Marc | June 1, 2010
In my last post, I talked about critical thinking and noted that one of the problems I have been seeing recently lies in the communicative nature of thinking / research. I wanted to expand on this idea a bit, and look at some of the issues surround what, for want of a better term, we [...]
Marc | May 28, 2010
I just finished attending the IAFIE conference here in Ottawa, and a lot of the discussion was on the subject of “critical thinking”. Based solely on the presentations there, it became rapidly apparent that the problems many of the presenters were having with critical thinking were the exact opposite of the problems my students have [...]
Marc | April 16, 2010
On March 24-25, 2010, the Small Wars Foundation brought together a group of current and former military, academics, think tank members and policy people for a two-day focused workshop on what is being called the Tribal Engagement Strategy in Afghanistan. The workshop was co-sponsored by the U.S. Joint Forces Command Joint Irregular Warfare Center, the [...]
Marc | March 19, 2010
I am continually amazed at how “muddy” at lot of thinking is these days, and how this is reflected in a lot of the writing that I now read. I find myself yearning for the “Good Old Days”, which existed only in myth, where people would hold sensible conversations in their writing. Maybe I’m just [...]
Marc | October 23, 2009
I just stumbled across a wonderful blog called Work Matters run by Bob Sutton (hat tip to Mark Huselid and the HRDivNet mailing list). One of the terms Bob uses is “Jargon Monoxide” (originally created by Polly LaBarre). What a wonderful term, and one that I believe should enter the lexicon of those of us [...]
Marc | September 18, 2009
My friends Adam Elkus and Mark Safranski just released what is one of the more insightful, and scathing, critiques of US “Grand Strategy”. The short article is entitled Theory, Policy, and Strategy: A Conceptual Muddle (abstract | PDF) and focuses on one simple observation: grand strategy for the US is now being driven by operational [...]
Marc | July 15, 2009
If there is one thing bureaucracies, as collectives, cannot stand, it is the free flow of information. This observation was just reinforced when I got an email from a friend who told me that his organization just blocked out a site I had built for him because the host (sites.google) had too many phishing sites.
Marc | May 25, 2009
Joel Garreau at the Washinton Post has a very interesting article posted yesterday called TONGUE IN CHECK: With Translation Technology On Their Side, Humans Can Finally Lick the Language Barrier (hat tip to Adam Russell). The story is well worth reading for a number of reasons.
Marc | May 1, 2009
A couple of friends / colleagues are in the process of putting together an historical sourcebook on “terrorism” which, IMO, will be very useful. As a part of this process, I just got a copy of their draft introduction which has started me thinking that it is time to formalize some of my current thinking [...]
Marc | February 21, 2009
Last Thursday (Feb. 19th, 2009), Inside Higher Ed published an article by Dr. Adam Silverman called The Why and How of Human Terrain Teams. This piece, which is well worth reading, is one of the few that has come out by an HTT member describing their actions in the field – it also “enjoys” comments [...]
Marc on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1Marc on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1
In Harmonium » Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 3 on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2
MM on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 1
Backwards Observer on Ethics, honour and the dangers of over-ritualization, part 2