Image courtesy of Wookiepedia. I received a few responses to the post I wrote about maximizing our “nano cognitive surplus” (AKA doodling time during long-winded briefings). I proposed answering the question “Why war?” using only six words…here are a couple of the best responses:
My essay in the July-August 2014 edition of Military Review: “On Strategic Understanding: Teaching Strategy from the Ground Up.” Available via image below, at the Military Review site, and via PDF here.
Image depicting Michael Pollan’s seven word strategy for eating courtesy of Spillarena. I recently listened to Clay Shirky describe what he calls “cognitive surplus,” which he defines as the use of free time for constructive, creative acts. It’s really a simple concept – harnessing extra brain space for a positive good. Developing this website…
U.S. Navy ships moving to watch Billy Mitchell’s Project B bombing demonstration. Image courtesy of U.S. National Archives. Friday’s Last Word – Pull Pin, Throw Grenade, Run Away: A provocative thought to kick off the weekend… I’m a little tired of the back-and-forth between cyber “experts” (an overused superlative when one considers how early it…
Image courtesy of Foreign Policy; Tengku Bahar/AFP/Getty Images. Friday’s Last Word – Pull Pin, Throw Grenade, Run Away: A provocative thought to kick off the weekend… I think Ambassador Hank Crumpton, formerly of the CIA, deserves great admiration for his service to the country. But having just listened to a speech he gave (titled “A New…
Two films I’ve recently watched really got me thinking about the nature of victory in conflict: The Gatekeepers, an Israeli documentary which contains interviews with six former heads of the Shin Bet (Israeli intelligence arm); and The Monuments Men, the George Clooney movie about saving art from the Nazis at the end of World War…
Image courtesy of Wikipedia. One of the most important parts of being a strategist is understanding the environment. To have a grasp on the zeitgeist sharpens analysis and focuses the mind on what “is” and what might come. My contribution to this is the assessment that the contemporary warfighting environment is dominated by what…
Image courtesy of Google Ngrams. It isn’t all that often that a new analytical tool becomes available, particularly one that is (1) easy to use and understand, (2) available everywhere there’s an internet connection, (3) free, and (4) acceptable for use in scholarly circles. That’s the power of Google’s Ngram Viewer.
Image courtesy of the Royal United Services Institute. I had the privilege of speaking to a group of impressive people from the oil and gas industry at the Thayer Hotel at West Point last night. It was a short talk, approximately 35 minutes, followed by some insightful questions (which went nearly an hour!). In an…
Image courtesy of The Soufan Group. While the World Cup gets underway in Brazil, consider taking a few minutes to read through the findings of a recent Soufan Group report, “Foreign Fighters in Syria.” It leads with a strong jab: “Over 12,000 fighters from at least 81 countries have joined the civil war in Syria, and…