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Admiral William H. McRaven – the Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) – has released his reading list for next year. The intent of the list, “is to motivate members of the SOF [Special Operations Forces] community to grow professionally and personally. The USSOCOM Reading List represents important works for all SOF officers, enlisted and civilians as well as those supporting the USSOCOM mission.”
Below is the reading list and links to each product page on Amazon.com.
Strategic Context:
Asymmetrical Warfare: Today’s Challenge to U.S. Military Power Issues in Twenty-First Century Warfare, by Roger W. Barnett (2003)
Afghanistan the Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower, by Mohammad Vousaf and Mark Adkin (2001)
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell (2005)
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power, by Victor Hanson (2002)
Children of Jihad: A Young American’s Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East, by Jared Cohen (2008)
Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, by Earnest May and Richard Neustadt (1988)
The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Friedman (2007)
Leadership:
Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, by Phil Jackson (2013)
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, by Jonathan Shay (1994)
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath {2007)
My Share of the Task: A Memoir, by General Stanley McChrystal (2013)
Military Science:
One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare, by Linda Robinson (2013)
Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life, by Stuart Diamond (2010)
Intel and Security Affairs:
Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong, by Mark Moyar (2007)
Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, by Brynjar Lia (2008)
Tip o’ the hat to War on the Rocks.
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Damnit, now I need more money for cyber Monday…
Should have released this one week prior…
as is common with these lists I see books that make logical sense and books that have virtually no reason to exisist on thos earth much less on the reading list.
I gather you’re thinking of ‘Eleven Rings’, ‘Blink’, and ‘The World is Flat’ as the ones that don’t belong.
The purpose of the list, remember, is so that individuals and personally and professionally develop. Eleven Rings is a staggering book on motivation and teamwork, Blink on the value and virtue of first impressions and has a staggering chapter on Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002, and TWIF addresses how the world is systematically changing and how previous competitive advantages are getting rendered obsolete.
So, you can write em off. I’ll keep reading.
That Moyar book should NOT be on here. Cmon McRaven! It’s not based on objectivity, as any good academic study should be; there’s an enormous amount of subjective toe-the-line rhetoric. Plus, it reads like a dictionary with no narrative content whatsoever.