4 Books To Read in 2025, China Trade Deal in Sight
490: MACV-SOG, China, and Palantir's Come Up
Morning all.
As markets digest the second rate cut from the Federal Reserve yesterday afternoon I wanted to drop a brief book list on some of the titles I am currently reading and wrapping up and then we can get into the most pertinent news from the last 24 hours (China Trade Deal, Rate Cut Rhetoric, Trump mobilizing a quick reaction force (QRF) for US cities, and more).
One of the advantages of being terminally online and working in the media space is I often get a jump on some of the more popular book titles during any given year. While the vast majority of content I read and consume comes online, I still make time for reading books when I can.
It’s rare nowadays to find people who commit to reading hard copies of books and I’ve always found it’s a solid exercise in decompression from the digital world.
When it comes to self development or improvement titles, reading books is only the FIRST part of one effort you can make — the execution and testing of strategies, techniques, and principles you find is equally, if not more important. If I had a dollar for every person who’s read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” but clearly missed how to apply the core concepts (i.e. they can’t fucking listen) I’d be rich.
Personally my favorite genre is history/warfare. I grew up reading every single WWII and WWI history book I could find, in college I moved to geopolitics and global affairs. While the author and source is important to consider, this formed the way I have come to understand the world and has had a major impact on my understanding of why things are the way they are.
You get a solid appreciation for scale when you read, you can begin to understand just how big the world is, how insignificant you are in comparison, and how varied peoples experiences have been throughout history.
You also gain a sober appreciation for how good you have it compared to those in the past.
Today we’ll review a few titles I’m in the process of reading or finishing and I’ll provide some links on where to cop the titles if you want to check them out.
Picture this if you can.
The year is 1968, the height of the Vietnam War.
You’re face down in damp elephant grass deep across the Vietnam - Laos border observing the Ho Chi Minh Trail — the elaborate system of mountain and jungle trails used by North Vietnam to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam.
The thick jungle around you is humming with the sound of insects, exotic birds, and animal cries that sound more human than not.
A heavy fog sits inches above the jungle floor floating ominously.
The stench entering your nostrils is a combination of intense humidity, damp earth, and decaying leaves. As you exhale you can feel sharp bites on your leg and neck from swarms of mosquitos (almost all of which carry malaria). You rotate slightly to check your watch and your arm brushes a dead log rotating it slightly over.
You pray 1 of the 23 species of venomous snakes indigenous to Laos doesn’t decide slither out and bite you. You’re not sure what would be a quicker death, that or a tiger looking for breakfast. The recon team from last week saw one slinking around their outpost only miles away.
You look for your teammates at your left and right, who are laying down like you in a crude half circle facing a dense tree-line about 20 meters away. You only have a general idea of where they are. There’s six of you total. Three Americans and three Montagnards (indigenous people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands allied with U.S). They are fearsome fighters who despise the North Vietnamese.
The arsenal you are all outfitted with is far beyond what regular military would carry. CAR 15s, M16s, modified RPDs (7.62x39mm light machine gun developed in the Soviet Union), Grease Guns, revolvers, and semiautomatic pistols are liberally spread out amongst the team. Collectively you’re all carrying almost 4,000 rounds of ammunition along with three 40mm grenade launchers, 10 claymore mines, 20 frag grenades, and 3 radios.
You watch as a bright red 10 inch centipede climbs across the barrel of your RPD when suddenly you hear a “snap” as a twig breaks. The jungle falls silent almost instantly. You think you hear whispers as you lift your head to the tree line slightly.
Suddenly you see it.
A shimmer of movement, barely perceptible, ripples through the dense green. A leaf trembles, and then the entire tree line shifts as dozens of figures emerge slowly.
Gunfire tears through the humid air like ripping canvas. The first burst of AK fire cuts through your point man’s shoulder before you even register the sound. He cries out in pain but returns fire immediately. Muzzle flashes strobe in the undergrowth, orange tongues spitting from the jungle’s mouth.
You drop as flat as possible, heart hammering, as rounds snap and hiss overhead, chewing bark from the trees. The jungle that was alive a second ago now howls with chaos. Bullets, smoke, and screams blending into one deafening roar.
You swing the RPD toward the flashes and lay down suppressive fire, the metal drum magazine rattling as brass rains around you. The muzzle heat scorches your hands but you don’t stop, tracers carve through the green hell ahead as you shout for the team to fall back toward the creek line.
You spot a single NVA soldier sprinting left to flank the team and suddenly he erupts in a dark red mist as he trips your perimeter claymores. The explosion sets off a chain reaction of others you placed the night before. Each concusses and explodes throwing thousands of steel balls ripping through enemy bodies and shredding trees.
Over the gunfire, you hear the thump of your team’s grenade launchers and the guttural cries of the NVA closing in. You can’t see many of them now, only foliage shifting and jerking and the flicker of motion between trees as they crawl forward.
And as the jungle burns and the radio crackles with your extraction team’s inbound comms, you realize you’re deep in enemy territory cut off, outnumbered, and pinned. Your radioman is desperately trying to confirm close air support as NVA riflemen send rounds flying inches over his head.
The radio crackles again, and you get confirmation an F-4 Phantom Jet is inbound now. 30 seconds out. You relay the coordinates of the tree line as best you can, fully understanding the NVA soldiers could be 15 feet away at this point.
Despite the hail of gunfire and explosions your team slinks back professionally, putting distance between themselves and where the NVA are massing. There has to be 100 of them. Their officers are now blowing whistles to rally and push to your position.