eliot cohen is the robert osgood professor of strategic studies. he has served on the policy planning staff of the office of the secretary of defense before coming here in 1990. he has always been an officer in the united states army reserve. from 2007 to 2009, he was a counselor, was counselor of the department of state serving as secretary condoleezza rice's senior adviser on strategic issues. and i must not forget he is also the founding director of the phillip merrill center for strategic studies here at sais. he also has done a lot of things in academia but i, in fact, didn't add those things in. [laughter] our first discussion is tom ricks. he is the author of a number of very successful books on the u.s. military including, for example, these are the titles: "fiasco," "the gamble," "making the core." all of these have been bestsellers. he has served on the staff of "the wall street journal" for some 17 years. more recently, he's been with "the washington post." he is currently a fellow at the center for new american security and is a contrib

[laughter] eliot cohen has done something unusual and even daring here.he has made canada interesting. [laughter] after you buy and read this book, you will never again think of canada as homer simpson thought of it, america jr. [laughter] it's a terrific book. i've read it twice, once in manuscript, and i just finished reading the hard cover last is a fun book. i actually found it even more fun the second time around because i figured out his racquet. i was sort of playing chess the second time, okay, i've read the book, now where are you going to take us this time? structurally, as an author, i found it really enjoyable. but my favorite is the chapter on the battle of the snowshoes, chapter three. it's a lovely essay that, surprisingly, kind of takes you from the battle of snowshoes, mentally -- at least for me -- to mogadishu. and today's military. and again and again these connections are made. several of the good points that i really enjoyed in the book, the point made early on that in america, unlike in europe, war french did better with the indians