Mare Somniorum

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by USMC, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes is a difficult book to review. This is mostly why it’s taken me two months after I finished it to write about it. It is an informative book. There are good reasons to read it. It has quality (spot the reference if you please). However… I didn’t really take to it, and I shall attempt to explain why.

I’ll dare venture into an analogy, and compare the understanding of warfare to the construction of a bridge. I have “recently” read The Utility of Force by Sir Rupert Smith that deals with some of the same material — and as such, they stand to be compared. And I believe that this comparison explains most of my reaction to “The Sling and the Stone”.

“The Sling and the Stone” is an engineers handbook, it’s an attempt to give you the nitty-gritty details of building a bridge. It goes through the materials, the workforce, the managerial challenges, the way you should rework your current taskforce and it does so by repeating the same terms, drilling in its message — and making potshots at those who haven’t read the handbook and understood it, or simply view things differently than the author.

“The Utility of Force” doesn’t seek to tell you how to build bridges. It attempts to make you understand bridges. What does bridges do, what are their purpose, what do they seek to achieve, who builds bridges, why do they build those specific bridges, why do you sometimes make suboptimal bridges, what bridges are built through human history and, again, why? It feels a lot more like you’re trying to enlighten, not encase, a point. It doesn’t matter that Hammes is, on paper, the scholar of the two authors — or at least he’s the one who fronts his scholarly experience.

Sir Smith tells you about his experiences in the field, hands on, and how he experienced warfare — and how he has come to understand it. Hammes is on a crusade to make you agree with him, ridiculing those who don’t, or didn’t, get it. Make no mistake about it, this is how you build bridges, or, well fight fourth-generation warfare — 4GW as its abbreviated. Oh, and be warned, you’ll see ‘4GW’ written so many times you’ll expect to see it on your cereal box cover afterwards.

That’s the core of my annoyance right there. Now, add to this that the book is highly US-centric (count the pages that directly relate to how the US Military should relate to 4GW warfare, they’re a substantial part of the book) and that the language is, well, not overly interesting to read. There were several occasions where I reread a sentence with utter amazement — “did he really get that construct past the editor?”.

Still, my advice would be to read the book. I would however suggest you to read the book without feeling guilty for, at times, quickly scanning over pages, rather than reading every word very carefully.

And out of the mist came the city.
The city of dreams.

Its spires rose through the sky
cutting through the mist like beacons of hope.

Reaching to the skies
pointing to the heaves of which I can only dream.

Immutable, immovable, immortal.
Eternal they stand tall.

My journey is at its end.
Under these towers I shall rest.

Forever in their shadow I remain.

I have to admit, I first heard anything from this album while playing “Need for Speed Underground” (yes, the first one of the lot). It features “Wonders of You”, which in the game is a bit more subdued, a bit less refined and a lot less screaming of energy than the original. It was however quite enough to make me to and think, “dang, I need to get myself some of that”. And thus, I found “Exodus”.

Now “Exodus” is an interesting conception, it is the Book of Exodus, yes, from the big book called “The Bible”. The story is told in a beat you’d rarely think of as “religious” though, it’s fast, it’s loud, it’s noisy — it is pure energy pumping at you from the word “Go”. I liked it the first time I heard it, and it grew on me.

The opening track, “Go” is good, it sets the stage, establishes the mood and winds itself up to “Wonders of You” — a track I’ve heard so many times now it feels like a familiar beat through my veins. I love this track. The tone, the pace, the movements, the lot of it. Even if you know whom the author thought about as he wrote the text, it’s easy to see, and feel, how it matches other aspects of life. It’s a stellar track, one of my all-time favorites.

From here we move into “Radiate” onto “Amazing” and well, just onwards. It’s really a great piece of work. Hours could be spent on each track. The soundscape Hunter produces is fantastic. It really is. It brims with energy, but also with heart and soul.  Now, you might ask if being religious helps you when listening to “Exodus”, and to be honest, I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that I love listening to the album.