VENICE PAPERS
Turning strategy making to a new page
The 1989 end of the Cold War turned a new page for the world. Still on active duty in the Pentagon, I was invited to meet in Venice with Mikhail Gorbachev and a group that had helped turn that page. The Venice meeting led to my next ten years of work. Traveling the world in partnership with UNESCO’s Director-General and many local citizen leaders, I explored the outlines of a new strategies for peacebuilding and conflict prevention. These three Venice Papers distill those still-relevant ideas.
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ARTICLES
MAKING AMERICAN NAVAL STRATEGY (Essay)
This important essay summarizes the American way of making and using a Navy. Written at the turn of the Century as foundation for the next generation thinking needed in our post-Cold War world, I’d hoped it would catalyze a new era for fresh thing. While the principles and perspectives are still valid, the renaissance in strategy I’d hoped to see has not yet sprouted.
MCLEARY IS OVER. NOW WHAT? (Crosscut.)
A strategic overview on how to move forward after the McCleary court case.
COMMENTARY
MOST RECENT
Simulating Citizenry
TechKnowlogy Magazine—June 2001 Note: this article gives a good description of the PeaceLab/CoLab simulation process. It was written to be one of the features in the inaugural edition of a new, online journal devoted to gaming applications edited by some leading...
Central Asian Students Tackle “Afghanization”
1998 Included in a report published in Kyrgyz, Russian and English by Kyrgyz State National University, this op-ed reports on a successful "PeaceGame" held in Central Asia. As of 2005 this series continues to bring students from all over Central Asia together. From a...
Resetting the National Consensus on Security Strategy
Spring 2004 Resetting the national consensus on security strategy. Published by the Chicago-based National Strategy Forum, this piece revisits the myths which have framed traditional US security strategy and proposes new ground rules for citizens thinking about how to...
Nuclear Logic
Christian Science Monitor—March 2005 I continue to worry—a lot!—that our nuclear arsenal managers and our National Command Authority (the President and the Secretary of Defense) have not adapted our nuclear doctrine to the practicalities—and the mysteries—of the...
An Opportunity to Excel
Keynote address at Key Peninsula Citizens of the Year dinner—March 2005 Larry Seaquist was the keynote speaker at the recent Key Peninsula Citizens of the Year dinner. We asked him to say more about his call for the community to take the lead in planning its future....
Public Intelligence
Christian Science Monitor—December 2004 As the 9/11 Commission concluded its brilliant work, precipitating a rush to overhaul the US intelligence apparatus, this piece argues that, the reforms should put of the public at the top of the list of intelligence clients....
Military’s Bad-Guy Dragnet
Christian Science Monitor—May 2004 US military's bad-guy dragnet is a terrible way to win a war. Written as the world learned through leaked photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, this piece goes back to the accountability problem, arguing once again that a full and...
Peacebuilding Lessons
Christian Science Monitor—December 2003 This essay reports on some pioneering work in an American community. The "CoLabs" are the latest stage in the evolving application of war gaming techniques to peacebuilding and community development tasks. Importantly, the...
Exemplary Power
Christian Science Monitor—August 2003 Americans brandish more pure physical power than any empire in history. But are we using it effectively? I argue here that our power of example is far more potent than our firepower. GIG HARBOR, WASH. American power and America's...
UNESCO—Peacebuilding Superpower
Quarterly Bulletin of AMERICANS FOR UNESCO, Spring 2003 I discovered UNESCO and its unique peacebuilding potential in Italy in 1993. One of a small group meeting in springtime Venice to discuss UNESCO's role in a changing world, I expected to be the token military man...
Talking with Nukes
Christian Science Monitor—April 2003 Nuclear weapons are cropping up in more and more countries. This essay urges some fundamental rethinking about nuclear "signals" -- the activities and statements various players in the nuclear game send each other. Sadly, we seem...
The People’s Intelligence
Christian Science Monitor—April 2003 Nuclear weapons are cropping up in more and more countries. This essay urges some fundamental rethinking about nuclear "signals" -- the activities and statements various players in the nuclear game send each other. Sadly, we seem...
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VIDEO & FILM
COMMANDING A BATTLEHSHIP
Follow along as naval historiographer Drachinifel interviews Captain Larry on what it’s like to actually command a battleship.
GRID
THE GRID—ALL SIDES OF BOTH SIDES IN THE WAR ON TERROR
“…it is impossible to ignore how ground-breaking this show is: It is the entertainment industry’s first unvarnished look at the clash of Western civilization and Islamist terrorism.” Weekly Standard
“…a fast-paced thriller for grown-ups.” New York Times
Larry is the technical advisor to the limited series, THE GRID. THE GRID (Part 1) aired in the U.S. in the summer of 2004. Co-produced by BBC, TNT, and Fox Studios, THE GRID aired in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe in Fall, 2004, and is now being released in other international markets. GRID II is in preparation.
Showing “all sides of both sides”—the worlds of extremist Islamist terrorists and the worlds of the international counter-terrorist teams who oppose them—THE GRID has been praised for its gripping, totally authentic portrait of the lives of terrorists, moderate Muslims, and counter-terror officials. GRID I depicted the struggle of American and British intelligence to track down a new, al Qaeda spin-off cell. GRID II will explore nuclear terrorism.
Working closely with Executive Producer Tracey Alexander, Larry provided the real-world research which she and the writing team translated into fictional but wholly realistic portraits of the evolving war against terrorist violence and its roots.
A glimpse of hell
A GLIMPSE OF HELL—AN (UNNECESSARY) AMERICAN TRAGEDY
Written by 60 Minutes producer Charlie Thompson and published by W.W. Norton, A Glimpse of Hell was turned into a TV movie by Executive Producer Tracey Alexander, starring James Caan and Robert Sean Leonard. Larry worked with Charlie Thompson during the writing of the book. Later invited by Ms. Alexander to become the technical advisor, Larry worked on the film from the script development and pre-production stages, was on set when the movie was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then assisted in the post-production work in Los Angeles and with marketing the movie.
A Glimpse of Hell tells the story of a double tragedy: a world-renowned ship, the pride of the fleet, her crew drawn from top-drawer volunteers from all over the Navy—and once praised by President Reagan after his visit on board as “absolutely perfect”—fallen into the worst peacetime accident in Navy’s history.
Larry remains deeply concerned about the lack of a just closure to the Iowa “case”: The Navy’s failure to acknowledge its grievous mismanagement of the accident investigations has permanently damaged public confidence in the integrity of Navy’s leadership. Worse, Navy’s failure to do the right thing by the families of the Iowa 47 continues to inflict a cruel and unnecessary injustice both on these fine American families who have lost their beloved son, husband, father, and to tarnish the patriotic service of the thousands of outstanding men who served proudly in Battleship IOWA. Larry remains confident that, one day, a generation of Navy leaders will decide to right this horrific wrong by apologizing to the families, acknowledging the investigatory errors, and celebrating the crew’s many accomplishments.
