Three Good Reads

Here are three books I have recently finished and found interesting:

1) The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas P.M. Barnett (at Barnes & Noble). Checked it out from the library and after a few pages went out and bought my own copy so I could write notes in it. Professor Barnett doesn't waste your time getting to the point. If this book is not on the required reading list for all military and State Department types, it ought to be. Read it and your view of things like Bill Gertz recently offering up what might be the "old school's" latest effort to make China into current enemy #1 might change. While Dr. Barnett's "Leviathan" and "System Administrator" concept stir up some controversy, the "core" and "gap" idea is a brilliant insight.

2) Boyd The fighter pilot who changed the art of war by Robert Coram (at Barnes & Noble ). Fascinating look at the driven and complex man whose "... writings and theories on military strategy remain influential today, particularly his concept of the "OODA (Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action) Loop," which all the military services-and many business strategists-use to this day. Boyd also was a brash, combative, iconoclastic man, not above insulting his superiors at the Pentagon (both military and civilian); he made enemies (and fiercely loyal acolytes) everywhere he went." Pretty good look at how policy has to bubble up through all the gate keepers at the Pentagon, too.

3) Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of The Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson (at Barnes & Noble). Deep wreck divers as heroes- who'd have thunk it? I couldn't put this book down, If you've ever done any diving yourself, it probably makes the book even more interesting. Part detective story, part lunatic adventure and partly a story of very driven men who sought to honor some dead warriors by identifying a mystery submarine sunk off the coast of New Jersey ...

Thus endeth my book report.

Still working away at; The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy by Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills... (B&N here).