is the author of six books, including The City: A Global History and The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape. He writes a column for Forbes and Politico.com and contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Washington Post.
"Our world order is like a stool -- and China and America are its most important legs. If either is destabilized, everyone loses. Through investment, production, and trade, almost every brand name Americans know has a stake in the success of 'Chimerica.' Karabell pre-sents not only an intimate portrait of how the world's most strategic economic marriage came into being -- and how it prevented the present financial crisis from being so much worse -- but also a timely and precise strategy for keeping the global financial order in balance." -- Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition
"Here begins our tale. The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. -- Moss Roberts (translator) <Romance of Three Kingdoms>"
Last Wednesday (Oct. 7, 2009), Alcoa surprised Wall Street by reporting a profit for the most recent quarter after three consecutive quarterly losses. CEO Kleinfeld said, "China clearly is back and back very, very strong and pulling some of the Asian markets."
This is just one of many examples showing how "China" is positioned in this worldwide financial meltdown and recession. While some blamed China as the cause of this crisis for its currency policy and cheap goods, others hope China will be the very engine that pulls the world, especially epicenter of the crisis, the United States, out of recession.
Zachary Karabell, an American author, historian, money manager and economist, is the President of River Twice Research, where he analyzes economic and political trends. With several 4-5 star books at hand, Karabell wrote a new book to tell us the story behind China's rising economy and its "superfusion" with the United States.
First, the book started with the economical background in China and Unite States. China was poor after decades of command economy and isolation. Deng Xiaoping was determined to open China to foreign investment. United States was at the dawn "New Economy" and big companies were lagging and searching for opportunities around the globe.
Then, the author moved on with stories of three big names (KFC, AVON, FedEx). They invested in China heavily without much short-term return but aimed for the future. In the meanwhile, China utilized foreign capital for development while it still kept financial system partially isolated.
At the turn of new millennium, China's economy started to rocket accompanied by huge return for foreign investment, rising Chinese influence, interdependence between China and United States and tension with the western public, especially what happened along with the Olympics last summer.
After citing several key economical data and political events, Karabell concludes that China and Untied States have become "Chimerica" with closer and closer economical tie between each other despite increasing tension between the nationalities. And the prosperity of the world economy also depends on this "superfusion".
As a reader who grew up in China for 20 years then moved to USA for graduate school 4 years ago, I am immersed in the author's knowledge behind geopolitical public opinions and his subjective view on controversial political ideology on either side. To name a few, I nodded when he talked about the diplomatic dictatorship of USA over other countries including China. I smiled when he mentioned the increasing nationalism among Chinese against the West. I enjoyed his many stories behind major economical/political events happened in either country, such as Tiananmen Square, WTO talk, the Bra War, 2008 Olympics, etc.
I noticed one point on which the author might be wrong. In Chapter 10 (P. 201-2), the author states that "One of the failings of domestic Chinese banks was that they were not attractive for individual deposits." However, AFAIK, the fact is the opposite. Lacking a profound social security system, as well as medical insurance, or unemployment protection, Chinese people have to save a "LOT" in case of any major thing happens. In 2002, National Savings Deposit Balance is 10 trillion Yuan (USD$1.2T), which equals GDP of China in that year. In 2008, the number is CNY21.8T (USD$3.2T). People dare not spend their savings. Thus, the problem is not lack of deposit, it is "Too much deposits". This also suggests a great potential for domestic consuming once extensive social security system assure everyone in China.
About economical superfusion of the world, the author predicted that Chinese manufacturing as well as consuming will be the key to world-wide prosperity. It will also result in a shift of power from the West to the East. A lot of other economists and specialists also predicted this for various reasons. But their views on the fate of USA vary. I agree with Karabell that this shift would not necessarily mean a bad/downturn future for Americans. Actually, they will benefit from this global superfusion and remain prosperous. For further reading, I recommend a book "The Future for Investors". Dr. Siegel discussed this issue from an investor's point of view.
Overall, this is a very good book for understanding the geopolitical and economical interactions between China and United States during the recent decades. It also sheds light upon current world economy issues from a unique angle. I recommend you read this book if you are interested in international affairs, world economy, and/or Sino-US relationship.
In the end, let's go back to the quote in the beginning taken from "Romance of Three Kingdoms". Our world has been long divided ever since; maybe it's time to be united, without conquering. For computing, AMD says, The Future is Fusion; for humanity, Karabell suggests, The Future is "Superfusion". Time will tell...
The central tenet of this book is that generations don't age the same way, and when looking at generations through history, the correct way to look at them is by cohort - that is, by groups with similar birth years - rather than by age. In other words, if you're born in 1950 and grow up in the '60s and '70s, you'll be different at age 50 than you will if you're born in 1970 and grow up in the '80s and '90s. Strauss and Howe then trace a number of generational cohorts through American History, and find evidence of a cycle of generational types - usually a four part cycle, but in one case a three part cycle. For example, they liken Gen X (whom they call "13ers"), born in 1961-1980, to the "Lost" generation born in the late 1800s.
As a trailing edge boomer, born in 1960, I was not surprised to find that the authors, both boomers, correctly identify the defining characteristics of my generation - characteristics that I happen to dislike, as I'm in the minority that don't fit the mold all that well, but that I have to acknowledge as accurate for the majority. On the other hand, the description of the Silent generation, to which my parents belong, was an eye opener - it explained well why my fathers views of what different stages in a man's life are like seemed to alien to me. The description of Gen X was likewise enlightening, both in terms of explaining some of my previous business interactions with Gen Xers (they had always seem so surprised when someone actually gave them a break - turns out it's because they hardly ever got breaks from boomers) and helped me understand and interact much better with one particular Gen X who is very important to me - my wife. The description of the Millenials seems to be accurate so far for undergraduates I work with.
Strauss and Howe have written several books since this one, expanding upon their general historical thesis. But this one is the seminal book, the important one, and the one on which the others are based.
The book basically is a theory of American history that is premised on generational behavior. The authors have been quite successful in explaining and in some instances predicting the cycles of events, values and opinions of American society. It's very much worth reading simply because the reader is likely to experience an enhanced understanding of what is happening around him/her in the body politic.
The basic insight in this book is a simple one: Instead of trying to build a theory of American history (as did Arthur Schlesinger) that is based on unexplained "cycles" and "swings" from liberal to conservative and back again, why not simply look at how American generations behave as they age? When you do that, as Strauss and Howe have found, you find that American generations behave with a certain consistency throughout their lives. If their formative experiences push them in a certain direction while young, they'll continue to act in that way as they get older. That is, if you understand that history is really the process of different generations moving through time, then the swings of American history no longer look so mysterious; they appear as predictable manifestations of the fact that different generations with different life experiences have risen to the foreground.
Of course, you don't want to take all of this too sweepingly, or else it starts to seem like astrology or historical biorhythms. Generations are diverse groups, and no two people within a generation are exactly alike. But there are clear trends of generational behavior, which Strauss/Howe substantiate quite well.
Their basic model is that there are four basic generational types, which tend to occur in this order: Idealist, reactive, civic, and adaptive.
The GI generation (born 1902-1924) that fought WWII is a classic example of a "civic" generation. Consider their life experiences; when they came of age, they were asked en masse to participate in the greatest government-directed effort imaginable, fighting and winning WWII. Then when they got done with that, many of them went to school on the GI bill. When they were young, government spending and focus was oriented on youth. When they aged, government spending and focus shifted along with them, to where it is now focused on their elderly group, through Social Security, Medicare, and the other elderly programs that dominate the federal budget. It was natural that this generation would come to think of government's priorities being oriented in their direction as the natural order of things. They are civic-minded and they tend to have a more benign attitude towards government than do other generations. Accordingly, they are generally suspicious of change in the government approaches they know (for example, strongly against Social Security personal accounts, as opposed to a government-defined benefit.) Also, as a civic generation, they didn't focus their energies on redefining the values and purpose of America, they had a job to do (win the big war), and they did it.
Contrast that with an "idealist" generation, the "boomer" generation. Many in this generation grew up with an assumption of unlimited economic opportunity and security. They therefore turned their attention to spiritual matters, questioning and often rebelling against the values of the GI generation as well as its follow-up generation, the Silent generation. It was this "idealist" element of the boomers that unleashed the social revolutions of the late 1960s. This streak of strong opinions is visible in the boomers to this day; many of the political leaders who are regarded on both sides as being among the most shrill and uncompromising are from the boomer generation. This was also true when they were youth in the late 1960s; not only the activists on the radical left, but also those who retreated into a dyed-in-the-wool conservatism. The Silent generation prior to them didn't generally split into such poles.
The contrast between the "Silent" generation and the boomers is instructive. The "Silents" followed on the GI generation, looked up to them, generally shared their values, and sought to expand and liberalize them somewhat incrementally. The "silents" worked within the system: the 1950s, for example, saw civil rights expanding, Brown vs the Board of Education, etc. They sought to expand the blessings of liberty but at the same time were generally trustful of the leadership of previous generations. Not so the boomers; as the boomers came of age, they loudly, and often with great hostility, attacked the core value systems of the generations before them as being inadequate to progress, and sought to make a new, purer system of values. The silents wouldn't have been nearly so bold.
You can see the results in our national politics. The GI generation dominated the presidency for some time (Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder) and then handed the baton off to the Boomers (Clinton, Bush the Younger.) The Silent generation was simply skipped over.
The so-called "Generation X" (1961-81 birth years in this book) is a classic example of a "reactive" generation. These generations usually followed idealist generations, and didn't have the economic optimism of their predecessors, and thus didn't feel the same security to reimagine the spiritual basis of their nation. These generations often receive great criticism from the generation before them for failing to uphold their ideals. When the Strauss/Howe book came out, this was happening to Gen X much more than is the case now; the boomers, anxious to preserve their spiritual vision, often expressed concern and even disgust about the cynical, world-weary attitudes of the generation that followed them. But the Gen xers had had a different experience; they were not taught, as were the boomers, that life was always going to be sunny for them economicallly. The boomers were blocking the job pipeline as these Gen Xers entered the workforce for the first time. And their life experience with government is exactly the opposite of the GI generation;at every stage of the Gen Xers maturation, government's resources have been directed to benefit someone else. Whereas the GIs will get far more out of Social Security than they ever put in, Gen X will put far more in than they will ever get out; small wonder that Gen X generally wants to be given personal accounts instead of sticking with the old system.
Only over time have the Gen Xers won the respect of previous generations, just as did previous "reactive" generations of their type. A great analogy are the generations that came of age before the American Civil War. The analogues to the boomers then were the "transcendental" generation: the Thoreaus and the Lincolns and the Garrisons -- many of the abolitionists and civil disobedients who found the value system of their nation to be lacking. They unleashed a social revolution that exploded in the Civil War. Meanwhile, the generation behind them, the Ulysses Grants of the world, were thought to be mundane, unimaginative, unimpressive. But it was the Grant generation that fought and won the Civil War, relying on the resourcefulness that a tougher life had required them to learn. The Gen Xers are showing similar resilience now.
The purpose of this substantial work is to study British policy towards India during the second half of the nineteenth century as formulated in Britain and India by the highest authorities. The period from the Revolt and the assumption by the British Government of direct responsibility for the administration of India to the end of Curzon's viceroyalty is a crucial one and 1905 may be taken as the end of the first phase of the Crown's rule in India. Thereafter political and constitutional developments become more important than the efforts of the administration.
David G. Coleman, Joseph M. Siracusa, "Real-World Nuclear Deterrence: The Making of International Strategy"As China continues its rapid ascent within the international system, questions of where it came from have particular relevance. Combining history with international relations theory, David Scott considers China's first substantive modern period of encounter with the West from 1840 through 1949, a period characterized as the Century of Humiliation. During this time China fell from Middle Kingdom preeminence to a position in the international system that remained an enigmatic and challenging one: too strong to be taken over as a colony, yet not strong enough to shape its own destiny. At the heart of Scott's study is encounter, and, with it, questions of power, presence, and perceptions. He examines the images, hopes, and fears that were evoked during China's century-long subservience to external powers, including opposing views of China as a threat or China as the "sick man of Asia" and the West as evil or the West as savior. China and the Chinese are explored in terms of their interaction with the international system, with a particular focus on America and Australia.
The threat of nuclear weapons did not fade away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather, the geopolitical disorders of the post-Cold War era and the rise of global terrorism have ensured that they remain conspicuously present on the world stage as a serious international concern. With the eight or nine nuclear powers maintaining about 27,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenals to this day, it is clear that they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The primary mission of these nuclear forces has been and remains deterrence. Using plain language rather than policy jargon, this historically focused book shows how nuclear deterrence has worked rather than how it should. It then shows how the growing threat of nuclear proliferation threatens to create a far more complicated international situation largely because of the attendant proliferation of state nuclear deterrents. By drawing on a wide array of new sources from international archives and the latest in international scholarship, Coleman and Siracusa put some of the most important and enduring problems of nuclear deterrence over the past sixty years into global context. Nuclear deterrence in the real world often operates very differently from how it should according to the prevailing theories, and Coleman and Siracusa take a fresh look at how nuclear weapons policy has been made, finding that it often has had surprisingly little to do with what works and what does not. By studying in depth how governments here and abroad have confronted and dealt with some of the most important issues in nuclear weapons policy, for example, "How many nuclear weapons are enough?" and "What is it that will deter?" they find that the making of nuclear weapons policy is a complex, fluid bargaining process subject to the tides of politics, budgets, threat perception, ideology, technology, parochial service rivalries, flawed information, and sometimes just plain wishful thinking.
Refreshing in its candor and broad in scope, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft have put forth sound ideas about how we got to where we are, globally, and where we stand now. Added to that, they have made recommendations for the incoming president. These two men, one Democrat and one Republican, are men of stature and experience and both have been successful negotiators, so when they speak, people listen. It would have been beneficial had the Bush administration heeded their advice in many areas.
Washington Post associate editor, David Ignatius, "chairs" the discussion, in that he set up a series of interviews with the two and plays the role of moderator. He's good at it, too, gently prodding them with his own thoughts. That Brzezinski and Scowcroft agree on most of the larger issues comes as little surprise. It hearkens back to the day when foreign policy had a bipartisan component...something that has all but disappeared.
The book covers such topics as Iraq, Israel and Pakistan, ("two unsolved problems") China, (and Asia) Russia and Europe. They comment on the changing world situation and if there is one person who is largely absent from their discussions, it is President Bush. Brzezinski is more open in his disdain for the current president and one gets the feeling that Scowcroft's impressions of Bush are similar but just under the surface. They do disagree to an extent about the timetable of withdrawal from Iraq and the European Union and NATO, with regard to Russia.
Each chapter is riveting and no words are wasted. Brzezinski and Scowcroft are clearly two who have thought long and hard about America and have some disheartening feelings about America's loss of respect around the world. But they are optimistic about American global leadership in general and that it's necessary for us to regain our footing when the new president assumes office. "America and the World" is a tour de force and I highly recommend it for the wealth of experience that Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft have given in service to our country, which is shared with readers here.
Brzezinski and Scowcroft might be considered foreign policy realists, in that they tend to begin with consideration of the national interest. But they both resist categorization as realists or idealists, agreeing that U.S. policy must strike a balance between the extremes of either school, combining power with principle, acknowledging limitations, and recognizing that everything can't be done at once.
They agree that the next president should stress bipartisanship in his foreign policy.
Here are some other important points of agreement:
A Cold War mindset that obscures new global realities, including the reduced role of the nation state, persists among U.S. policymakers.
The United States has become "too frightened in this age of terrorism, too hunkered down behind physical and intellectual walls."
While the "global center of gravity" is shifting toward Asia, a strong Atlantic community is vital for the United States as well as Europe, and the West will remain pre-eminent for some time.
Chances are good that China can be peacefully assimilated into the international system, and there is no need for the United States to choose between China and Japan as its principal "anchor point" in Asia.
A vigorous U.S. effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem should be a high priority for the next president.
In spite of its limitations and current problems, the United States remains the country most able to "exercise enlightened leadership" for the global community.
There are also some significant points of disagreement:
While both publicly opposed the invasion of Iraq before it was launched, Scowcroft believes it has "created new conditions" requiring that we stabilize the situation before leaving. As he put it, "I think simply withdrawing is an impediment to a solution. And Zbig thinks it helps."
Both believe that Russia is trying to re-assert pre-eminence in the territory of the former USSR, especially Georgia and Ukraine; both are skeptical of the utility of putting missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic; but Brzezinski favors the option of NATO membership for Ukraine while Scowcroft opposes it.
Scowcroft is more concerned than Brzezinski about a nuclear Iran, fearing that "we stand on the cusp of a great flowering of proliferation if Iran is not contained in its attempt to develop a capability for nuclear weapons;" but neither seems to have a good prescription for thwarting this development other that continuing the thus-far-futile effort to mobilize greater international pressure.
These wise men agree that U.S. policy has not adapted well to a world that is changing in fundamental ways. They want to "restore a confident, forward-looking America," and they are optimistic about the country's future - but only if it "can rise to the challenge of dealing with the world as it now is, not as we wish it to be."
MI5 was a key player in Britain’s bloody war against the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, but with that complex, often covert, conflict still fresh in memory, the account given here is tantalizingly spare on operational details. In the modern age, MI5 has transformed itself from a counter espionage organization into one dedicated to battling terrorism, and the facts of this campaign, for obvious security reasons, grow even sparser.
The richest sections of the book cover the early years, when Britain forged a security service out of a strange mixture of amateurism, adventurism and natural guile.
...
MI5’s finest hour came during World War II. In large part thanks to the decryption of German wireless codes, the British were able to intercept almost all the German spies sent to Britain: many of these were turned, and then used to feed false and damaging information back to their German handlers.
...
Having outwitted the Germans during the war, MI5 was itself comprehensively infiltrated by the Soviets after it.
...
Many long-running myths can now be consigned to the dustbin of history: Prime Minister Harold Wilson was not the target of an MI5 plot, despite his paranoid convictions; Roger Hollis, MI5’s chief from 1956 to 1965, was not a Soviet spy. Equally, Andrew is prepared to give discredit where it is due: he damns as “inexcusable” MI5’s postwar policy preventing the recruitment of Jews on the grounds that they might feel dual loyalty to Britain and Israel. The service was slow to appreciate the threat of Islamist terrorism, and it was confused in its initial response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
...
“Defend the Realm” fills in a chapter of history that has been unjustly neglected, in part because that history has been unjustifiably secretive. Andrew may not silence the conspiracy theorists, but he performs the inestimably valuable job of making their theories a great deal harder to sustain. If this important book required a degree of compromise in order to be published, that is hardly surprising. For the work of a security service in every democracy involves a delicate balance between openness and secrecy, a bargain between the public’s right to know and its need for protection.
Guerrilla Strategies: An Historical Anthology From the Long March to Afghanistan. Edited by Gérard Chaliand. University of California Press, 1982.
Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. By David Galula. Praeger Security International Academic Cloth, 2006.
War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province. By Jeffrey Race. University of California Press, 1972.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq. By Peter R. Mansoor. Yale University Press, 2008.
The Bear Trap: Afghanistan’s Untold Story. By Mohammed Yousaf and Mark Adkin. L. Cooper, 1992.
The Battle of Algiers. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. 1967.
Bloody Sunday. Directed by Paul Greengrass. 2002.
Small Wars Journal. http://smallwarsjournal.com
India's interests stretch far beyond its immediate periphery, covering several wide arcs from the Middle East through Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia all the way to Japan, and they intersect at every point with the interests of Russia and the United States. No wonder New Delhi aspires to great-power status -- and has begun to earn it with economic growth, a naval buildup, and smarter diplomacy. Sikri, a retired Indian diplomat, expresses the Indian perspective straightforwardly. The major obstacles to India's ambitions, he says, are an unjust suspicion of its motives on the part of its immediate neighbors and the rise of China. Blaming Afghanistan's ungovernability on Pakistan, he recommends pressuring Islamabad by announcing construction projects that would cut the flow of desperately needed water from the Indus River. He counsels cooperation with Beijing even while suggesting how India might weaken its acknowledgment of Chinese sovereignty in Tibet, where the Chinese presence constitutes a permanent threat to Indian security.
...
Schaffer, a retired U.S. diplomat, explores how India's interests relate to those of the United States. Common interests include increased economic ties, a desire to promote democracy, a commitment to stability in the Middle East, and the need to hedge against China. Even where their interests coincide, however, coordination is hampered by India's insistence on "strategic autonomy." In some important areas, their priorities diverge. In Afghanistan, the United States views Pakistan as more of a helper than a spoiler; in Iran, India's needs for energy and access to Central Asia require cooperation rather than confrontation; and when it comes to China, the Indians are more wary than the Americans. Schaffer counsels that a U.S.-Indian partnership holds great promise but will require a lot of diplomatic cultivation to pay off.
Without a price - Reviewed by Amar Chandel
Prolific will be too small a word to describe the writing acumen of Arun Shourie. This talent was in full display not only when he was a journalist, but also when he became a union minister.
Well, the frequency has increased after he got free from that responsibility. His has been a dogged crusade against corruption in high places and maladministration. He builds up his case meticulously, unmindful of the length of the article. You may or may not agree with him but you cannot fault his logic and arguments. At times, you have the feeling that this is exactly what you wanted to say; only he has put it in words.
In fact, there is not much scope for disagreement because the maladies in the administration that he highlights are such that they just cannot be denied. Equally indefensible are some of the deeds of the government.
Being in public life, he is asked to speak often. He tries to persuade the organisers to think up some new topic so that he gets to study a subject on which he has not worked earlier. Once he gets immersed in a subject, he carries out painstaking research.
This book is born out of such lectures. Earlier, he was delivering the lectures with the help of a few bullet points written out on a few pages. But now, he has started writing them soon after they are delivered. Lectures delivered between October, 2008, and August, 2009, form the first two parts of this book. No wonder, there are some instances of repetition, which he himself asks the readers to treat as reiteration.
These deal with issues of national security and reforms. And in the third part, his focus is on recent controversies that have engulfed the BJP. Even the title of the book comes from one such essay, in which he takes his party to task for the pejoratives flung at him and some others that "these have been the pampered boys of the BJP ` 85 They came to the party only for cream. As the party, having lost the elections, cannot give them any cream now, they are hurling various accusations".
He recalls similar accusations like "capitalist propagandist" hurled at him right since the mid-1960s to point out that many, in particular governments, far from looking up the facts, shut their eyes to them. When the facts are pointed out, they seek to bury the messenger in an avalanche of charges.
Interestingly, he quotes Gandhiji to give some rules of the thumb to every public person if he has to play his role sincerely. One, do not read the newspapers, because being obsessed with the "breaking news" of the moment and with any and everything that they can inflate into the sensation of the moment, the media deals in evanescent flickers.
Two, "public men who wish to work honestly can only rely upon the approbation of their own conscience. No other certificate is worth anything for them ..."
But the operational rule that he says he has borrowed from Gandhiji is: "Life would be burdensome if every misrepresentation has to be answered and cleared. It is a rule of life with me never to explain misrepresentations except when the cause required correction". After all, every good movement passes through five stages: indifference, ridicule, abuse, repression and respect.
Among the 17 essays in the book, the most incisive are those on national security. He sets the tone and tenor right in the very first, "Surprised", by quoting everyone from the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil, the Minister of Defence, the National Security Adviser and even the Prime Minister to show that it was very much clear to the government well before 26/11 that the sea route was becoming the chosen route for carrying out many attacks, even on land. Days later, the terrorists, using the exact same sea route, did the exact same thing that these worthies had been warning others about. "Are they consultants to the Government or ones running the Government?" he asks.
Whenever the government brings about tough laws like the Preventive Detention Act for the sake of national security, there are some who wax eloquent about the liberties of individuals against whom the provisions may be used. Shourie reminds them of what Sardar Patel said in this regard: "When we think of civil liberties of the extremely small number of persons concerned, let the House also think of the liberties of millions of people threatened by the activities of these individuals whose civil liberties we have curtailed".
Elsewhere, Shourie points out the extremely high price the country paid for starting the reforms late. And even these late reforms have taken place only in economic policy and not in administration and governance. Reforms in these fields are stonewalled because politicians don’t want to commit harakiri.
One major problem before the country is the plethora of small parties who have their own narrow agendas and no national vision. Combined with the corrupt section of the business class, they derail even essential reforms.
Shourie suggests that to bring about these mandatory changes, what is needed is a lobby for excellence. Since most labour unions are affiliated to political parties, even they cannot form this backbone. Only entrepreneurs and the middle class can fit the bill.
One just hopes that more such voices of reason are heard and they become a chorus.
“
The tumultuous last decades of British colonialism in India were catalyzed by more than the work of Mahatma Gandhi and violent conflicts. The concurrent upheavals in Western art driven by the advent of modernism provided Indian artists in post-1920 India a powerful tool of colonial resistance. Distinguished art historian Partha Mitter now explores in this brilliantly illustrated study this lesser known facet of Indian art and history.
An incisive look at the global economic crisis, our flawed response, and the implications for the world’s future prosperity. The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America’s economic missteps, the soundness of this country’s economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system.
Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is “an insanely great economist, in ways you can’t really appreciate unless you’re deep into the field” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolishing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and free passes to those “too big to fail,” while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a difference. The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlying theories that have led us into this new “bubble capitalism.”
Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincingly for a restoration of the balance between government and markets. America as a nation faces huge challenges—in health care, energy, the environment, education, and manufacturing—and Stiglitz penetratingly addresses each in light of the newly emerging global economic order. An ongoing war of ideas over the most effective type of capitalist system, as well as a rebalancing of global economic power, is shaping that order. The battle may finally give the lie to theories of a “rational” market or to the view that America’s global economic dominance is inevitable and unassailable.
For anyone watching with indignation while a reckless Wall Street destroyed homes, educations, and jobs; while the government took half-steps hoping for a “just-enough” recovery; and while bankers fell all over themselves claiming not to have seen what was coming, then sought government bailouts while resisting regulation that would make future crises less likely, Freefall offers a clear accounting of why so many Americans feel disillusioned today and how we can realize a prosperous economy and a moral society for the future. .
Stiglitz believes that markets lie at the heart of every successful economy, but do not work well without government regulation. In "Freefall" he explains how flawed perspectives and incentives lead to the 'Great Recession' of 2008, and brought mistakes that will prolong the downturn.
Between 1996-2006, Americans used over $2 trillion in home equity to pay for home improvements, cars, medical bills, etc., largely because real income had been stagnant since the early 1990s. Economic recovery requires that we repay the remainder of these amounts, overcome stock market losses (10% between 2000-2009), the loss of some 10 million jobs, and reductions in credit card balances, and find an equivalent amount to the former home-equity sourced financing ($975 billion in 2006 alone - about 7% of GDP) to finance another consumer-driven GDP upturn - without the prior boom in housing and commercial building. Stiglitz also points out that the Great Depression coincided with the decline of U.S. agriculture (crop prices were falling before the 1929 crash), and economic growth resumed only after the New Deal and WWII. Similarly, today's recovery from the Great Recession is also hampered by the concomitant shift from manufacturing to services, continued automation and globalization, taxes that have become less progressive (shifting money from those who would spend to those who haven't), and new accounting regulations that discourage mortgage renegotiation.
Stiglitz is particularly critical of the U.S. finance industry - its size (41% of corporate profits in 2007), avarice (maximizing revenues through repeated high fees generated by over-eager and over-sold homeowners needing to refinance adjustable-rate mortgages that repeatedly reset), and 'sophisticated ignorance' (using complex computer models to evaluate risk that failed to account for high correlation within and between housing markets; 'eliminating risk' through buying credit default swaps from AIG - blind to the likelihood AIG could not make good in a housing downturn), and excessive risk (banks leveraged up to 40:1 with increasingly risky mortgage assets - 'liar's loans,' 2nd mortgages, ARMs, no-down-payments; taking advantage of the 'too-big-to-fail' and 'Greenspan/Bernanke put' phenomena). Much of this behavior was driven by lopsided personal financial incentives (bonuses) - if bankers win, they walk off with the proceeds, and if they lose, taxpayers pick up the tab. However, to be fair, any firm that failed to take advantage of every opportunity to boost its earnings and stock price faced the threat of a hostile takeover.
The impact of mortgage defaults is greater than one would otherwise expect because financial wizards found that the highest tranches of securitized mortgages would still earn a AAA rating if some income was provided to the lowest tranches in the 'highly unlikely' event of eg. a 50% overall default, thus boosting the ratings and saleability of lower tranches. (Fortunately for the U.S., many of these mortgages ended up overseas, spreading the disaster.) Another problem is that mortgage speculators make more profit from foreclosure than partial settlements. Meanwhile, investors worried that mortgage servicers might be too soft on borrowers required restrictions that make renegotiation more difficult and lead to more foreclosures. Similarly, those with 2nd-mortgages often found that those holding the second were unwilling to accept a principal write-down as their share of assets would be wiped out. Finally, new government regulations aimed at making banks seem healthier than otherwise allowed changing from 'mark-to-market' valuation of mortgages to long-term 'mark-to-hope' valuation - thus, writing down assets in a renegotiation would generate the very mortgage write-downs the new regulations avoided, and thus increased bank reluctance to do so.
"Freefall" also does an excellent job refuting many of the simple explanations, alibis, and remedies for the 2008 Great Recession. For example, Greenspan's 'nothing he could do' alibi is countered by Stiglitz's 'require higher down payments or margin requirements' (or increase interest rates). To those blaming Community Reinvestment Act requirements for increased mortgages to those with low incomes, Stiglitz says the default rates on those loans was less than in other areas; as for Fannie and Freddie being responsible, they came late into the sub-prime game. Responding to claims that increased regulation would stifle innovation and its role in economic growth, Stiglitz asserts that it is impossible to trace any sustained economic growth to those 'innovative' mortgages. (A 'real' contribution could have been made by less profitable innovative mortgages that helped homeowners stay in their homes.) On the other hand, he also admits that just giving more regulatory power to the Federal Reserve is not a solution - the Federal Reserve didn't use what it did have prior to late 2008; similarly, the SEC boosted leverage limits from 12:1 to 30:1 and higher in 2004 - exactly the wrong move. Banks suggest banning short sales in the future as a preventive measure - Stiglitz, however, points out that the incentive provided short-sellers to discover fraud and reckless lending may actually play a more important role in curbing bad bank behavior than government regulators have.
Other factors, especially government actions, also receive attention from the author. Overall, global supply exceeds demand - thus, the recovery focus needs to be on boosting demand. Stiglitz points out that growing inequality shifts money from those who would have spent it to those who didn't - weakening overall consumer demand. High oil prices have also impacted most those with low incomes, and probably encouraged Greenspan to hold down interest rates to counteract the negative impact. On a broader level, Stiglitz contends that IMF encouragement of national self-discipline and 'rainy-day' funds also weaken consumer demand. As for recommendations for more tax cuts and rebates, Stiglitz says these won't have much impact on consumers saddled with debt and anxiety, and as long as there's excess capacity, businesses will be reluctant to invest (Laffer's supply-curve tax-curve is an irrelevant theory, at best). Stiglitz even suggests elsewhere that the failure of Bush's 2001 tax cuts to stimulate the economy may have also influenced Greenspan to hold down interest rates for too long.
AIG, once bailed out, paid off billions to Goldman Sachs at 100% (Secretary Paulson's former firm), while defunct credit-default-swaps elsewhere were settled at only 13 cents on the dollar, says Stiglitz. Overall, he is very negative on the financial-sector bailout (TARP), believing that the money would much better have been used to capitalize new banks at 12:1 leverage, or not spent at all. The resulting bank subsidies were unfair to taxpayers (Treasury put up most of the money and got short-changed on potential benefits), and implementation was inconsistent - some institutions and stockholders were bailed out, others were not. (The reason lending 'froze up' is that banks didn't know whether they or their peers ere underwater.) The stimulus package, on the other hand, was too small (aimed at 3.6 million jobs, vs. 10 million lost plus 1.5 million new workers/year needing jobs), and was delegated to Congress without clear guidance. The result was a failure to provide mortgage insurance for those losing jobs, while instead creating the 'cash-for-clunkers' (mostly just moved sales from one period to another - [...] estimated only 18% were added sales, costing taxpayers $24,000 apiece; eight of the top ten purchases came from Asian manufacturers), ineffectual tax cuts, putting money into a failing auto industry, and increased road construction (greater global warming) instead of giving even more money to high-speed rail. The stimulus emphasis should have been on fast implementation, high-multiplier impact, and addressing long-term problems (eg. global warming). The employment situation now is worse than just the unemployment rate suggests - there are a record 6 applicants for every opening, the average work week is at 34 hours - the lowest since data was first collected in 1964, many have turned to disability instead of unemployment and are not counted.
Overall, Stiglitz believes there is far too much short-term thinking driving decision-makers, that business lobbies are too strong, and that markets are not naturally efficient. (Other inefficient market areas besides finance include health care, energy, manufacturing.) Meanwhile, we have done nothing to correct the underlying problems (big banks are even bigger) and Stiglitz also fears (reported elsewhere) the U.S. economy faces a "significant chance" of contracting again.
Interesting side-notes: 1)Stiglitz suggests that banks 'too-big-to-fail' should pay higher rates of deposit insurance, and incur restraints on executive incentives. In 1995 our five largest banks' market share was 11%, 40% now. Regardless, the world's largest three banks are now Chinese - #5 is American. (Not to worry - scale economics are no longer a factor for any of those banks, says Stiglitz.) 2)President Reagan made a major mistake in removing Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and appointing Alan Greenspan in his place. Volcker had brought down inflation from more than 11 percent to under 4 percent, which should have assured his reappointment. But Volcker believed financial markets need to be regulated, and Reagan wanted someone who did not. Thus, Stiglitz believes regulations must be mandated, and enforced by a neutral, not political, source. 3)Repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 changed the culture of banking from conservative to high-risk, and also encouraged even larger institutions
When Americans refer to the "globalized economy," what they generally mean is either: us enriching the benighted, Coca-Cola-deficient, Apple-deprived, Hollywood-less masses of the world with our cool stuff; or us picking up incredible bargains on Chinese toys at Wal-Mart and French cheese at Whole Foods. But what we don’t talk about--what we’re perhaps embarrassed to talk about--is what happens when Americans, right here in small Southern towns and Midwestern suburbs, find themselves working for foreign-owned companies. This other kind of globalism is the subject of Micheline Maynard’s fascinating new book, The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream. Maynard, senior business correspondent for the New York Times, begins by recognizing the fear and shame traditionally associated with foreign companies employing Americans. There has been a suspicion that these foreign competitors are undermining American companies, and that their American workers are a kind of fifth column, betraying the national interest. Maynard brilliantly shows how these ideas are not merely outdated, but utterly wrong. Painting a portrait of four foreign companies--Tata, Haier, Airbus, and Toyota--and, more vividly, some of the Americans who work for them, Maynard shows how overseas firms have been a godsend for the U.S. They bring consumers better products--who thinks Pontiac makes better cars than Toyota? As importantly, they’ve enriched the lives of their American workers and host communities. Maynard doesn’t ignore the challenges of foreign ownership--implacable union opposition, most notably--but she catalogs the opportunities, such as steadier employment, more job skills training and opportunities for promotion, diffusion of best practices to other, American companies. At a time when Americans are skeptical of foreign entanglements and foreign ideas about health care, Maynard’s book is a lively reminder of how much we can learn, and how much we can benefit, when the world comes here. --David Plotz
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is not as bold in its assertions as its controversial predecessor, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (1976). The basic idea, that the Byzantines preferred persuasion and co-option over decisive battles, is well established. The book's strength lies in the conceptual apparatus of strategic theory that Luttwak brings to the Byzantine military manuals in the third part, and it will provide an attractive introduction to some aspects of diplomatic and military history. Interest in Byzantium by scholars in other fields is certainly to be encouraged, but Luttwak is no Byzantinist (for example, he relies entirely on translations for the primary sources, even online translations, and too often on outdated scholarship). The following critical review is written from the standpoint of a Byzantinist who requires a closer engagement with the field by anyone who would make a "grand" argument about Byzantium.
Part I lays out the fundamental axioms of Byzantine strategy and offers a historical argument for its origin. The Byzantines avoided the risks of decisive military confrontations and sought rather to contain or co-opt their enemies, in order to preserve their own soldiers, who would be needed to contain the next enemy, and because the enemy of today was a potential ally against the enemy of tomorrow (given the waves of barbarians that the empire faced during its long history). Ideally, barbarians should be paid to go away or attack others, rather than fought. Luttwak traces the emergence of this policy to the confrontation with Attila and the Huns. Hunnic armies were fast, large, and almost impossible to destroy in the field, given their tactics and use of the composite reflex bow. It was then that Byzantine diplomacy came to the fore, and it would dominate their strategy thereafter. Moreover, it was in response to this threat that the Byzantine army became predominantly cavalry-oriented, with mounted archers replacing the heavy infantry of the Roman past.
Luttwak is generally stronger at formulating the principles of strategy than making historical arguments. Certainly the experience of Attila shaped the ongoing evolution of Byzantine strategy, but the case made here leaves too many questions unanswered. First, for a century before Attila the empire had been dealing with many Goths in a typically "Byzantine" way as with the Huns before Attila. Second, it is not clear, as Luttwak asserts (54-55, 61), that the eastern armies would have lost in battle against Attila. Luttwak has already described how the western armies (famously) defeated him in 451, though he downplays this as a temporary check (43-45). But his argument (following Iordanes) that the "proto-Byzantine" Aetius did not then utterly destroy Attila in order to use the Huns as potential leverage against the Goths indicates that it was a victory (44). He also ignores the defeat of the Huns before Toulouse in 439, where losses were so high that Attila could act against the East in 441 only in violation of a treaty and when Theodosios II had sent many units to the West, against the Vandals. The East, then, need not have regarded Attila as an "unmanageable threat" (12) or "an irresistible force" (78). It was cheaper to pay him off but he did not pose a threat to the empire's existence. This reflects a deeper problem in the assessment of Attila's significance, a point on which Luttwak dissents from his main sources, E. A. Thompson and O. Maenchen-Helfen, who regarded Attila as overrated. He became a figure of the imagination, but his handful of raids and ultimate goal (basically, extortion) did not change history. Luttwak invokes his presence in the Nibelungenlied and Icelandic sagas (18-19), but Attila's contemporary king Arthur shows clearly that late medieval literature is no guide to Roman history. Even he admits that "under Attila the Huns remained raiders rather conquerors [sic]" (36) and that they avoided combat, preferring localized attacks to "set the stage for. . . extortion" (38-39). The so-called empire of the Huns has recently been called "a protection racket on a grand scale," and "in direct encounters with the Roman army the Hun record is not particularly impressive."1
Another component of Luttwak's argument is open to objection, namely that after Attila the Byzantine army came to rely primarily on cavalry (20-21, 56; cf. 26: "the core of the army," 78: "the primary force," 260: "the dominant arm"). The cavalry doctrine emerged out of nineteenth-century generalizations about the knightly culture of the Middle Ages (whereas antiquity had citizen militias), and is based largely on one text, the preface of Prokopios' Wars, which Luttwak, like many before, duly quotes (57) and takes at face value. Certainly, cavalry became more important after 500, and was more prominent in certain kinds of operations, especially against mounted enemies, but the core of the Roman army remained infantry. This emerges from scholarship that Luttwak apparently did not consult,2 and is indicated by evidence that he himself presents later from the Byzantine manuals (300-301, 312, 349, 363-364 and 369-370) that presuppose mostly infantry armies, and go beyond the concession at 273: "even at the height of the cavalry era there was a need for some infantry." Maurikios' Strategikon is about cavalry operations (267) but this is misleading: it refers to a separate work on the infantry (2.2), possibly lost. The wars with the Avars in Theophylaktos are also cited by Luttwak as proof of the cavalry thesis (60), but the narrative is not explicit and seems to me to concern infantry legions instead. As for Prokopios' preface, I have argued that it should not be taken at face value, for it was part of his ironic stance toward Justinian, to which end it concocts a fantastic warrior type.3 This text offers no sound basis on which to reconstruct military history. Prokopios was, moreover, a partisan of infantry on grounds that Luttwak inadvertently reveals (293): enemy "cavalry could be readily halted by infantry in disciplined ranks, so long as there were enough bowmen to prevent the steppe archers from simply standing in front of them to discharge their arrows." Finally, Luttwak overlooks the possibility that the Byzantines learned cavalry skills from their eastern neighbors;4 here too he possibly overrates Hunnic influence.
Part II is on the instruments and context of Byzantine diplomacy. Chapter 3 treats envoys, focusing on late antiquity, and repeats the sophism that there were "no professional diplomats. . . no minister for foreign affairs" (107, also 6). It would be refreshing for someone to challenge this. A good place to start would be Justinian's long-serving magister officiorum, Petros Patrikios, who was more of a diplomat and minister of foreign affairs than many modern professionals. Surprisingly, he is not even mentioned in this book. A more rigorous comparison would probably weaken the argument that the magister could not have been "a proper foreign minister, for sheer lack of time" (108-109), given the number of bureaus under him. The same could be said about many modern ministries, and in some countries the office of foreign minister is held by the prime minister. The account of diplomatic immunity (101-105) overlooks the crucial exchange in Prokopios between Petros by Theodahad. Chapter 4 is a brief survey of the sacred attractions of Constantinople, but shirks an analysis of how religion promoted, or was used to promote, diplomacy. The dealings of Romanos I and Symeon would have been ideal for this purpose, but they are narrated in mostly untranslated sources. Chapter 5 on court ceremonies discusses some excerpts from the Book of Ceremonies. Chapter 6 on "dynastic" (recte diplomatic) marriages lapses into a list with little analysis, and misses a major recent monograph.5 Chapter 7 on "the geography of power" is a selective commentary on the forms of address set forth in the Book of Ceremonies for addressing foreign leaders. General background information is offered here and there, but no explanation as to why this moment was chosen, why this text, or how exactly the chapter contributes to the main argument. Only the discussion of the Pechenegs (158-161) seems strictly relevant, and here Luttwak turns to the De administrando imperio. He would have found more support for his thesis in that text.
There follow two focused discussions, dealing with the Bulgarians and the Muslims (Chapters 8-9). The first is a narrative survey of warfare and diplomacy, at times anthologizing sources. Luttwak loses sight of his main argument and delights in the details of campaigns (some of which seem to contradict his main thesis: see below). The narrative is discontinuous. It offers snapshots of relations with Symeon and jumps ahead to Samuel and Basileios II. Chapter 9 begins by discussing the tax systems of late Rome and Sasanian Iran, and then turns to the treatment of religious minorities by Byzantium and the Muslims. The relevance of this to strategy is unclear (nor of the note at 453 n. 24 on Luther's furor against the Jews). Perhaps we are meant to conclude that intolerance made minorities welcome the Arabs, though this is not strictly about strategy. Luttwak seems to be unaware that some of these later narratives of "treason" may have aimed to curry favor with Muslim overlords.6 We return to strategic analysis only at the end of the chapter, with the Seljuks. Overall, part II of the book is the weakest in terms of analysis and originality.
Part III is the most successful in the book, consisting of five chapters (10-14) that survey the military manuals from antiquity to the eleventh century, and one (15) that examines the strategic dimension of Herakleios' defeat of Persia. At first sight the survey chapters might seem to paraphrase the military treatises; in fact, Luttwak uses his expertise as a strategic theorist to good effect, bringing out the logic behind the texts' recommendations. I recommend the discussion of the concept and practice of elastic defense (343-345), where comparative evidence is deployed well. At 326 Luttwak dismisses the overall value of Greek fire. At 387-392 he surprisingly omits Kekaumenos' potentially treasonous advice to foreign border lords on how they might maintain independence from Constantinople. Unfortunately, Luttwak does not discuss in chapter 13 how naval strategy was integrated with land warfare.
The book's strengths reflect its author's expertise in strategic theory, but from the standpoint of Byzantine studies here are too many annoying errors throughout.7 More troubling are problems in the book's methodology. Other than the manuals, the literary sources are taken at face value (as we saw with Prokopios). For example, there is no analysis of the ethnographic conventions behind Ammianus' account of the Huns.8 Sidonius, we are told, was "not led astray by poetic needs -- he is describing [riding skills] quite accurately" (28), but elsewhere "panic" or "poetic needs" are allowed (43). This is about the extent of literary sophistication brought to bear on the sources. Contra 63, the reasons why Priskos wrote his account of the embassy to Attila had little to do with the context (personal, literary, or ideological) of Tacitus' Germania. Luttwak's dismissal of Prokopios' account of the plague on the grounds that it imitates classical models (87-88) is about sixty years out-of-date;9 he then paradoxically endorses that account because other sources confirm it. He viciously dismisses Said and all classicists who study the representation of "the Other" in literature (448 n. 1) -- "an evil fashion." At 252 he laments the takeover of philosophy by linguistics, preferring that it instill "tranquility." There is no Linguistic Turn here, in more senses than one.
There is also no analysis of the interplay between command structure and strategy nor of the empire's military organization and the nature of its units (they are briefly mentioned at 178, with a reference to the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium). We are left with a vague impression of the actual army with which the grand strategy was implemented. There are also no discussions of the criteria for appointing officers; of the relation between the army and civilians; of how the Byzantines perceived war in the first place; of their idea of Holy War (mentioned in a parenthesis at 412 and a note at 470), which would surely influence strategy; or of changes, gradual or dramatic, in strategy between 400 and 1100 (a glimpse only at 369-370, and an acknowledgment in the last paragraph: 417-418). One passage implies a more evolutionary view (13: "it was only under Herakleios...that the distinctive grand strategy...was fully formed"), but this methodological challenge is not taken up. At 112 the shift from force to diplomacy is upheld as the turning point between (later) Rome and Byzantium, but Luttwak states at the top of the same page that emperors from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius "preferred gold to iron whenever enemies were more cheaply bought off than fought." So despite the showcasing of Attila, the transition from Rome to Byzantium remains hazy.
Strategic doctrine prevails over history, and is mostly static. Except for Nikephoros I, who "decided to rely entirely on his own military strength" (177) and so came to grief (see 183 for his error), there is no analysis of the generals who ignored what Luttwak postulates as Byzantine strategy but succeeded. He thinks these were only Justinian and Basileios II (284), but the long reconquest produced many who preferred war over diplomacy (Kourkouas, Nikephoros Phokas, Ioannes Tzimiskes, etc.). The most important methodological problem, however, is that Luttwak seems not to know that the Byzantines fought civil wars about as often as they fought foreign ones,10 and that, accordingly, their command structure and strategy were designed to cope with internal threats, both real and imagined. Even the very emergence of their distinctive strategic mode may have had more to do with playing against each other the Gothic warlords absorbed into the system in the late fourth century than it did with Attila.
The exposition is punctuated by weird statements and outdated notions. There is no validity to the claim that Byzantium after 1259 was a Greek kingdom rather than an empire (6, 56, 70, 234). Iconoclasm was not a struggle between "the Hellenic proclivity for imagery" and "abstract Jewish monotheism" (118). There was no thing such as "European civilization" in the early Middle Ages (124). No regional "zone" rejected Hellenism in late antiquity and non-Greek-speakers did not overlap with non-Chalcedonians (410). Why are Penelope's suitors called "the Ithaca provincials"? (25) What does it mean exactly that Belisarios "is still remembered today by unlettered Romans" (80), that the modern names of rivers are more "accurate" than their medieval ones (34, 42), or that for the Byzantines only an ancient Greek text could be classical but not a Roman one (249)? And is the following a joke? "Christianity certainly helped to combat prejudice--not only because of its universal embrace but also because it dissuaded its followers from bathing, and therefore removed the barrier of smell that greatly inhibited Roman intimacy with barbarians" (145).
Such statements are made parenthetically and do not affect the argument. But there are times where substantive disagreement is possible, for example that "war cries and arms waving served exactly the same function as displays of nuclear weapons during the Cold War" (111), or "that almost all the Byzantines we know of were intensely devout Christians is beyond question" (113). Contra 108, late Roman arms factories were not a "military-industrial complex" as they were owned by the state. Contra 137, the reluctance to marry princesses to foreigners had little to do with "the claimed position of the emperor as God's viceroy on earth. . . who must exist on a higher plane than all other rulers." This is a function of the modern "theologization" of Byzantium. Konstantinos VII gives a different excuse (quoted at 139), premised on national differences. If Greeks and Byzantines did not know the word "strategy" (412), then what did the title Strategikon and its like mean? At 129 we are told that imperial power was "unlimited by laws" but at 280 that "it was regulated by laws." Luttwak is more confident that the sixth-century plague "wrecked the entire state and its army" than are the historians on whom he relies (13, 89-92). The jury is still out on that one. At 125 Luttwak mocks the court hydraulic devices as "little more than childish foolery," but a few pages later he has observed that the "immanent presence of power" at political capitals is "scorned only by those with no access to it" (129).
Luttwak has much that is useful to say about the Byzantines' strategy, especially when discussing their military manuals. His book, however, is not so strong when it comes to Byzantine history. It is out of touch with the state of the field. More precision and better information would have smoothed the union of history and strategic theory that is attempted here.
A new book about the atomic destruction of Hiroshima has won critical acclaim with its heartbreaking portrayals of the bomb’s survivors and is set to be made into a movie by James Cameron.
“The Last Train from Hiroshima,” published in January by Henry Holt, also claims to reveal a secret accident with the atom bomb that killed one American and irradiated others and greatly reduced the weapon’s destructive power.
There is just one problem. That section of the book and other technical details of the mission are based on the recollections of Joseph Fuoco, who is described as a last-minute substitute on one of the two observation planes that escorted the Enola Gay.
But Mr. Fuoco, who died in 2008 at age 84 and lived in Westbury, N.Y., never flew on the bombing run, and he never substituted for James R. Corliss, the plane’s regular flight engineer, Mr. Corliss’s family says. They, along with angry ranks of scientists, historians and veterans, are denouncing the book and calling Mr. Fuoco an imposter.
In May 1998, India conducted a nuclear test that did little to advance the country's long-standing nuclear weapons program but did advertise its existence to the world. What explains the timing? Contributors to this volume emphasize the domestic political calculations of then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who, by ordering the blast and standing up to U.S. sanctions, strengthened his party and stabilized his coalition government. To be sure, the program itself is still best explained by India's desire to counterbalance Chinese and Pakistani capabilities and enhance its own international prestige. But after 1998, New Delhi continued to use bomb and missile tests to gain points domestically. Sagan also believes that the nuclear balance emboldened Pakistani adventurism in Kashmir and led to more confrontational Indian military mobilizations in response. Instead of the strategic stability that characterized U.S.-Soviet relations, he foresees nuclear weapons in South Asia beckoning the Pakistani military toward proactive use on a relatively short trigger and eroding India's policy of no first use. As nuclear weapons proliferate, this pessimistic model of how nuclear states interact, he argues, may become more common than Cold War-style nuclear peace.
Relations between China and India have thawed since the beginning of this century, and there has been a lot of talk about common interests, especially on the Indian side. Holslag analyzes the forces that are drawing the two nations closer, such as growing trade and investment ties, "road diplomacy" (tacit cooperation on opening up transportation routes in places such as Myanmar and Nepal), and shared concerns over the unstable buffer states of Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. But he also points out that the relationship remains dominated by long-standing conflicts of interest over borders, Tibet, naval power in the Indian Ocean, influence in Southeast Asia, and the nuclear balance. The public's image in each country of the other is negative, making strategic cooperation harder. Even if a much-discussed bilateral free-trade agreement were signed and the border issues settled, the two powers, Holslag argues, would continue to be opponents-a rivalry that could work to the United States' advantage in the region.
This is an excellent and pioneering analysis of two vast and increasingly important countries. Lal provides insights into the decision making of both countries through rich and sometimes amusing interviews, and delves into the national interests and aspirations of these countries as they enter the new millennium. This book also provides both students and policy makers with an understanding of why many countries are pursuing defense modernization with such zeal, and how the US fits into their calculations. An important work for anyone looking at the changing dynamics of Asia in the coming decades. - Francis Fukuyama, Bernard Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
AGENDA | Sunday, February 28, 2010 | Email | Print |
Indian military history: From ancient to contemporary times
Sandhya Jain analyses a book that sees a civilisational continuity in the Indian way of fighting, from Kautilya’s time to the present
The Rise of Indian Military Power: Evolution of an Indian Strategic Culture
Author: Maj Gen GD Bakshi
Publisher: Knowledge World
Price: Rs 780
Rarely has a book managed to be so intellectually stimulating and to embody the continuity of tradition and modernity on so seemingly prosaic a discipline as military history as this utterly delightful offering from Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi. The book is as serious as the subject suggests, and the author brings his impressive multi-disciplinary erudition and sharp geo-strategic perspective to prove that India has an early and venerable strategic culture that can be authentically traced back to the Sada Shiva Dhanurveda, Hastayur Veda, the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, the Agni, Matsya and Bradharma Puranas, and of course, the most venerable manual of statecraft, the Arthasastra.
This is startling, given that one frequently hears Indian and foreign analysts pontificate over the lack of strategic culture in India, though this is partly understandable in view of some grim mistakes in our modern history. The author notes that a strategic culture is persistent over time and tends to outlast the era of its inception. In this perspective, there is an Indian way of fighting, a civilisational continuity, best embodied in Kautilya who transformed India into a political entity from a civilisational unity.
Bakshi notes that the most important historical phenomenon of the 21st century is the inexorable power shift from Europe to Asia, and the rise of China and India. Till the 17th century, India and China together generated nearly 80 per cent of the world’s GDP on the basis of an agricultural economy alone; had continental size empires; huge economic surpluses; and military manpower. Both civilisations declined on account of a singular failure to keep pace with the Industrial Revolution and the new military technology it created, and suffered the humiliation of a prolonged colonisation. Now, history has turned another cycle, and both are experiencing enviable economic growth, industrialisation, and rising military power.
The Asia-centric power shift is best reflected in the fact that the continent today has six nuclear powers — Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. The rising economic and military power of Asia has also been accompanied by the rise of nationalism in the region, in response to renewed neo-colonial pressures from a declining Western civilisation.
Bakshi’s fascinating analysis of Indian military history sees it in terms of revolutions in military affairs (RMAs), based on key techno-economic triggers which profoundly impacted the socio-political sphere. In other words, radical changes in the waging of war triggered major economic and political changes.
The Greek invasion of Alexander crystallised India’s sense of self. Till then, warfare in the subcontinent had followed certain codes of military conduct wherein battles were confined to a tournament format in which armies met on flat open plains to fight force-on-force battles of attrition. The horse-and-chariot-based system of warfare of the tribal and clan-republics and petty principalities of northern India proved a liability as they lacked cross-country mobility. The Greeks, in contrast, had highly disciplined infantry phalanxes and light and heavy cavalry, fought most battles on river banks where the chariots got bogged down, and were free from the burden of the Kshatriya code of ethics.
The Indian war elephant, however, was the one element that literally shook the Greeks, and Kautilya wisely made this the first real RMA in India by raising massive shock troops of 9000 war elephants for the imperial Mauryan army. As elephants were prohibitively costly to procure and maintain, they needed a strong centralised state with a huge economic support base to generate the requisite force asymmetry on the battlefield. Little wonder that after Alexander’s invasion, Kautilya and an elephant-based army took just 25 years to unite the whole of India into a highly centralised state and empire. The next significant revolution in military affairs came with the siege cannons of the Mongols, which the Mughals combined with field artillery, flintlock muskets and horse-based archers. These terrified the elephants and made them a liability on the battlefield. The Mughal Empire also benefited from Akbar’s foresight in sucking up the available military labour (four million) to deny manpower to his rivals; mansabdars and subedars managed this military labour for the imperial court.
Akbar retained personal command and control of the guns and artillery, allotting the same to regional mansabdars for specific campaigns only. He monetised the Indian economy on the silver standard and made taxation and revenue collection more scientific, thus attaining a military strength of two million armed men and four lakh horses for the Mughal empire, which generated 40 per cent of world GDP in that era. However, under the later Mughals, the rapid proliferation of small firearms all over the country rang the death knell of the Mughal Empire. This benefited the rising native leaders like Guru Gobind Singh, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and the Ahom general Lachit Borphukan. The next RMA was the Infantry RMA which began in Europe with the Industrial Revolution. Napoleon introduced the concept of the division — a combination of all arms that operate as a single entity on a battlefield. Then, between 1750-1850, the French and British innovated new methods of fighting in Asian colonies. The British raised well drilled infantry regiments in India that could manoeuvre on drill square words of command and shoot in a disciplined rhythm collectively, reaching a sustained rate of fire of 1000 shots a minute. This decimated the Mughal-style cavalry. Later, the British created a suction economy to suck out revenue and raw materials from India to sustain the industrialisation of Britain.
Post-Independence, the Indian Army in 1947-48 succeeded in Jammu & Kashmir because of tactical innovation and extensive employment of air power. The highpoint of the war was Maj Gen Thimayya’s bold and innovative use of tanks at a record altitude to secure the strategic Zojila Pass and lift the siege of Leh. Pakistan’s geo-strategic aim was to capture the headwaters of the Indus river system and secure its agro-based economy — an objective that remains intact to this day.
The 1948 Hyderabad campaign, Operation Polo, was a tactical masterpiece, as was the liberation of Goa in 1961. But modern India’s greatest and continuing failure is the failure to consolidate the Himalayan border regions. The military coup in Pakistan caused Indian politicians to fear the armed forces, which were pushed down in the warrant of precedence, while the political elite laid emphasis on vacuous doctrines of soft power projection and diplomacy. This led to military professionals being sidelined in favour of intelligence officers with a police background and little knowledge of geo-strategy, and the political blunders of Nehru made India lose the buffer and upper riparian of Tibet, without even a border settlement. In the 1962 conflict with China, India was led by Lt Gen BM Kaul who had no combat experience, but enviable proximity to the political elite. His flawed policy gave India a bloody nose and a lesson to remember.
In 1965, Indian forces admirably captured Haji Pir, the Pass from which the main infiltration operations were funneled. Bakshi mentions that India inexplicably left the Navy out of the war for fear of escalation (whatever that means), but a notable omission in his thesis is the failure to mention the surrender of Haji Pir at Tashkent.
This Indian-style of victorious defeat was again experienced in 1971, a war provoked by Pakistani genocide in East Pakistan and 10 million refugees seeking succour in India. In a marvellous tri-Service campaign with air power as a key enabler, India forced the surrender of Dhaka in just 14 action-packed days and created Bangladesh. The victory showed India revert unconsciously to her classical Kautilyan method of waging war — slow and extended preparation, information dominance, and destruction of the politico-military balance of the adversary through covert action via the Mukti Bahini.
The next paradigm shifts came with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which saw Pakistan emerge as a key frontline state for the CIA jihad against the Soviet forces, and the indiscriminate weaponisation of tribal society which is now undercutting the foundations of Pakistan itself. In 1998, India went overtly nuclear, followed by Pakistan, which then embarked on the Kargil mis-adventure in 1999. But India had no vision of what it wanted to achieve via the subsequent Operation Parakram, which badly eroded her reputation; this lack of vision also led to non-response to Mumbai 2008.
The Global War on Terror has only further destabilised our region, but India is now modernising with weaponry from Russia, Israel, Europe, and America. Pakistan has largely lost the terrorist battle with India and switched to Intifada style phase of mass agitation based on communal mobilisation. It is now time for India to restructure its security architecture.
Bakshi emphasises that outsourcing security from terrorist attacks to America is not a viable policy option and we need to build capabilities that can deter China, especially its fourth generation air power. He warns that India should not prematurely take sides in the renewed Cold War, nor be driven to fighting the wars of others.
In the nuclear context, he notes that the Cold War rested on the fact of military exhaustion of all powers, but there is no such fatigue in Asia today. Hence the Chinese Limited War Doctrines Under Conditions of Informationisation, which involves being ready to fight limited conventional wars even against a nuclear backdrop, needs examination. It is pertinent that this is also the US strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia; America has entered the Soviet backyard in Poland, Ukraine, Central Asia, Georgia.
It is difficult to enumerate the many insights offered by the book, which is a must read for all serious students of military theory. But it may be mentioned in conclusion that regarding the endless jihad in the northern state of Jammu & Kashmir, Bakshi states that as a sovereign government, Pakistan cannot claim lack of control over its territory or non-state actors within its domains, else it should be prepared for transgressions of its sovereignty. That’s the spirit. Finally, I heartily endorse the demand that West-funded traders in human rights be curbed with a firm hand. One word of criticism is in order — where is the index?
Review
"Ian Mitroff has done it again; He and Abraham Silvers have opened our eyes. Here's a lucid and thoughtful account of why we fail to be adequately lucid and thoughtful—and what we can do about it. Bravo!"
—Robert B. Reich, Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, and author of Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Deomcracy, and Everyday Life
"A bracingly powerful book, which should be required reading for all professionals and experts of every stripe. It will liberate all readers from the tyranny of conventional reasoning. The authors give new meaning to Veblen's classic phrase, "trained incompetence." —-Warren Bennis, University Professor, University of Southern California and co-author of Transparency and Judgment
"Dirty Rotten Strategies is insightful, provocative, and important." —-Karen Armstrong, Best-selling author of The Spiral Staircase
"Ian Mitroff and Abraham Silvers nail one of the most pressing challenges of our time. In a deeper way, they show how we can get so distracted by our assessment of a problem that—no matter how well-executed the solution—it can be a complete waste of time, often making the problem much worse! The "War on Drugs" comes to mind as an example[]This book is a wake-up call for problem solvers."
—John Renesch, futurist and author of Getting to the Better Future: A Matter of Conscious Choosing
"Mitroff and Silvers suggest that our current challenges are 'wicked problems' that can only be managed by mixing conventional and highly unconventional ways of looking at the world. Incisive and original, Dirty Rotten Strategies demonstrates just how valuable systematic thinking can be in helping America to clean up all of its 'messes.'" —Morley Winograd, Executive Director of the Institute for Communication Technology Management, USC Marshall School of Business and co-author of Millennial Makeover
In Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony, Jeremy Black, prolific student of grand strategy and war, takes a critical look at Paul Kennedy's 1988 classic, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Opening by noting that Kennedy's book not only manifests a rather extreme "Eurocentrism," but has a very pronounced Anglo-American bias, and a strong tendency toward a Mahanian and technocratic view of the nature of great power status, Black remind us that that beyond Kennedy?s Western ?universe,? several states attained and maintained great power status for protracted periods, such as China and the Ottoman Empire into the early nineteenth century, as well Safavid Persia and Mughal India.
He then goes on to review Kennedy's characteristics of Great Powers, comparing the Euro-American states with these empies. In the process, he critiques what is perhaps Kennedy's most cited concept, that "over reach" is the principal cause of the collapse of great powers, observing that, for example, during the French Wars Britain was arguably as "over reached" as any great power in history.
A valuable book for anyone interested in the rise and fall of the great powers.
THis is a new kind of book which is being used in the colleges and universities."McLeod theorizes the levels and culture of violence between India and Pakistan since partition and Independence in 1947. Despite a voluminous output of political and, in particular, historical accounts of this extraordinary and unique relationship in international politics, there has been little attempt to theorize the culture of violence between these two states. As a consequence, the study of India Pakistan relations suffers from what the author labels historical reiteration. That is, the dispute is historicized in a way that reproduces the preconceived division of 1947. This approach, at best does nothing to enhance our understanding of relations and at worst, actually serves to further entrench rivalry and hostility."--Back cover.
Are India and Pakistan rivals or enemies? Despite a voluminous output of political and, in particular, historical accounts of this extraordinary and unique relationship in international politics, there has been little attempt to theorize the culture of violence between these two states. As a consequence, the study of India-Pakistan relations suffers from what the author labels historical reiteration - that is, the dispute is historicized in a way that reproduces the preconceived division of 1947.Duncan McLeod moves the debate away from historical reiteration to instead theorize on the levels, nature and culture of violence between India and Pakistan since partition and independence in 1947. He examines the politicization of culture, cultures of rivalry and conflict, enmity and unlimited conflict. The volume will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of political theory, Asian politics and political sociology.
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2009/ ... -pakistan/
It’s tempting to dismiss the crusaders’ piety as sheer hypocrisy. In fact, their faith was as pure as their savagery. As Jonathan Phillips observes in his excellent new history — in case we needed reminding at this late date — “faith lies at the heart of holy war.” For some, of course, this will be proof that something irremediably lethal lies at the heart of all religious belief. But the same fervor that led to horrific butchery, on both the Christian and the Muslim sides, also inspired extraordinary efforts of self-sacrifice, of genuine heroism and even, at rare moments, of simple human kindness. Phillips, professor of crusading history at the University of London, doesn’t try to reconcile these extremes; he presents them in all their baffling disparity. This approach gives a cool, almost documentary power to his narrative.
Phillips concentrates on the seven “official” crusades, from 1095 to the final disastrous campaigns of Louis IX (St. Louis) of France in 1248-54 and 1270, but he also describes the fiasco of the so-called Children’s Crusade as well as the horrifying Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of southwest France. As he notes, “holy war” was as often as not waged against coreligionists: Catholics against Cathars, Sunnis against Shiites. In the rigid, polarized mentality of the holy warrior, any deviation can signify a dangerous otherness. This is the best recent history of the Crusades; it is also an astute depiction of a frightening cast of mind.
Of all the crimes that sullied the record of the United States military in Iraq — the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the killings of 24 Iraqi men, women and children by Marines in November 2005 in Haditha — the murder of an entire Iraqi family in the village of Yusufiya may rank as the most chilling. On March 12, 2006, United States soldiers were summoned to a small house in the heart of the insurgent-filled “Triangle of Death” south and west of Baghdad, where they discovered the charred remains of a 14-year-old girl who had been raped, shot to death, then burned with kerosene, along with the bodies of her 6-year-old sister and her parents. At first the killings were attributed to a feud between Iraqis, but after a soldier came forward with information he had gleaned from comrades, the Army arrested the real perpetrators: four soldiers from Bravo Company, a casualty-plagued unit in the Army’s First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Press attention centered on the group’s ringleader, Pvt. Steven Green from Midland, Tex., “a petulant loner and a hard-drinking druggie” according to Newsweek, who was afflicted by a “seething, seemingly random rage.” Despite Green’s repeated troubles with the law, he had easily enlisted in an Army hurting for recruits and breezed through basic training. Before his deployment, Green made no secret of his bloodlust, reportedly telling one neighbor, “I’m gonna go over there and kill ’em all.”
NRao, please read for it gives you an idea why India made the choices it made.
Lightning Bolts
First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles
by William Yengst
"History shows that demands of wartime military and political leaders have often motivated development of new and advanced technologies. The German desire to attack American cities with long-range variants of V-2 missiles during the latter years of World War II stimulated development of maneuvering reentry vehicle concepts. In the mid-1960s, these concepts were secretly refined and tested by the United States to provide accurate delivery of strategic nuclear warheads at intercontinental ranges and to assure their penetration of newly developed Soviet anti-ballistic missile defenses.
First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles, by William C. Yengst, describes the initial feasibility programs to test three alternative designs for implementing hypersonic maneuvers and accurate guidance of long-range reentry vehicles. It identifies the political and military motivations, environmental challenges, design difficulties, innovative technology solutions, test failures, and spectacular successes. It also summarizes development of operational maneuvering reentry vehicles prepared for U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army long-range missile systems during the 1980s. The technology has been adopted and further refined by foreign nations (India, China and Russia) in building their latest missile systems. Therefore, it is important to understand the capabilities and performance characteristics of future potential threats.
Written as a first-hand account of the technology's evolution, the book honors the dedicated engineers and scientists who worked to make these programs a success."
308 pages - $16.99 (paperback)
Book Reviews
Finding the U.S.-India Sweet Spot
Robert M. Hathaway
~A review of Teresita C. Schaffer, India and the United States in the 21st Century: Reinventing Partnership
India’s Diplomacy: Many Challenges but Where’s the Strategy?
David J. Karl
~A review of Rajiv Sikri, Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India's foreign policy
Using recently declassified U.S. State Department archives, Mohammad Gholi Majd describes the rampant tyranny and destruction of Iran in the decades between the two world wars in a sensational yet thoroughly scholarly study that will rewrite the political and economic history of the country. The book begins with the British invasion of Iran in April 1918 and ends with the Anglo-Russian invasion in August 1941. Though historians are aware of the events that ensued, until now they have had no written evidence of the dreadful magnitude of the activities. Majd documents how the British brought to power an obscure and semi-illiterate military officer, Reza Khan, who was made shah in 1925. Thereafter, Majd shows, Iran was subjected to a level of brutality not seen for centuries. He also documents the financial plunder of the country during the period: records show that Reza Shah looted the bulk of Iran's oil revenues on the pretext of buying arms, amassing at least $100 million in his London bank accounts and huge sums in New York and Switzerland. Not even Iran's ancient crown jewels were spared. In contrast to incomplete and unreliable British records for the period, the recently declassified archives and bank records that Majd uses encompass a wide range of political, social, military, and economic matters. A work with immense implications, this book will correct the myth in Iranian history that the period 1921-41 was one of unqualified progress and reform.
Once a sleeping giant, China today is the world's fastest growing economy--the leading manufacturer of cell phones, laptop computers, and digital cameras--a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. But in China: The Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere--not in China's astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think--and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered.