Book Reviews

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with author Mike Bond and discuss his latest book Assassins as well as the importance of fiction to military professionals. If the interview piques your interest, I encourage you to check out his book here. 

Q: Mike, what do you think is the most important aspect of Assassins and could you tell us why you decided to write it?

A: I wrote Assassins to share what I’ve learned in the last thirty years of conflict between the West and Islam. From my teenage years I’ve been acquainted with Middle East wars, and have seen much unnecessary tragedy and many mistakes, ways in which we could have protected ourselves better, both diplomatically and militarily.

The preface to Assassins is from the famous quote of Sun Tzu: “One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements. One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes be victorious, sometimes meet with defeat. One who knows neither the enemy nor himself will invariably be defeated.”

This post originally appeared on the Strategy Bridge on August 17, 2016

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon. Rosa Brooks. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

In June 1945, 850 delegates representing 50 nations gathered in San Francisco to start the process of drafting what would eventually become the Charter of the United Nations. This wasn’t some exercise in bureaucratic protocol; this was a desperate attempt by humans to bring about stability to a world ripped apart by war, to draw distinct lines between war and peace, and to keep war inside its box. For the ashes were still smoldering on the continent of Europe, and the war in the Pacific wasn’t yet over.  Sixty million of the planet’s sons and daughters perished during World War II with another twenty five million wounded. The work of these delegates and their staffs took two months to complete, and by October 24, 1945 the U.N. officially came into existence. For the last 71 years, the Charter, this international body, and the norms they have established for warfare, have contributed to the prevention of the level of destruction experienced in the early 20th century.