By Mike Few

Best Defense library of reading lists

As we embark on the second decade of the 21^st century, we face the possibility of spending another decade embattled in small wars. Prior to attempting to fix our military organization, reconfigure foreign policy and military strategy, and solving others' wicked problems; we should begin by gaining a better understanding of revolution.

In the philosophical sense, most conflict today is competition from the haves and the have-nots, the crisis of the nation-state, and the dilemma of political power given scarce resources. In order to seek solutions, we must first seek to understand both ourselves and others. We have to learn how to see the world as it is and not how we wished it to be.

As we are better able to see the problems before us, then we may find better understanding and alternative solutions. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this is called learning to walk in another man's shoes.

Below is a reading list that can help us along the journey to understanding. This list reflects my own journey towards understanding after fighting in the wars of the last decade. Specifically, it reflects my own frustration that we were not able to force the desired outcome in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace by Rye Barcott

Father of Money: Buying Peace in Baghdad by Jason Whiteley

The Human Face of War by Jim Starr. Military needs smaller staffs, innovation, and focus on empowering people. Book review here.

American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security by Richard K. Betts. Post-Cold War foreign policy has misused military power trying to turn a spoon into a knife.

Protestant Ethic by Max Weber. Father of Sociology describes why Americans and the Western World are do-ers and why we feel that we must fix other societies.

The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey. Che's early years when he was traveling and feeling empathy for the bottom 99 percent. Of course, after he got power, he was corrupted. Same issue we're seeing today with the Shiia in Iraq. They want revenge and payback instead of focusing on healing, forgiveness, and moving the state forward.

Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution by Matilde Zimmermann. Biography of Carlos Fonseca Amador, the legendary leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua (the FSLN) and the most important and influential figure of the post-1959 revolutionary generation in Latin America. Fonseca, killed in battle in 1976, was the undisputed intellectual and strategic leader of the FSLN. In a groundbreaking and fast-paced narrative that draws on a rich archive of previously unpublished Fonseca writings, Matilde Zimmermann sheds new light on central themes in his ideology as well as on internal disputes, ideological shifts, and personalities of the FSLN.

Blood Done Signed My Name by Tim Tyson. Civil Right Movement goes violent in Oxford, NC after black paratrooper is killed by a group of white men, and the system acquits.

Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinski. How the movement in Chicago forced the power structure to provide essential services to the ghettos. Why should the suburbs have their trash collected and good schools but the inner city does not?

Preface to Maynard Smith's Evolution and the Theory of Games. Nobel Laureate describes how difficult it is to model human beings competing over limited resources.

Wicked Problems And Network Approaches To Resolution by Nancy Roberts. My mentor describes her frustration in trying to negotiate peace and modernization with the Taliban in 1997 at the conclusion of the last Civil War.

And of course, Fight Club -- understanding the anarchists who reject the state.

Michael Few is a retired Army officer and former editor of Small Wars Journal.

By "Army of Anon"

Best Defense guest column

After ten years of war, the path to general officer retains an extreme emphasis in two areas: Command and staff assignments at the tactical level, and schmoozing on a general staff as an aide-de-camp or executive officer. White, male, Republican, Evangelical Christian, sole family income provider, poorly read, obsessed with physical fitness, and extremely concerned about risks -- what a perfect recipe for groupthink. C'mon man!

We promote meatheads. Too many officers are promoted who have already demonstrated limited intellect, hyper-aggressive tendencies, and incompetence during their watch -- or on the other hand, extreme subservience.  The Army that wisely promoted intellects such as General David Petraeus and Lieutenant General Dan Bolger also promoted Tommy Franks and Ricardo Sanchez! In today's Army, only general officers can screw up and move up. C'mon man! The Division Commander of the 4^th Infantry Division, who probably did more to inflame the Iraqi insurgency than anyone outside Abu Ghraib, was not only rewarded with command in Iraq again, but is now the Chief of Staff of the Army. Why is the main culprit of the Rolling Stone McChrystal debacle (Part I), Charlie Flynn a brigadier general? The same battalion commander in OIF whose command shot down two friendly aircraft and suffered the shame of the decimation of the 507^th Maintenance Company was also later elected for brigade command. His brigade commander at the time was later selected to be a general officer. This would never happen in the other services, particularly the Navy, where being in command literally entails responsibility for everything your unit does or fails to do.

Our officer corps doesn't read, and isn't bothered by the fact. $500 in book purchases for each senior leader may have saved the Army thousands of lives lost. Take the example of General George Casey. According to David Cloud and Greg Jaffe's book Four Stars, General Casey, upon learning of his assignment to command U.S. forces in Iraq, received a book from the Army Chief of Staff. The book Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned from Malaya and Vietnam was the first book he ever read about guerilla warfare." This is a damning indictment of the degree of mental preparation for combat by a general. The Army's reward for such lack of preparation: two more four star assignments. C'mon man!

For the tiny fraction of our Army that actually fights, we have made too little effort and taken too long at reducing the soldier's load. The quality of the equipment is superb, but why did it take so long to get lighter machine guns and mortars? Close with and destroy the enemy under a minimum seventy pound load? C'mon man!

There is no strategic corporal in the Army, and the squad is an insignificant maneuver unit. Commanders are reluctant to employ squads on independent missions because the squad is likely led by a soldier with too few years of experience and contains too few men. Our platoons are not employed on doctrinal missions because commanders doubt the leadership of their lieutenant, the platoon lacks sufficient medical capability to handle massive bleeding and stabilize wounded, and the platoon has insufficient communications. Commanders don't want to risk enemy contact with only eight to nine riflemen with only one medic available to support a platoon.  Instead of Army squads and platoons being a force to reckon with, they remain nearly equal in firepower, medical capability, and communications to their predecessors of the last thirty years. C'mon man!

Never have so few been supervised by so many doing so little. For the last ten years, the terms "field grade oversight" and "adult supervision" have been used entirely too often. Whether it be the Rangers blowing up a radar tower in Desert Storm, the rescue of Scott O'Grady in Bosnia, the Ranger parachute assault outside Kandahar in 2001, or the stereotypical deployment of the 82^nd Airborne Division commanding general to accompany even a brigade minus mission, U.S. military commanders increasingly accompany the smallest elements of their command in combat. There are times when a lieutenant colonel or above needs to lead Hal Moore-style, being the first one on the ground. But the overwhelming majority of combat situations do not warrant this senior presence.  Field grade officers do not need to be leading fire teams, squads and platoons. They need to do their job, staying away from room clearing. And ensuring subordinates are getting what they need. C'mon man!

Ten years into war and the Army still treats combat deaths as potential criminal negligence. If losing soldiers in combat warrants always an official investigation, then by all accounts the D-Day planners and the leadership on Omaha Beach should have been sacked in 1944. The Army should stop formally investigating American combat deaths immediately! Senior leaders should provide cover for the operations they sanction. Does reading soldiers their rights send a signal that they are potential subjects versus participants in a small unit action? Reading anyone their rights never sends a signal that you are on their side. C'mon man!

The United States Army focuses excessively on demonstrating physical fitness over any other attribute. "PT is the most important thing we do all day," goes the maxim. Yes, physical training is extremely important, but war skills like battle drills, and marksmanship get much less emphasis. The U.S. Army has arguably not lost a battle due to poor soldier fitness since the Chinese intervention in Korea in November 1950, yet the Army appears to rewards commanders for more for their running ability than their mental ability.  Too often, officers who are mental wind tunnels get a pass because they can run fast and do a lot of pull-ups. The reputations for general officers such as Petraeus and McChrystal highlight their intensity and sharp intellects, yet the overwhelming majority of their careers were defined by their reputation as fitness fanatics and political savvy. Without a doubt General Petraeus possessed the intellect and generalship we desperately needed in our combat commanders, he was notorious for sizing up subordinates solely on how they impress him on their ability to keep up with him on grueling runs. The penalty for not being fast enough for General Petraeus was being held back another year in a non-career enhancing job, rather than moving on to the key developmental position. Yet when General Petraeus needed to surround himself with extraordinary brainpower, the pool of senior field grade officers meeting that criterion was limited. He had to reach out for help to particularly smart Australian and British scholars. How many quality officers failed a Petraeus "check ride" in the 1990s and were professionally marginalized? Who would have been there to advise General Petraeus that was no longer "competitive?" C'mon man!

Our non-commissioned officer corps today is too political and focused on its own selfish promotion. We've established senior non-commissioned officer positions at every level. The senior non-commissioned officers have metastasized into a mirror of their senior officer counterparts. I use the word counterparts because many officers see their senior noncommissioned officer as an equal in command, someone whose endorsement must be sought at every decision. In our non-commissioned officers, there is an ever-increasing sense of entitlement: change of responsibility ceremonies, inflated evaluation reports, security detachments, demand for challenge coins, and their own senior non-commissioned officer-specific in briefs. Note to those sergeants who don't read history: It's not about perks! Changes of responsibility ceremonies have no historical basis in the Army. Today's Army non-commissioned officer evaluation report is far more inflated than the officer evaluation report. Who would have seen that coming two decades ago? C'mon man!

The Army's efforts to develop an advisory capability remain half-hearted. The Security Force Assistance Brigade concept is foundering. What ought to be the brigade's decisive operation overseas is an afterthought. Could the Army just be waiting it out for two more years? The Army belief is that the best officers are selected to command battalions, brigades, divisions and corps. It rewards what it values. The Army's golden boys are largely absent in the advisory effort.  Too often our advisory teams were filled by those who weren't politically connected enough to avoid advisory duty! The combat advisor augmentees the brigade does receive are often parceled out to be liaison officers. There is no effort Army-wide to look deep enough at individual backgrounds, personalities, and aptitudes to ensure the right manning. Our advisory team manning remains a mess: you might receive a talented former light infantry first sergeant, and you might receive a former Bradley Stinger air defender who has never led a dismounted patrol in his life. C'mon man!

"Army of Anon" is an old infantry major.

I liked this story about boot camp in the olden days. You may have missed it because it was posted waaaay down in the anti-Catholicism discussion the other day:

…our DI's terrorized us and were absolute gods…and yes, I remember to this day the full names of our 3 DI's at MCRD San Diego. Anyway, after two months of Boot Camp, the platoons went cross country to the rifle range for intensive rifle training, culminating in shooting for qualification. The pressure for a platoon to qualify 100 percent was enormous. That, plus the normal daily struggles of a boot's life, put huge stress on us 18-year olds. The night before our platoon was to go up to shoot for quals, we gathered around one of our DI's for a final briefing and instructions. At the end of which, the DI told us in a lowered voice that he had a Navy corpsman friend at the dispensary who smuggled him some tranquilizer pills. He wasn't recommending it to anyone, but he would give one to anyone who wanted to take one before going to the range. We all lined up and took one of the pills. The next day was a long and tense day, and our platoon qualified 100 percent, even Pvt. Roberts, the platoon f--ckup. We were on Cloud 9 and double-timed all the way back to base camp. A few weeks later, as we were getting ready for graduation, the DI's loosened up a bit and started being conversational with us. The rifle range DI told us then that the "tranquilizer pills" he had offered us at the range were really just vitamin pills that he got from the dispensary. But they did the trick! Semper Fi!

By Joseph Sarkisian

Best Defense department of politico-military affairs

Lately a lot of journalists have been pointing out the neo-conservative return from the grave manifested in Mitt Romney's foreign policy team. The list is a who's who of advisors under the most recent Bush administration -- 15 of the 22 of them -- including six former members of the "Project for a New American Century." If you recall, this was the same group of policy "experts" that advocated the war in Iraq with confidential reasons to bust OPEC by privatizing Iraq's oil infrastructure, removing the Saudis' ability to set prices, and flooring the price of crude.

Clearly this never came to pass and Iraq has remained a member of OPEC. However, although the neo-conservatives lost in their war with the State Department and oil industry to privatize Iraq, a campaign against Iran would give them another shot.

While conflict with Iran may partly be attributed to its nuclear program, it isn't the whole story. Just like with the Baathist regime, the powers that were and may be again are unhappy that an authoritarian regime with a hatred for Israel to boot is having so much say in the price America pays for a barrel of oil. In 2003, the surface motivation was about Iraqi WMD, and today the surface motivation is about Iranian WMD. This unsubstantiated fear proved to be the catalyst the OPEC-busters needed to move on Iraq. That same catalyst could be used to move on Iran.

Iran is much more easily vilified simply because it actually has a nuclear program, unlike Iraq did. Therefore public support for a campaign to make sure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon is winning against non-intervention. But the neo-conservative constituency isn't appeased with the setting back of Iran's nuclear program. In fact, some of them advocate for full-scale regime change.

The neo-cons moan over the uselessness of sanctions, and on this point they may be correct, but not for the right reasons. The issue as they state it is Iran having adequate time to put together a nuclear device. This may or may not be the case, but it certainly is the case that regardless of the Ayatollah's plans for his fissile material, the rhetoric keeps oil prices high, as potential kinetic conflict over the issue becomes more of a possibility.

A back and forth approach to ceding some ground on the nuclear issue keeps the price of oil up, which is good strategy for Iran. However, if prices get too high, the regime may effectively commit suicide if a conservative White House loses its temper. Therefore, the current price of oil is close to ideal since it keeps Iran in the sweet spot of dividing the world over whether or not to intervene. Although sanctions are appearing to hurt the Iranian economy, higher oil prices will benefit them if they can strike a deal with China and India to buy what the EU leaves sitting on the tanker.  They'll have six months to figure it out.

None of this bodes well for neo-cons who understand that this back and forth will keep oil expensive for the foreseeable future. Therefore, a plea for regime change in Iran would make sense in their eyes, just like it did in 2003. And why not? Public opinion seems to favor at least intervention at this point, Israel is more than happy to help out, and Iran is easier to sell than Iraq ever was. It wouldn't be hard to put Mitt Romney on a plan to privatize Iran's oil infrastructure given the opportunity; he is a businessman after all.

But as we've seen, neo-conservatives aren't much interested in the consequences of action; only the consequences of inaction by others that they believe are too "soft" on Iran, which is pretty much everyone but themselves. They fail to realize that Iran is not Iraq and that it can defend itself. Regime change doesn't happen from the air. Considerable ground forces would be necessary for such a campaign, and Iran has a trained insurgency at the ready that would make Iraq look like Grenada. This would undoubtedly drive the price of oil skyward for an extended period of time, just like it did in 2003.

One entity may be powerful enough to oppose such grand plans (and sadly it isn't the American voters): Big Oil. They shut down the plan to privatize Iraq in 2003 and may be able to do the same thing in Iran if there were an attempt to do so. No OPEC means more competition in the market place, which means lower prices.  Translate that to lower profit for oil companies and one can see the connection. Keeping oil in the ground makes more sense to an oilman than taking it out when there is excess supply.

It may be rhetoric in an election year as some have posited, but Israel's involvement and the alignment of many on Romney's foreign policy team with AIPAC and Israeli interests points to a long lasting commitment to taking on Iran in one way or another, whether it is good for American interests or not. Only time will tell, but it is very hard to believe that given the chance, the neo-conservatives wouldn't try and bust OPEC to achieve their goal of reclaiming the almighty American empire one more time.

Joseph Sarkisian is a graduate student in international relations at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where he is also a teaching assistant for political science. The focus of his research is U.S.-Iranian relations.

I've been reading Peter Schifferle's America's School for War: Fort Leavenworth, Officer Education and Victory in World War II. Generally I found it kind of dull, feeling a bit like a biography written only about what a person did between 9 and 5 every day.

That said, I was intrigued and persuaded by his basic conclusion: Senior American commanders were much more competent in World War II than in World War I, he says, especially in the difficult art of coordinating the combat arms (infantry, artillery, armor, aviation) to break through enemy lines and then exploit that breakthrough. The reason for this competence, he says, was the education they received at Fort Leavenworth in the interwar period. He quotes the comment of German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who after being captured in 1945 reportedly said, "We cannot understand the difference in your leadership in the last war and in this. We could understand it if you had produced one superior corps commander, but now we find all of your corps commanders good and of equal superiority."

An acquaintance of mine who served with the 1^st Infantry Division in Vietnam, and whose son and son-in-law are both preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, wonders why none of Governor Romney's many sons ever saw fit to join the military.

Romney's response is, Hey, I thought it was a volunteer military. Yet if everyone volunteered at the rate his family has, we would be forced to re-institute a draft. I wonder if he has ever discussed joining the military with any of his sons, and if so, whether he encouraged them or discouraged them. 

I've been reading an advance copy of my friend Timothy Noah's The Great Divergence, about the growth of income inequality in our country over the last 30 years, and what to do about it. It's a terrific book -- he writes about economic issues with an enviable ease and clarity. It comes out in a few months, but you can order now on Amazon.  

But I also was struck by an aside of his: "America was an angrier place during the 1960s and 1970s, but it's a meaner place today."

(HT to Molly R. for fact checking)

By Douglas A. Ollivant

Best Defense department of Army-ology

Determining the state of cultural change in the Army is not an exact science. However, if you believe, as I do, that "personnel are policy," then who the Army selects as its next generation of senior leaders is an important -- even critical -- indicator.

This is not to say that reading any particular promotion list is a clear lens into the inner workings of the Army -- far from it. I once memorably heard it said that interpreting messages from any one promotion list is akin to the old Sovietology of trying to determine who is up and coming in the USSR's leadership by observing their positions on the stand at a May Day parade. Another mentor compares it to deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls. But bringing it back to the General Officer list, there are lots of factors in play -- the existing pool of candidates from which the board can choose, the projected requirements (by specialty) in the near future, the relationships of candidates to the board members, diversity preferences and etc. That said, nothing speaks to what the Army values more than who it promotes. Those who hope to someday be among those promoted are watching closely.

There are a number of surprises in the latest 2-star (Major General) selection list. For purposes of determining future leaders, I will focus on the combat arms officers and pass over those with specialties in personnel, logistics, and acquisition. Not that they are not important, but they are not future combatant commanders or Army Chiefs of Staff -- and they know it.

There is a well-known track to becoming a Major General. You command a tactical battalion and a tactical brigade in succession, preferably spending time as the Operations Officer (G3) and/or Chief of Staff of one of the ten tactical divisions just before or after these jobs. Upon promotion to one-star, you serve either as the Deputy Commanding General of one of these same divisions, or (in rare cases) command one of the three Combat Training Centers, in California, Louisiana or Germany. Time as an executive officer to a four-star general is desirable, and time on a Joint Staff is necessary to fulfill Goldwater-Nichols requirements. These are the rules of the game as generally understood, particularly for Armor and Infantry Officers. Aviators, Artillery and Air Defense Artillery have slightly more relaxed rules, but the path is recognizable and all tend to follow it. Recently retired GEN Petraeus, for example, followed this path without variation from Lieutenant Colonel through Brigadier General.

The majority of the officers on this list successfully followed this path (or a near variant) -- Paul Funk, John (Mike) Murray, Bryan Owens, John Rossi, Ross Ridge, Jeff Bailey, Kenneth Dahl, James Pasquarette, Jeff Colt, and Joseph DiSalvo. This remains the widest, most traditional path for success. I do not mean to imply by this that those who take this path are somehow undeserving, or that promotion based on this path is automatic. General Dahl, for example, stayed on this script (though without being a divisional G3 or Chief of Staff), but still managed to build on his experience as a leadership instructor at West Point (with a grad degree in Organizational Management from North Carolina) by layering both a year at Harvard's JFK School and a year as the Senior Army Fellow at Brookings. Dahl was hardly shirking, however, as these two academic "tours" were separated by a two-year brigade command that included a tour in Iraq. It is definitely possible (though difficult) to play by the rules and still engage in one (or more) of the "broadening experiences" that the Army frequently talks about. For that matter, it is equally possible to have no particularly novel assignments and still be a first-tier strategic leader.

But there are far more exceptions on this list that I would have expected. Brigadier Generals H.R. McMaster (rightly or wrongly seen as the litmus test for rewarding the eclectic) and Mike Shields were each selected despite not having duty "with troops" since their brigade level commands. The former spent time working on doctrine at the Training and Doctrine Command, then went to command the Anti-Corruption Task Force (Shafafiyat) in Kabul, where he still labors. Mike Shields, on the other hand, has over the past three years become one of the leading experts on high-level Operations-Intelligence Fusion, first for the Joint Staff and now at JIEDDO, the counter-IED command. It will be interesting to monitor whether either (or both) are selected for divisional-level command.

John Uberti appears on this list, despite having had "only" a garrison command as a Colonel, usually regarded as a career-ending assignment. But his selection pales in surprise next to that of Gordon Davis. Davis' resume is rich in operational assignments, in no small part due to his assignment in Italy in the mid-‘90s, which took him to now largely forgotten deployments in Mozambique, Zaire, Liberia, Congo and Rwanda. Having fluency in three European languages to talk to coalition partners in these locations probably didn't hurt. However, General Davis's resume has what most officers would consider not one, but two fatal flaws -- he commanded a training battalion as a Lieutenant Colonel, and a training support brigade as a Colonel. Simply put, training battalion commanders -- let alone training support brigade commanders-are generally seen as having culminated their careers, destined to top out as full colonels. That Davis' talents have been recognized despite being placed in these commands (commands are slotted by a very obscure formula, not necessarily by merit) of course speaks incredibly well of Davis, but is also a welcome crack in the rote formula to success.

Douglas A. Ollivant is a principal at the O2 Group (a strategic consulting and technology firm), and senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He is a retired Army officer.

By Lt. Col. Thomas Cooper, USAF

Best Defense aviation literature correspondent

Earlier this month the Air Force released the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's (CSAF) Reading List (CSAF). One of the non-flying things I've looked forward to in the past 16 years of my Air Force career is the CSAF's list. Ever since the first one from General Ron Fogleman in 1996, the list has presented books about the Air Force and its history that I've never heard of. Sadly, when I opened up this year's list, there were no books that I hadn't already heard of or enough that reached back into Air Force heritage and history like previous years.

"Every Airman an Innovator" is the theme of this year's list, which captures some of the books, but it doesn't emphasize "being an Airman" as well as I think it could. Although being an innovator is part of Air Force heritage, the lack of organizing principles for the list (previous lists have used strategic context, Air Force heritage, leadership, military history, etc.) makes it difficult to connect back to innovation and Air Force heritage. The list jumps from management theory to satire to science to historical fiction and doesn't focus as well on what is important as an Airman as previous lists have done.

Unfortunately, heritage isn't an Air Force strength as the service often spends too much time justifying itself as a valued contributor to the Joint force. This past year the Air Force has clearly stated its contribution better than I've heard in my career and I think should be included in every Air Force message. These purposes are the Air Force's heritage and would have been a great thing to use to help organize the list. With an enduring role to establish control in air, space and cyberspace, hold any target at risk, provide responsive ISR, and rapidly move people and cargo anywhere in the world, the Air Force has a strong foundation to build a reading list from.

Books on Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers, B-29 operations in the Pacific, and "flying the hump" would have all been examples of the Air Force's enduring roles that would also help Airmen learn more about the changing strategic context. The three examples also do a good job of showing that no matter the conflict, the Air Force has always strived to control the air, rapidly move people and cargo and strike targets from great distances. Each example is also full innovative thinking by Airmen that is an enduring characteristic of serving in the Air Force.

Although I am disappointed by the books, the true innovation in this year's CSAF list is its inclusion of movies, TED presentations and a wide range of internet resources. As younger Airmen are raised with iPads for text books, these other media will help achieve the purpose of a good reading list and provide a broader set of learning tools. Unfortunately, these resources also do not have much of a clear organization other than their source.

The inclusion of movies will be a very useful tool for commanders and mentors and was the high point of the list for me. Strategic Air Command captures the challenges of the rapidly expanding new Air Force and the contribution of Airmen serving in the early days of the Cold War. With real-life bomber pilot Jimmy Stewart in the lead role this movie shouldn't be missed. I would have linked the movie to 15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation under the caption "want to learn more." I'd also have added Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb because it really is how many people see Strategic Air Command and the recently released The Partnership to fully loop from SAC to the future of nuclear weapons. I would have also added War to accompany Restrepo since I was a bigger fan of the book.

Using the TED presentations is a true innovation that I think will become the most popular element of the "reading list." I had never seen the Norden Bombsight presentation and enjoyed that story. Again it could have been linked better to the books and movies. Both Catch-22 and Memphis Belle being on the list would have tied the story of this innovation better and another example of how organization of the list disappoints and doesn't lead Airmen to broader learning.

And finally, the diverse on-line options included in "RESOURCES" is a useful and innovative way to help expand Airmen's set of learning tools. "Resources includes information on premier educational, think tank, heritage, documentary, humanities, and scientific organizations" and does a great job of improving an Airman's self-study tool box to expand how they think. I will probably bookmark most of these and will wander through them if I find the time. Linked to a book, movie or theme other than innovation, to force exploration would have been a more useful way to organize the resources.

Overall, I'd give the books a "C minus" because they don't go far enough, in an organized manner to build Air Force heritage. The grade is brought up to a "B plus" by the inclusion of all of the other tools for learning that will be useful. As the first use of diverse media on a "reading list" it is a great start. Next year I'm hoping will be an "A" when the entire list reinforces Air Force heritage and links the different tools together so the whole team is gaining the same knowledge, no matter the source.

Lt. Col. Tom Cooper is the Air Force fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is spending this year reading following a career flying the E-3 Sentry, SAMFOX C-9s in the 89 AW and C-40s as commander of the AF Reserve's active associate 54 AS. He has spent time on the Joint Staff and Air Mobility Command staff. After his fellowship he looks forward to getting back to leading Airmen and helping them pick books.

Friend of the blog Paula Broadwell was on the Daily Show, I think last night, and challenged poor Jon Stewart to a push-up contest. He lost. Her new book on General Petraeus is out now. 

The other day President Obama did a pretty good one-line imitation of Al Green. As it happens, the next day, I read this in Judges 5:12: ". . . awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak."

I wonder if the hidden message is that he will oust Biden as his VP and replace him with Hillary.

Everyone is always telling junior officers what to read, so in the February issue of Army magazine I was pleased to see their own list of favorites, compiled by "Company Command," with also-rans also identified.

1. Once an Eagle, by Anton Myrer

2. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young, by Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway

3. Platoon Leader, by James Mcdonough

4. Taking the Guidon: Exceptional Leadership at the Company Level, by Nate Allen and Tony Burgess

5. Black Hearts, by Jim Frederick

6. Small Unit Leadership, by Dandridge Malone

7. On Killing, by Dave Grossman

8. Band of Brothers, by Stephen Ambrose

9. Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

10. Infantry Attacks, by Erwin Rommel

Also-rans include The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel (no. 15 with a bullet). At no. 25 I was impressed to see East of Chosin, by Roy Appleman. I actually thought that The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa, by Michael Burgone and Albert Marckwardt, would be higher than no. 37, as would be the book on which it is based, The Defence of Duffer's Drift, by E.D. Swinton, which came in at no. 20.    

I've heard one aging Army Ranger lambaste Once an Eagle as a cheap, melodramatic novel. Say what you will, I don't think one can understand today's Army without having read it. Which is why I dedicated my novel A Soldier's Duty (which is not on anyone's list) in part "to Sam and Courtney."      

By J. Dana Stuster

Best Defense office of Arab seasonal affairs 

In the earliest days of the Arab Spring, Algeria appeared poised to join Tunisia in its revolution. Protests swept through the country weeks before the first stirrings in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya or Syria. According to The Economist's tongue-in-cheek attempt to quantify the factors generating the unrest ("the shoe thrower's index"), Algeria seemed less likely to be stable than its revolutionary neighbor and far outpaced Bahrain in factors contributing to potential unrest.

Algeria isn't stable now, but it has managed to avoid reaching a critical mass of domestic upheaval through a measured police response that has been severe without being so brutal that it incites more anger, as well as economic concessions that reduced the cost of staple foods and legal reforms that include the repeal the country's twenty-year-old emergency law. While it remains to be seen whether these concessions will stick in the long-term, they seem to have bought some time for the Algerian government.

The next potential crisis will be the country's legislative elections, scheduled for May. The country is only dubiously democratic; true power resides with a cabal of political and military officials informally know as Le Pouvoir, and there are concerns that, if a truly democratic election is held, the military may intervene to prevent an Islamist landslide in the parliament. The last time the military stepped in was 1992; what followed was a military coup, the institution of the emergency law, and an ugly civil war. The Algerian government is only now walking back the many effects of 1992, and if Le Pouvoir intervenes in May it would be a significant setback for the country, but so too could be a polarizing election.

Speaking at CSIS recently, Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci expressed his full confidence that the military will support the results of the election and downplayed the significance of a potential Islamist election, pointing out that an Islamist party (condoned by the government) has participated in the parliament since the late 1990s. Listening to Medelci, it is easy to get caught up in his optimism for Algeria. He boasts about his country's progress toward meeting the United Nations' Development Program's Millennium Development Goals and speaks eloquently about the political and economic reforms underway. Speaking to a collection of Arab media, businesspeople, think tank experts, and diplomats, he touted the increasing privatization of the economy, the large college-educated population (the majority of which are women), the proliferation of trade agreements, and the government's attempts to diversify the economy, including a large solar array to reduce Algeria's reliance on oil exports. He tied the new flurry of reforms to Algeria's efforts over the past decade to better incorporate minority groups, though he didn't go into detail on these. He seemed pleased with the new reforms, which include expanded press freedoms, a new quota system for women's representation in the parliament, an increased role for the judiciary in elections to make them more independent from the administration, and an upcoming revision of the constitution.

It all sounds very promising, and if done right, it could be precisely the sort of gradual reform that the United States has encouraged the monarchies in the Gulf to embrace. But even ignoring the questions about how healthy Algeria's economy truly is (only last year, Issandr El Amrani called Bouteflika's economic policy "an unmitigated disaster"), Algeria has only a narrow window of opportunity for this to succeed - Bouteflika's term expires in 2014, but he is physically ailing and there is no clear means of succession if he passes while in office. If Algeria cannot prepare its democratic institutions for this essential transition, it will face a two-front struggle: a crisis within Le Pouvoir, and also the remobilization of the disenfranchised and disheartened public that took to the streets in January 2011. Eurasia Group's James Fallon pointed to Algeria for a potential renewal of upheaval last November, and while the protesters in Algiers had difficulty expressing a set of common grievances, they will no doubt learn from the successes in Egypt and Tunisia.

While Algeria's problems are far from solved and new unrest may arise between now and then, for now, its role in the Arab Spring is restricted to its participation in the Arab League delegation to Syria. Medelci distanced his government from Anwar Malek, the Algerian monitor who resigned from the delegation and called it a "farce." Medelci has pointed out that Malek was representing a non-governmental organization and not the Algerian government, which remains committed to the mission in Syria. Justifying this commitment involved some verbal hurdles. Pressed by Ellen Laipson of the Stimson Center to reconcile Algeria's involvement in the Arab League's involvement in Syria with its policy of non-intervention, Medelci explained that he considers the Arab League mission as less a matter of interference, but an effort to prevent broader interference through providing an option for third-party mediation.

Medelci was nothing if not positive in his assessment. Speaking of its revolutionary neighbors in North Africa, he told the audience, "We hope that these countries now control their destiny and can join us as stronger partners. We need stronger partners, but we are not in a position to be hegemonic. We don't have lessons to teach but we share a revolutionary heritage." This July will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Algeria's independence from France, and while, for now, Algeria's non-interventionist intervention in Syria may be the center of attention, it is shaping up to be a dramatic year domestically as well. Here's hoping it lives up to the foreign minister's optimism.

By Donna McAleer

Best Defense giant slalom correspondent

Forget the creepy guys in trench coats -- the Penn State University and the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandals remind us that it's harder than you might imagine to identify sex offenders inside institutions. Put that perpetrator in military uniform or clerical apparel and we want to deny it is even possible. Be it renegades, robes or uniforms, rape is the betrayal of trust manifest.

U.S. servicewomen are more likely to be sexually assaulted by a solider than they are likely to be killed in the line of fire. The new battlefield is the barracks.

The Invisible War, a documentary film premiering at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, is an investigative and enraging emotional analysis of the epidemic of rape and sexual assault within the U.S. military. If the term "epidemic" seems strident or alarmist, the facts chillingly reveal that sexual assault and rape are prevalent and that the military justice system presently in place is an enabler that shockingly perpetuates the crime. It is not an abberration. In fact, the closed military justice system is a target-rich environment for a sexual predator.

The 2010 Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military indicates that 3,158 cases were officially reported. A Department of Defense survey of active duty members revealed that only 13.5 percent of sexual assaults within the services were reported. The Pentagon itself estimates that more than 19,000 incidents of sexual assault actually occurred in 2010, not the 3,158 officially reported.

Invisible War vividly portrays the intense and extreme personal and social consequences that result from these brutal crimes. This is not only a woman's story, it is a man's story. Rape is a crime of power and violence. Within the military, this is a troop welfare issue. Within society, this is human rights story.

The academy-award winning team of Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering and Geralyn Dreyfous deliver an powerful film that makes a strong call for fundamental change in the way the violent crimes of rape and sexual assault are handled. Fully aware of the explosive nature of the topic, the filmmakers' overriding agenda is to provide a positive portrait of our armed forces and a balanced account showing how the services, through addressing the issue of rape and sexual assault within its ranks, could better realize and support the men and women who proudly wear our nation's uniforms.

The film treats this traumatic and highly charged issue in as balanced a manner as possible. The crimes are real and their consequences are devastating, but this documentary is not a hatchet job. The producers and directors have done an admirable job getting on-screen interviews with a number of civilian experts in the field, politicians, and retired officers up to and including the rank of lieutenant general.

Through the drama of the survivors of rape and sexual assault, The Invisible War offers a possible solution to the epidemic-a change to the military justice system in how cases of rape and sexual assault are investigated, prosecuted and punished. The call is to take them out of the survivor's chain of command. Canada and the United Kingdom along with most of our NATO allies, no longer allow military commanders to determine the prosecution of sexual assault cases.

Today military law requires that the officers directly in charge of the offenders decide how these cases are handled. This creates a clear conflict of interest and as a result, in the vast majority of sexual assault cases charges are not proffered. Only 8 percent of sexual assault cases are prosecuted and only 2 percent are convicted.

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