BFA V. BNW

(Blueprint For Action and Brave New War)

Okay. I've got both books in the can, and, to be honest, I don't see much of a difference. But then I don't have to. I get to consume both ideas, and use them as I will.

Key:

Both Barnett and Robb are champions of the minimalist rule set.

Both see jihad, and the jihad after next, as, well, dicks.

Both are pro-globalization with it's attendant disruptions and counterbalancing benefits.

Both offer solutions. Neither shrink from the task ahead.

I look at it this way: Barnett says we need to increase community policing efforts, passing property tax bonds to accomplish the task. Robb says we need to teach the dog to field strip an M4 Carbine.

Which one is right? Ask me in fifteen to twenty years (I'm lazy). My take away is that there's elements of truth in both approaches. Barnett is what we need to get off our ass and do, whereas Robb is what we may be kicked of our ass to go do. I don't see the nation state as the end all be all, and I don't see it withering on the vine. To many choices, and interest, involved.

We're at a fork in the road, and Barnett and Robb offer a road to travel. By action or inaction, we will choose.

(Note: this post makes no sense without reading both, great, books)

UPDATE: I'm adding this a few minutes on, but it's a separate thought, hence the "update" tag. Ultimately, for me, this is about killing a "way of war," one that exists outside the law. The varying forms of collectivisms, and their current birth child, islamism, exists outside the law of war. I mean, come on, we've seen the pictures of bloated bodies stuffed in oil barrels, the boneless face of suicide bombers, the tattered flesh of the sthondat's victims. Right? War inside the law is bad. War outside the law is beyond human comprehension. And yet, we see it everyday.

War outside the law is not Sparta. It.Is.Madness.