No! Enough big data, Big Daddy. I want Big Meaning.

By Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez
Best Defense personnel symposium leaders

At last Friday's beer call we had a turnout of eight people. It was an intimate group of truly concerned people, and the meetup went very well. The only consensus was that the current system isn't working, but the discussion helped the two of us refine our thinking. As usual, it left us with more questions than answers.

Here are our notes: 

We've produced an organizational culture of risk-aversion and conformity, as well as a "stay in your box, just do your time" mentality. This is a tactical/operational reflection of a strategic leadership problem.  

The causes put forth were all related to incentives: short deployments, high rates of turnover, inability to fire people for poor performance (you can only fire for ethical transgressions), and a habit of sending non-performers away on training teams to Iraq/Afghanistan, even while we preach partnering as the main effort.  

As relates to personnel policy, we discussed it in the context of the RAND study which talked about DOPMA essentially unionizing the military. The group agreed that it's had the effect of driving many top performers away. Worse, for the ones who do stick around, the military is limited in its ability to reward them with faster promotions or movement to more prestigious/influential billets.  

A common trend is that all of this stuff is happening at such a high level, and yet it's having a dramatic impact on the lowest ranks (not just officers-it doesn't take long for enlisted Marines to know which of their leaders is good and bad). 

So who's to blame? 

Should we blame the high-performer who decides to walk away? He could keep serving, but how long can you be frustrated and under-appreciated before you go look for something better? 

Should we blame bad leadership? That's an easy answer, but most of the bad leadership is just a response to incentives. "That's just the way the game is played" has more power than we acknowledge.  

Should we blame the Marine Corps? It operates within the law, Anbar and Helmand are arguably the biggest success stories from the two wars, it's maintained expeditionary units across the globe the entire time, and oh by the way it stood up a new branch for Special Operations Command. It's certainly done its part.  

Should we blame the Congress? They aren't familiar with the personnel policy-most of them haven't served. And who puts them there in the first place? 

So should we blame the American people for electing the Congress? For choosing not to serve in the all-volunteer force? How can we? The message they got was to go shopping and that the wars would be quick and easy. 

What we decided was that we all share in the blame. No one person or group can take responsibility for everything that's going wrong. Instead, at every level, this is a response to incentives. 

So how do you change the incentives? We can debate specific fixes for hours. But most simply, you have to take care of your top performers and you have to get rid of those who aren't up to the task. That's not pleasant when someone has served honorably for a decade and has a family, but who does the military exist to serve?

PS: We'd like to give a shout-out to Schlafly Pumpkin Ale. 

Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez are two former infantry officers in the United States Marine Corps. The views presented here are their own and do not represent the Marine Corps or the Department of Defense. Yet one feels there is a good chance that Jay-Z is down with them. 

By Rear Adm. John Kirby
Chief of Naval Information

Here are 15 books that have made an enormous impact on me, personally and professionally. Indeed, I can honestly say that each of these has affected not only the way I do my job, but the way I think about the way I do my job. 

These are books I have read and re-read several times and often give as gifts.

It's not an all-inclusive list by any stretch. I love to read lots of different stuff. There are no works of fiction on it, for example, and there are no works of naval history -- both of which I enjoy immensely. I chose, rather, specific books that have helped me make sense of the world around me and shaped the ways in which I try to communicate for the institution.

I claim no particular expertise in public relations. I've never received any formal education in the field. These books, then, have largely served as my reference library for a career built through "on-the-job" training. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

1. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

This is THE definitive book on how to write powerfully and clearly, everything from memoirs and travel pieces to science and technology articles. Right in the opening pages -- on page five in fact -- he talks about the unspoken transaction between a writer and his readers: "Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to ‘personalize.' It's a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength." If you want to write with clarity and strength -- and we should ALL want to do that -- this is the book you need to read. Then pick it up a few months later and read it again. 

2. Brave Men, by Ernie Pyle

War is messy and ugly, cruel and destructive. But it is also a STORY, a story of drama and skill and pain and suffering. It is tragedy and comedy all rolled into one, the exclamation point at the end of the human sentence. Nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- tells that story better or more simply than Ernie Pyle did. Brave Men, first published in 1943, is a collection of his syndicated columns from the time he landed with our troops at Sicily until the liberation of Paris. He writes about World War II from the perspective of the troops, from the average Joe. There isn't a lot of strategy in this book, but there is an awful lot of heart.

3. Generating Buy In: Mastering the Language of Leadership, by Mark S. Walton

Adm. Mullen made me read this book before we left Naples to come back to DC. We both found it enormously helpful as he prepared to be CNO. It's not a big book, but it's full of big ideas about how to communicate effectively. I still consult it frequently. It's a MUST read. And don't let the title fool you. This is not some boring, new-age business book. It's about telling good stories and about being persuasive.

One of the chief lessons author Mark Walton -- a former CNN producer -- tries to impart conveys is the power of THREE. People typically don't remember more than three things at a time. That goes for messages, too. When you make a pitch, deliver a speech, or write a PA plan, keep it to three points and make them as personal as possible. Take the audience on a journey with you and you'll get "buy in."

4. The Eloquent President, by Ronald White

We all know that Lincoln was a powerful speaker, but what many people don't realize is just how hard he had to work to develop that skill and just how vital he considered it.

Examining a different speech, address, or public letter in each chapter, White explains the evolution of Lincoln's rhetoric from the lawyerly tones of the First Inaugural to the "immortal poetry" of the Gettysburg Address. He shows how hard Lincoln worked to be good at communicating. This is one of the best books I've read in the last five years, and it only reinforced for me the enduring power of the spoken word -- the speech --and the art form that is speechwriting.

5. The Savage Wars of Peace, by Max Boot

America has never really been an isolationist power. That's the premise of Max Boot's book. But just as critically, he says, we're pretty good at fighting "small wars."

We've had lots of practice, as Boot points out, basically staying "involved in other countries' internal affairs since at least 1805." And, let me tell you, THIS is a Navy-Marine Corps story: the Barbary Wars, Panama, Samoa, the Philippines, the Boxer Rebellion, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Beirut, Grenada. The list goes on. We were there.

You may take issue with Boot's conclusions about how and why such wars are fought, but his views deserve a hearing -- especially when we still have tens of thousands of troops fighting such wars in Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere, even while we stay ready for the large ones which may yet loom.

6. Let the Sea Make A Noise, by Walter McDougall

OK, this is a doorstop-sized book. Let me just get that out there right now. But it is well worth the time it will take you to read it. McDougall tells the twisted and sometimes sordid international history of the North Pacific since about the 16th century.

He does this masterfully and, as one reviewer says, "with a special emphasis on the intertwined histories of the Americans, Russians and Japanese." But he also tells the story by dreaming up seminars hosted by ghosts: Father Junipero Serra, a Spanish missionary; Kaahumanu, consort of Hawaiian King Kamehameha; William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state; Count Sergey Witte, prime minister to Russia's Nicholas II; and Saito Hirosi, Japanese ambassador to the United States. The ghosts argue with him and with each other, as they debate the relevant issues and try to derive lessons for us today. 

Diving into this book will prove useful for any Navy leader as we begin to focus more of our attention and intellectual capital on the Asia-Pacific region. It's a beast, but also a good refresher.

7. Other Men's Flowers, by Field Marshal Lord Wavell

I have become a big believer in the power of poetry. Poetry is not written for the eye. It's written for the ear, for the heart. It has rhythm and meter and symmetry -- the very things one needs to be a good communicator. It pulls you in even as it makes you smarter. 

This is my favorite collection of poems, selected by Field Marshal Lord Wavell, a veteran of both World Wars and a scholarly man. Here is Kipling and Sir Walter Raleigh and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here is Browning and Asquith and G. K. Chesterton. Wavell collected these works for himself, to give him sustenance and comfort. "I have a great belief in the inspiration of poetry towards courage and vision," he said. "And we all want all the courage and wisdom at out command in days of crisis when our future prosperity and greatness hang in the balance."

8. Journalism Next, by Mark Briggs

I'm an old guy, which means I have very little imagination anymore. What I like about this little book is that it forces me to think about "what's next" in the field of journalism. I know enough to know that if I can't understand that, I'm dead in this business. I can't afford to stop learning.

Briggs does a great job laying it all out in simple, clear language -- complete with lots of graphs and pictures so the history major in me can get it. You'll learn the future of micro-blogging, how to edit digital audio and how to make news "participatory." It's a textbook of sorts for digital journalists, but PAOs and MCs can benefit a lot by reading it.

9. Counselor, by Ted Sorensen

I didn't like everything about this book, to be honest. At times I thought Sorensen was being way too self-serving. But then I needed to remind myself that virtually ALL autobiographies are self-serving. And it's a long read too, coming in at a whopping 896 pages.

But there is no denying that Sorensen was to John F. Kennedy what all good staff officers should be to their principals -- a MOST effective advisor. He didn't just write JFK's speeches (which were fantastic no matter what you think of Kennedy's politics); he advised the President on nearly all matters of state -- from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the decision to go to the moon.

Sorensen had plenty of chalk on his cleats. They were covered in it. We should strive for the same.

10. Profiles In Courage, by John F. Kennedy

Speaking of President Kennedy, I have always enjoyed re-reading this Pulitzer Prize winner of his. Artfully written, it tells the stories of eight U.S. Senators who defied constituent and/or party loyalties on conscience alone. He writes, for instance, of John Quincy Adams' break with the Federalist Party, Sam Houston speaking out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and Nebraska Senator George Norris, who opposed the arming of U.S. merchant ships as a violation of our neutrality in the early days of World War I.

All of these men suffered politically -- and sometimes personally -- for taking these stands, but they took them anyway. They had moral courage. This isn't a book about being right. It's a book about doing the right thing. And it's a classic.

11. Freedom at Midnight, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

It wasn't until I read this book that I felt like I truly understood the turmoil we continue to see in South and Central Asia. Ostensibly, this is a book about the partition of India, which took place at midnight on 15 August 1947. And it tells that story exceptionally well. The book reads like a novel. Indeed, the movie Gandhi was based on it.

But it really takes the reader inside the psychology of the four men most responsible for dividing up the British Raj into modern-day India and Pakistan: Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It also reveals the utter brutality of that partition. It's a tragic story, but a critical one to understand if you want to understand why we still struggle with extremism in that part of the world.

12. Stride Toward Freedom, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am ashamed to admit that I didn't read this book until only a few years ago. It ought to be mandatory reading for every high-schooler. Not only was Dr. King a brilliant writer, he was also a good storyteller. And in this small but powerful work, he tells the story of the Montgomery Bus boycott -- the beginning of the civil rights movement.

Why does it matter? Because that was a seminal moment in American history -- the moment when we finally started to grapple with just who really were the "WE" in "We the people." It traces the journey of an entire community, dedicated not just to each other but to a better future for their children, and shows how a young man with passion and natural leadership ability helped transform a nation.

We cannot function as good advisors if we ourselves cannot understand other perspectives. And I don't believe you can begin to understand other perspectives until you feel them. Dr. King made me feel them.

13. The Life of Reilly, by Rick Reilly

I was never much of a sports fan as a kid. I played a lot of sports, but I didn't follow them much. The details of sports coverage just didn't interest me. Then, in college, I took a part-time job as a sports clerk with the St. Petersburg Times. I got to know a bunch of sportswriters and came to appreciate how difficult their job really is. Sure, it's fun to cover sports, but making it interesting and fun for readers is a whole different matter. That takes talent.

There is no more talented sportswriter than Rick Reilly. His column graced the back page of Sports Illustrated for nearly 23 years. Even my wife, no lover of sports, loved to read HIS stuff. She would often get to the magazine before I could and go straight to the back page. When he left Sports Illustrated in 2007, we canceled the subscription.

This book is a collection of his best columns up to about 2003. Some are funny, some are sad, some are poignant. But all of them make you think, and all of them are crisp.

It's like he's talking to you. You don't READ Rick Reilly, so much as HEAR him. That's good writing.

14. Following the Equator, by Mark Twain

Twain has always been my favorite author. I love his humor, his wit and the ease and simplicity of his writing. Following the Equator captures his essence best, in my view.  It's a travel log of a trip he took around the world in 1897.

For Twain, the book was an attempt to make some badly needed money, but for his readers -- then and now -- it serves as a window into the world, a window we can still look through. He tackles racism and strip-mining and military adventurism. He lays bare the prejudices and the vices with which many foreign governments administered their colonies. And he does it all with the precision of a scalpel, making you think even as you laugh out loud.

Twain ends the work with this line: "Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it." A good lesson for us all.

15. Public Opinion, by Walter Lippman

Lippman was sort of the Tom Friedman of his day -- a columnist, a thinker, a provocateur. He wrote about pretty much everything: politics, social issues, the economy. He published this book in 1922 as a fundamental treatise on the nature of human information and communication. It is still very relevant today.

Divided into eight parts, the work covers such varied issues as stereotypes, image making, and organized intelligence. Though dense in places -- with examples that can be difficult for modern readers to follow -- Lippman lays out the cultural and psychological factors that affect the way people think about events.

"The analyst of public opinion," he writes, "must begin by recognizing the triangular relationship between the scene of action, the human picture of that scene, and the human response to that picture working itself out upon the scene." You don't have to look any further than today's headlines to see how true this phenomenon remains. We would do well to remember that it isn't just "what happens" that affects public opinion. It's what people THINK and FEEL about what happens. It's about the imagery those events call to mind.

You can have personal reading lists and professional reading lists. Here is the Navy's official compilation. It is quite different from Admiral Kirby's, but both are useful and interesting. Explanations and additional info here.

1812: The Navy's War

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security

SEAL of Honor

Wake of the Wahoo

Shield and Sword

The Gamble

Monsoon

Crisis of Islam

Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal

Red Star Over the Pacific

Execute Against Japan

The Man from Pakistan

Time Management from the Inside Out

The Morality of War

In the Shadow of Greatness

Wired for War

A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy

Navigating the Seven Seas

As you compile your resolutions for the new year, Best Defense is offering three different reading lists to help you. Here is a list from CIA veteran Hayden Peake. One reason I don't write much about intelligence is that I don't know much about it -- as this list reminds me -- I haven't read any of them. But he does.

Current Topics
Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance: Acquisitions, Policies and Defense Oversight, by Johanna A. Montgomery (ed.).

General
The Dictionary of Espionage: Spyspeak into English, by Joseph C. Goulden.

Historical
Black Ops Vietnam: The Operational History of MACVSOG, by Robert M. Gillespie.

Classical Spies: American Archaeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece, by Susan Heuck Allen.

Dealing With the Devil: Anglo-Soviet Intelligence Cooperation During the Second World War, by Dónal O'Sullivan.

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, by Ben Macintyre

Enemies: A History of the FBI, by Tim Weiner.

Franco's Friends: How British Intelligence Helped Bring Franco To Power In Spain, by Peter Day.

Gentleman Spymaster: How Lt. Col. Tommy 'Tar' Robertson Double-crossed the Nazis, by Geoffrey Elliott.

The Ideal Man: The Tragedy of Jim Thompson and the American Way of War, by Joshua Kurlantzick.

Joe Rochefort's War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway, by Elliot Carlson, with a foreword by RAdm. Donald "Mac" Showers, USN (Ret.).

Memoir
Malayan Spymaster: Memoirs of a Rubber Planter Bandit Fighter and Spy, by Boris Hembry.

Intelligence Abroad
Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence, by I.C. Smith and Nigel West.

Israel's Silent Defender: An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Israeli Intelligence, by Amos Gilboa and Ephraim Lapid (eds.).

Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History, by Robert Dover and Michael S. Goodman (eds.).

Main Intelligence Outfits of Pakistan, by P.C. Joshi.

The Politics of Counterterrorism in India: Strategic Intelligence and National Security in South Asia, by Prem Mahadevan.

Stalin's Man in Canada: Fred Rose and Soviet Espionage, by David Levy.

Stasi Decorations and Memorabilia: Volume II, by Ralph Pickard, with a foreword by Ambassador Hugh Montgomery.

From T.P. Cameron Wilson, who was killed in 1918:

. . .  The gates of Heaven were open, quite
Unguarded, and unwired.

In contrast to Col. Gentile's review that I mentioned last week, and the negative review by the British hussar that I carried the other day, here's the word on my new book from the just-released issue of the Army's Military Review:

THE GENERALS IS a controversial but nonetheless important read for military professionals seeking to understand the management of Army generals over the last 70 years.

. . . Readers may be tempted to dismiss Tom Ricks' book as one written by a prejudiced outsider, a journalist who has never served as a soldier. This would be a mistake. The Generals contains considerable research, much from first-hand sources of soldiers, officers, and general officers. Those sources frame Ricks' discussion. Ricks also draws material from letters, journals, and duty logs. The reader gets the feeling of looking over the shoulder of people engaged in one of the most dangerous and vital endeavors in which military professionals engage: fighting and winning the wars.

. . . Both civilian and military DOD personnel should read the book. Some readers may find Ricks' premises questionable and his conclusions unsatisfying. However, rather than avoiding a controversial discussion, the Army and the rest of the Department of Defense should face this discourse head-on and use it to improve itself. Even if some think he fails to diagnose the disease, the symptoms he describes are undeniable, as evinced yet again in the recent series of senior officer meltdowns. The Generals is an excellent source for leader development programs.

Bring your thoughts, and look for the table with the smart jarheads. 6 pm tonite at

Bier Baron (AKA the Brickskeller) 
1523 22nd Street Northwest 
Washington, DC 20037

And while you are there, please raise a glass to the memory of H. Norman Schwarzkopf. I have been critical of him, but there is no doubt he did his best.