Arms and influence

Hornblower in space

I've been following a weird reading trajectory lately. Apparently, my need for escapism was a lot bigger than I expected, so I've been loading up on the sub-genre "military science fiction." Heeding Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap"), I've been careful to follow other people's recommendations. Thank the gods for the Internet. Sure, you can waste a lot of time on the Web, but other people can help you save a lot of time--such as time spent finding out what's really crap, and what's worth reading.

Since military SF is where my head has been lately, I thought I'd share some recommendations. Some are recent acquisitions; others are books that I read a long time ago. I'm not going to give you a mini-review of each book, but I will add a little information that might pinpoint something worth reading.

TOP PICKS
John Scalzi, the "Resurrected" series. A shotgun packed full of neat ideas. I won't give anything away--just read them.

Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers. One of the most misunderstood books ever. No, it's not a fascist tract, as some critics claim. Instead, it's a long musing on the meaning and importance of citizenship that's completely different, and better, than the silly movie "inspired" by the book.

Steakley, Armor. If Heinlein had dropped the political parable to focus more on the plot for its own sake, and if he had been a somewhat better writer, you'd end up with something like Armor. Same motif (ground-pounders versus aliens), different reasons for reading (a better escapist read).

David Feintuch, the "Hope" series. Very Hornblower-esque, in that the main character starts as a midshipman in a very Royal Navy-like setting. The characters and writing were good, and the situations stayed interesting until the last book or two, when the series lost steam.

Hook, the Human/Zor series. At first, I thought it would be another Hornblower retread. However, it turned into a weird but effective melange of space opera and alien mythology (!).

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War. Even if the author intended it to be a Vietnam metaphor, it doesn't quite read that way. On its own merits, it's a great book about soldiers getting more and more disconnected from the people they're defending.

Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game. I never liked the sequels, but the original is still a must-read book.

Frank Herbert, Dune. Of course it's a military SF book! Jihad, anyone?

WORTH READING
Walter Jon Williams, the "Empire's Fall" trilogy. Surprisingly prosaic space opera from one of the most imaginative writers around. Still worth reading, however, for the entertainment value.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote In God's Eye. A good novel about humans facing a potential alien enemy whom they really don't understand. Skip the excruciating sequel.

Various writers, the Man/Kzin wars collections. Several SF authors contributed to this series of short stories, all based on Larry Niven's "Known Space" setting, specifically on the bitter war between humans and the Kzinti.

Keith Laumer, the Bolo stories. If you put artificial intelligences inside heavily-armed robo-tanks, you know there's going to be trouble.

EH, MAYBE NOT
Campbell, the "Lost Fleet" series. I've read two of these recently. They're OK, but for "naval SF," the battles are surprisingly weak. Lots of scenes about how the hero is just plain amazing, even though he's amazingly humble. Too many borrowed ideas and motifs (fleet on the run remind you of anything?).

David Weber, the Honor Harrington series. The first couple of books were OK, but then they collapsed into tedious narratives, flat characters, and uninteresting political rants. Other people like 'em, but I just can't get into them.

HAVEN'T READ YET, SO CAN'T RECOMMEND
David Drake. I have one of the new collected Hammer's Slammers volumes on my shelf, begging for attention.

Lois McMaster Bujold, the Vorkosigan series. I read one of these volumes too long ago to remember the details, so it's almost as if I never read it at all!

Flag hags

Whether or not you support Obama as your candidate, you have to respect his response to the Great Flag Pin Non-Issue:

Far more notable is Barack Obama's response to these depressingly familiar attacks. In response, he's not scurrying around slapping flags all over himself or belting out the National Anthem, nor is he apologizing for not wearing lapels, nor is he defensively trying to prove that -- just like his Republican accusers -- he, too, is a patriot, honestly. He's not on the defensive at all.

Finally. It's not just years, but decades overdue for a prominent political leader to take exactly this stand.

One day during my high school years, I chose not to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. A daily compulsion to demonstrate my patriotism seemed wrong on the face of it. My fidelity to the United States, the republic for which the flag stands, should be assumed. The next day, I made the same choice. And you can guess what happened next.

The school was very uncomfortable with my stance. In only a day or two, nearly all my classmates and teachers knew I was the guy who wouldn't stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Because they had to enforce pledge-making every morning, teachers had, by and large, a bigger problem with my stance than my fellow students.

The more that people showed their discomfort with the exercise of my liberties, the more I dug in my heels. The situation escalated to the level where the principal felt he should have a talk with me. To his credit, the principal tried to persuade instead of threaten me.

Once it became clear that I wasn't driving other students to join the Communist Party, and the angry fist of God wasn't going to descend on our school, the controversy subsided--at which point, on a regular basis, I started saying the Pledge again.

My concerns about flag fetishism continue, however. Clearly, there are unscrupulous people who use the flag as a club against their political opponents. The non-existent flag burning crisis bullied its way onto political stage during every major election in which I've voted. There's only thing more appalling than the transparent cynicism behind these anti-flag burning campaigns: the non-response on the other side.

Rather than duck silly questions about the flag, political leaders of any real merit should face them head on. They're the easiest questions of principle to answer:

I choose whether or not to wear a flag pin. That choice is my right. That choice is what makes this country great. Your concern is, perhaps, better directed towards someone who wants to remove that choice.

I love the United States. A few weeks ago, when my daughter and I were driving around Washington, DC, I felt my heart skip a beat when we passed the the Jefferson Memorial, the Smithsonian, and the Washington Monument. Nobody can force you to have that feeling--and no one should ever try.

World of Spycraft, sort of

Yes, terrorist cells are very creative in their use of Internet and communications technology. That doesn't mean that Al Qaeda has infiltrated Azeroth:

Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence.

I really, really hope that this is just some cutesy disinformation campaign. Otherwise, someone in the US government needs to be slapped hard.

If terrorists are using Second Life and World of Warcraft to hook up, by all means, let them. Not only would they have to create accounts, using valid e-mail addresses, but in the case of WoW, terrorists have to give a credit card number, too. They'd have to connect to proprietary software to specialized servers, making anonymity and untraceability that plus harder. Downloading the bulky software needed to run these "massively multiplayer" games would add even more electronic breadcrumbs. Plus, game administrators regularly monitor what players are doing online.

Given how well they already use anonymous web sites, discussion forums, and instant messaging chat rooms, what would terrorist gain from Second Life or World of Warcraft that they don't have already? Here are a few ideas, which unlike the news story linked above, are not meant to be taken seriously:

• World of Warcraft guilds teach the value of cooperation. Why not form one and name it something like Jaish-e-Azeroth or The Orcish Fedayeen?
• On the other hand, disruptive, anti-social 10 year-olds can demonstrate techniques certain to disrupt any social order, even a fictional one populated by elves and dwarves.
• Taking a queue from Chinese entrepreneurs, terrorist organizations could raise money by selling magic weapons to other WoW players.
• Given the amount of flirtation, simulated sex, and billboard-sized porn in Second Life, jihadists could gird their loins against the temptations of Western culture through hours and hours of time online.

At least now, I have a better idea why this TSA employee is playing WoW.

Recycled weapons

Take a few minutes to read this Intel Dump post. It's the sort of informed, measured discussion of military affairs that's increasingly important during this election season.

Yes, American soldiers have recycled the enemy's weapons in every war they've fought. No, the frequency with which they're forced to do it in Afghanistan is not an excusable sign of "warfare as usual." Quite the opposite--it's yet another sign of how the war in Iraq has hurt the war in Afghanistan.

(Here's another piece of the story from ABC News.)

SOFs not being drawn down

Worth noting in discussions of withdrawing troops from Iraq: US special operations forces  (SOFs) are not part of that reduction. In fact, their numbers may be increasing.

That's good news, if the mix of forces in Iraq tilts more in the direction of the SOFs. While unconventional warfare as waged by the SOFs is not necessarily the same thing as counterinsurgency, the SOFs have a better track record of understanding and contributing to counterinsurgency campaigns than many conventional units.

Unfortunately, US troop levels will not return to pre-escalation levels. The numbers will still be 8,000 soldiers higher than in January 2007. The strain on the Army and Marines remains, as does the strategic vacuum at the theater level.

Responsibilities, not opportunities

Political events since the 2006 mid-term elections have played out in exactly the way I feared they might. Having taken control of Congress, the Democrats have done practically nothing to change the formula for fighting the war. Meanwhile, the presidential race has been a distraction, or worse, an excuse for delaying until 2009 what should have started in 2007 and 2008.

If, as the Democrats and Ron Paul have argued, the Bush Administration has broken laws and the Constitution, the other branches of government have a responsibility to respond. With Bush's personal approval rating at 19%, it's hard to argue that political realities stand in the way of discharging these responsibilities.

People won't stop dying, or having their bodies and psyches mangled, before January 2009.
However, Inauguration Day represents one important deadline. Either the Constitution is the final arbiter of American politics, or something else--perhaps the popularity of candidates--is. Therefore, in the face of any wrongdoing, the people who swear to protect the Constitution as that ultimate authority do not have the luxury of waiting until it is convenient to do so.

2008 may be an historic election.  If the first female or African-American president places a hand on a Bible and swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, it will be an open question exactly how much of the Constitution has survived the previous eight years.