Widening the Circle

My last entry made me wonder about something I've often seen Sven Ortmann bring up in Small Wars Council discussions and blog postings: the lack of attention to modern non-Anglophone foreign policy, geopolitical and military thinkers.

So a question to readers: which thinkers outside of the US-UK-AU group do you like and think deserve more attention from Anglophone audiences? A big plus if they're recent (e.g. post-70s).

In France, for example, I've often enjoyed the writings of Raymond Aron, Ferdinand Foch and Andre Beaufre. But I have no familiarity with any French geopolitical or military writers of the last twenty years.

Comments

[Steve Metz]

I don't know about specifics, but the most interesting, from a collective perspective, are those part of or affiliated with AQ and Hezbollah, the Chinese, particularly the "unrestricted warfare" idea, and the South Africans who have been at the cutting edge of operationalizing "human security." I wanted to get one of the co-authors of the "Unrestricted Warfare" to speak at the recent conference I organized on the changing meaning of war, but foundered on politics.

[A.E.]

Yeah, I've got the US Naval Institute Press compilations of jihadist writings and the JFCOM study of jihadist strategy. Dima Adamsky also came out with an interesting article in Studies and Conflict and Terrorism on "jihadist operational art" that John P. Sullivan and me are examining in a forthcoming piece.

If you can recommend any South African authors, that'd be greatly appreciated. It's a shame that the UW guys couldn't make it out too.

[morgan]

Architect of Global Jihad:The Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus'ab al-Suri by Brynjar Lia is an interesting read on possible future jihadi stategy. Devles into Louis Beam's leaderless resistence as a strategy for the jihadis to follow.

[A.E.]

I bought that for a friend, need to get that to read for myself.

[morgan]

Asked my South African contacts re: A.E. on South African authors, here is the first response list: From 30 Degrees South Publishers:
PJH Petter-Boyer: Winds of Destruction--Rhodesian Air Force [SA source comment: "Petter-Boyer knows what he is talking about. Lots about weapons and CAS]
Alexandre Binda: Masodja: Rhodesian African Rifles AAR
Alexandre Binda: The Saints: RLI [Rhodesian Light Infantry]
Anthea Jeffrey: People's War [source comment: "Heavy reading but the first book I'v ever seen that compares the ANC/MK struggle with that of the NLF (Viet Cong) in a cogent manner. A truly frightening account of what happened under our very noses and what we are still quite oblivious too. The ANC was, in this account, far more effective as an insurgent force than the SADF/SAP ever cared to admit then, and veterans might now."]
Adam and Steve, hope this helps a bit and I will keep after my South Africans.

[A.E.]

Thanks for the recs, that sounds fascinating.

[morgan]

I also suggest: The Secret War of the Selous Scouts by Peter Stiff; The Elite, by Barbara Cole; Counter-Strike from the Sky: The Rhodesia All-Arms Fireforce in the War in the Bush: 1974-1980 by J.R.T. Wood. [This is available in US via Amazon.com] The Wood book basically says the strateguc military goal of the Rhodesians was to fight the insurgents to a stand still in order for a political solution to be worked out. Given their manpower problems--too small a force to occupy terrirtory, their tactical solution was to hunt down insurgents and from that evolved fireforce and pseudo ops.--Selous Scouts.

By the way, the Jeffrey book is out of print so, like me, you'll have to run it down via a used book source. Strange as the book was released in February of this year. I'm going to ask my South Africans about this.

[A.E.]

I'm getting pretty used to scrounging for used books, haha.

[phil]

"New Security Strategy of Japan:
Multilayered and Cooperative Security Strategy"
by The Tokyo Foundation

PDF: http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/additional_info/New%20Security%20Strategy%20of%20Japan.pdf

[A.E.]

Thanks - I also recommend this book on Japan's grand strategy: http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4739

[phil]

Thanks for the recommendation-I've been looking for exactly this kind of book for a while now and have added it to my wish list.