This past Friday marked eight years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Looking back over the last eight years, Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken” comes to mind:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

and sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

and looked down one as far as I could

to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged from 9/11—Iraq and Afghanistan—and we have traveled both. And from those two roads, strategies diverged, winding us so far down the roads, that it is hard to see that first fork.

At the end of “Road Not Taken,” Frost wrote:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference

Will there be a point when we say that we took the road that “has made all the difference?”

September 11, I posted a guest blog, from Michael Brandon McClellan, titled “Knowing When to Stop, or Learning how to Win?” It was written in response to George Will’s much-debated Washington Post op-ed “Time to get Out of Afghanistan.”

You should also check out General Charles Krulack’s much-discussed e-mail response to Will. The e-mail is posted on Small Wars Journal. Check out the e-mail, as well as Paul Yingling’s commentary, and the comments following it.

Fouad Ajami’s Wall Street Journal op-ed “9/11 and the ‘Good War’” also ran September 11^th. Ajami wrote:

The road that led to 9/11 was never a defining concern of President Barack Obama. But he returned to 9/11 as he sought to explain and defend the war in Afghanistan in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Ariz., on Aug. 17. “The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight and we won’t defeat it overnight, but we must never forget: This is not a war of choice; it is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda could plot to kill more Americans.”

 

This distinction between a war of choice (Iraq) and a war of necessity (Afghanistan) has become canonical to American liberalism. . . .

 

But it will not do to offer up 9/11 as a casus belli in Afghanistan while holding out the threat of legal retribution against the men and women in our intelligence services who carried out our wishes in that time of concern and peril. To begin with, a policy that falls back on 9/11 must proceed from a correct reading of the wellsprings of Islamist radicalism.

The day before, Stratfor ran the article “France, Germany, U.K.: Trading Troops for an Exit Strategy.” From the Summary of the article:

European leaders are considering an increase in troops to Afghanistan in anticipation of a future withdrawal and exit strategy. Leaders of the U.K, Germany and France hope to train up Afghans to fend for themselves as soon as possible. A meeting, dubbed the “exit strategy summit,” is planned for December to discuss Afghan issues.

At DODDBuzz, in his article “Worst Case Unfolding in Afghanistan?” Greg Grant asked:

What if the entire U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is based on a flawed premise?

He ends with:

The best chance for success in Afghanistan had been the hope of cleaving away parts of the population, the proverbial fence sitters, from the more extremist Quetta shura Taliban. That required the people buy in, on some level, to the Afghan central government. It’s difficult to see how that happens now given the results of the election.

Over at Foreign Policy, you’ll find “The Ultimate AfPak Reading List”, compiled by Peter Bergen. Bergen notes that the list is:

. . . an amalgamation of syllabi from classes I’ve taught at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. I’ve included a variety of reading, from books I’ve found particularly insightful on the topic to significant reporting on everything from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to al Qaeda’s media strategy.

Also over at Foreign Policy: The AfPak Channel. This is a special project of Foreign Policy and New America Foundation. Make sure you check out Artemy Kalinovsky’s article “Afghanistan is the New Afghanistan.” Kalinovsky wrote:

In a recent ForeignPolicy.com article, Thomas Johnson and Chris Mason argue that Afghanistan is the new Vietnam. They are right, but there is another historical parallel which is both more obvious and less discussed: the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan.

 

U.S. government officials have understandably avoided the comparison. For one, the United States supported the other side: Afghan “freedom fighters” who later became enemies. Further, the Soviets became bogged down in a costly and bloody decade-long quagmire before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ultimately pulled the plug and withdrew. Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan and its attempt to create a working central government in Kabul is broadly (if somewhat inaccurately) deemed a failure.

 

It’s a failure the United States apparently has no intention of repeating — to the extent that it doesn’t even seem to study it. The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual does not mention the Soviet experience once. One analyst told me that when she suggested including the conflict as a way to inform current policy, Pentagon officials seemed to have little awareness about what Moscow had been trying to do there or for how long.

With so many disagreeing over strategy, staying or leaving, the roads taken have become muddy, without a clear route moving forward, or a trail left from behind. What can be done now, to make all the difference?

The challenge for General McChrystal is creating a comprehensive and integrated strategy for Afghanistan out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of peoples, identities, and conflicts in the country.

This next quote from Sitaraman’s op-ed reminds me of the work of then-Captain Jim Gant and Captain Michael Harrison, which I wrote about in the post “Gifts of Honor: A Tale of Two Captains.” It takes getting to know people on a one-on-one basis. As Tom Daly wrote in his guest post “Lessons from Ramadi”—which Neptunus Lex also pointed out to his readers (Thanks, Lex!)—“step one is showing up.”

Paradoxically, the right strategy for the Afghan war is one that recognizes there can be no single strategy. To be sure, broad principles and strategic direction are absolutely necessary, but the strategy must be flexible and adaptive. It must recognize that what works in one province or district might not work in the next, and that some of the most important strategic decisions cannot be made by generals in Kabul or Washington, but only by the soldiers and civilians who are out in the villages.

About two weeks ago, Seth G. Jones made some of the same points in his Wall Street Journal op-ed “Going Local: The Key to Afghanistan—The U.S.’s strategy of building a centralized state is doomed to fail in a land of tribes:”

One of the biggest problems, however, is that since late 2001, the United States has crafted its Afghanistan strategy on a fatally flawed assumption: The recipe for stability is building a strong central government capable of establishing law and order in rural areas. This notion reflects a failure to grasp the local nature of Afghan politics.

When I started writing this blog, I came under fire for what some perceived as a lumping together of everyone in Afghanistan. Not the case or intention. My point has always been that the tribes should be worked with—understanding that each tribe and region is different. Jones adds:

Tribal, religious and other local leaders in Afghanistan best understand their community needs, but they are often under-resourced or intimidated by Taliban and other insurgents. This is where the Afghan and U.S. governments can help. A key starting point is security and justice. In some areas, local tribes and villages have already tried to resist the Taliban, but have been heavily outmatched. The solution should be obvious: They should be strongly supported.

This past Thursday, the elections in Afghanistan took place, and the following two quotes from the article “Of Afghan Warlords and Polling Places” (from Stratfor’s Geopolitical Diary) caught my eye:

What we have here is a clear indication that the underlying geopolitical nature of Afghanistan has not been altered by attempts to steer the country toward democratic politics. Political parties have not supplanted ethnic- and tribal-based warlordism. On the contrary, warlordism determines electoral outcomes. . . . 

 

 

Given the objectives of the Taliban, any political settlement would not come in the form of a democratic framework, and especially not Western-style democracy. Ironically, it is the politics of warlordism that could provide a framework for calming down the insurgency. A wedge will not be driven between pragmatic Taliban elements and the more hard-line ideological types because the pragmatists play by the rules of a Western-style political system; rather it would materialize as deals are cut with various Taliban commanders who would be willing to lay down arms in exchange for recognition of their domains of power.

Then there’s the report “Afghan Voters Defy the Taliban” from CBS’s “Washington Unplugged.”

The segment features John Nagl (Center for a New American Security) and T.X. Hammes (National Defense University). Afghanistan election talk aside, T.X. asked:

Are we destabilizing Pakistan? We’re driving the drug dealers out of Afghanistan. Where are they going? Are we destabilizing Pakistan? What is the impact on India? We’ve almost got this reversed. We’re all focused on Afghanistan, but the important players—India and Pakistan, and all the effort is focused on Afghanistan. . . . Is Afghanistan the right place? Would we be better spending a third as much money in Pakistan and working for Pakistani stability? And what’s the impact on India? Those are the bigger questions you have to answer.

This would be the never-ending-mashup if I tried to include everything from the past week, so I’ll leave you with just one more thing.

Among other things, this week marked the 40^th anniversary of Woodstock. The interviews and articles related to the anniversary vary, but overall, people seem to agree that we support our troops these days—Yellow ribbons, #militarymonday on Twitter, etc.

But I wonder if saying we support our troops really means we support our troops. How have we changed in the past 40 years? Some of us said we didn’t support the troops then, but we say we support our troops now? Is the change in just the wording? After Vietnam, veterans went untreated. Same story today. And within the services, there’s still a division over support of Reservists and National Guard members. Some have said they receive even less support.

Here’s a story of support in action that I really get. Michael Yon wrote it this week.

A gunshot ripped through the darkness and a young British soldier fell dying on FOB Jackson. I was just nearby talking on the satellite phone and saw the commotion. The soldier was taken to the medical tent and a helicopter lifted him to the excellent trauma center at Camp Bastion. That he made it to Camp Bastion alive dramatically improved his chances. But his life teetered and was in danger of slipping away. Making matters worse, the British medical system back in the United Kingdom did not possess the specialized gear needed to save his life. Americans had the right gear in Germany, and so the British soldier was put into the America system. 

 

British officers in his unit, 2 Rifles, wanted to track their man every step of the way, and to ensure that his family was informed and supported in this time of high stress. Yet having their soldier suddenly in the American system caused a temporary glitch in communications with folks in Germany. The British leadership in Sangin could have worked through the glitch within some hours, but that would have been hours wasted, and they wanted to know the status of their soldier now. So a British officer in Sangin – thinking creatively –asked if I knew any shortcuts to open communications. The right people were only an email away: Soldiers Angels. And so within about two minutes, these fingers typed an e-mail with this subject heading: CALLING ALL ANGELS. 

 

Soldiers’ Angels Shelle Michaels and MaryAnn Phillips moved into action. Day by day British officers mentioned how Soldiers Angels were proving to be incredibly helpful. The soldiers expressed deep and sincere appreciation. Yet again, the Angels arrived during a time of need.

There’s much more to this post, including information on Soldiers Angels, provided by Shelle Michaels. Please read it in full.

Now that’s support!

I did an online search for “the last days of the Taliban,” after running across this cover for Time magazine’s Dec. 17, 2001 edition. Hard to believe the cover ran in 2001. Here are a few other interesting reads from the past:

The Taliban and Afghanistan, Tony Karon, Time, 2001

 Taliban retreats from Afghan Capital, NewsHour “Extra” with Jim Lehrer, 2001

With Taliban as they prepare for the last stand, Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, 2001

The Taliban on the Run, Tim McGirk, Time, 2005

The Expansion of Talibanistan, Bill Roggio, Long Wars Journal, 2006

Afghan President Hamid Karzai did a few interviews with Time magazine. I read one from 2004 and another from 2008. Both are interesting. The following is a quote from Karzai’s 2004 interview. While reading this quote in particular, I found myself doublechecking the 2004 date posted online—could have run this year, five years later.

“The demands of the Afghans are very straightforward. They want disarmament and the removal of warlords, they want corruption to end, and they want the emergence of an efficient, streamlined, coherent government. And for that, we need reforms.”

More mashing of the past and the present:

RAND published an “Occasional Paper” titled “The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Counterinsurgency,” written by William Rosenau and Austin Long. Following is from the Paper’s Preface:

“Counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have reawakened official and analytical interest in the Phoenix Program. But Phoenix remains one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Vietnam War. Some believe it to have been devastatingly effective against the Viet Cong (VC), while others believe it to have been nothing more than an assassination program. This paper seeks to clarify what Phoenix was (and was not) while also attempting to determine what elements of Phoenix remain relevant to contemporary counterinsurgency.”

On to one of my favorite writers—Bing West.

The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by Bing, titled “How We’ll Win in Afghanistan.” Please read it in full, along with Julian Barnes’ Los Angeles Times article “U.S. commander in Afghanistan shifts focus to protecting people.”

This memo from Col. Timothy R. Reese was circulated last week. Michael Gordon wrote about it in his New York Times article “U.S. Advisor’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’.

Here’s another memo that Michael Gordon wrote about, with David Cloud, for the New York Times: “Rumsfeld memo Proposed ‘Major Adjustment’ in Iraq.” This one is from 2006.

In his CSIS (Center for Strategic & International Studies) report, “The Afghanistan Campaign: Can We Win?”, Anthony H Cordesman wrote:

“I believe that that the war can be won if the US and its allies act quickly and decisively by . . .”

Read the bullet that follow his above statement in the report.

Andrew Exum, Mr. Abu Muqawama, also with CNAS, just returned from Afghanistan. Check out his interview with Charlie Rose.

Other interesting viewing this week? Al Jazeera English reported about the Taliban’s “Code of Conduct Manual.” Following is from the report:

The book makes it clear that it is the duty of every fighter to win over the local population.

 

“The mujahideen have to behave well and show proper treatment to the nation, in order to bring the hearts of civilian Muslims closer to them.

 

“The mujahideen must avoid discrimination based on tribal roots, language or geographic background.”

Sounds a lot like our own strategy.

From Gina Cavallaro’s Army Times’ article titled “White House Confirms Medal of Honor“:

Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti, a fire support specialist who was killed June 21, 2006, in Afghanistan, will receive the Medal of Honor for his actions in combat.

 

The announcement was made by the White House in a news release Friday morning. The award will be presented to Monti’s parents in a Sept. 17 ceremony at the White House. . . .

 

He will become the sixth service member to receive the Medal of Honor during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the first soldier to receive the nation’s highest award for valor in Afghanistan. Navy Lt. Michael Murphy is the only other service member to have received the award for actions in Afghanistan.

  

All of the awards have been given posthumously.

Does anyone know why it took three years to make this announcement? A long time for families to wait . . .

Earlier this month, the Denver Post’s Captured photoblog ran a post titled Marines Pour into Afghanistan. I saw it for the first time this past week. Amazing. Please check out these images. And while you are there, you should look at some of the other entries, such as 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Moon Landing, which ran last week. There’s an older post, titled Five Years of War, too.

Now for some Rap and Foreign Policy . . .

National Public Radio’s (NPR) “Morning Edition” did a segment titled: “Rapper Feud Mirrors World Politics”:

Some of the greatest minds in national security have turned their attention to a classic problem: When there is one dominant power, the rest of the world tries to challenge it. That’s what happened to Britain in the 19th century and to the United States today. The same thing is happening in the world of rap.

 

“The way that rappers compete with each other — this is soft power,” says Marc Lynch, author of a recent article for Foreign Policy.com comparing world politics to rap feuds.

 

“This is the way you try and make a reputation, try and get what you want, and you have to do it through this very intricate series of alliances.”

This wasn’t the only pop culture reference of the week.

The New Republic’s “The Plank” featured a post by Michael Crowley, July 23, titled The ‘Pickup Basketball’ Theory of the Taliban. In the post, Crowley quotes Pakistan’s Daily Times:

Peaceful elements within the Taliban should be given a chance to cooperate with the government, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana said on Monday.

Crowley adds:

Negotiating with non-hard core Taliban elements seems like a good idea–so long as it doesn’t involve ceding large swaths of territory that are subjected to brutal Sharia law–and I’m surprised we haven’t seen more progress on that front. “Taliban,” after all, can mean a lot of different things–including young men who are little more than bored mercenaries. If one thing has defined warfare in Afghanistan these past 30 years, it flexible allegiances.

“Flexible allegiances.” Yes. That wraps-up what we’ve witnessed. Crowley offers a great pop-culture comparison, by providing this quote from Dexter Filkins’ The Forever War:

War in Afghanistan often seemed like a game of pickup basketball, a contest among friends, a tournament where you never knew which team you’d be on when the next game got under way. Shirts today, skins tomorrow. On Tuesday, you might be part of a fearsome Taliban regiment, running into a minefield. And on Wednesday you might be manning a checkpoint for some gang of the Northern Alliance. By Thursday you could be back with the Talibs again, holding up your Kalashnikov and promising to wage jihad forever. War was serious in Afghanistan, but not that serious. It was part of everyday life. It was a job. Only the civilians seemed to lose.

“Afghanistan women outraged at proposed family planning law,” is the name of an article by Janine di Giovanni, which ran in The Guardian:

The Shia Family Planning law was signed last March by President Hamid Karzai in an attempt, many believe, to appease powerful mullahs. The Afghan constitution allows Shias to have a separate family law from the Sunni majority based on traditional Shia jurisprudence, and some think the law is linked to the August elections and the Shia electorate who would have to abide by it (they could form up to 20% of the electorate).

Among other things, the law sanctions “marital rape and brought back Taliban-era restrictions on women. . .”

Following international outrage, Karzai backtracked and said the law would be reviewed. This month it was amended and re-signed by the president, but has not yet been ratified by parliament. Human rights groups say it is unclear how much the amendments have done to improve the law. And the law has already achieved its aim – instilling fear and insecurity among an already traumatised female population. . . .

Ruling by fear… Janine di Giovanni also notes:

Technically, women received the right to vote in the early 1960s, and everyone talks about Kabul in the 1970s, when women wore miniskirts and were the smartest ones in the medical schools. But Afghanistan is scarred by decades of war and occupation. The fact that a law like the family planning law could even be conceived in 2009 – even if it did come through Iranian-influenced radical mullahs as many believe – is surprising to most Afghans.

From mini-skirts and medical schools to madness . . .

A few of you have asked what books I’m reading. Most recently, @macengr at Twitter asked about the books I read while doing research for The Afghan Campaign.

The two primary books for The Afghan Campaign were the ancient texts by Arrian and Quintus Curtius.

Arrian: History of Alexander, Volumes 1 and 2 from the Loeb Library, Harvard University Press.

Quintus Curtius: History of Alexander, Volumes 1 and 2, also from the Loeb Library.

Another good translation of Arrian is from Penguin Classics (Aubrey de Selincourt). It’s the same book but titled The Campaigns of Alexander.

Of modern texts, the ones that really delivered paydirt were Robin Lane Fox’s Alexander the Great, J.F.C. Fuller’s The Generalship of Alexander the Great, N.G.L. Hammond’s Alexander the Great and The Genius of Alexander the Great.

My fave, just because it’s the geekiest, is a really obscure one–Donald W. Engels’ Alexander the Great and Logistics of the Macedonian Army. He gets into excruciating detail about how much weight a single mule could carry, how much barley could be harvested in April in Mesopotamia, etc. I love that stuff (and you’ll see a lot of it in The Afghan Campaign.)

What am I reading now? Just finished (for the second time) Sean Naylor’s Not A Good Day to Die. He is without a doubt the most under-rated military/historical writer today. I believe absolutely that, if he writes what he’s capable of writing, he’ll be the best military historian of his generation–and beyond that if he wants to go for it.

Speaking of writing. . . Started “Writing Wednesdays” this week. Thank you for your comments. More to come!

Please send me your comments for next week’s Mashup.

As I was about to close out this one, I saw a comment from “membrain.” The suggestion? Check out the blog Afghan Quest, “formerly Bill and Bob’s Excellent Afghan Adventure.” Thank you for pointing this out. I’ve seen “Bill and Bob’s” listed on a few blogrolls. The links never worked. Now I know why.  

Thank you for your Weekend Mashup suggestions.

A few of the blogs I’ve been introduced to this week include Global Guerrillas, Ink Spots, Sosh-P and Building Peace. When I saw T.X. Hammes mentioned in Building Peace’s July 13 post, I was sold. All four are great blogs. Suggest you visit if they are new to you.

Over at Small Wars Journal (SWJ), the announcement of an $8,000 Writing Competition was just posted:

“Winning entries and select others will be published in future special volumes of Small Wars Journal. For each of the two topics, a $3,000 Grand Prize and two $500 Honorable Mentions will be awarded. Hence $8,000 total purse.”

Check out the web site to learn more about the competition and the topics.

The SWJ editors note:

“We greatly respect the works and insights of the usual suspects from the many DoD-centric writing competitions and anticipate some great and hard-to-beat entries from them. We would really like to see some stiff competition from fresh new voices and experience sets not often heard. Please spread the good word about this competition to the far reaches of the empire of important participants in the vastly broad and complex field of small wars. This is a level playing field, and let’s get all the players on it.”

Another article from David Wood this week, titled “Happy Talk About War Doesn’t Fly With Troops on the Ground.” In it, he asks: 

“Should presidents and their administrations be relentless cheerleaders after they send young Americans into combat? Or should they risk losing public support by passing on the bad news from their commanders?”

Later in the article, David quotes Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson:

 “‘What we’ve said is . . . where we go, we stay; and where we stay, we hold; and where we hold, we build . . .’ Nicholson told reporters this week in a video teleconference from Afghanistan.

 

“‘I mean, I’m not going to sugarcoat it,’ the Marine commander added. ‘The fact of the matter is, we don’t have enough Afghan forces and I’d like more. Right now I’ve got 4,000 Marines in Helmand with about 600 . . . 650 Afghan forces. Imagine if I had 4,000 Marines with 4,000 Afghan forces!’”

I prefer the uncoated truth. You?

In his Washington Post article “A Fight for Ordinary Peace,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran also discusses Brig. Gen. Nicholson’s request for more troops:

“He has been promised more troops, but they will not start rolling in until next year. In the interim, he has asked his superiors for permission to arm young men and train them to serve as a local protection force. It is similar to the Sons of Iraq initiative the Marines created in Anbar that resulted in locals turning against foreign fighters in the group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 

“But senior commanders have shown no sign of approving the request. They feel Helmand has too many overlapping tribal rivalries. Arming groups of young men could exacerbate tensions and lead some factions to turn to the Taliban for protection.”

Back to the tribes. How do we work with them and encourage them to work together?

Foreign Affairs Magazine ran Eliot Cohen’s “What to Read on Fighting Insurgencies.” While you are checking out Foreign Affairs, also read Andrew Krepinevich’s article “The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets.”

On the blog Ghosts of Alexander, the question was asked: 

“During the Soviet-Afghan War, some prominent Afghan families strategically placed one son in the mujahideen and one son in the communist government (and perhaps sent off one son to get a spiffy professional education). Basically, ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ applied to your children. It says a lot about self-interest versus ideology.

 

“Who wrote about this? It was a rather small mention in a long article or book. I’m in the US without my books or notes and I’m trying to go off of memory. And it’s not working.

 

“Can anybody help on this one? I’m leaning towards someone who’s been writing for a while like Rubin, Dorronsoro or Roy…”

If you know the answer, post to his blog—or post here. I’d like to know the answer, too.

In a post earlier this week, I pulled a quote from the book In the Graveyard of Empires. Newsweek ran a Q&A with the author, titled The War Is Still Wide Open. Check it out.

On a lighter note, Books for Soldiers is another site I was introduced to, and I was reminded of the great series at the Pritzker Military Library. Watch some of their webcasts—or visit the library the next time you are in Chicago. Thank you for the reminder @CFOXTROT. Was also reminded of Thomas P.M. Barnett’s blog.

Over at Twitter . . . Was introduced to a number of fantastic photographers. There are two in particular that I’d like to point out. Please visit their sites and check out their work:

On Matt Brandon’s (@mattsahib) site The Digital Trekker, you can see his photography from around the world. Check out the picture of the young girl in “The Gujjars” section of the site. It reminds me of Steve Curry’s picture of the young girl from Afghanistan, which ran on the cover of National Geographic—but with less fear in the girl’s eyes this time.

David duChemin (@pixelatedimage) features his work on his site, Pixelated Images. Check out his work for World Vision in particular.

That’s it for this week.

Please continue sending your comments for next weeks Mashup.

Hat tips to “Wisner,” Gordon Daugherty, Andrew Lubin, “da kine,” “Kestrelrising,” Dom Santoleri, Morgan Atwood. I will continue checking out all of your suggestions. 

It’s been one month since the June 8^th launch of “It’s the Tribes, Stupid.” One month since I stepped into the blogosphere, sent my first “tweet” and was introduced to more sites, blogs, and social media participants than I knew existed. It has been a real education.

 As I move forward, every Friday I’d like to offer a mashup of what I’ve been introduced to and learned during the previous week. I’d like to see what you’ve learned too—spread the education wealth.

In this next week, please leave comments to this post with your suggestions of books, films, websites, blogs, “tweeters” or anyone/anything else that you’d like to throw into the mix, which will benefit continued learning overall. You can also send suggestions via Twitter, to @spressfield, or via Facebook.

This week, I’ll start with some of what I’ve been introduced to over the past month, which I hope you’ll check out, too.

 First there were the bloggers responding to the launch, such as Fabius Maximus and Zenpundit, who I wrote about in my post “What I’ve Learned About Blogging So Far.”

 In his post, Fabius Maximus specifically recommended “For a more sophisticated description of tribal societies” reading “Chapter One of Martin van Creveld’s magnum opus The Rise and Decline of the State An excerpt of Chapter One is available here. Hat tip to Fabius Maximus for the suggestion.

Another find was a report of the RAND-sponsored 1962 Counterinsurgency Symposium, featuring COIN leaders, such as David Galula. Says the report: “This April, 1962 symposium was held at a time when Kennedy Administration officials were focusing increasingly on the growing communist insurgency in Vietnam and on the verge of radically expanding the numbers, roles, and types of U.S. military forces in that country. The purpose of the symposium was to distill lessons and insights from past insurgent conflicts that might help to inform and shape the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and to foster the effective prosecution of other future counterinsurgency campaigns.” Sound familiar? What lessons have been learned?

 Reporting from Michael Yon brought to light the conflicts in the Philippines and the roles the tribal communities play there as well. “Until recently, Afghanistan was called ‘The Forgotten War,’” said Michael. “The dramatic domestic, regional, and international politics of the Iraq war largely eclipsed the fact that our people were fighting just as hard in Afghanistan. Although we’re paying attention to AfPak now, off the radar screen an important and related fight has been unfolding in the Philippines.” To read “Philippines: Some Notes, Thoughts, and Observations” visit here.

 Veteran newspaper journalist David Wood is now at Politics Daily. This week I read with interest, and concern, his article titled “New Offensive in Afghanistan Hampered by Shortages.”

 In days since the launch, I was reintroduced to Defense and the National Interest and introduced to Small Wars Journal (check out the forums), the Long War Journal, Instapundit, HG’s World, The Olympian, Information Dissemination, Black Five and Vote Vets. I found that some of these bloggers are friends, while other take turns calling names – above all, there is an interest in, and respect for, the troops. 

Along the way, I also met @tamij, a self-named “town crier” for #hhrs, and @actionkj, whose father served under Patton. Also met @overvision, who has the greatest “headshot”, and @ArmyMom101, who should win an award for the largest number of #followfriday tweets. Also received a Twitter tutorial from @radioblogger. The learning curve is steep!

 Above all, there is still more to learn, I know. I’ll share what I’ve found along the way, and hope you’ll do the same.