2:41AM
These Are Books I Would Add To A SysAdmin Library
Friday, March 27, 2009 at 2:41AM Frequent contributor Louis Heberlein sent this email to Tom:
Dr. Barnett
Besides your Great Powers work,I think the following sources would be useful for background insights. I could write too much more.
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I. War Before Civilization by Lawrence H. Keeley
Web Site Reviews:
Applications Article Involving Such Insights.
The insights that were important for me:
- Tribal Elders were and are important to tribal leaders for their expanded historical and psychological perspective.
- They accepted the need for military capacity, and use when alternatives failed, or there were unexpected crises.
- Archeology (many cases of huge amounts of spent arrowheads around fabricated field fortifications) indicates there were some large battles, but tribal strategies sought/seek to turn away, absorb, or wear down a competitive force.
Their main priority was/is to preserve their military/working population and resources for the future.
- Tribal elders were aware of the PTSD type impact on warriors from large close conflicts, or continuous hit & run.
The impact degraded their ability to work with and help their families and communities. So the elders had forms of psychological social care to help the warriors recover. Perhaps they became the next generation of prudent elders.
II. The Global Village by Marshall McLuhan & Bruce R. Powers
The reminder insights that were important for me:
- The Greek/Western/American world's left brain analytical/quantitative intellectual tendency that has often become an unnoticed ideology, rather than a process to be used carefully when appropriate.
- We 'train' our New Core allies to talk and act like us in making observations and plans without realizing that neither they (nor we) are aware of the weaknesses from hidden assumptions and 'thinking in the box' rules.
- The Pentagon/Congress/Media establishments' use of computer generated charts and briefing slides inhibits them from discussions, let alone analyses/decisions outside the artificial box.
-
It is bad enough that we don't consider other cultures' (like Chinese)
perception of right brain influences on decisions/actions.
It is bad enough that we don't consider other cultures' (like Chinese)
perception of right brain influences on decisions/actions.
It
is even worse that we make so little effort to monitor the impact and
possible opportunities on our own 'invisible' right brain perceptions .... for which we often contrive an artificial left brain model and rule set.
is even worse that we make so little effort to monitor the impact and
possible opportunities on our own 'invisible' right brain perceptions .... for which we often contrive an artificial left brain model and rule set.
-
Too often it's the scam artists and consumer marketing crowd that
exploits right brain thinking, which undermines the legitimate use of those processes. (Information warfare is an exception to that remark)
Too often it's the scam artists and consumer marketing crowd that
exploits right brain thinking, which undermines the legitimate use of those processes. (Information warfare is an exception to that remark)
III. Perestroika For America by George C. Lodge
That was a business and economy predecessor to the type of transformation and rule sets covered in Great Powers.
IV. Growth and Development of Western Learning in Japan - Mainly from Dutch to English Studies-
by Ida Yoshiharu
V. Dutch Transfer Of Knowledge Through Deshima by A. Querido
VI. The Rise and Development of Dutch Learning (Rangaku) in Japan by Katagiri Kazuo
- These professional academic works involved the Dutch effort to help Japan modernize its economy, science and technology, and to understand the outside Western world.
- It was done very well, but there was an unintended consequence. The Dutch had lost business and two sea wars to England, and they were forced to become junior colonial and business partners to the English. Their frustration came through in their discussions and writings with the Japanese. The Japanese interpreted the dialogue to mean the 'bastard' American brats of the English would expand West, dominate their continent, and eventually move into Asia and threaten Japanese interests.
- So, for many decades the Japanese leaders and scholars monitored the Americans' wars, Westward expansion railroad and heavy industry developments. When TR first aided Japan in getting a positive 1905 peace after its conflict with Russia, it seemed we could be Asian partners. But domestic politics caused TR to force Japan to keep its workers from coming to America with the 1908 Gentlemen's Agreement. At the same time he sent his Great White Fleet of 16 battleships to open Japan, China and Asia to US businesses. That confirmed the Japanese insights gained centuries earlier from Dutch at Deshima.
Pearl Harbor eventually followed. There is little indication that America representatives knew, or cared, about Japanese right or left brain perspectives on past American actions. All that counted was the Great Powers competition of that time.
VII. Eisenhower: A Centennial Life by Michael R. Beschloss
VIII. John Foster Dulles: The Road To Power by Ronald W. Pruessen
IX. War or Peace by John Foster Dulles (1950)
- This was a Dulles who thought and promoted a transformed Great Powers and Rule Set for his time.
- Then in 1952 IKE made him his 'bad cop' to satisfy right wing momentum of the time while IKE played 'good cop' and back door invisible gamester to contain the Cold War.
X. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle For Power And Peace by Hans J. Morgenthau
- Individuals choose to subjugate themselves (or are subjugated) to a sovereign national authority.
- This loses much of their personal potential power to influence others. That lost quest is a basic human drive, like survival or reproduction.
- Peoples' fear of real or imagined threats to their (substituted) national sovereignty and power expression, particularly from a dominant power creates crisis reactions .... sometimes a defensive imperialism.
- Morgenthau asked statesmen to monitor the current power expression dialogue between a state, its citizens, and its neighbors.
- His Balance of Powers approach involved a designed mix of existing and emerging powers rather than a summation of the relative strengths of two major powers and their allies.
- There were shabby aspects to the power game, but we had to play it. We should do it maturely rather than seek quick, cheap advantages. He believed the game could provide a conditioning process that might lead to a form of international order to moderate or replace nation to nation power struggles.
XI. The Cold War Is Over by William G. Hyland
XII. Walter Lippman And The American Century by Ronald Steel
XIII. U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of The Republic by Walter Lippman
XIIV. The Cold War: A Study In U.S. Foreign Policy by Walter Lippman
- The Lippman books are useful at looking at 'what if' possibilities as we are involved in new power transformations.
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