Sunday, March 24, 2013

Nail your whispers to the wall...

So, I've been suffering through Air War College recently (suffering less because of the material and more because of the timelines and integrity-stealing loss of soul to which the associated incentive structure for correspondence PME has driven me), and ran across a nice speech/article from Admiral James Stavridis.

Not so very long ago, ADM Stavridis addressed the Class of 2012 at the National Defense University.  (The remarks he offered that day appeared as a JFQ article titled Read, Think, Write: Keys to 21st Century Leadership; an alternative version appeared as Read, Think, Write, and Publish in the Proceedings of the US Naval Institute.)  The advice he offered that day was simple and encapsulated by three words: read, think, and write.  Stavridis claims,
The quintessential skill of an officer[or, methinks, an analyst] is to bring order out of chaos. You have to be calm, smart, and willing to do the brain work; in the end, 21st-century security is about brain-on-brain warfare. We will succeed not only because we have more resources, or because our values are the best, or because we have the best demographics or geographic advantages—all of those things matter, of course. But in today's turbulent security environment, we will succeed and defeat our enemies by out-thinking them. To do that, and to be successful senior officers, you need to read, think, and write.
He then tells us our "reading should include not only history, politics, diplomacy, economics, and so forth, but also great fiction, books from distant cultures, and perhaps even a little poetry."  (I would add math and science to this list, because that's the kind of guy I am, and I've become a frequenter of several blogs.)  This reading will, one hopes, help us to "think our way to success in incredibly complex scenarios."  This is actually how I use most of my reading in the blog-sphere, to put me on a path to thinking about a particular problem or set me on the trail of suggested related reading.

It is the last of his injunctions, however, that challenged me very directly and led to my inflicting this post on all of you.  Satvridis argues that after we read and think we must write, since "it is essential for communicating what we have learned, as well as allowing others to challenge our views and make them stronger."  (This recalls a favorite quote of mine from Proverbs: "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpens thecountenance of his friend.")  He encourages us to "share our ideas in print--a scholarly journal, a military magazine, or even a blog post." 

I have been remiss in this regard.  I read much, think much (at least I hope it is thought), and write far too little.  Mooch has offered us this forum in which friends may nail their whispers to the wall (borrowing a lovely phrase from the Admiral), and where each may sharpen the countenance of the others.  It's almost as if this blog sprang into being from the tears of Admiral Stavridis.  Be not afraid, but I plan to avail myself of this forum far more in the future.

Merf