Don't forget...

... to check out the week five reading group. Not too much action yet. Anyone still in?

Comments

[Tom Mull]

I got way behind. I'm still on Chapter 4. =)

[Matthew Garcia]

One thing that I read very personally, based on my history of interaction with Tom (we began with an argument and quickly struck an accord of sorts, and I've appreciated every bit of it) was the last paragraph from the opener to Chapter 5. It's that part where he commands that "everyone and anyone who wants to make a difference should just go ahead and get his or her own foreign policy and stop waiting on change from above." That's pure TPMB gold, one of the commandments to be taken to heart and mind for every strategist in any field who is anywhere in a career that they care passionately about.

That said, Chapter 5 of GP was certainly on-target (as expected) but also an almost-too-large chunk of the several realignments, and in the most obscure component of Tom's grand strategic vision, to chew on. Really, despite Tom's singularly spectacular overview of American history in the previous chapters, how many of us can really claim to know, let alone understand, international diplomacy? And even those of us in the choir, enough to critically analyze the preacher? It was almost as if Tom was shooting for a thorough understanding of BFA in a single chapter...this one alone, with more complete background, could have been another volume in the TPMB oeuvre all to itself, different from BFA given the benefit of history and hindsight.

The historical analogy to Lincoln's team is certainly apropos, of course, and somewhat along those lines I have a few small reservations about the details that I'd rather post in the reading group comments than here on the outside.