56 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant - without reservation!, October 15, 2003
This review is from: Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace (Hardcover)
With this book Ralph Peters further establishes himself as the West's foremost strategist-philosopher. His was among the first serious voices raised well over a decade ago to alert the West to the growing strategic threat posed by the decay and failure of Third World societies and especially Islam. The cognitive dissonance among Muslims arising from the failure of Islam as a civilization generates the rage that fuels Osma bin Ladin and his followers, which he deftly argued in FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE and BEYOND TERROR. Now BEYOND BAGHDAD picks up the struggle to explain the strategies the West, and particularly the United States, must employ to win this "long twilight" struggle." Peters' conclusions are not based on a lifetime of comfortable academic reflection untroubled with the harsh realities of life. Indeed, they are based on a muscular involvement with life as it is around the world. There are few greater groundings in reality than growing up in a mining family, enlisting in the Army, winning a commission, learning German and Russian fluently, and roaming around the world on special missions for the Army.
Peters blends eternal verities of man and civilizations at war with the specific problems of the age to mark him a philosopher of war to a depth Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, in their narrower spheres, never attempted. His essays travel the world to explore the cultural trends that offer the greatest strategic dangers and opportunities for the future. He identifies the United States as the world's center of gravity for modernization and for the unleashing of human potential, especially that of women, on a scale unrivalled by any other civilization. In doing so, the US has enraged the fossilized Islam of its Arab core. "Islamic terrorism is the violence of extreme desperation, symptomatic of the startling failure of Middle Eastern Islamic culture to compete with "the West" on a single productive front. Their failure is not our fault, but it is our problem." Peters observes that our obsession with the Middle East has obscured the serious potential for modernization of Islam elsewhere, in Africa, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia to which our attention should shift.
His support for President Bush's strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq is argued in compelling terms. Overthrowing Saddam represented the priceless strategic opportunity to shock the Muslim world out of its rut and ease it into the modern world. To suggest, as another reviewer has, that he has been hoodwinked by an administration "bought and paid for by Zionists" is an outrageous canard. Peters, is his own man. He recognized that this was grand strategy at is boldest and most profound. Great opportunities were worth a great throw. This is what we elect presidents for. Peters adds, based on is own conclusions, the vital illumination of the vast cultural/military context and a logical articulation of that strategy that should make the administration green with envy.
While supporting the grand strategy, Peters does not spare the rod in taking Rumsfeld and his senior aides to task for two serious failings. The first is Rumsfeld's espousal of the concept that a mix of high-tech, air power, and light ground forces is the warfare of the future. Funds for future high-tech development would cut deep into the expensive military manpower pockets, with the Army as bullseye. The results of this "light boots on the ground" approach in Afghanistan was the escape of bin Ladin at Tora Bora The result in Iraq was a twofold failure. First, against military advice, was the refusal to plan for the most vital element of the operation, the political transition from combat to the transformation of Iraq into the model for Islamic reform in the Middle East. Second, also against military advice, was to cheese pare the ground force component well below an acceptable level of risk and to hinder the transition phase. Responsible policy does not rely on the valor and skill of the troops to rescue you from feckless decisions. Rumsfeld's fixation on operational and theoretical means put strategic ends at risk.
Underlying these failures is on an all too evident disdain for the leadership of military institutions they lead, dismissing them as mere "military janitors". "[A} number of Donald Rumsfeld's posse of commissars, creatures with no first-hand experience either of the military or of the savage harshness of the world, insisted that none of our generals or admirals or military veterans were worth a damn and that civilians who had never tied on a combat boot knew best how to wield our military. They ridiculed the voices of experience, even implying that those in uniform had a yellow streak, while the civilian lions safe at their Washington desks were models not only of wisdom but of courage."
Peters was one of those "military janitors" whose essays were prescient in their accurate description of the strategic setting, the resulting operational requirements, the course and nature of operations, and the postwar challenges. Anyone wishing to be informed of the essence of the war would do better reading Peters essays in the New York Post than watching Rumsfeld's briefings.
Peters ideas have been polished to deep gleam by the sharpness and sparkle of his prose. As he himself writes, "The notion that `serious' writing has to be as dull as mortgage paperwork had been foisted upon us by academics who couldn't write a grocery list without ten pages of footnotes. A writer's goal should be not to stretch out one small, frail conceit into a book the reader can barely lift, but to pack as many fierce ideas into one cleanly written essay or column a he or she can do. If you cannot say a thing simply and clearly, it simply means you have no clear idea of what you want to say." On is own terms, Peters delivers handsomely.
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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Cutting Edge, August 10, 2004
This review is from: Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace (Hardcover)
When you read Ralph Peters bring your thinking cap. He will challenge you by taking you outside of the box. He will not let you find safety in platitudes. Combine a razor sharp analytical mind with an extraordinarily gifted writer and you have Ralph Peters. In Beyond Baghdad Peters makes us look at the world as it is, not as some of us would have it. Consequently we realize that there will be no quick victory, no glorious sprint over the finish line in the war against Islamic fundamentalism. Peters tells us frankly that we are in a gritty, dirty and prolonged war against a brutal, committed enemy bent on destroying us. And then offers suggestions to win that war.
Peters eschews convenient partisan shelters to forge new strategies in this war. He has a global geopolitical view and a long horizon. Beyond Baghdad is a must read for any concerned, informed person who worries about what a tumultuous future holds for this country. If you want to learn what the war on terror is about, start with Ralph Peters and Beyond Baghdad.
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