Weekend Mashup

It’s been one month since the June 8^th launch of “It’s the Tribes, Stupid.” One month since I stepped into the blogosphere, sent my first “tweet” and was introduced to more sites, blogs, and social media participants than I knew existed. It has been a real education.

 As I move forward, every Friday I’d like to offer a mashup of what I’ve been introduced to and learned during the previous week. I’d like to see what you’ve learned too—spread the education wealth.

In this next week, please leave comments to this post with your suggestions of books, films, websites, blogs, “tweeters” or anyone/anything else that you’d like to throw into the mix, which will benefit continued learning overall. You can also send suggestions via Twitter, to @spressfield, or via Facebook.

This week, I’ll start with some of what I’ve been introduced to over the past month, which I hope you’ll check out, too.

 First there were the bloggers responding to the launch, such as Fabius Maximus and Zenpundit, who I wrote about in my post “What I’ve Learned About Blogging So Far.”

 In his post, Fabius Maximus specifically recommended “For a more sophisticated description of tribal societies” reading “Chapter One of Martin van Creveld’s magnum opus The Rise and Decline of the State An excerpt of Chapter One is available here. Hat tip to Fabius Maximus for the suggestion.

Another find was a report of the RAND-sponsored 1962 Counterinsurgency Symposium, featuring COIN leaders, such as David Galula. Says the report: “This April, 1962 symposium was held at a time when Kennedy Administration officials were focusing increasingly on the growing communist insurgency in Vietnam and on the verge of radically expanding the numbers, roles, and types of U.S. military forces in that country. The purpose of the symposium was to distill lessons and insights from past insurgent conflicts that might help to inform and shape the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and to foster the effective prosecution of other future counterinsurgency campaigns.” Sound familiar? What lessons have been learned?

 Reporting from Michael Yon brought to light the conflicts in the Philippines and the roles the tribal communities play there as well. “Until recently, Afghanistan was called ‘The Forgotten War,’” said Michael. “The dramatic domestic, regional, and international politics of the Iraq war largely eclipsed the fact that our people were fighting just as hard in Afghanistan. Although we’re paying attention to AfPak now, off the radar screen an important and related fight has been unfolding in the Philippines.” To read “Philippines: Some Notes, Thoughts, and Observations” visit here.

 Veteran newspaper journalist David Wood is now at Politics Daily. This week I read with interest, and concern, his article titled “New Offensive in Afghanistan Hampered by Shortages.”

 In days since the launch, I was reintroduced to Defense and the National Interest and introduced to Small Wars Journal (check out the forums), the Long War Journal, Instapundit, HG’s World, The Olympian, Information Dissemination, Black Five and Vote Vets. I found that some of these bloggers are friends, while other take turns calling names – above all, there is an interest in, and respect for, the troops. 

Along the way, I also met @tamij, a self-named “town crier” for #hhrs, and @actionkj, whose father served under Patton. Also met @overvision, who has the greatest “headshot”, and @ArmyMom101, who should win an award for the largest number of #followfriday tweets. Also received a Twitter tutorial from @radioblogger. The learning curve is steep!

 Above all, there is still more to learn, I know. I’ll share what I’ve found along the way, and hope you’ll do the same.