The reason for my trips to the USA in April was because I was checking out schools in a last attempt to glean a little insight and feeling as to where I should go to law school this coming fall. In the end, the decision was a lot easier than I ever imagined it would be.
Although Boston is a beautiful city, and I know if I went to Harvard I could make it work and be just fine, I felt that Stanford was a better fit. There is a big difference between the east and west in America, something that I have become acutely aware of since being here in Cambridge and meeting hardly anyone from west of the Mississippi. Not only is the land different, but the ideology, the outlook on life, the people, and the idea that you can try just about anything once -- you may fail, but at least you can give it a try. Its that expanding westward/frontier mentality, I suppose, and I miss it. I am ready to go back for a while.
I am certainly sounding like a sentimental Stegnarian right now. Perhaps I am one.
Coming back to Cambridge was in itself a wonderful thing. I came back to warm weather and everything in full bloom. The city is alive again! One benefit of having a dreary winter is that you come to appreciate the sight and smell of living things much more. Everything is green, and the tree outside my window is now providing shade and cover from the road. In the three weeks that I was gone, Cambridge transformed into one of the most beautiful places and I realized, these last two months are going to go too fast. I am going to miss it.
Currently knee-deep in research (literally, I have books stacked) and I am loving it. I have picked up a couple of books for my work that I think are also interesting and relevant for the "general public" to read. They are two books that were actually juxtaposed and reviewed in one of last year's Foreign Affairs, but I just happened to get them together at the same point and then realized this connection. The first is "In the Graveyard of Empires" by Seth. G. Jones. He gives a history of Afghanistan, rather brief, and then dives deep into the issue of why outside forces always seem to lose Afghanistan, and subsequently lies out an outline for success. David Kilcullen, one of the modern counter-insurgency theorists, wrote a book "The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting small wars in the midst of a big one." He talks a lot about how the insurgent becomes an insurgent -- accidentally. When we infiltrate individuals' territory, they inherently respond defensively and thus become part of the fighting insurgency. Kilcullen is quoted as saying at one point, " If I were a Muslim, I'd probably be a jihadist. The thing that drives these guys - a sense of adventure, wanting to be part of the movement, wanting to be in the big movement of history that's happening now -- that the same thing that drives me, you know?" He has served as senior advisor to General David Petraeus and been the chief counterterrorism strategist for the State Department. Needless to say, this guy has the credentials to back up what he says. Highly recommend these books if you are interested at all in a little more Afghanistan/strategy reading!
Finally, and the total flip-side of the arguments presented in these two books, I ran across an article the other day written by a friend of a friend (is that a fair connection to make? I only do it because it was this friend who initially sent it to me).
Titled "Are we losing Afghanistan?" He makes a fair argument about the host of troubles when a deadline is set, and the general population is aware of this. How can we expect these local populations to fundamentally change their allegiances when we are telling them that we will be gone in another year? Food for thought.
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