As we enter 2016, what many predicted for the Mideast has finally happened: Two 800-pound gorillas, Iran and Saudi Arabia, are squaring off. For those who follow national security and Mideast geo-politics, this was all but inevitable. But not many understand what is at the root of the enmity between these two Gulf powers.

On Sunday, January 3, Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, marking a swift escalation in a strategic and sectarian rivalry that underpins conflicts across the Middle East.

The surprise move, announced in a news conference by Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, followed harsh criticism by Iranian leaders of the Saudis’ execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by protesters in response. More on The New York Times reporting on this crisis here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-arabia-execution-sheikh-nimr.html

It is impossible to understand the root cause of these two nations’ anger toward each other without understanding just a bit about the Sunni and Shite religious schism – which dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632. In this short article in The New York Times, John Harney explains how these two branches of Islam collide:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/world/middleeast/q-and-a-how-do-sunni-and-shia-islam-differ.html

And for a well-nuanced view of this emerging crisis from U.S. Naval Institute, the premier professional journal of the United States’ Sea Services, read more here:

http://news.usni.org/2016/01/04/analysis-saudi-arabia-iran-and-middle-east-brinksmanship?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=7226a175ff-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-7226a175ff-230420609&mc_cid=7226a175ff&mc_eid=157ead4942

Not to put too fine a point on it, but when Dick Couch and I rebooted the best-selling Tom Clancy Op-Center series, our geographical for the first book was the Mideast. We wrote the first book Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes in 2012 and had Iran and Saudi Arabia in our sights. Now life imitates art. Read more about that book, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes here:

http://georgegaldorisi.com/books/out-of-the-ashes

Last year we blogged on looking to the future – something we all are interested in regardless of our walk of life.

There are many ways to focus on the future – but one of them that seems to be increasingly valuable is what we read in novels. We all know that in our gut – and I’ve read about it too.

In his New York Times article: “Novelists Predict Future With Eerie Accuracy,” John Schwartz puts a punctuation mark on just how well novelists have been doing this.

The prediction game has generally been the bailiwick of science fiction, and many authors have shown startling foresight. Jules Verne placed his launching site for shooting men to the moon in Florida — Tampa, not Cape Canaveral, but let’s forgive that as a rounding error. And William Gibson and Bruce Sterling have mined the near future for years, in novels like Mr. Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition” and Mr. Sterling’s “Holy Fire.”

James E. Gunn, the director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, said science fiction could even help encourage the future by preparing minds. Hugo Gernsback, the creator of a pioneering scientific magazine in 1926, predicted radar and night baseball, among other things; Arthur C. Clarke described satellite communications.

One writer who did this exceptionally well was Tom Clancy. The future he predicted is with us today across the globe.

More on John Schwartz’s article “Novelists Predict Future With Eerie Accuracy,” here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/sunday-review/novelists-predict-future-with-eerie-accuracy.html

Ahmad Chalabi died late last year. Most people don’t recognize his name. Until three years ago, neither did I. That was before I wrote a review of the book Arrow’s in the Night for the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. If there is one book that helps explain why, in 2016, the United States in still mired in the Mideast, it has my vote. Here is part of what I wrote:

Only a handful of people, those in the top policymaking positions in the United States’ government in the years – and even decades – prior to OIF, understand why the United States ultimately went to war to depose Saddam Hussein. Until now.

Arrows of the Night takes the reader on a half-century journey beginning with Chalabi’s exile from Iraq in 1958, to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, to Chalabi’s work in post-Saddam Iraq. This journey is both complex and compelling as the primary subject, Ahmad Chalabi, has a larger-than-life resume of triumphs and scandal including a degree in mathematics from MIT, a doctorate from the University of Chicago, work as a university professor and a wildly-successful banker, a conviction for embezzling, and work as a CIA operative.

Throughout this journey, in all his occupations and avocations, Ahmad Chalabi maintained a singular focus – and as Bonin describes – an obsession, to overthrow Saddam’s Ba-athist regime and return to his Iraqi homeland in a blaze of glory. This was his strategy, and everything else was tactics. While the United States ultimately might have gone to war in Iraq again under the George W. Bush administration to finish what his father’s administration had not, without Ahmad Chalabi, the last half–century relationship between the United States and Iraq – and indeed the entire Middle East – would likely have been vastly different had this complex and complicated man never been exiled from Iraq, or had he merely lived quietly in exile.

This, in a nutshell, describes Ahmad Chalabi’s journey, which began in 1958 when his wealthy Shiite family was exiled from Iraq after a revolution that ultimately put Saddam Hussein in power. It describes how the young Chalabi devoted his life to restoring his family to prominence. His first coup attempt was in 1963 at age nineteen, while on a school break from MIT. His next was aided by Iranian intelligence. But as the years passed and Saddam stayed in power, Chalabi came to realize that he needed the United States to help him rid Iraq of Saddam. Only the world’s superpower could make this happen.

More on Ahmad Chalabi’s journey in this New York Times article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/world/middleeast/ahmad-chalabi-iraq-dead.html?_r=0

And in this New York Times Op-ed here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/opinion/why-america-invented-ahmad-chalabi.html

Just a few months ago, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Into the Fire was released for the first time as a trade paperback publication. The first book in the series, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes received high praise from all the traditional book reviews. Into the Fire continues in the same tradition. Here is what Publisher’s Weekly had to say about Into the Fire:

Couch and Galdorisi’s stirring sequel to 2014’s Out of the Ashes pits Cmdr. Kate Bigelow, captain of the USS Milwaukee, and her crew against North Korean naval and special forces units intent on seizing the ship, which has been conducting training exercises in the sea off South Korea. The North Koreans have found vast undersea energy deposits in international waters and have made a secret deal to sell them to the Chinese. Taking the ship hostage will give them leverage against the U.S., which will surely oppose this deal. Bigelow proves to be a formidable foe, managing to outrun and outgun her North Korean adversaries. She runs the Milwaukee aground on the small island of Kujido, sets up a defensive base, and settles in to wait for friendly forces to come to the rescue. Tasked with that mission is Chase Williams, director of the secret Op-Center, who with other elements of the U.S. military attempt to pull off a daring, skin-of-the-teeth operation. A terrorist attack on the United Nations provides an exciting coda.

Stay tuned to this website for more on Tom Clancy’s Op-Center

When Dick Couch and I were offered the opportunity to “re-boot” the Tom Clancy Op-Center series we wanted to pick the spot where we knew there would be churn when the book was published – and for some time afterwards. The Middle East was our consensus choice.

As one indicator of how this region – and this book – has remained topical and relevant, earlier this year, St. Martin’s press re-released Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes as a mass market paperback. The trade paperback was on the USA Today and Publisher’s weekly best-seller lists and continues to sell briskly. The mass-market paperback, released some months ago, was on the New York Times best-seller list.

As we suggest – this churn will last a long time. And these maps help tell the story of why the Mideast continues to churn: http://www.vox.com/a/maps-explain-the-middle-east

And read the praise for Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes in this review from Publisher’s Weekly:

Fans of the original Op-Center series created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik that ended with Jeff Rovin’s War of Eagles (2005) will welcome this solid continuation from Couch (SEAL Team One) and Galdorisi (Coronado Conspiracy). The original Op-Center, “an information clearinghouse with SWAT capabilities,” fell under the budget ax and was disbanded, but after a horrific series of bombings at four NFL stadiums, U.S. president Wyatt Midkiff decides to dust off the Op-Center file and bring the group back to life. Chase Williams, a retired four-star Navy admiral, agrees to head the new center and hunt down the terrorists responsible for the devastating attack. The trail takes the men and women of the revitalized agency into the Middle East, where they find a new plot aimed at the American homeland. This thriller procedural packs plenty of pulse-raising action. The open ending promises more to come. 

Ahmad Chalabi died earlier this month. Most people don’t recognize his name. Until three years ago, neither did I. That was before I wrote a review of the book Arrow’s in the Night. If there is one book that helps explain why, in 2015, the United States in still mired in the Mideast, it has my vote. Here is part of what I wrote:

Only a handful of people, those in the top policymaking positions in the United States’ government in the years – and even decades – prior to OIF, understand why the United States ultimately went to war to depose Saddam Hussein.  Until now.

Arrows of the Night takes the reader on a half-century journey beginning with Chalabi’s exile from Iraq in 1958, to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, to Chalabi’s work in post-Saddam Iraq.  This journey is both complex and compelling as the primary subject, Ahmad Chalabi, has a larger-than-life resume of triumphs and scandal including a degree in mathematics from MIT, a doctorate from the University of Chicago, work as a university professor and a wildly-successful banker, a conviction for embezzling, and work as a CIA operative.

Throughout this journey, in all his occupations and avocations, Ahmad Chalabi maintained a singular focus – and as Bonin describes – an obsession, to overthrow Saddam’s Ba-athist regime and return to his Iraqi homeland in a blaze of glory.  This was his strategy, and everything else was tactics. While the United States ultimately might have gone to war in Iraq again under the George W. Bush administration to finish what his father’s administration had not, without Ahmad Chalabi, the last half–century relationship between the United States and Iraq – and indeed the entire Middle East – would likely have been vastly different had this complex and complicated man never been exiled from Iraq, or had he merely lived quietly in exile.

This, in a nutshell, describes Ahmad Chalabi’s journey, which began in 1958 when his wealthy Shiite family was exiled from Iraq after a revolution that ultimately put Saddam Hussein in power.  It describes how the young Chalabi devoted his life to restoring his family to prominence. His first coup attempt was in 1963 at age nineteen, while on a school break from MIT. His next was aided by Iranian intelligence. But as the years passed and Saddam stayed in power, Chalabi came to realize that he needed the United States to help him rid Iraq of Saddam.  Only the world’s superpower could make this happen.

More on Ahmad Chalabi’s journey in this New York Times article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/world/middleeast/ahmad-chalabi-iraq-dead.html?_r=0

And in this New York Times Op-ed here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/opinion/why-america-invented-ahmad-chalabi.html

What will the future hold? We all want to know. But as the late Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”

What about the future? On the subject of looking at the future, I suspect you all know there is a cottage industry of people who call themselves “futurists” and we all likely have our own favorite people we follow – either in fact or in fiction – who seem to have a knack of being right about at least some of their predictions. As to the ones who aren’t right very often, they tend to drop off our lists. And speaking of “futurists,” I think that term is going a bit out of vogue as some of the conferences and media I follow now feature “thought leaders” as a primary draw.

In the event Yogi isn’t the person you turn to for philosophical insights, here is what Walter Frick had to say in this month’s Harvard Business Review about the art and science of looking at the future. He talked about the new book by Phillip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Superforcasting: The Art and Science of Prediction.

Forecasting is difficult. Still, accurate predictions are essential to good decision making in every realm of life. We are all forecasters. When we think about changing jobs, getting married, buying a home, making an investment, launching a product, or retiring, we decide based on how we expect the future to unfold.

And not to put too fine a point on it (and I hasten to add I’m not Tetlock and Gardner’s literary agent) in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, Leonard Mlodinow reviewed both Richard Nisbett’s Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking and Superforcasting: The Art and Science of Prediction and found the arguments made by Nisbett (who Malcom Gladwell called “the most influential thinker in my life) lacking, while those made by Tetlock and Gardner compelling.

Stay tuned to this website as we’ll look to the future downstream.

Defense Media Network hosts all of Faircount Media Group’s defense, homeland security and military medicine content. Defense Media Network aggregates all of Faircount Media Group’s publications in one easy web site. For uniformed military, civilian and industry people interested in defense, it is typically the first site bookmarked and it is typically the first place they go for news and analysis.

When a book triggers the reporters and analysts at Faircount Media Group they post a review of it online. Here is the review of Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Into the Fire, Defense Media Network posted:

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/book-review-tom-clancys-op-center-into-the-fire/

Few would argue that empathy is a good thing. After all, we want people to be empathetic toward us, and in the main, we want to be empathetic toward other people. But are we all empathetic, or is it an innate quality that some of us have and others don’t?

You’ve probably heard the saying, “One death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic,” before. It is thought to capture an unfortunate truth about empathy: While a single crying child or injured puppy tugs at our heartstrings, large numbers of suffering people, as in epidemics, earthquakes and genocides, do not inspire a comparable reaction.

Perhaps for all of us empathy is only as limited as we choose it to be. See how this might apply to your journey. More here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/empathy-is-actually-a-choice.html

Just two months ago, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Into the Fire was released for the first time as a trade paperback publication. The first book in the series, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes received high praise from all the traditional book reviews. Into the Fire continues in the same tradition. Here is what Publisher’s Weekly had to say about Into the Fire:

Couch and Galdorisi’s stirring sequel to 2014’s Out of the Ashes pits Cmdr. Kate Bigelow, captain of the USS Milwaukee, and her crew against North Korean naval and special forces units intent on seizing the ship, which has been conducting training exercises in the sea off South Korea. The North Koreans have found vast undersea energy deposits in international waters and have made a secret deal to sell them to the Chinese. Taking the ship hostage will give them leverage against the U.S., which will surely oppose this deal. Bigelow proves to be a formidable foe, managing to outrun and outgun her North Korean adversaries. She runs the Milwaukee aground on the small island of Kujido, sets up a defensive base, and settles in to wait for friendly forces to come to the rescue. Tasked with that mission is Chase Williams, director of the secret Op-Center, who with other elements of the U.S. military attempt to pull off a daring, skin-of-the-teeth operation. A terrorist attack on the United Nations provides an exciting coda.

Stay tuned to this website for more on Tom Clancy’s Op-Center