"...they have made me."

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

As many do this time of year, I find myself reflecting on the past and contemplating the future. I reflect not to lament, but to understand how I came to be who I am and where I am, a product of where and who I was and the space between then and now. Like a sequence of meals I cannot remember and that individually did little but get me from day to day, the daily record has led me here. Where, though, will I steer the ship of personal growth next?

As Francis Bacon said, "Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." And this injunction to read, think, and write forms, as ever, the reflective rubric I use to help me make sense of it all.

Read

If there is one thing this year held for me, it was reading. At the close of last year, I said of my reading choices that "I wandered into wandering." I'd like to say I learned from that and my reading was broad by choice or as broad as I planned for it to be, but neither would be an accurate representation of the list below. In many ways, this remained a year of happenstance and wandering, at least until I arrived at Air War College where wandering ended and the study of "grand strategy" began. (I rather wish that six months in I had a definitive definition of grand strategy, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the notion that studying the history of grand strategy is and will likely remain semiological rather than onomasiological, to borrow a characterization from Lukas Milevski and a book that will show up in my list for next year.)

I worked hard to allow a little whimsy, though, hearing the ever-wise Francis Bacon whispering in my ear that sometimes "studies serve for delight," and I was surprised to discover as a result a book that made me laugh out loud (and, as a staff officer and strategist, occasionally wish to weep) in Alex Finley's Victor in the Rubble. And when in doubt as to what might amuse, interest, or help you find your center, even if only for a few hundred pages, always trust the friends who know you best. That led me to some brilliant fiction in authors such as Dorothy Dunnett and Sigrid Undset. That success was balanced by some poor decisions on my part, though--I have no idea what possessed me to pick up Dan Brown's Inferno in an airport and then foolishly fail to put it aside when I realized what a mistake I'd made. Then there was the Air War College, with it's highlights and lowlights.

In the end, I read a lot that was new to me. (I'm aware that I've not read as much as many others, but treating this problem of growth as a competition seems silly at best and dangerous at worst, so I try to measure myself against others only by height, as the immortal Ty Webb once said). As I hoped, I read some fiction, some poetry, and some things that just happened upon me; I read instrumentally; I read because it was assigned; and I read for no reason at all. I read innumerable draft articles for The Strategy Bridge. (That's an exaggeration, of course. I suppose there were something like 300 articles and reviews in that reading and a handful of references/citations for each article. The same might be said for Air War College, with the articles and supplemental reading that have gone into it.) The bottom line is clear, though. I read a lot. It feels somehow as if it wasn't enough, though, and in many ways it feels as if it wasn't the right reading. But, since I don't really know what the right reading was, perhaps I'm simply restless in my search to know all of the things. And like the meals I can't remember, these books are now a part of me.

Think

Reading is easy. Making sense of the reading we do--or anything we do--is hard. It is in the latter sense that I feel a certain despondence. Some of the books I read were great. Many were good. A few were a waste. At least none were Ghost Fleet, though. (The Dan Brown nonsense I picked up in an airport came within a nose, but I just can't give it pride of position.)

"The Thinker," Auguste Rodin

But it is in this area that I feel the greatest loss this year. Whether it was command, a move, or a schedule enforced by curriculum and unsupported by discourse demanding thought, I wrestled with daily worry, and I wrestle in retrospect, over the possibility that I failed to think. I fear that I failed to ponder. I fear that I failed to evaluate and incorporate the new knowledge I absorbed so as to grow and move forward (or move at all). Again, it is Bacon whispering in my ear. I can hear his voice, or the voice I imagine, saying, "To spend too much time in studies is sloth." Is that what this year has been, despite my best intentions? I fear it is so, at least if judged in the context of deliberate personal development. The failure here is mine, I suppose. I'm surrounded by iron with which to sharpen my countenance, and if I've not availed myself of that, I have no one to blame but myself.

For at least a part of 2017, the menu of reading, writing, and thinking  was single-minded and exogenously imposed, but I once again find myself hoping for room and committed to strategy in my approach to growth...and to a bit less time with my head down, a bit more time eyes open and looking around.

Write

If I thought too little this year, I wrote less. I wasn't absent from the world of productive letters, of course. (At least I hope I put those letters together productively.) For example, I produced a review of George Kennan's American Diplomacy that doesn't make me shiver with horror--though I wish I'd read Gaddis before writing the review. Mentioning this short review does raise the spectre of reviews I could and should have written, though. Alas. But I also collaborated on an article addressing a critical issue associated with an historic decision to open ground combat career fields to women. I wrote an introduction to a book of poetry of which I am proud (and tickled because of the books it led me to read, in particular The Holy or the Broken and The Hatred of Poetry). And, feeling an absence of thought and writing to create some coherence from my reading, I placed a special emphasis on recording something--anything--for each work I read. I imposed on my friends in creating some degree of Bacon's readiness and exactness from the tools and time available.

The résumé above left me in momentary despair as I wrote it, and I even felt a kind of upset at having intruded on my friends with my continuing experiment in Facebook micro-blogging. (I don't feel enough upset to cease and desist, though, and for that I apologize in advance for 2017.)

Then I considered all the things others wrote of which I am a part, from which I will never derive nor seek credit, and yet through which I have this year made a difference in the lives of individuals and shaped, in some small way, the verses of the powerful play. Even if the verse isn't mine, I've learned--internalized in an indelible and powerful way--that helping someone to contribute their own is a contribution that leaves me genuinely fulfilled. This is the thing I love most about my involvement with the evolving and powerful project that is The Strategy Bridge.

Next

Last year I lamented a lack of balance. In some ways I've remedied that; in others I've lapsed. Balance, indeed, but not the balance for which I'd hoped. We all have our windmills, but I hope for a new balance in my reading, thinking, and writing...and in relationships with the people who make it possible for me to read, think, and write.

"Look homeward angel, now..."

Look homeward angel now, and melt with ruth.
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
-- John Milton, "Lycidas" (163-164)

John Milton

These lines from John Milton's poem "Lycidas" are really about the death of his friend, Edward King, who drowned in a shipwreck off the coast of Wales in 1637. But somehow, these words never carry that meaning for me. I find in them an injunction to look to the past, perhaps with sadness, and then to have my eyes and attention turned forward to a destination. They always come to me this time of year. I'm not a maker of resolutions, but I do believe in reflection and in resolve. So, those of you unlucky enough to be reading this can thank Milton.

I've been thinking a bit recently about balance and objectives. How and why this came up--other than poor Lycidas and the season--isn't important, but these thoughts turned to considering what I read and wrote this year and why. For context, though, let me go back a bit further.

Read

In 2013, I was preparing preparing myself for an unscheduled trip to Afghanistan, and as I departed learned I would take command of a squadron not long after my return. Suddenly, my reading took an instrumental turn unlike any I'd experienced since graduate school. I built for myself a plan of study that alternated deliberately between the recent and distant history of Central Asia (especially but not exclusively Afghanistan), theoretical and practical examinations of international relations and of warfare (especially counterinsurgency and "small wars"), and works on leadership. After my return from Afghanistan in 2014, the second category transformed itself a bit, and I took an interest in country studies more generally--and found an oddly special affinity for sub-Saharan Africa--but the instrumental, objective-oriented intent remained the same. So what changed in 2015?

I can't put my finger on a specific reason--perhaps I was tired or lost or seeking something--but my reading habits changed dramatically this last year. I wandered into wandering from title to title and from topic to topic with no real objective in mind. Sometimes the titles were suggested by friends. Sometimes they were the hot read of the day (my disastrous run-in with Ghost Fleet happened thus). Sometimes they were books sitting on my shelf not yet read that, on unpacking, found themselves at the top of the pile. So, in the order I read them (and not including sources such as The Strategy Bridge, From the Green Notebook, WarCouncil--now the Modern War Institute--articles ad nauseum, and a good deal of random poetry), this was my year in books:

Think

Making such a list is easy, not least because the list is short, but thinking about it is much more complicated. By and large, I don't feel my time was wasted--not even by Ghost Fleet, for reasons that will become clear in a moment, though it is perhaps the worst book I've read in many years. I learned some things about my profession, the history of conflict and the protagonists in a region that remains a hotbed of unrest, the life and work of perhaps the greatest Western theorist of war, the utility of fiction as a mirror for understanding culture, and the international system. I even set aside a bit of time for fiction...and flat enjoyed The Martian as much as any work of fiction I've read in years.

Melancholia I, Albrecht Durer

What I feel I didn't do was enough. I didn't work hard enough at my profession--which at this point has become leadership. I feel that failure keenly, and I owe the people who work for me more. I didn't work hard enough at finding my place in the world. I feel that failure keenly, and I owe myself and my family more. I didn't work hard enough at strategy, the game I'll be playing when, inevitably, they take my squadron from me. I feel that failure keenly, and fear what it means for my nation and what I will have to offer when called. And I feel the length of the list. I have many excuses and a few good reasons, but I can be better and do more...and I can do more with better balance.

Perhaps the single-minded objectives of 2013 and 2014 were a bit much, and perhaps I need to leave room for wonder and serendipity, and I CERTAINLY need to leave room for poetry and for fiction...but perhaps a bit more strategy in my approach is in order.

Write

I set myself an objective to write much more this year than the last and to explore the possibilities of "new" media--that is, publication outside the rigidly academic world in which I've spent much of my life (and new to me because I'm a bit of a Luddite). I'm not built for positive self-reflection, so I'll say I might have done more and done better...but I've also done more than I thought I could.

In this space I've spent a great deal of time exploring the history and philosophy of my profession as a mathematician and analyst, the dangers of data-driven decisions (a concept anathema to someone in my profession), wondering aloud at the possibilities of the truth we seek (and this space extols), the utility of social media (a utility it has taken me a LONG time to understand), and more. The hours I regretted reading Ghost Fleet turned into a review for The Strategy Bridge, a few more articles/posts/essays of which I'm pretty proud (this is my favorite)...and a relationship with a group of men whose company I'm proud to keep and with whom I'm proud to tilt at windmills while we change the world.

This year has also seen some fascinating things on Twitter (a forum I don't understand or like, but whose utility I appreciate) as well as the continuation of an experiment in micro-blogging on Facebook that has brought many surprises and much satisfaction--and some epic arguments with much-loved friends on a myriad of topics, to my great benefit. And all of this brought to me new acquaintances, new friends, and new possibilities.

Next

There are plans aplenty, some already afoot, to learn and apply the lessons of 2015, but I'll reflect on those in about 366 days.

Belief, Dissonance, and Difficulty in Analysis

René Descartes

In a recent conversation on The Constant Strategist, an acquaintance offered the insightful observation that a lot of reading is really important, but a little reading is actually harmful as people may be taken with the belief that the one book they've read on a subject is the last word rather than what should be the first word on the subject. In this case, the particular subject was the importance of cultural and contextual understanding as an important (if not necessary) prerequisite for effective strategic engagement with another society or nation. But this thought led to a broader reflection on the theory of knowledge (or at least one aspect of the theory of knowledge), cognitive dissonance (with all its myriad side effects), and what these two things mean for analysts.

Baruch Spinoza

Several years ago, I first read a marvelous paper by Daniel Gilbert titled "How Mental Systems Believe" (that you can find online here). The gist of this article is a contrast between theories of learning described by René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza. In a nutshell, Descartes believed that one must first comprehend an idea before one can assess the truth of that idea. In other words, "comprehension precedes and is separate from assessment." Spinoza, on the other hand, dismissed the Cartesian distinction between comprehension and assessment, arguing "that to comprehend a proposition, a person had to implicitly accept that proposition." Only once an idea has been comprehended and believed is it possible to engage in a secondary and effortful process to either certify the idea as true or actively reject its truth. The evidence presented by Gilbert suggests that human beings are, for any number of reasons, Spinozan systems rather than Cartesian systems (or, at the very least are not Cartesian and may be some other type of system in which acceptance is psychologically prior to rejection).

This is all very interesting, but why does it matter? Perhaps the most important answer to that question is an oddity of human cognition commonly known as cognitive dissonance, the mental stress that results from holding "two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time or" confronting "new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values." How do humans respond to cognitive dissonance? Robert Jervis has a good deal to say on the effects of cognitive dissonance in the milieu of international relations, noting that dissonance "will motivate the person to try to reduce dissonance and achieve consonance" and "in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance" so that "after making a decision, the person not only will downgrade or misinterpret discrepant information but will also avoid it and seek consonant information." This gives us such favorite phenomena as the Dunning-Kruger Effect (where the uninformed and unskilled rate their knowledge higher than is objectively accurate), the Backfire Effect (where in the face of contradictory evidence beliefs get stronger rather than weaker), and oh-so-many-more. So, if we must accept as true a concept if we are to understand it, as Spinoza indicates, subsequent rejection of the newly-learned concept is not just effortful but in some sense super-human. This means that reading more may not be useful, and for an inveterate reader this is disheartening. But ...

In another recent post, I raised the idea (shamelessly copied from an analyst far more insightful than I) that the essence of the analysis profession is to understand things and explain them to others. If the very act of learning and understanding drives us to error, though, what are we to do? Does this mean we should throw up our hands and abandon the search for truth? Of course not. But when my acquaintance suggested that we read more, he was only half right. We must absolutely read and study more. But we must also:

• Actively seek out positions different from our own. This includes red-teaming ourselves and exploring the results if each, every, and any combination of our assumptions are wrong. Since, by definition, each assumption we make must be necessary for planning or analysis, changes in those assumptions should change our analysis (else we would state them as facts and not assumptions) and generate a better view of the decision space.
• Train our analysts (and ourselves) as early and as constantly as possible that the mental models we have of the world are themselves assumptions, and then refer to the previous point. This should go a long way toward mitigating the Law of the Instrument (when I have a hammer, problems seem to resemble nails).
  
• Take nothing personally in the search for truth on which no one among us has a monopoly. 

There are probably other things to do, but this seems a good start. The natural question, then, is how we go about doing these things. One answer is simple, but (to shamelessly appeal to the authority of Dead Carl), "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult." 

I submit that the first, second, and third steps in this journey of a thousand steps are, in the words of a favorite maxim from ADM Stavridis, to read, think, and write. Reading widely brings us new ideas, providing new positions, information, and perspectives (if we consciously seek non-confirmatory writings). Thinking is all about taking in the new information and new models, acting on the assumption that our own might be wrong, and looking for new and informative results. Writing facilitates both of these by putting our thoughts out in the world where they are subject to criticism from those not subject to our own biases, and it is these contradictory views we must learn to cherish since it it easy to find agreement (via confirmation biases if in no other way) but hard to find and use constructive disagreement. Public writing is a way (though not the only way) to find this input. (A disciplined red team can do so as well, as can other well meaning and trusted colleagues.) The final injunction, to take nothing personally, is important. This is an iterative process. If we read, think, and write we start on the right (write?) path, but if we then allow offense to drive use from the debate we will lose the gains we seek and must have.

Vincit omnia veritas ... but analytic truth is first a foe to conquer.

Know your history ...

A friend who knows my leanings toward math and statistics -- and who understands my professional inclination to read, study, and apply them to military problems -- recently sent me a link to a wonderful article from The Economist, "They also served: How statisticians changed the war, and the war changed statistics."

Aside from the laudatory mention of George Box, whose assertion that "all models are wrong, but some are useful" has done more damage to the profession than any other single statement, this should be essential reading for the members of our smallish profession. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least two other works (other than the marvelous titles already described on this blog as "essential reading" and "books of interest") that should be part of our essential education as military analysts:

The Science of Bombing: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command by Randall T. Wakelam. Much of our professional identity as a community comes from the mythology of operations (or Operational) Research and its application to the problem of civilizational survival in the Second World War. It seems a good idea to read the actual history of the people, techniques, politics, decisions, and decision makers involved in that history.

Thinking About America's Defense: An Analytical Memoir by Glenn A. Kent, David Ochmanek, Michael Spirtas, and Bruce R. Pirnie. Whether it's the mathematical techniques, the influence of political/historical context on problems of interest, or something more personal, this is an important work for military (especially Air Force) analysts.

There are more, of course. It's hard to tell what the next problem posed to a military analyst will be, so our educations must be necessarily broad. The study of mathematics, statistics, PPBE, doctrine, military history, international relations, leadership, management, theories of innovation, etc., are all important. In this case, though, the question is about the central and defining history of our communal story, our mythology.

What else should we read?