Marine Maxims
Colonel Thomas J. Gordon, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021. 360 pp. $24.95.
Reviewed by Major Brian Kerg, U.S. Marine Corps
Marines have a new, relevant guidebook for navigating the wide array of leadership challenges they inevitably will face in their careers.
In Marine Maxims, retired Marine Corps Colonel Thomas J. Gordon offers an incredible collection of principles he learned throughout his career. Thematically structured by subjects such as professional development and toxic leadership, it serves as a reference for leaders approaching an anticipated challenge—or in the midst of one. By deftly weaving these subjects together with personal vignettes and reflections from practitioners in other fields, Gordon lays an authoritative foundation for the principles he offers readers.
While the genre of biographically inspired leadership books is cluttered with tomes that lack substance, Gordon offers readers the meat and potatoes of meaningful advice based on studied reflection. He further breaks out of the pack in a number of ways that earn this book a well-deserved spot on any Marine Corps officer’s bookshelf.
Notably, Gordon boldly challenges some of the most common cultural habits exercised by commanders in the Fleet Marine Force. Specifically, he addresses the counterproductivity of mass punishment, policies aimed at curbing misbehavior of the bottom 2 percent while inadvertently hamstringing the remaining 98 percent and otherwise treating Marines like children who cannot be trusted. While junior service members have always chafed at such practices, Gordon speaks from the perspective of a commander who was willing to buck these trends and shares the positive results he witnessed as a company, battalion, and group commander.
Critically, Gordon’s principles are illustrated by practical applications. Writing specifically to an audience of Marine Corps leaders, he bridges the gap from high-level themes to granular action that will be of immediate value. This include leveraging the staff judge advocate, implementing nonjudicial punishment in a way that holistically considers both the Marine facing punishment and the effect on the command, and other ethics rules germane to commanding officers.
One of the most powerful aspects is Gordon’s willingness to speak openly about his own mistakes as a leader. Often, autobiographical leadership manuals paint the author in a saintly light, where every decision validates the author’s decisions in a self-serving manner. That is not the case here. The most complex example is Gordon’s unwillingness to relieve a subordinate commander who demonstrated toxic leadership traits and the suffering it caused his people and the mission. By putting mistakes like this on the table and sharing his reflections on them, Gordon offers critical insights into the burden of command with legitimacy and pathos.
If there is a rough edge in this book, it might be the frequent quotations from leaders in adjacent fields, such as sports, business, and ministry. Gordon’s experience speaks for itself, and any Marine Corps leader will quickly buy into the authenticity of his message. Consequently, these regular appeals to adjacent leaders can get in the way of an already sound lesson. And yet, the references also reveal that Gordon is basing his advice on much more than one commander’s lived experience; he is building on a lifelong study of leadership. In addition, Gordon offers the written work of these same leaders as recommended follow-on reading.
Ultimately, Marine Maxims is an exceptional guidebook for Marine leaders at any level and, with little modification, to military leaders in any branch of service. Today’s service members stand to learn much from his hard-earned wisdom.
Major Kerg is a prior-enlisted mortarman, communications officer, and nonresident fellow with Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare. He is currently a student at the School of Advanced Warfighting in Quantico, Virginia.
REBOOTING AI: BUILDING AI WE CAN TRUST
Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis. New York: Vintage Books, 2020. 288 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. $16.95.
Reviewed by Captain George Galdorisi, U.S. Navy (Retired)
In many aspects of our professional and personal lives it has become customary to employ BLUF: bottom line up front. So here is the BLUF for Rebooting AI: Building AI We Can Trust. Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis have produced a wonderful, engaging, and thoroughly readable book that addresses what is arguably the most cutting-edge and impactful technology today—and one that we are just beginning to understand.
This book clears away, in military terms, the “fog of war” regarding what, for many, is something cloaked in mystery and sometimes even associated with magic. Unlike some books on artificial intelligence (AI) that look only to a distant future regarding what AI (actually, a combination of big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning) might do someday, the authors address what AI is doing today, what it can do tomorrow, and what it most certainly will never do.
The first chapter, “Mind the Gap,” draws the reader in and motivates him or her to read the entire book. The authors detail how these technologies have been overhyped and how AI developers have “overpromised and underdelivered” for decades. They use driverless cars as a primary example of how wildly optimistic promises about when these autonomous vehicles would populate roadways in huge numbers have not come to pass. They explain how, in spite of missed milestones and broken promises, “The rhetoric about AI remains almost messianic.”
Marcus and Davis do not stop with criticisms and concerns regarding the current trajectory of AI research, development, and fielding, but rather, as the book’s title implies, suggest a way to “reboot AI” and develop algorithms and apps that people can trust. Key to that trust is transparency, where the user understands what the “black box” is actually doing and does not have to blindly trust the device to deliver something mysterious and magical.
A key attribute of this book is balance. While they point out the missteps and mistakes that are impeding AI development today, the authors offer suggestions as to how those who work in this field can change the dynamic and harness big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to create trustworthy AI that is “grounded in reasoning, commonsense, values and around sound engineering practices”
As someone who is deeply interested in this subject, I read a number of books on AI. What makes Rebooting AI different from other books that address this topic is that it is eminently readable. In fact, it reads like a novel. When you finish one chapter you cannot wait to find out what happens next. This is rare in nonfiction, especially in books that dive deeply into emerging technology. While it is not a beach read, neither is it a tome filled with equations and targeted only at practitioners who work in the AI field.
Do not put this book on your bookshelf; put it on your bedside nightstand. The storytelling may well lull you into a meditative state as you imagine a future where AI that we can trust will enrich our lives in so many ways.
George Galdorisi is Director of Strategic Assessments and Technical Futures for the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific. He is coeditor of the U.S. Naval Institute book AI At War: How Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Are Changing Naval Warfare (2021). His most recent book is the third novel in the Rick Holden series, Fire and Ice (Braveship Books, 2021).
Breaking Ice & Breaking Glass: Leading in Uncharted Waters
Vice Admiral Sandra Stosz, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired). Virgina Beach, VA: Koehler Books, 2021. 280 pp. Appxs. Biblio. $29.95
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Karen Love Kutkiewicz, U.S. Coast Guard
In her authorial debut, Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass: Leading in Uncharted Waters, Vice Admiral Sandra Stosz uses her 12 years of experience at sea, coupled with her time as a senior executive in the Coast Guard (Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy and Deputy Commandant for Mission Support), as a guide to create a “Framework for Leadership Development.”
Throughout the book, Stosz tells sea stories to highlight each part of her framework, which includes leading self and leading others, leading programs and making policy, and leading the organization. Her goal is to “be an inspiration to those who desire to lead up to the executive level.”
Many times in her career, Stosz was the first woman on board a ship or in a job. Those positions were challenging, but provided her opportunities for growth. She had to navigate uncharted waters—from being the only woman on board the USCGC Glacier (WAGB-4) in Antarctica, to being the first woman to command a 140-foot ice-breaking tug on the Great Lakes. Her ice-breaking experience was how she “broke the ice” before she “broke the glass” and continued up in the ranks to three-star admiral.
In addition to being a permanent cutterman, Stosz led two of the Coast Guard’s training institutions—Training Center Cape May (boot camp) and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. She devoted her career to the professional development of those who followed in her footsteps, and this book is a guide to making her leadership lessons accessible to not only Coast Guard members, but also anyone looking to improve as a leader through the ranks.
One of the best lines in the book is: “Successful leaders of character possess attributes relevant across time: they work hard and persevere, they take responsibility for their actions, and they adapt and innovate to grow with change.” Perseverance is a key leadership theme weaved throughout the chapters on what constitutes a leader of character.
The Coast Guard has a saying that Stosz highlights: “A bad day at sea is always better than a good day ashore,” and she expounds on this, recalling stories of rescuing survivors and recovering bodies from the water following a Haitian vessel capsizing, navigating the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) in the Arctic Ocean during the winter, and rescuing a floundering sailboat caught in a Nor’easter.
What really resonated with me was the line: “When the captain looks over her shoulder, no one is there to ask.” It highlights the responsibility and autonomy of command at sea. The weight was hers alone to carry as captain of two Coast Guard cutters. She understood the pressure of being the first woman and being in command both afloat and ashore, “I also recognized that being a trailblazer, for better or worse, comes with the obligation to clear obstacles from the trail as you encounter them.”
Throughout the book, the reader can see Stosz’s passion for the Coast Guard and genuine desire to make the organization and its members better.
Lieutenant Commander Kutkiewicz is the deputy chief for strategic communication in the Coast Guard’s Office of Public Affairs. She is a permanent cutterman, having served on board the USCGC Hamilton (WHEC-715), Boutwell (WHEC-719), and as operations officer of the Polar Star (WAGB-10). Recently, she was a Federal Executive Fellow at the U.S. Naval Institute.
Spacepower Ascendant: Space Development Theory and a New Space Strategy
Joshua Carlson. Independently published, 2020. 257 pp. Index. Tables. $19.99.
Reviewed by Mir Sadat
Spacepower Ascendant is a new academic treatise that draws on historical examples and theory from influential thinkers such as Alfred Thayer Mahan, Billy Mitchell, and Julian Corbett to construct a framework for space development. The author, Joshua Carlson, is a recent graduate of the Air Command and Staff College and a U.S. Air Force civilian with a background in space acquisitions. Carlson’s book, an extension of his graduate studies, is a major contribution to spacepower theory, great power competition, and systematizing space development. According to Carlson, decisive elements of spacepower include economics, astronautics, and domain development.
The book posits that space has been wrongly conceptualized by years of exploration that have conditioned people to dismiss expansion further into space. He argues this is why China’s space plans are so concerning—making moves to expand into space to become the preeminent space power by 2049.
Carlson, also a reserve Army intelligence officer, provides numerous examples to explain his phases of space development: explore, expand, exploit, and exclude. The book devotes a few chapters to Chinese and American space theory and strategy before moving to the two constructed “wargames” in which the Chinese and American strategies are tested over the next 30 years and beyond. The Chinese win the first wargame, and the American strategy is adjusted for the second one. The book closes with a look at the future uses of spacepower and a chapter to present an integrated space development theory (SDT).
Carlson could provide and examine more examples to reinforce SDT. An updated edition should include a more thorough set of historical case studies, including non-Western examples, with a matrix to each of the four identified SDT phases. He may also be too quick to dismiss the “brown-water thinkers”—those who focus almost exclusively on space only to “support the terrestrial warfighter.” Carlson also may be too cautionary about China’s space potential, because Beijing’s aspirations have never materialized in their declared timelines. However, he is right when he points to the Chinese government overstepping and breaking treaties—arguing the nation has a history of acting in bad faith.
His argument is significant and is demonstrated in the first vignette, in which China dominates the resources of space and uses them to dominate Earth. If Carlson is right, then the “second space race,” between China and the United States, is of dire consequence to the future of the 21st century. In addition, the phases of space development usher in a new paradigm that permits space to be viewed as a continuum of progression. He also proposes that space should mirror the civilian-military binary that all other domains have, suggesting it should be spacepower/astronautics.
Spacepower Ascendant is currently on the 2021 U.S. Space Command National Security Space Institute’s annual Space Professionals’ Reading List. Space advocates and space industrialists will benefit from SDT, as it can help give them an integrated vision of how they relate to NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and commercial space. In addition, this a great read for those interested in strategic competition in space, especially with China, and what it may look like.
Dr. Sadat is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an adjunct scholar with the Modern War Institute at West Point, and a former policy director on the U.S. National Security Council in the Executive Office of the President at the White House.
IN THE ARENA
Chuck Robb. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. 2021, 354 pp. $34.95
Reviewed by A. Denis Clift
Chuck Robb graduated in 1961 from University of Wisconsin-Madison, was commissioned via NROTC/OCS in the Marine Corps, served in Vietnam commanding India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment, and was awarded the Bronze Star. Immediately prior to that combat duty, he was officer in charge of the White House Color Guard and military social aide to President and Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson. In the course of those duties, he and the President’s daughter, Lynda, fell in love, wed, and launched on a happy marriage.
Following his active-duty service, Robb entered politics and climbed through the Democratic Party ranks to serve as the 64th governor of Virginia (1982–86), in the U.S. Senate as senator from Virginia (1989–2001), and as co-chair of the Iraq Intelligence Commission (2004). This personal history, subtitled “A Memoir of Love, War, and Politics,” is a richly detailed political success story, with a salute to Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” on the importance of living life to the fullest by entering the fray.
Mr. Clift is the U.S. Naval Institute’s vice president for planning and operations and president emeritus of the National Intelligence University.
