So little read...so much to say...

I didn't post on my reading in this space last year. I don't recall why. Perhaps it was laziness. Perhaps I'd had some of my illusions about the utility of what I tried to learn faced with an unpleasant reality. Perhaps I was simply tired. In any case, I look back at 2018 and see some things I wish I'd seen in 2019.

I can see reading in 2018 focused on the job I held at the time: learn as much as you can about a topic, get shifted to another project, and try again. That was...fun. I can see some effort at professional development. I can see a turn to the unexpected (and unpleasant) news of a new job on a new continent and an effort to wrestle with that new challenge. I also see some secondary passion, some general interest, and some frivolity.

It's odd to look back on 2018 (and previous years) in my reading and compare the effort and rationale to this year. The long commutes with time to read and reflect have been traded for longer hours with neither time to read nor reflect...for "reasons." (So. Many. Reasons.) The idea that a book I read might matter in how I perform by duties has been traded for the knowledge that this matters very little to anyone around or above me: "That's not your job."

So, I read a lot less this year than last.* In the end, that's not a tragedy. I read MUCH less that anyone might construe as having anything to do with my current assignment. That's a tragedy, I think...but I'm the only one. I read a great deal more poetry than in recent years, and that is NOT a tragedy. I read some fiction--both outstanding art and delightful pablum and at least one title combining the two--but I wonder at why in some cases. I read a few titles driven by my interest in Africa, an interest difficult to maintain in the face of circumstance; I regret none, and I wish I'd read more...but this is what the coming year is for. I read several books driven by a desire to understand the things I see and the places I go in the place I live; I've been lucky in those titles, and I hope to remain so as I frequent Amazon more often than I should...and less often than I'd like.

I wonder if I should weigh in on the best and worst of what I read this year, but in the aggregate I find myself thinking, "It depends." Some were extraordinary, and some were not...but opinions vary. Some were a waste...but might not be for someone else. From some I leaned more than expected...and others might learn nothing. Since I'm thinking about my reading and not reviewing books, I'll not weigh in on specific titles here. Maybe I'll do that elsewhere...and I'm happy to discuss....but not today.

In the end, this was a year too random, I think. (It didn't begin that way, but it and I were overcome.) There were gems, but they were uncovered as part of a drunkard's walk rather than a deliberate search. While there is something to be said for the former and the possibility of serendipity, room for serendipity doesn't make sense of the books I've read and the time I've spent.

The part of this year that raises the greatest distress: I've read some...I've thought a bit...and I've written nothing. (To be fair, some of the compensations in traveling Europe have been lovely.) Perhaps I had nothing to say...but in reading the things some think they have to say, this may be doing myself a disservice. Perhaps I focused more on others than on me...and that may be a good thing. Perhaps I lack the time...but this is the excuse too easy to offer. Perhaps I lack the discipline...and this is my new fear. The latter issues are to one degree or another within my control, however.

The secret to solving these problems of reading, thinking, and writing--if problems they are--may be in a simple commitment to writing. If the wish is to write, once must write. And if the wish is for direction; I hold with Scharnhorst:

"The drafting of a report reveals gaps in knowledge, whether in various disciplines, in presentation, or in language. The drafting of a short essay is sometimes more useful to the writer than the reading of a thick book. — These are known truths."

Looking back at the clumsiness of the preceding suggests that I need practice in the craft...and an editor. I can do better this coming year. It remains to be seen if I shall.

* A note on method is perhaps worthwhile. I include only those work read from end to end for the first time. I do not include books previously read, and I do not include those books I've "gutted," reading introductions and conclusions, extracting the minimum necessary content to place the work in a broader literature as fast as possible. I can do this, and I have done this; it's not wrong, but I'm doing a different kind of virtue signalling, I suppose. I also do not include audio books; that's a separate debate in which I don't intend to engage here.

"When I get a little money I buy books..."

For reasons I can't explain, I've been pondering Erasmus lately...

Read

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

This excerpt, even if the translation abuses the original text a bit, captures some of my own personal pathology when it comes to books. This year, though, the pathology showed an interesting pattern, with surges in subject matter…and a certain amount of consistency in the escape sought from those surges.

The last half of Air War College saw an emphasis on wargaming as I wrestled with the final paper for that program. This blended into reading on Africa as a supplement to and continuation of the Regional and Cultural Studies program in which I was lucky enough to take part. (I say luck because it was far from my first choice, but in retrospect I’m glad and grateful an accident placed me there.) I’ve tried to continue the latter study, but my success there has been mixed, in no small measure because of new surges driven by where I landed following War College, a job driven by surges of “learn all you can about a subject as fast as you can…then change subjects.” This job led from Scales on War—a terrible yet terribly effective book that has displaced Ghost Fleet in the position of worst piece of writing in my recent reading—and the problem of how the Department of Defense invests in close-combat capabilities for the infantry to a brief flirtation with logistics and a longer affair with surprise, revolution, and diffusion of technological, organizational, and social disruptions in the military sphere. Through all that I managed to sneak a few works of fiction—some candy, some extraordinary, and some both—a little (or more than a little) in the way of birding and birdy books, and a bit of serendipity—including the best book I read this year, Jill Lepore’s The Name of War.

In the end, the hit rate on good work was surprisingly high, with some truly fantastic books I’d happily read again or highly recommend to almost anyone (with the caveat that recommendations should always be personal and individual). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, Girl at War, The Name of War, Queen’s Play, and Weapon of Choice, for example, were extraordinary,

I was also lucky to waste time on only a few stinkers with insufficient redeeming value to outweigh the horrors perpetrated, books I’d recommend to no one or recommend only as negative examples– Blindside, Fighting Power, Scales on War, and The Seventh Sense fall into that category. With almost any book, I could find something to criticize, I suppose, but with these I can find almost nothing to praise. Four of fifty-two is a ratio I’ll accept, though.

Think

“Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.”

This, I fear, has been my lot this year, especially since leaving school. I’ve had—or I’ve made and taken—too little opportunity to reflect and to synthesize. I’ve read a great deal, but what have I made of that reading? I’ve been to Africa, moved across the country, begun a new job, suffered some setbacks, and been exposed to a host of new people and ideas…but what have I made of that? I’m possessed of a library of learned books, but what have I learned. Am I lacking in learning? I fear I am. To mangle Thoreau, I’ve eaten many meals at this table, but what have they made me? I’m not certain, and that troubles me. It seems every year I resolve to do better in this regard, to find some balance…and every year I disappoint myself. Perhaps the coming year will be different. Perhaps.

Write

“The desire to write grows with writing.”

Many were the things I wrote this year for school…but the plans to turn those items into publications never came to fruition. Many were the possibilities discussed for writing down ideas important and interesting…but those have yet to happen. Many were the projects proposed for collaboration with people smarter than I…but I’ve mostly let those people down. I did manage to close the read-think-write loop and turn two books read into books reviewed, one nonfiction and one fiction, but that somehow feels like failure. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. A bright spot was #ReadingWomen and the one thing I’m especially glad to have written this year. Now, though, I look at what I’ve read this year in that light, and I wonder if I learned anything at all. Alas.

Looking Ahead

I’m not sure I wish I’d read more, but I do have some regrets about what I read. I was not without thought, but I wish I’d spent more time in reflection than I did. And while I did a bit of worthwhile writing (and am rather pleased with the small part I played in #ReadingWomen), I did not do nearly as much as I expected or should.

Still, there is another year before me, and to borrow a bit of solace from a favorite literary character:

“Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?“

"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.

Seeking Truth

The last few posts I've penned for this forum (here and here) have danced around the edges--and occasionally jumped up and down on--the notion that we humans are flawed, cognitively compromised, and subject to some intrinsic constraints on our ability to see, understand, communicate, and act on the truth. Though this is not a new soapbox, I hadn't realized that this notion had taken over my writing and become as strident as it had. Then a good friend asked a simple question, and I found myself wrestling with the consequences of the human cognitive silliness on which I've been recently focused and what it means for truth in general and, perfectly apropos of this forum, truth in our analytic profession.

So, what poser did my wise friend propose? He offered three alternative positions based on the existence of truth and our ability to know it:

1. There is a truth and we can grow to understand it.
2. There is a truth and we cannot understand it.
3. There is no truth for us to understand.

(Technically, I suppose there is a fourth possibility--that there is no truth and we can grow to understand it--but this isn't a particularly useful alternative to consider. As a mathematician and pedant by training and inclination, though, it is difficult to not at least acknowledge this.) 

The question is then where I fall on this list of possibilities. It's an important question, if for no other reason than where we sit is where we stand, and it becomes difficult to hypocritical to conscientiously pursue an analytic profession if we believe either two or three is the case. Strangely, though, I found this a harder question to answer than perhaps I should have, but here is where I landed:

At least with respect to the human physical and social universes with which we contend, there is an objective truth that is in some sense knowable and we, finite and flawed as we are, can discover these truths via observation, experimentation, and analysis.

In retrospect, my position on this question should have been obvious. I've been making statements that human cognition is biased and flawed, averring that this is a truth, and I believe it to be one. We can observe any number of truths in the way humans and the universe we occupy behave. I find, on refection, though that there is a limit to this idea. Specifically, we can probably never know with precision the underlying mechanisms that produce the truths we observe. We may know that cognitive biases exist and we may be able to describe their tendencies, but (speaking charitably) we are unlikely to ever have an incontrovertible cause-and-effect model to allow us to interact with and influence these tendencies in a push-button way.

So, the trouble I have with truth is that we apply truth value to the explanatory models we create. Since these models are artificial creations and not the systems themselves they must, by definition, fail to represent the system perfectly. Newtonian theories of gravity based on mass give way to relativistic theories of gravity based on energy. In some ways one is better than the other, but neither is true in a deep sense. Our models are never true in the larger sense. They may constitute the best available model. They may be "true enough" or " right in all the ways that matter." But both of these conditions are mutable and context-dependent. In a sense, I find myself intellectually drawn to the notion that truth in the contexts that matter to us professionally is an inductive question and not a deductive one.

In the end, I'm actually encouraged by this reflection, though the conclusion that models are and must be inherently flawed results in some serious consternation for this mathematician (soothed only by the clarity with which mathematicians state and evaluate our axiomatic models). I understand better what I'm seeking. I understand better the limitations involved. And, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I am more convinced of the need to put our ideas out in the world. This reflection might never have taken place if not for Admiral Stavridis and his injunction to read, think, and write.

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.