David Deutsch. The Fabric of Reality.

David Deutsch is not Max Tegmark. His book, though full of metaphysical hoey now embellishing any treatise of well-known quantum physicist, does not lose connection with physical facts. But his "multiverse" exercises are poorly compiled.

For instance, he suggests that a quantum computer can perform computations unfeasible to the Turing machine (currently an unproven fact, by the mathematicians) because in alternative universes, other signs can occupy the same physical place on paper and interact with each other. This has nothing to do with paradigmatic quantum mechanics. Paradigmatic quantum mechanics in this instance, simply states that sign is described by the wave function (or density matrix), which contains maximum information we can obtain about a letter sign.

Similarly, he perverts message of mathematical intuitionism. Not being an intuitionist and not understanding enough mathematics to judge one way or the other, I must mention that intuitionism does not claim that natural numbers are finite.

All it claims (contrary to p. 232 of Deutsch's) that there is algorithm allowing to add 1 to any natural number (e.g. 9+1=10) and this algorithm is what we mean by the "natural numbers." Equally, the real number Pi means that we have an algorithm (countable filter by the parlance of the set theory), which allows to compute arbitrary decimal of Pi. Yes, for the Pi+horse such algorithm may not exists and this expression is thus not a real number.

Daniel Shulman. Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty.

I can safely report that I did not read the book. The NPR interview with Daniel Shulman was enough.

Koch brothers can buy everything, especially Utne Reader poor journalist. Similarly to the recent bio of Rupert Murdoch, this opus portrays them simultaneously as

• More powerful than anyone can imagine and
• More benign than everyone thinks of them.

The hack writer gives credence, in particular, to the sincere libertarianism of the Koch brothers. Paraphrasing Schopenhauer, completely consistent libertarian can be found only in a mental asylum (he spoke of solipsism). Indeed, one only has to buy ticket to Somalia or Northern Waziristan to enjoy libertarian utopia.

In fact, Koch brothers continue the deed of their father. During 1940-50s when, because of changed economy and demographics, KKK became uninteresting for anyone but the Southern poor. Then Southern racist tycoons had to invent other ideology attractive for the new professional middle and upper middle classes. It emerged in form of extreme anti-Communism (Red under the bed), equalizing all forms of social support with Marxism and Socialism and the John Birch society. 

When steam has gone from old-style conservatism (segregation under guise of states rights, anti-Soviet hysteria, etc.) of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, Koch brothers latched on to libertarianism as an ideology attractive to the young and educated. In reality, as do many of the top 0.0001%, they subscribe to the idea of the rigid class society controlled by the compact of the ultra-rich, military and the clergy. To assess how well it works in the long run, one has to look at Latin America between 1800s and 1960s. This thinking was epitomized in Mitt Romney's candidacy--only Harvard, Yale and Princeton educated top bankers, industrialists and politicos are people--but he was not genuine enough to convince many people of the vitality of his agendas.

NATO. Mockli, Daniel. European Foreign Policy during the Cold War. Heath, Brandt, Pompidou and the Dream of Political Unity, I. B. Tavris, 2009.

The author misses the main point in NATO development. Despite the continuity of the founding documents and structures, politically it lived through three distinct phases. Yet, Mockli's book despite its conceptual flaws even within the smart limitations he himself posed on his master opus--he does not touch a very successful demonstration of unity in the end of the 70s--with respect to the deployment of the INF, is much deeper and better researched than the majority of NATO-related studies.

In the first phase (40s-first half of the 60s) it was a system of American military guarantees to the European countries in the case of Soviet invasion in exchange for the access to their strategic infrastructure: roads, ports, airports and such. The ending of this phase can be dated by 1966? when De Gaulle pulled France out of NATO and declared a strategy of "all-azimuth defense." Nobody seriously thought that France would fight on the Soviet side in the case of any conflict but, with respect to the NATO forces in Europe, French strategy perceived an eventuality in which Americans will unilaterally decide to use French territory and resources to fight wars having nothing to do with the French national interest.

The second phase (1960s-1990s), was characterized by NATO turning into a collective European Army. In fact, by the mid-1970s, not occasionally coinciding with the end of the Vietnam War, the main ground force in the Central Europe was represented by the German and British contingents. The US still provided both strategic and tactical nuclear umbrella for NATO forces in Europe and the naval protection of its flanks but it was clear that in the case of the major conflict, the bulk of the ground armies will be provided by the large NATO countries.

Finally, the third phase, in which we are now is NATO, turning after its enlargement into a Department of the US Colonial Affairs. Nobody in his or her right mind can perceive any security interests of Poland, or Romania sending its nationals to Iraq or Denmark and Norway supporting attack on Libya. These conflicts are a complete invention of the US (or British, in the case of Libya) policy establishments, in which the role of the other NATO members to provide condottieri or, if they would not, to give money either for the "humanitarian aid" or "reconstruction" of the countries ruined by the US invasion, or to support shambolic economies of their Eastern European and Southern allies at the time when they send their kids to fight.

There would be, half-seriously, the fourth phase when the interests of the Eastern Europeans will chain US and EU into futile "crush Russia, get hydrocarbons" policies on the periphery of the US interests. We already see that in senseless Georgian and Ukrainian projects. Neocons thinking that they are smarter than everyone else are for that the most gullible when it comes for substitution of the US national interest with petty conflicts framed by Polish propaganda and Saudi/Qatari money.

P.S. Mockli calls for the efficient EU defensive policy suggesting that without it there would be no independent EU foreign policy. Sounds reasonable, but for now, there is no chance whatsoever that EU is capable to develop independent foreign policy. Euro-Atlanticists (called neocons in the US) proceeded with enlargement in part to create a compact of minion states to contain (and in future, to be used as beachhead to attack) Russia. This sorry predicament does not leave much role for the Western Europe as to be, in the words of G. Orwell, US No.1 runway.

Other references:

D. S. Hamilton (ed.) Transatlantic transformations: equipping NATO for the 21st century, Center for Transatlantic Relationships.
Techno-bubble talk with little depth of inherent political and economic issues. Rob de Wijk's suggestions for armaments do not envision any conflict but the war with Russia.
Herd, G. and J. Kriendlender (eds.) Understanding NATO in the 21st century. Routledge.
Again, purely technocratic talk devoid of any political content and context.
Arne Hoffman. The emergence of detente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the formation of Ostpolitik, 2007.
G. Schmidt (eds.) A history of NATO: the first fifty years, Vols. 1-3. 2001.
S. R. Sloan, NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Communisty, Roman & Littlefield, 2005.
It offers quite sophisticated view of the trans-Atlantic relationship going far beyond the neocon one-liner of the "defense of democracies." Yet, it was written during the "mission accomplished" period of unabashed US triumphalism with respect to war in Iraq.
W. T. Thies. Why NATO endures.
Primitive neocon-themed piece of NATO propaganda. "Unlike autocracies, in which an entrenched leadership can make the same dumb mistakes more than once, there is a Darwinian quality to policy making in democracies." Ye, ye. Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine...

Stephen Sestanovich. Maximalist.

Stephen Sestanovich was one of the architects of the NATO enlargement, which turned the US into a real Empire with a typical set of imperial obligations. As all neocons and euro-atlanticists (as if there is any other remaining political thought in the US), after the failure of Iraq adventure and in the absence of support to invasion of Iran, he advocates bullying Russia into submission or war (Third time the chance!).

In essence, this is a Cargo Cult thinking--the Cold War was, in neocon mythology, a resounding success, rather than expensive and tenuous balancing on the precipice--so that if neocons retrace the steps they will arrive at ultimate victory. Sestanovich advocates a return to the Cold War posture and Bush vintage "preventive wars", which were not, by the way, the part of the Cold War strategy. Yet, in 1945 US owned ~60% of world economy, were about two decades ahead of all world in high technology, etc. etc. Finally, during the Cold War most First World and Third World elites viewed Soviet-based Communism as the main enemy and US policy goals as beneficial. While, now in Western Europe there is still a generation of politicians (Merkel, etc.) with nostalgic Americanism, rational calculations of their elites involve following in America's path less and less.

To a pity, American policy makers if they read something read nothing else than neocon pamphlets.

Andrei Lankov. The Real North Korea. Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist State.

A. Lankov is a Russian-born professor at South Korea's Kookmin U. I cannot, obviously, judge how accurate his book is but it is a breath of fresh air among neocon-dominated country studies in the US. Current Anglo-American political scientists mostly carry a few pre-set theses on the situation in any country, which they support with cherry-picked "evidence." (E.g. see my review of Richard Sakwa's Putin--and this is not the worst example; on the contrary among the best). Furthermore, neocon-informed country studies take their anthropomorphism of international politics--as if countries were characters in the Greek tragedy with no domestic politics and immutable characters--to an unbearable degree. Measured and well-researched (again, unlike neocon "experts" he has a working knowledge of the language of country he writes about), his book is a welcome addition. In particular, he discusses, at length, why despite official slogans of Korea's unification both  North Korean and South Korean elites are comfortable with the situation as it is.