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.

Nicholas Blanford, author of some book about the Hezbies, discusses the Beirut food scene in Ex's blog:

"I am out of touch with most bars in Beirut these days. I preferred the good old days when there were perhaps three bars in Beirut, the best of which was the Lord Kitchener which was at the back of an abandoned shopping center in Hamra and had a very laid-back speakeasy-type atmosphere and a wicked oud player. As for food, still love Le Chef, an institution. Best cafe is Cafe Younes in Hamra. I used to live above the cafe in 1995-96 when it was just a place to buy freshly ground coffee and knock back a double espresso in the morning. Otherwise, it's local cafes and restaurants dotted around the country. Eat foul in the Tyre souq. There's a brilliant sandwich place in Dar al-Wassah in the Bekaa -- best labneh sandwiches in Lebanon. I also stop at Abu Rashed next to the army barracks in Marjayoun. They make terrific shish taouq. Corny though it may sound, the best meal is the one with a couple of spit roast chickens, olives, bread and with the family on a picnic somewhere high up in the mountains."

By Joseph Natividad
Best Defense Pyongyang deputy bureau chief

An English literature professor from Southern California by day and a world-class magician by night, Dale Salwak holds the distinction of being the only American invited to perform his act in North Korea. At SAIS recently, Salwak chronicled his experiences in Pyongyang in 2009 and this past April for the Grand Magic Show, the largest ever in the country's history. His perspective on North Korea offered a look beyond stereotypes of a totalitarian system, mass famine, and nuclear proliferation, and focused instead on magic as a great leveler which emphasized entertainment value before political differences between two countries.

--Magic, as a trade, is taken very seriously in North Korea. Similar in structure to the Chinese system, admission into its exclusive society is followed by a father-son bond of lifelong apprenticeship. Isolated from the West and having limited or no access to DVDs, books and the Internet, North Korean magicians have devised their own methods to magic that have long been known to performers like Salwak. A typical range of acts includes balancing telephones on handkerchiefs and life-sized dolls performing choreographed dance routines to traditional music. The local performers Salwak encountered on his trips cherished every new trick acquired and pleaded with him to share current "world trends" on magic.

--The culmination of Kim Jong Il's investment in the arts took place this past April at the Grand Magic Show, a tribute to the late Kim Il Sung. Like his father, Kim Jong Il appears to hold a great interest in magic and the circus, dating back to the country's early history of Soviet influence. In a place where high-tech entertainment is hard to come by, the Grand Magic Show dazzled a crowd of 150,000 at May Day Stadium, which is the site of the Arirang Games, an annual two-month-long gymnastics festival also in honor of Kim Il Sung. As a spectator at the Grand Magic Show, Salwak watched as the country's most famous magician, Kim Chol, appeared in a cloud of smoke and fireworks, forcing a bus full of giddy local residents to levitate several feet above the ground, and later, make a horse, an elephant and a helicopter materialize out of thin air. What would have otherwise invoked a roaring response from a typical American audience, the crowd respectfully cheered with subdued, tepid applause.

As longtime little grasshoppers know, I'm a fan of reading lists. Here is one from former Army chief of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey -- where is he now? Here is another from a Marine sergeant major. I actually prefer the Marine's, which has less pop journalism and more history.

And here is Exum's response to Dempsey's. It also is a much better list than the official one. (And here is Exum's short list of essential reading to help one understand the war in Afghanistan. While I'm at it, here is a roundup from The Economist of new books on the war on terror.)

Here Greg Jaffe reviews the bidding, noting that, "The problem, it seems, is that Dempsey's tastes run toward the middle brow."

There is an interesting pattern here: The less rank one has, the more intellectually rigorous the list? Put another way: Are our generals keeping up with our corporals?

My friend Frank Hoffman comments on the Army list:

One might not want to look too deep into this list, as they are usually the product of a committee, but I am sure that General Dempsey personally edited the list a bit. Was good to see that he included one book on Civil-mil relations, although I've not read the Schofield text. The Army has several good books by Nielson and Snider to use but they might be not considered as classics. Notably, HR McMaster's book is NOT listed, nor Eliot Cohen or Bacevich.

Was surprised at the two Friedman books, a bit optimistic about collaboration for an institutional worldview of Persistent Conflict, and I think that Lawrence Freedman and Aaron Friedberg and Fareed Zakaria's Post-American World are a bit more up to date. For senior officers, Colin Gray's Another Bloody Century might be useful. But the list is well balanced off with the Ramos book and Bob Kaplan's look at Asia. Kaplan's Imperial Grunts would have been far more relevant to the Army. The Seb Junger book on Afghanistan helps the loss there.  

Military strategy items are a bit thin (yes, I do see the required nods to Karl von C and his Chinese alter ego), this is longer on business books than traditional lists. I can live without Gladwell, as Outliers is his worst book but the underlying message of hard work is not without merit. The Moten book is very useful at least for war termination but actually more on policy-strategy interface. Colin Gray's pithy Fighting Talk on strategic maxims could have be leveraged better to fill the strategy hole.

By Emma Sky
Best Defense roving Middle East correspondent  

Is this your first visit to Syria, the passport-control man asks me. No, I tell him, I came here once before over a decade ago. He stamps my passport. I had been very lucky to get a Syrian visa this time. The travel advice was not to visit. The Syrian regime is very wary of foreigners, fearing that journalists and spies are inflaming the situation further. I collect my bag and walk through customs, passing a poster, of modest size, of President Bashar al-Assad with the words in Arabic proclaiming: "Leader of the youth, hope of the youth."

I jump in a taxi. I ask the driver how are things in Syria. Things are fine, he assures me. There has been some trouble around the country, but things are OK in Damascus. As we drive, we chat. He points out the area where Druze live. With his hand, he waves in another direction to where Palestinian refugees live, and then again to where Iraqi refugees live. Alawites are over there and in villages. Christians this way and in villages. Sunnis are around 65 percent of the population. Kurds live in the north. Many different peoples live in Syria. I ask him how he knows who someone is or whether they are Sunni or Shiite. He tells me that he does not know and it does not interest him to know: There is no sectarianism here in Syria. We pass Damascus University. Outside there are lots of flags and pictures of Assad and his deceased father. Across the city, the Syrian flag is flying strong and photos of the president are omnipresent. As I ride through al-Umawiyeen Square, I see lots of young men and women gathering, holding Syrian flags. It is not a demonstration, a Syrian tells me; it is a celebration -- a celebration of the regime. Later, I watch the event on television. It has made the international news. Tens of thousands of Syrians have come out to al-Umawiyeen Square to show their support for President Bashar al-Assad in a lively celebration that includes pop singers and fireworks.

When I had visited previously, the city had been filled with huge pictures of Hafez al-Assad; and Bashar, his son, had been studying ophthalmology in London. The death of Bashar's elder brother, Basil, in a car crash, propelled him back into the family business of ruling Syria.

In the evening, I stroll down the street to a restaurant. It is very modern and Western. All-you-can-eat sushi for $20. I try to read my emails on my BlackBerry. I switch between two different networks, but can only receive GPS, not GPRS. The restaurant claims to have Wi-Fi. I ask the waiter. There is Wi-Fi, he tells me, but it is not working at the moment. Nor is Facebook. Internet access is limited.

I walk through Souq al-Hamidiyah in the old city of Damascus. It is a wide, pedestrianized street, two-stories high, and covered. It is buzzing with life. Store owners sit outside their shops, trying to entice potential customers. Traders sell their wares down the middle of the street. Walking with the flow of people, I emerge to find the Umayyad Mosque directly in front of me.

I go to the ticket office, pay the entrance fee for foreigners, and collect a hooded gray cloak to cover myself. The cloaks come in three sizes. A woman sitting there directs me toward the smallest size. The cloak stinks, and I wonder when it was last washed and how many women have had to wear it in the sweltering summer heat. I put the cloak on over my clothes, pulling up the pointed hood to ensure my hair is covered. I enter the Umayyad Mosque -- built on the site of a shrine dedicated to John the Baptist -- looking like a member of the Ku Klux Klan except dressed in gray, and carrying my shoes in my hand. I wander into the covered area where hundreds of people are praying, men in one area, women in another. I walk out to the courtyard. In one area, a group is seated on the ground. One man is kneeling, raising his arms, weeping "ya Hussein." The others follow suit, tears flowing, looking quite distraught.

The rest of this article can be read in its entirety: here.

Since 9/11, lots of hard work has been done on "link analysis" -- looking at who communicates with whom, who sends money to whom, and so on, as a way of detecting and delineating terrorist networks, nodes and points of vulnerability. David Ignatius makes this fact a key to his new novel, Bloodmoney.  

Now a Stanford professor of English is doing link analysis in literature. To my surprise, he is coming up with some interesting stuff on Hamlet:

" ... of all the characters who speak to both Hamlet and Claudius, only two manage to survive the play (Moretti calls this part of the network the "region of death"). Or one notices that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the most famous pair of minor characters in all of Shakespeare, never speak to each other."

Good to finally see. It likely will improve the tone of the place. As my grandfather said, go to Harvard if you want prestige, Yale if you want an education. 

Speaking of long-overdue moves, the government of Japan apologized to Australian PoWs of WWII for the shameful treatment they were given. Harold Ramsey, one of the former PoWs, commented that he had a "much better time" in Tokyo now than he did in 1944.  

I was intrigued to read this novel about that odd first year of the Iraq war. You remember -- that time back when Donald Rumsfeld insisted there really was no insurgency and some people still said we'd find that WMD any day now. 

I enjoyed reading it, which I did in one day, thanks in part to the slow collapse of the Washington, D.C. Metro system, which took 90 minutes to get me home the other day. Crossing the Wire is mainly fun, especially if you were there back then. It is an ambitious, uneven novel, but so are a lot others, including the one I published. A sample of Kornhiser's dialogue, involving the hero, an officer repeatedly described as "the oldest lieutenant in the Army":

"...watch the goddamn friendly fire."

"Sorry, Lieutenant."

"You guys are supposed to like me."

"We do. That's why we missed."

It doesn't all work. Some bits are slow, even skippable. And several parts, especially about the Iraqi woman, struck me as more dream-like than realistic. (On the other hand, the summer of 2003 in Baghdad was pretty much like a bad dream.) But he's trying. I can't think of another novel on the war in Iraq, or at least one I enjoyed reading.   

Here is another bit of soldiers' dialogue:

"Card's wife is adulerating with a Wal-Mart manager," Phillips kind of giggled.

"Assistant [manager]."

"She got a right. Look at it this way, Card. She's keepin' the machine well oiled for the return of the hero."

Anyone know of other novels (not memoirs, I've read tons) about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan?

(And yeah, no mention of the State of the Union in the blog today. One of the nice things about not having a boss is not having to write about stuff that I find boring.)

By Capt. Mark Jacobsen, USAF
Best Defense guest columnist

Here's a note from an Air Force pilot who is studying Arabic in Jordan.

A few months ago I wrote up a list of secondary benefits that come with learning a foreign language, based on my own experience learning Arabic. It's a bit long, but I hope it will be of interest.

How to listen to other people's stories and perspectives. Being able to shut up and really listen to different opinions is a rare skill. If we want to make informed policy in cross-cultural contexts, we need to humanize and understand the "other" -- which includes both our allies and our enemies. We do not have to agree with each other, but we need to listen long enough to genuinely understand each other's narratives. Being in a foreign language environment forces you to concentrate and listen, especially because you probably lack the language skill to respond as you wish.

How to operate in an environment of constant uncertainty. When you arrive in a foreign culture, everything is uncertain. You feel a constant tightness in your chest because you don't know the rules for even the most trivial day-to-day tasks. Even something as simple as buying hummus and falafel or riding in a taxicab involves new processes, rituals, and vocabulary -- especially if you want to do it like the natives. You can't be a perfectionist, because you'll never get anything done otherwise. You learn to control negative emotional responses like fear, anger, or frustration. Fortunately, you do acclimate to this uncertainty. You learn to be patient, cool, and observant.

Read on

These are the most requested books at a store in Amman, Jordan, that specializes in banned books:

• Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

• The late Iranian writer Ali Dashti's 23 Years, "which questions miracles ascribed to Muhammad in the Koran," according to this interesting article in the poor old Los Angeles Times by Borzou Daragahi. Here's a free download.

• Egyptian writer Khaled Qashtin's The Joke in the Arab World, "a sarcastic view of the Middle East, its rulers and customs."

Interesting that religion and culture play the role there that books about sex once did here.

I like most kinds of rock. I like folk, country, blues, bluegrass in measured doses, and most jazz. I like Italian opera. I enjoy a lot of classical stuff, and I love Beethoven's solo piano music. My son even carefully selected for me rap he thought I'd like, and he generally was right. On the other hand, I just can't stand heavy metal. As I wrote this item, I was listening to the top 10 list (below), and my normally loyal dogs abandoned their posts in my home office.

But this is not about me, or the dogs. This is not a discussion of good music or even of favorite music, but rather songs that U.S. soldiers have used in recent years to prepare themselves to fight. Here's a comment, from "JC333," that explains what drives people to listen to the songs on this list: "I would pretty much know if I was going into a particularly hairy area. I used to get in a pretty dark mood and while some people liked to get amped to songs by Metallica or AC/DC, I liked to listen to Nine Inch Nails' 'Downward Spiral.'"

As a whole, the list below is full of grandiose, amateurish, cliched, narcissistic, high-energy songs -- but of course, that's what heavy metal is all about, as is a lot of male adolescence. "Sleep with one eye open," "the mob rules," blah blah blah, etc.

A few artist-specific comments:

• Metallica showed up on more lists than any other band, but with an array of songs. Second favorite band is probably AC/DC.
• I thought we'd see more votes for Three 6 Mafia and other rappers, but that may be a reflection of the demographics of this blog.
• Warren Zevon's "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" may have been a favorite of Boomer soldiers, but not today's privates. So, like the oeuvre of Ted Nugent, a 1991 Gulf War favorite, it does not appear on this list.

The winner is probably my least favorite song ever. But, of course, this isn't about me.

1) Drowning Pool, "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor"

2) Anything by Metallica, but especially  -- "Enter Sandman," "Disposable Heroes," "All Nightmare Long," "Don't Tread on Me," "Ride the Lightning" and "Whiskey in the Jar." (I found the last one tolerable.)

3) AC/DC, lots of songs, but especially "Thunderstruck" (here's a version featuring Apache attack helicopters) or "Hell's Bells." (I couldn't find the version with George Patton's speech to soldiers overdubbed into it.)

4) Rage Against the Machine. A variety of songs show up on lists, but a favorite is "Down Rodeo." (Also, "Killing in the Name" and "How I Could Just Kill a Man." But "Bullet in the Head" was not listed by anyone.) I remember an officer in Baghdad playing RATM back on little speakers in the summer of '03. When I expressed surprise that an Army major would like the band, he said, "Hey, I get my music from them, not my politics.")

5) Manowar shows up a lot. I'd never heard of them. "Hail & Kill" seems to be one of the more popular of their many hymns to bloodshed.

6) Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger" (You've heard this. You've just tried to forget it.)

7) Dope, "Die Motherfucker Die" ("Great when you have to bust wire," commented "Centurion").

8) Limp Bizkit, "Rollin'." What a cheeseball!

9) Stevie Ray Vaughan, "Voodoo Chile" (but only because it was in the soundtrack to "Black Hawk Down," a favorite of deployed soldiers).

10) The Hold Steady, "Stevie Nix" (But not their "Multitude of Casualties.")

Finally, here's an editorial from "Hunter," who listed a bunch of head-smashing music, but then 'fessed up that slow, reverb-heavy guitar is what helps him best prepare for combat:

All that said -- most of the time before I went out on mission I listened to the 'Twin Peaks theme' by Angelo Badalamenti at least three times (5:06 minutes long x 3 = 15-plus minutes). Why? Because at my rockbound highland home of USMA I was a participant in the Performance Enhancement Center where we learned relaxation techniques, imagery and mental skills -- these skills are now being fielded to the wider Army to deal with PTSD etc. The 'Twin Peaks' theme and some other astral music like Enya were used to assist us in relaxing when we were learning these techniques. In 15 minutes I can relax, rejuvenate and clear my head for the task at hand.

I found that rather than being revved up to go kill I needed just the opposite. I wanted and needed to relax, find that clear mental state and be ready to THINK… of course that was my job to do so… keep a cool head.

Over some beers last Friday evening, I got into a discussion of the best songs to listen to before going into battle.

I don't mean just favorite songs, but tunes you associate with actually preparing for or heading into combat. I think we could do another top 10 list here, and as a bonus, probably shock some people.

I said that I am not a particularly big Paul McCartney fan, but I liked to listen to "Let It Be" at 4:00 a.m. before covering something likely to be rough. But two combat vets in the conversation said, Tom, that's because you were not gearing up to pull the trigger. They were right: I was trying to calm down, focus, keep my perceptions clear -- it is always best as a reporter to have one eye hovering above, trying to look at the big picture. These guys, no spring chickens, immediately started talking AC/DC and other head-smasher bands in which the most important skill sometimes appeared to be the ability to toss around one's hair. Or yelling curses. (The preceding three links are pretty close to the song selection I heard in a Humvee in which I once hitched a ride across southern Baghdad with some scouts, I think from the 1st AD.)

So, for this narrow niche, what are your nominees for the Top 10 Best Songs for Going Into Combat? I mean, besides "Garry Owen," you guys.

I've just finished reading the quirky, tendentious, and enjoyable book The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom, by Adrian Lewis. It is just the type of book readers of this blog would enjoy, and would especially warm the pistons of Rubber Ducky's diesel-fueled heart. What's more, Lewis is a former enlisted man, and a big fan of light infantry. Here are some of his greatest hits:

On what Americans don't get about war: "Culturally, a professional or large standing Army is considered un-American. Culturally, all American men are capable of fighting a war. These cultural tenets are false, and based on a misreading of history. Thus, culturally, Americans have undervalued the country's combat soldiers, and failed to understand their significance in war." (25)

On Americans and modern weaponry: "Americans designed and purchased weapons systems to fight the war they wanted to fight, not the war they were most likely to fight." (186)

Tom: Read that one again. I really like it. It sounds simple, but it is worth asking of every single expensive weapons program we fund.

Read on

I was thinking about how the great but necessary leap in counterinsurgency is to arm the locals, even if the central government opposes it. Once you make them able to provide their own security, they can start making choices, and you can start thinking about leaving.

It occurred to be that this essential move can be summarized with two catchphrases of the 1960s: "power to the people" and "think globally, act locally." That made me wonder if other '60s phrases might also apply. Question authority? If it feels good, do it?