Published!

While I was working at NDU, my boss Jim Keagle and I wrote a paper titled "Organizing for National Security: Unification or Coordination?" It has finally been published and is available for download at this link (thanks Gina!). It's part of the Defense Horizons series. If you want a paper copy, let me know and I'll send you one.

Conference on Iraqi reconciliation

Come to my conference!

In cooperation with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Forces Transformation and Resources (OUSD-P), we are delighted to announce our upcoming seminar on Transforming National Security: Prospects for Reconciliation in Iraq. The seminar will be held November 13th, 2007 in Marshall Hall, Room 155, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC.

Transformation is one of the most important enterprises of the Department of Defense, the U.S. military, and the entire national security community. There is a tendency to identify “Transformation” solely with intelligence and weapons platforms. However, transformation also means new missions for the American military. The stability of an emerging government in Iraq is the most obvious example. Much discussed, and perhaps less understood, reconciliation remains a goal of U.S. policy in Iraq. During this conference we intend to broaden our understanding of reconciliation as a process and as an end. We will also examine how not only the U.S. but also Iraq and its neighbors view the prospects for reconciliation in Iraq. Transforming National Security: Prospects for Reconciliation in Iraq will examine progress and methods being employed toward this goal.

Transforming National Security: Prospects for Reconciliation in Iraq.

Presenters include myself and my boss, Professor Andrea Bartoli, Dr. David Steele (former USIP, worked with Kosovars and Serbs), Tony Blinken (Senate Foreign Relations Staff Director), Dr. Ken Pollack, Dr. Joost Hiltermann, William McCallister, Alan King, Phebe Marr, Chaplain (LTC) Jonathan Gibbs (liaised with Iraqi religious figures while in Iraq), COL (ret.) Paul Hughes, Dr. Dan Serwer, Ambassador Roger Harrison, Ambassador Robert Pearson, and Dr. Judith Yaphe. An all-star cast!

Here's the agenda (pdf). It's next Tuesday, November 13th, from 9AM to 5PM. Sign up by sending an email to CTNSP-NCO@ndu.edu. It's free and open to the public. Plus it's endorsed by Abu Muqawama!

NDU conference went well

The latest conference I helped organize was this past Tuesday and Wednesday. It went well, had over eighty audience members, including some bigwigs (although no 3-star generals in the audience like the conference last July). I will be posting a write-up of it later. Due to NDU non-attribution rules I can't tell you anything about it and the write-up will be in vague and non-specific terms, but that's the price you pay for missing out!

NDU conference, official announcement

Check it out.

Also Marc Lynch has put it on his blog.

Come to my conference!

For my job, I'm helping put on what is shaping to be a pretty interesting conference. September 25 and 26, The Battle of Ideas: Messages, Mediums and Methods will look at how conflicting ideologies influence the conduct of the war on the ground. A bunch of interesting presentations, including one by another guy in my program (US army vet) about his experiences doing information operations in Ramadi.

Confirmed presenters include Marc Lynch, author of Voices of the New Arab Public, John Robb, author of Brave New War, TX Hammes, author of The Sling and the Stone, Todd Helmus and Christopher Paul, coauthors of Enlisting Madison Avenue, and Kyle Teamey, coauthor of the US Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

The seminar is free and all are welcome. Click on one of the links below for more info. When the official link on the NDU website is live I'll post a link to it as well.

Around the web:

Transformation National Security (I post on here from work).

MountainRunner

Small Wars Council

John Robb

Military Medicine conference

For my job, I am helping put on a (FREE) two-day course on military medicine. It's next week, Monday and Tuesday, at National Defense University in Washington DC. All those who are interested feel free to sign up. I created a blog for it so I could post the agenda, etc., online. For the agenda, click here, for the official invite, click here. I also created a post on the SWJ forums.

Any questions, leave a comment or email me.