A useful guide for anticipating the complexities of the modern battlefield.
A retired four-star Marine Corps general examines how wars can be lost before they’ve even begun.
In his latest collaboration with co-author Koltz (Leading the Charge: Leadership Lessons from the Battlefield to the Boardroom, 2009, etc.), Zinni brings his five decades of military experience to bear and draws on lessons from past wars to set out vital preconditions for successful military intervention. No matter the provocation for war, we must respond first with sound analysis. Intelligence experts must not only gather the pertinent data and define the problem, but also provide the context necessary for sound decision-making. Second, responsible executives must look at all the options, the policy implications and consequences of any decision. Here, styles may vary—Zinni cites Eisenhower and Truman as models—and depend on a variety of factors, but the president must find a way to fully comprehend the implications of any decision to use force. Third, we must design and implement a dynamic strategy that synchronizes the efforts of our political leadership, policy developers and operational commanders. Throughout, Zinni touches on a variety of topics: the critical role played by any secretary of defense (thumbs up for William Cohen, down for Donald Rumsfeld); the need for strong legal, ethical and moral grounds anchoring any narrative arguing for war; the fashioning of a military force adaptable to the mission; the proper role of contractors, the National Guard and Reserves; the necessity of meritocratic selection of combat leaders; the need for overhauling national security structures, some of which date back to the 1940s; the need to update our regional and global partnerships; and the importance of words and ideas, “the battle of the narrative,” to accomplishing our goals. If today’s wars too often “end” not in victory but instead with an exasperated, “How the hell did we get here?” it’s likely due to the fact that we have ignored too many of the issues Zinni raises.
A useful guide for anticipating the complexities of the modern battlefield.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-137-27938-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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