Book Learnin'

Since the coffers here at Fraters Libertas Inc. have been relatively flush of late, the executive board decided to reinvest a bit of our hard earned filthy lucre. Several untraceable transactions between accounts in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and Dubai later, an order was placed with Amazon for purposes of continuous learning. Once the shipment arrived at an undisclosed location and was signed for by a Joe E. Sixpack, the contents were distributed by means of dead drops to the relevant parties.

Each of us has been presented with a book to read, review, and pass on.

Saint Paul was given first dibs and chose, Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam by Mark Bowden. Given Saint Paul's usual reading pace and the prodigious amounts of time he spends watching C-SPAN, I would expect his review to be posted no later than the end of the first quarter 2007.

JB Doubtless has been tasked with Imperial Grunts : The American Military on the Ground by Robert D. Kaplan. Once "American Idol" wraps up, I expect JB to knuckle down and knock his assignment off shortly thereafter.

Atomizer has been asked to digest Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror by Mary Habeck. Barring any unexpected binges, a resurgence of the Twins, or a sudden reoccurrence of the gout, Atomizer will likely have something to say on the book very soon. Whether he'll ever post it here is an entirely different matter.

Lastly, I am plowing my way through Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam by John A. Nagl. The main thesis of Nagl's book is that the British counterinsurgency effort in Malaysia succeeded because the British Army was a learning organization, while the US Army was not such an organization in Vietnam and thus was unable to win the war. Nagl spent a year in Iraq as well and shares a few thoughts on what lessons of those two conflicts are applicable there as well as some reasons why Iraq is different. He believes that the US has the opportunity to be victorious in Iraq because the current Army is able to learn and adapt. We certainly better hope that is the case.

An interesting side note in Nagl's book is a discussion on how it was Jomini much more than Clausewitz who proposed that the only way to win a war was to destroy the enemy's army on the battlefield. Over the years, that view has often been incorrectly attributed to Clausewitz, despite the fact that he, much more than Jomini, recognized the importance of the government and the people in ultimate victory, factors which became crucial to the revolutionary war concept espoused by Mao and adapted by many insurgencies in the 20th century. [Editor's note: The preceding paragraph was penned solely for the benefit of JB Doubtless and his buddies at the Claremont Institute.]