Language and personal resilience

As I resume blogging, one big change will be more posts specifically about foreign language learning--and Arabic in particular.  Why?  Arabic is now one of my main professional competencies.  Given that my goal with Building Peace is to multiply the impact of my education, it only makes sense that I share what I've learned about foreign language.

In the past I've refrained from writing language-learning posts, because they aren't relevant to many of my readers.  I used to maintain a separate blog specifically for discussing Arabic, but it was too difficult to maintain two websites and a fragmented online identity.  I'd rather just put everything in one place.  So if these posts aren't of interest you, please just bear with me.

However, the more I think about it, the more I think that readers should be interested in these posts.  Why?  There are many reasons to learn a foreign language, but here is another one.  If John Robb and others are right, our political, social, and economic systems are in total upheaval.  The 2008 financial crisis was only the beginning, and the Occupy Movement is a harbinger of worse things to come.  Wealth is mostly flowing to the upper crust of society, income disparity is worsening, and jobs are disappearing.  Unfortunately, there is no going back to the carer model our parents and grandparents grew up with.  To make things worse, the super-empowerment of individuals and small groups means that they can disrupt the systems and networks that we depend on every day, adding to the volatility.  In such a sink-or-swim world, resilience is a vital characteristic of both individuals and communities.  People can thrive in such a turbulent world, but only if they have the resilience to recognize change and quickly adapt to it.

Robb has had a great series of posts recently about developing personal resilience, such as this one about building a global brand.  Critical to personal resilience is continuous education.  Resilient individuals need to acquire and develop multiple skills that will strengthen their personal brand, generate income, meet needs in their local communities, and help them stand out in a fiercely competitive job market.  The ability to speak a foreign language is just such a skill.  Not only does it have intrinsic value, it can multiply the value of your other professional skills: business, technology, military service, you name it.

I hope these posts will be useful to those who are already undertaking the long journey of learning a foreign language.  But I also hope they provide some guidance and encouragement for those who would like to learn a language, but have never taken the plunge... or who feel that a foreign language is beyond their reach.

Blogging with caution

Despite grand plans to rejuvenate this blog after its year-long closure, I haven't accomplished much except for a couple false starts.  In addition to simply being busy, there are specific reasons for this:

1. My return from Jordan has been disorienting.  During that year when the blog was closed, I had so much that I was burning to write about: my interaction with Jordanian reformers who were beaten up by police, my studies at an Islamic school, and my thesis on different narratives about Islam in the United States, just to name a few.  Returning to the flying world was an abrupt change.  Instead of worrying about constitutional reform in Jordan, I needed to worry about the C-17 electrical system and the Emergency Engine Shutdown checklist.  And I quickly realized that my strategic and regional studies would count for very little at this particular stage of my career.  Successful officership at the moment means, first and foremost, being a skilled pilot and hardworking contributor to the squadron and wing.  Of course my informal strategic/regional education is vital to me, and I know it will pay dividends later.  But for now, I'm still puzzling through how to balance these tasks.  That has affected my ability to write.

2. My standards have risen.  Over the past three years, I've had the joy of engaging with some of the country's finest national security thinkers.  I've read and studied more than I ever have in my life.  As a result, I've realized just how much excellent thinking and writing is going on out there... and the incredibly high quality standard of thinking and writing that is necessary to hang with them.  My blog was never intended to be "expert" analysis, and was more about having a conversation.  Still, my rising standards for myself have made it increasingly difficult to blog.

3. I'm not sure how much I should say.  I strive to maintain a high level of professionalism on this blog, and often reflect on what that means.  But as I'm getting older, the stakes are rising.  My next assignment will most likely be a Middle East-related staff position, and within a few years after that I could be in higher leadership positions or even command.  I don't want to eliminate myself by writing something stupid.  I had some negative experiences in Jordan, when my outspokenness got me in trouble.

Even more importantly, I am struggling to find the right tone for my writing.  Sound strategic thinking requires cold pragmatism, a frank willingness to discuss uncomfortable truths, and a healthy dose of cynicism.  Our country is in dire straits.  Our economy is broken and our government is paralyzed.  We have spent the last decade waging two catastrophic wars, which we need to learn from.  These are the issues I mull over every single day, and these are the issues I like to write about.  But effective military leaders need to exude confidence and optimism about the mission.  How do I balance that?  What does it mean to be an optimistic leader in a war that was lost before the first shot was fired?  How does one inspire and motivate subordinates, without resorting to the cheesy and completely groundless optimism that caused me so much disillusionment as a young officer?  I know that inspiring but sober leadership is possible, because great wartime leaders like Churchill and Lincoln pulled it off.  Unfortunately, I'm not Churchill or Lincoln, so I need to proceed with caution.

Despite these concerns, I do want to keep this blog going.  I got a kick in the pants from Admiral Stavridis' NDU speech Read, Think, Write: Keys to 21st-century Security Leadership.  He says nothing particularly new, but it was an encouraging reminder that there are senior leaders out there who want younger officers to write and contribute to our collective knowledge.

Twitter

I suppose I shouldn't be too flattered, since it's his first day on Twitter and he is following approximately half the people who follow him, but this is still priceless.  Prince Hassan is the late King Hussein's brother and one of the most respected public figures in Jordan.

Salma

A couple weeks ago, at the recommendation of a Jordanian blogger, I discovered a great Jordanian rock band called Jadal.  Today I’d like to share one of their music videos with my readers.  The song is Salma, and it is a prayer and blessing for the guitarist’s niece.

What does this have to do with national security?  Those who study national security issues can fall into a dangerous trap: by focusing so intensely on those issues, we can lose sight of everything else.  This is especially a danger when we study regional affairs from afar.  We lose perspective on the lives of ordinary people, viewing an entire country and its people through the lens of national security concerns.  In actuality, these issues may be of only marginal importance in the lives of citizens.  To cite one example, Islamic terror was so far removed from my experience in Jordan that it almost seemed irrelevant.

Understanding the lives of ordinary people is an important corrective to this bias.  The big national security issues obviously matter, but we need to place them within an accurate human context.

I like this video because, in about three minutes, it beautifully captures so much of ordinary life in Jordan.  This is a society where the country’s top rock band writes a song of blessing to a sister and niece; where a group of shabab (young men) who are out cruising will take along a three-year old niece; and where enjoying the happiness of children is considered one of the highest pleasures in life.  So next time you read dire news from the Middle East, think back to Salma and realize that she represents 95% of what I saw and experienced in Jordan.

LYRICS (translation found online and is a bit rough in places)

Call her Salma, oh sister!
Give it up and go for it!
Baby Salma, if she cries, she would complain the first second!

Salma, I wish your eyes see good things, see your mommy praying, see and hear everything good just don't worry or care... your uncle is singing!

Baby Salma will cry, will fill our homes with joy , and with the loudest voice she will say " I LOVE YOU MOMMY "

Salma, my eyes are waiting...to see your eyes and wish you.....
Wish you long life , oh Salma!...
Life that i wish for you!
Life that i wish for you!
Wish you long life , oh Salma!

Salma, I wish your eyes see good things, see your mommy praying , see and hear everything good just don't care... your uncle is singing!

Salma, my eyes are waiting, to see your eyes and wish you.....
Wish you long life , oh Salma! Life that I wish for you!
Salma, my eyes are waiting....to see your eyes and wish you.....
Wish you long life , oh Salma! Life that I wish for you!
Salma! my eyes are waiting!!

What I'm Reading: Triple Agent

On December 30th, 2009 a Jordanian double agent traveled to a remote CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan for a meeting with his Jordanian handler.  Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a physician, claimed to be treating Ayman al-Zawahiri, the #2 figure in al-Qae'da.  It was one of the biggest breakthroughs of the War on Terror, and an abnormally large crowd of CIA agents and contractors had gathered to receive al-Balawi and hear his report.  That was a tragic mistake.  Moments after dismounting his vehicle, al-Balawi detonated a suicide vest.  Seven people died.  It was the worst loss in the CIA's history.

Triple Agent tells the story behind these terrible events.  I picked up the book because I had a personal connection to one of the Khost victims, albeit a small one.  My wife and I knew the family of Darren LaBonte, a CIA agent who died in the attack.  He was stationed in Amman and was a close friend and associate of Ali bin Zeid, the mukhabarat captain who handled al-Balawi.  I never met Darren, because he was often traveling for work, but we had met his wife on a couple occasions and she had helped us with some arrangements when we got settled in Amman.  We didn't know her well; just well enough that the news from Khost came as a devastating shock.  Until Darren's death, we had no idea what he did for a living.

The events of Khost are well-known by now, documented and studied and analyzed to death by those who wanted to understand what went wrong.  So why read a new book on the subject?  I regretted not having had the chance to meet Darren; my wife, for her part, regretted not getting to know his wife better.  I hoped that the book would shine some light on this family we had briefly crossed paths with, and give me insight into the world they inhabited.  And that, really, turned out to be the book's strength.  It tells the story of the individuals who were at Khost: Darren, Ali bin Zeid, Khost base chief Jennifer Matthews, targeter Elisabeth Hanson, and others.  The book uses this dreadful event to humanize and personalize the long war against al-Qa'eda.

The book is a riveting and dreadful read.  I kept hoping that a crucial warning would be heard, that a key decision would be changed, that somehow the tragic outcome would be averted.  But of course the end of the story was preordained.

For me, the most gut-wrenching moment in the book is when Darren LaBonte and Ali bin Zeid say goodbye to their wives in Amman before flying to Afghanistan for the fateful meeting.  They are worried.  Darren and Ali do not trust their own agent and are worried that things are moving too fast.  Darren's wife has expressed fear that the agent might turn out to be a suicide bomber.  Despite their fears, these two women send their husbands off with courage so remarkable that it deserves special mention:

The women knew the men shared a fascination with ancient warrior culture, for the armies of Athens and Sparta. In ancient Greece the mothers of Spartan warriors exhorted their sons to bravery with the words that Fida Dawani and Racheal LaBonte now spoke to their departing husbands: “Return with your shields or on them.”

That sendoff reminds me of the final pages of Steven Pressfield's historical novel about Thermopylae, when the Spartan King Leonidas meets a woman named Paraleia a few days before he leads the 300 off to battle.  Paraleia is about to be robbed of both her husband and son.  King Leonidas says:

"The city speculates and guesses... as to why I elected those I did to the Three Hundred.  Was it for their prowess as individual men-at-arms? ... I chose them not for their own valor, lady, but for that of their women ... When the battle is over, when the Three Hundred have gone down to death, then will all Greece look to the Spartans, to see how they bear it.  But who, lady, who will the Spartans look to?  To you and the other wives and mothers, sisters and daughters of the fallen.  If they behold your hearts riven and broken with grief, they, too, will break. And Greece will break with them. But if you bear up, dry-eyed, not alone enduring your loss but seizing it with contempt for its agony and embracing it as the honor that it is in truth, then Sparta will stand. And all Hellas will stand behind her."

By telling their stories as accurately and honestly as possible, Triple Agent is a fitting tribute to those lost at Khost--as well as the loved ones they left behind.

Steve Jobs

Budget Cuts

I guess it's official: catastrophic budget cuts are here.  Yesterday the Lodging Office at the base where I'm doing C-17 re-qualification training notified me that they are disconnecting cable service in all lodging facilities due to lack of funding. 

For the aspiring social scientists out there, this sounds like a great opportunity for an experiment.  I'm willing to bet that after a few months without cable news, the collective intelligence of everyone in base lodging will be significantly higher.