Customer Reviews

The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Battle for Peace is a short book with big print, but it's the content that counts. And General Zinni provides a compelling case for changes in our diplomacy, military, organizational structure, and decision-making, and actions.

The general tells us that most of our structures such as FBI and CIA and Homeland Security are based on a WW II model that worked well against belligerant states, but is ineffective against NGO's or non-governmental organizations. For this, Zinni says that we must restructure and share information rather than fight turf wars within our governmental agencies. He provides numerous examples of how this might succeed.

General Zinni also sees a different role for the military which is also based on a WW II model of battalions, squadrons and air wings built to fight conventional forces of nation states. He sees the military becoming more involved in attempting to understand the history, culture, geography, and "material traits" of societies who are our potential enemies--or allies. By doing this, the general contends, our military will win the battles for peace rather than have to win a battle of war.

Using his model he compares the actions of the Bush administration's policies and diplomacy. Without rancor, but lacking in subtlty, he is critical of the administration's policy, planning, lack of containment and stabilization, and doctored intelligence.

In reviewing this easy-to-understand primer of international relations and diplomacy, it was difficult not to make comparisons with other books I've read where "Americanist" authors ridiculed the third world as the "turd world," or the author who suggested that we "convert all the Muslims to Christianity," or the one who wants us delivered from evil. The scholarship between Zinni and these authors I have alluded to is breathtakingly wide. Next to his thinking, their pronouncements seem childish, even a bit zanny compared to Zinni. (Sorry.) And none of these authors can resort to name-calling or questioning the patriotism of a general who is highly decorated, achieved four stars in a rank-stingy service, and has more time in the "chow line" than all of them put together have in the military, which is zero.

General Zinni is crystal clear that his understanding for his potential or actual enemies is not an appeasement. "That is not to say that knowing is forgiving. I don't buy that fallacy. Understanding may bring revulsion, and contempt. Knowing evil doesn't make evil less evil. Sitting down at a table with insurgents doesn't gurarantee my sympathy for them or for their cause. Some of them perform acts that we can never accept. Some evil is absolute; it puts the evildoer beyond the pale. We absolutely can't deal with some people."

In order to survive and lead, we must revise our infrastructure, share information laterally, eliminate "stovepipe" or top-down structures, understand our allies and enemies, negotiate, assist, plan, listen, learn about other cultures, and attack instability whereever it appears. This, Zinni contends will benefit all Americans at home. He also believes that truth, justice, and the American way are good for Americans. But the American way is not the way for everybody. Some will not embrace a democratic form of government.

Too bad no one read this book before we jumped into Iraq. Maybe we would have learned something more profound than that our enemies hate us because they hate our freedoms.

Maybe it's time we start to think outside the box.

Zinni, whose credentials are impeccable, clearly describes how not conduct foreign policy. Taking his oath of service, even though he is retired, seriously, he does not come out and openly critisize the Bush administraion, even though the implications are there. This might irk some opponens of the present Bush doctrine, but it also gives the book credence, and does not alienate Bush supporters. Zinni does not call for anything radical anyway, he just calls for moderation, consideration and proper planning. In many ways the situation the US is in today is very similar to situation the UK found itself in the nineteenth century. The British Empire was not planned - suddenly the Brits found themselves involved in all corners of the world fighting enemies, protecting allies, spreading Christianity, internal policing and taking themselves whereever business opportunities took them. Their technological superiority very soon made them end up with colonies in places they had never dreamt of! A situation very similar to the one US finds itself in today in the post-cold war era. This is one of the first US books that I know of that actually acknowledge this fact, British historians have pointed out this long ago, and urges the administration to tread carefully: too many Iraqs and to much unilateralism will not help the situation, and it can quickly spiral out of control. If there is a weakness in the book it is that he does not clearly address the complex issue of big oil, neocons, and evangelicals, and their influence on the US foreign policy.
I was impressed by Zinni on Jon Stewart, how he refused to be goaded by Stewar and kept his integrity at all times.

Zinni (with Koltz) surprised me with this read. I had not expected him to be so open-minded and practical in his approach. Instead of pointing fingers (no more than 3 or 4 times) without offering solutions, here he IS offering solutions, and not half-hearted or vague ones, but well thought-out and capable ones.

In the beginning I was a little thrown off by some parts that seem to say "Hey look at me, I, Zinni, am great, I did this and that", but it does relay to the casual reader his credentials and knowledge on what he's writing.

His focus is more on global policy, with some changes (although not small) to some of the departmental structuring in the American government. Some topics he tackles are the "Stove Pipe Effect " (no cross-talk between intelligence agencies, leaving us blind-sided), moving away from the Cold War-Era military framework, and the ignorance to any REAL civic response to global crisis.

Worth reading, for anyone and everyone that believes America needs to adapt. Written without partisanship or superfluous chatter.

Even though Tom Clancy is a top-notch military historians, I found his forward to be completely unnecessary, why would he need that extra credibility? Should be apparent by his (Zinni's) roles and experience.

I was initially inclined to give this book four stars because it does not "name names" and have footnotes or a bibliography, but as I got deeper into the book I realized that what Tony Zinni has produced is a world-saving "primer" that ANYONE can appreciate, including Bozo the Clown. This is not a dumbed down book as much as it is "straight talk" with no gobbly-gook.

I have known over fifty flag officers in my time, and only a handful have actually been world-class, including Zinni, Gray, Stackpole in the USMC, Clapper and O'Lear in the USAF, Studeman in the Navy, and of course Schoomaker in the Army. No doubt there are others, but in my experience most flag officers have simply won a beauty/etiquette contest, and they do not acquire any additional strategic vision upon being promoted from the lower ranks. Zinni is incontestably the one general we have that has done three things brilliantly:

1) been a foxhole Marine with grievous wounds and innovative leadership at the company and field grade levels (see my review of his book "Battle Ready");

2) been a general deeply experienced in Operations Other than War (OOTW--what a stupid former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff once said of "Real men don't do OOTW--which is about as stupid as the DNI still saying (we paraphrase) "we're in the business of secrets for the President, the hell with open sources and everyone else"); and

3) been a true inter-agency Commander-in-Chief (CINC) able to make full use of *all* the inter-agency capabilities, not just the military, and done so diplomatically and personally. He is the George Shultz (himself a former Marine) of the current warrior class.

With that as pre-amble, here are the highlights of the book that demand its reading by every citizen in time to challenge their light-weight (and generally corrupt) Members of Congress prior to casting a vote in November 2006:

1) Chapters 1-7 are essentially an overview of reality and why global reality impacts on America's security and fortune. This is required reading for all but a handful, and needs to be read very slowly and carefully by those encumbered with ideological filters. As the author notes, very often perception is reality, and when an ideologically-biased perception conflicts with actual multi-cultural reality, what you get is a catastrophe such as Iraq.

2) The heart of the book is the author's prescription for achieving both an unbiased view of the real world, and the ability to fully plan for and leverage all the sources of national power as represented by the varied agencies, through three simple and elegant "hubs":

2a) At the national level, a National Monitoring and Planning Center (NMPC) that is able to integrate both intelligence (less than 20% of the relevant information) and operational inter-agency information (the other 80%), and to then plan, coordinate, and guide the execution of long-term inter-agency campaign plans.

2b) At the operational level, the modification of the currently planned Joint Intelligence Operations Commands or Centers (JIOC) to turn them into more of a Joint Inter-Agency Collaboration Center (JICC) such as SOCOM has developed in concept. Although JFCOM's Joint Inter-Agency Coordination Group (JIACG) is the example used by the author, I believe that we actually need to bring together the JFCOM and SOCOM concepts with those emerging in the NORTHCOM inter-agency directorate under Bear McConnell, and the Global Innovation and Strategy Center (GISC) at STRATCOM, which not coincidentally also has the lead for getting a grip on all open source information in all languages all the time, something the DNI cannot provide.

2c) At the tactical level the author is right on target when he proposes the civil affairs model (as does Congressman Rob Simmons, R-CT-02 from the HASC and Homeland Security Committees) as the focal point for inter-agency application of resources in-country. The author does not dismiss the U.S. Embassy, which was supposed to play that role, but his book is a clear demarche with respect to the incapacity of the Department of State to provide a leadership role, a planning role, or an inter-agency management role in-country. The Embassies are simply not working the way they are supposed to our could be made to work.

3) The author concludes his work with an analogy of cobras being killed by the death of a thousand stings from bees. Exactly right. The threat to America is NOT Iranian nuclear power (just as it was NOT Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction) but rather a global concerted effort to destroy Americas economy through the simple expedient of putting oil prices up to $300 a barrel, something that can be achieved very inexpensively with tiny but potent attacks on key oil pipelines and pumping stations in Nigeria, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia.

Tony Zinni is one of my heroes. He not only understands asymmetric warfare and the urgency of getting serious (that is to say, professional, which we are not at this time) about global instability in the intangible non-military dimensions, but he is a clear-headed diplomat and warrior-philosopher who knows how to make big bureaucracies do his bidding.

I hope the day comes when we have a chance to work together to save this great Republic from the morons that have broken the piggy bank, cost us all moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world, and started a 100 year six front war we did not need and were not ready for.

BRAVO ZULU and GUNG HO.

Admin Note: If you select "see my other reviews" and bookmark that page, you can, over the course of several hours, receive a free graduate education in reality and non-fiction about global issues. If Zinni *had* had footnotes, most of the books I have reviewed would have been in his book as supporting elements for his personal and professional essay.

What attracted me to this book was that here was a person who didn't seem to have an agenda per se...He isn't running for anything, he isn't out to bash the current administration nor is he writing to prop up momentous mistakes as "minor bumps in the road."

I had a chance to throw the general an admittedly softball question/comment on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show on 4/12/06 but it was a point he has made in this book and in other appearances and needs to be said from a perspective of soldiers like myself that served during the 90's..The threat of Iraq was marganialized..The conflated threat of Sadaam was an insult to 10 years of blood, sweat, and tears of the US military that kept the dictator marginalized. You can debate at what cost to Iraqis this marginalzation was, but the FACT is as a successful military operation dictated by US foreign policy at the time, Sadaam was no imminent threat...then scrapping military planning that was crafted by years of experience and intel as "cold war" or "Clinton -era" planning is appalling. It was sound planning that should have been taken seriously. No one is saying, "I told you so," with any credibility but our failures to this point are by the hands of bad planning and execution in the Pentagon not the voices of criticism. That is why this book just made sense to me, coming from the perspective of an American who loves his country, but is boggled by the choices it makes.

What I also enjoyed about Zinni's book is his understanding of the situation past a perspective of militarism. As the General says in the book, "The battle is a constant struggle to develop and build the measures, programs, systems, and institutions that will prevent crisis." I agree with this wholeheartedly and I appreciate this book. While he didn't tackle all aspects of this situation (corporatism, oil, Saudis, Project For The New American Century, ect.) I think General Anthony Zinni carved out a realistic view from his perspective.

I also have to recommend the DVD "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs." This documentary contains footage and commentary of and from General Anthony Zinni as Special Envoy and highlights the generals open yet focused perspective on the Middle-East.

An extremely direct, intelligent and nonpartisan assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of American governmental structure and foreign policy. More importantly, General Zinni bluntly lays out what needs to change, how and why inorder to effectly deal with the post Cold War environment that we find ourselves in. Brilliantly insightful and in the line of General Zinni's many other writings in being pragmatically idealistic.

Gen Zinni's book is a timely overview of current US global engagement strategy. He provides clear examples of inconsistencies in US international engagement and makes several straightforward suggestions for improved coordination and execution of American foreign policy and national strategy. He shows why the US MUST stay globally engaged and that to revert to isolationism would be catastrophic and costly.

Pleasently surprised and this is a great book, with some great ideas for our future. This guy tells it like it is and stood his ground for his principles. He outlines what happened heading in to Iraq and beyond and what we can do about it.

I'm a big fan of GEN Zinni, having first heard him speak during a video presentation about Somalia in 1998. I had high hopes for this book, and expected to learn something new about the security environment of the United States in the 21st Century. Instead, the book reads like a summation of Thomas Barnett's "The Pentagon's New Map" and "A Blueprint for Action". War in the context of everything else, new rule sets, the Leviathan Force/Sys Admin concept, Functioning Core/Non-integrated Gap comparisons, all these concepts are presented in "The Battle for Peace", just under different names. The concepts are made particularly relevant by the breadth and depth of GEN Zinni's experience as a Marine, Joint Warrior, and diplomat, but the content is basically the same. I found myself wanting something more.

There are many things wrong with the thinking of high level officials in our government that would be corrected if they followed the advice offered by General Tony Zinni in his book. This is a must read for all American citizens.