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The book presents a fictionalized portrait of the life of Miyamoto Musashi. It is an epic novel, exploring the development of many of the concepts and themes which Musashi codified at the end of his life in The Book of Five Rings.
In his decade at the FBI, Soufan developed an expertise in al-Qadea, investigating the Kenyan embassy bombing, Jordan millennium pole, attack on the USS Cole, and the September 11th attacks. The book is a history of al-Qaeda, beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as a memoir of the author’s experience investigating the organization. It is a well-written, intriguing read that offers a different insight into familiar stories. I was inspired to read it after subscribing to the The Soufan Group‘s daily IntelBriefs and have not been disappointed.
The CIA’s A Tradecraft Primer is a brief introduction to critical thinking and structured analysis. Its techniques are not limited to intelligence, but instead are applicable to any field where the bias of preconceived notions may cause harm. Its short length makes it a worthwhile read – I read it in a little over an hour while waiting for a plane – particularly as an adjunct to publications like Red Team Journal.
Shirley’s cyberpunk magnum opus tells the story of a private security company attempting to use the distraction of a third world war to impose fascism across the United States and Europe, and the guerrillas who resist them. Although first published in the 1980s, the omnibus edition was refreshed by the author for publication in 2012, which gives it the feel of taking place 20 minutes into the future.
In the novel plagues, sea level rise and the depletion of carbon fuel sources have altered the face of the planet. Biotech megacorps seek to hack together genetic information from what few crops remain in order build foods resistant to the new diseases and monopolize the calorie market. It’s a sort of agricultural cyberpunk. Like all good cyberpunk, it takes place in a familiar feeling future that may not be too far distant.
Ostensibly about the the making of the atomic bomb, Rhodes‘ book is a detailed history of physics from the late nineteenth century to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Kilcullen draws on his decades of experience in asymmetric warfare to develop his theory of fighting small wars in the midst of a big one and the failure of both classical counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency on the modern battlefield.
The local fighter is therefore often an accidental guerrilla – fighting us because we are in his space, not because he wishes to invade ours… he is engaged in “resistance” rather than “insurgency” and fights principally to be left alone.
…The dynamic interaction between the modern international system of nation-states (especially its self-appointed defender, the United States) and these two discrete but often interconnected and loosely cooperating classes of nonstate opponent – terrorist and guerrilla, postmodern and premodern, nihilist and traditionalist, deliberate and accidental – may be part of what gives todays’ “hybrid wars” much of their savagery and complexity.
More reminiscent of Count Zero than Pattern Recognition, The Peripheral is a return to Gibson’s cyberpunk of the previous century.
