Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

Author: John Nagl
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313077037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Armies are invariably accused of preparing to fight the last war. Nagl examines how armies learn during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared in organization, training, and mindset. He compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948-1960 with that developed in the Vietnam Conflict from 1950-1975, through use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both conflicts. In examining these two events, he argues that organizational culture is the key variable in determining the success or failure of attempts to adapt to changing circumstances. Differences in organizational culture is the primary reason why the British Army learned to conduct counterinsurgency in Malaya while the American Army failed to learn in Vietnam. The American Army resisted any true attempt to learn how to fight an insurgency during the course of the Vietnam Conflict, preferring to treat the war as a conventional conflict in the tradition of the Korean War or World War II. The British Army, because of its traditional role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics that its history and the national culture created, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency. This is the first study to apply organizational learning theory to cases in which armies were engaged in actual combat.

Knife Fights

Author: John A. Nagl
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698176359
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
From one of the most important army officers of his generation, a memoir of the revolution in warfare he helped lead, in combat and in Washington When John Nagl was an army tank commander in the first Gulf War of 1991, fresh out of West Point and Oxford, he could already see that America’s military superiority meant that the age of conventional combat was nearing an end. Nagl was an early convert to the view that America’s greatest future threats would come from asymmetric warfare—guerrillas, terrorists, and insurgents. But that made him an outsider within the army; and as if to double down on his dissidence, he scorned the conventional path to a general’s stars and got the military to send him back to Oxford to study the history of counterinsurgency in earnest, searching for guideposts for America. The result would become the bible of the counterinsurgency movement, a book called Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. But it would take the events of 9/11 and the botched aftermath of the Iraq invasion to give counterinsurgency urgent contemporary relevance. John Nagl’s ideas finally met their war. But even as his book began ricocheting around the Pentagon, Nagl, now operations officer of a tank battalion of the 1st Infantry Division, deployed to a particularly unsettled quadrant of Iraq. Here theory met practice, violently. No one knew how messy even the most successful counterinsurgency campaign is better than Nagl, and his experience in Anbar Province cemented his view. After a year’s hard fighting, Nagl was sent to the Pentagon to work for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, where he was tapped by General David Petraeus to coauthor the new army and marine counterinsurgency field manual, rewriting core army doctrine in the middle of two bloody land wars and helping the new ideas win acceptance in one of the planet’s most conservative bureaucracies. That doctrine changed the course of two wars and the thinking of an army. Nagl is not blind to the costs or consequences of counterinsurgency, a policy he compared to “eating soup with a knife.” The men who died under his command in Iraq will haunt him to his grave. When it comes to war, there are only bad choices; the question is only which ones are better and which worse. Nagl’s memoir is a profound education in modern war—in theory, in practice, and in the often tortured relationship between the two. It is essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of America’s soldiers and the purposes for which their lives are put at risk.

Why We Lost

Author: Daniel P. Bolger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544370481
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 565

Book Description
A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.

Resisting Rebellion

Author: Anthony James Joes
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813191706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
In Resisting Rebellion, Anthony James Joes explores insurgencies ranging across five continents and spanning more than two centuries. Analyzing examples from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, he identifies recurrent patterns and offers useful lessons for future policymakers. Insurgencies arise from many sources of discontent, including foreign occupation, fraudulent elections, and religious persecution, but they also stem from ethnic hostilities, the aspirations of would-be elites, and traditions of political violence. Because insurgency is as much a political phenomenon as a military one, effective counterinsurgency requires a thorough understanding of the insurgents' motives and sources of support. Clear political aims must guide military action if a counterinsurgency is to be successful and prepare a lasting reconciliation within a deeply fragmented society. The most successful counterinsurgency campaign undertaken by the United States was the one against Philippine insurgents following the Spanish-American War. But even more instructive than successful counterinsurgencies are the persistent patterns of errors revealed by Joes's comparative study. Instances include the indiscriminate destructiveness displayed by the Japanese in China and the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the torture of suspected Muslim terrorists by members of the French Army in Algeria. Joes's comprehensive twofold approach to counterinsurgency is easily applied to the U.S. The first element, developing the strategic basis for victory, emphasizes creating a peaceful path to the redress of legitimate grievances, committing sufficient troops to the counterinsurgent operation, and isolating the conflict area from outside aid. The second element aims at marginalizing the insurgents and includes fair conduct toward civilians and prisoners, systematic intelligence gathering, depriving insurgents of weapons and food, separating insurgent leaders from their followers, and offering amnesty to all but the most incorrigible. Providing valuable insights into a world of conflict, Resisting Rebellion is a thorough and readable exploration of successes and failures in counterinsurgency's long history and a strategy for the future.

Wrong Turn

Author: Gian Gentile
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1595588965
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Book Description
A searing indictment of US strategy in Afghanistan from a distinguished military leader and West Point military historian—“A remarkable book” (National Review). In 2008, Col. Gian Gentile exposed a growing rift among military intellectuals with an article titled “Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Army’s Conventional Capabilities,” that appeared in World Politics Review. While the years of US strategy in Afghanistan had been dominated by the doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN), Gentile and a small group of dissident officers and defense analysts began to question the necessity and efficacy of COIN—essentially armed nation-building—in achieving the United States’ limited core policy objective in Afghanistan: the destruction of Al Qaeda. Drawing both on the author’s experiences as a combat battalion commander in the Iraq War and his research into the application of counterinsurgency in a variety of historical contexts, Wrong Turn is a brilliant summation of Gentile’s views of the failures of COIN, as well as a trenchant reevaluation of US operations in Afghanistan. “Gentile is convinced that Obama’s ‘surge’ in Afghanistan can’t work. . . . And, if Afghanistan doesn’t turn around soon, the Democrats . . . who have come to embrace the Petraeus-Nagl view of modern warfare . . . may find themselves wondering whether it’s time to go back to the drawing board.” —The New Republic

The Complete Book of Soups and Stews

Author: Bernard Clayton, Jr.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671438646
Category : Soups
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s, first book, "The Complete Book of Breads," won the coveted Tastemaker cookbook award and was praised by Craig Claiborne as perhaps the best book on the subject in the English language. Of Clayton's "The Complete Book of Pastry," which also received a Tastemaker award, Claiborne said: "One of the most important cookbooks of this year if not this decade." Now this highly respected author turns his attention to soups and stews. From his travels around the world, Clayton has put together an eclectic collection of 250 soup recipes and 50 stew recipes, adding to the clear instructions personal anecdotes and historical background throughout. He covers a wide range of soups, from Asparagus-and-Crab to Peach-Buttermilk. American classics such as New England Chowder, Burgoo and U.S. Senate Bean Soup share the spotlight with such international gems as Japanese "Shabu-Shabu," Nigerian Peanut Soup and Scottish Cock-a-Leekie Soup. After a thorough discussion of the many kinds of stocks, from Brown Stock to Vegetable Stock, Mr. Clayton includes, for those of us who are lazy, the pros and cons of homemade versus storebought stock, along with tricks and tips to improve the later. With recipes that are well written and easy to follow, Clayton shows that soup-making is neither time-consuming nor difficult, and in any case is well worth the effort.

The Insurgents

Author: Fred Kaplan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451642660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars who—against fierce resistance from within their own ranks—changed the way the Pentagon does business and the American military fights wars. The Insurgents is the inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, led by General David Petraeus, who plotted to revolutionize one of the largest, oldest, and most hidebound institutions—the United States military. Their aim was to build a new Army that could fight the new kind of war in the post–Cold War age: not massive wars on vast battlefields, but “small wars” in cities and villages, against insurgents and terrorists. These would be wars not only of fighting but of “nation building,” often not of necessity but of choice. Based on secret documents, private emails, and interviews with more than one hundred key characters, including Petraeus, the tale unfolds against the backdrop of the wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one mounted at home by ambitious, self-consciously intellectual officers—Petraeus, John Nagl, H. R. McMaster, and others—many of them classmates or colleagues in West Point’s Social Science Department who rose through the ranks, seized with an idea of how to fight these wars better. Amid the crisis, they forged a community (some of them called it a cabal or mafia) and adapted their enemies’ techniques to overhaul the culture and institutions of their own Army. Fred Kaplan describes how these men and women maneuvered the idea through the bureaucracy and made it official policy. This is a story of power, politics, ideas, and personalities—and how they converged to reshape the twenty-first-century American military. But it is also a cautionary tale about how creative doctrine can harden into dogma, how smart strategists—today’s “best and brightest”—can win the battles at home but not the wars abroad. Petraeus and his fellow insurgents made the US military more adaptive to the conflicts of the modern era, but they also created the tools—and made it more tempting—for political leaders to wade into wars that they would be wise to avoid.

Counterinsurgency

Author: Douglas Porch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107027381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Book Description
Controversial new history of counterinsurgency which challenges its claims as an effective strategy of waging war.

Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health (Forks Over Knives)

Author: Gene Stone
Publisher: The Experiment, LLC
ISBN: 1615191461
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
The #1 New York Times bestseller answers: What if one simple change could save you from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer? For decades, that question has fascinated a small circle of impassioned doctors and researchers—and now, their life-changing research is making headlines in the hit documentary Forks Over Knives. Their answer? Eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet—it could save your life. It may overturn most of the diet advice you’ve heard—but the experts behind Forks Over Knives aren’t afraid to make waves. In his book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn explained that eating meat, dairy, and oils injures the lining of our blood vessels, causing heart disease, heart attack, or stroke. In The China Study, Dr. Colin Campbell revealed how cancer and other diseases skyrocket when eating meat and dairy is the norm—and plummet when a traditional plant-based diet persists. And more and more experts are adding their voices to the cause: There is nothing else you can do for your health that can match the benefits of a plant-based diet. Now, as Forks Over Knives is introducing more people than ever before to the plant-based way to health, this accessible guide provides the information you need to adopt and maintain a plant-based diet. Features include: Insights from the luminaries behind the film—Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. John McDougall, The Engine 2 Diet author Rip Esselstyn, and many others Success stories from converts to plant-based eating—like San’Dera Prude, who no longer needs to medicate her diabetes, has lost weight, and feels great! The many benefits of a whole-foods, plant-based diet—for you, for animals and the environment, and for our future A helpful primer on crafting a healthy diet rich in unprocessed fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, including tips on transitioning and essential kitchen tools 125 recipes from 25 champions of plant-based dining—from Blueberry Oat Breakfast Muffins and Sunny Orange Yam Bisque to Garlic Rosemary Polenta and Raspberry-Pear Crisp—delicious, healthy, and for every meal, every day.

Modern Warfare

Author: Roger Trinquier
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 142891689X
Category : France
Languages : en
Pages : 131

Book Description