Book Description
A systematic, comprehensive, and straightforward textbook for analyzing and comparing insurgencies and terrorist movements, Insurgency and Terrorism was first published in 1990 to broad acclaim. Observers, scholars, students, military personnel, journalists, and government analysts worldwide found it worthy of study. Now Insurgency and Terrorism has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover activity that has since occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere and to address the new tactics and weapons used—and threatened. Author Bard E. O'Neill, the director of studies of insurgency and revolution at the National War College, addresses insurgencies with respect to ultimate goals, strategies, forms of warfare, the role and means of acquiring popular support, organizational dynamics, causes and effects of disunity, types of external support, and government responses. Course syllabi included.
Customer Reviews:
A great book to understand insurgency and terrorism.......2006-08-08
I have read the first edition of this book and I found it very useful to understand insurgency and terrorism. Moreover I wish I had read this book when I was in Colombia or in Haiti where we had to deal with insurgencies. In my opinion the book is an important tool for the intelligence analyst because it shows a framework to analyze the complex phenomenon of guerilla and insurgency. It was very valuable for me to learn about the four strategic approaches (conspiratorial - military focus - protracted popular war - and urban warfare)
As I wrote above, I read the first edition, so I don't know if the ideas that I'm going to write about are been included or not. The first one is about the "Legal Warfare" that was developed by the Insurgencies in Colombia and Argentina. It consists in accused soldiers of violations of human's rights. On almost every occasion they were false accusations. Therefore, they were judged and condemned by the civil authorities. However, nobody accused the terrorists of human right violations. The last one is about the insurgency that is developed from a defeated army. This is the case of what Col Volckmann said in his book "We remained" about the resistance in Philippines in World War II.
In conclusion, the book is brilliantly written and is very useful to understand and defeat insurgencies.
The Textbook on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.......2006-03-15
Terrorism and Insurgency by Bard E. O'Neill, is an invaluable resource for those interested in understanding insurgency and the relevant factors that lead to its success or failure.
This book appears to be written for a classroom audience (the author in fact provides a proposed semester-length class schedule complete with lesson plans and assigned reading). However, O'Neill also has government analysts and policy makers in mind. Throughout the book, and especially in chapters covering government response and the conclusion, he stresses the value of providing as complete a picture as possible while keeping in mind objectivity and maintaining an unbiased approach to analysis.
O'Neill begins his book by looking at insurgencies and the related fields of terrorism and guerilla warfare. His framework for analysis includes understanding the nature of the insurgency, insurgent strategies, both political and military, understanding the physical as well as human environment, organization, and the role of external support.
In the final chapter, O'Neill lays out a comprehensive lense through which a government analyst could view its adversary and policy makers can create successful counterinsurgency operations. Urging the avoidance of polemics and shortsightedness, O'Neill provides a credible and realistic lense through which to create effective countermeasures.
O'Neill helps to settle many unhelpful arguments and issues for analysts. For example, he rejects the false dichotomy of freedom fighter versus terrorist, as one deals with ends (freedom fighter) and one is a means to get their (terrorism). As such, a freedom fighter can use terrorist tactics to achieve his ends.
Also, a driving factor that many insurgencies use to determine their strategies are the physical and human environment around them and the perceived and real government response. Understanding this is invaluable both for insurgents and counterinsurgency operations.
The ideology, or political campaign, the insurgent group promotes, serves the valuable function of differentiating friend from foe. Providing an alternative to this ideology is integral to separating insurgents from the majority population (assuming the insurgents are a minority).
Many insurgencies survive through external support from other states or insurgent groups. One method students and analysts can use to find weaknesses to exploit is by knowing which insurgent groups do and do not receive external support and the motives for the disparity.
Finally, many responses to insurgency fail because of inflexibility, sloppiness, ignorance, bias, anger, bureaucratic imperative or psychological aversion. These failings create often flawed and fatally mistaken counterinsurgency strategies. Avoiding this should be of primary concern.
Great Reference.......2006-02-17
This is an excellent book. The author is a well known and respected expert of the field. The book begins with an introduction that attempts to level set and baseline definitions and meanings. Although this may appear to be semantics, the differences both subtle and great is important. The book is well organized it is easy to refer to a specific chapter or section in the event you need a quick refresher and or reference. The book is well written, concise and offers a large quantity of foot notes at the end of each chapter. This book is for both the expert and the novice.
Terry Tucker, Adjunct Professor, Military Studies/History University of Maryland and Senior Doctrine Developer SANGMP, Vinnell Arabia
Beginning to Develop a Science of Terrorism.......2005-07-27
I had never thought of insurgency and terrorism as having enough material to justify having a textbook on the subject. Then again I didn't realize just how many different insurgencies are going on at any one time. In fact, he concentrates on the contemporary world, only mentioning in passing that Roman Armies also fought insurgents.
Part of a scientific analysis is to classify them into types based on common attributes. By assigning names to these classes, we make it so that we can use these names and immediately know what kinds of programs have worked against them in the past, and of course what have not.
Dr. O'Neill has looked into the Types of Insurgencies, Politics and forms of Warfare, Insurgent Strategies, the Physical Environment, the Human Environment, Types of Popular Support, Organizational Structure, External Support, and Government Response.
Through these classifications, he is, for the first time beginning to draw together a consistent approach to the study of terroism. Perhaps this is the start of a Terrorism Science to go along with Naval Science or Military Science.
Book Description
“The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.†With these words, Robert Taber began a revolution in conventional military thought that has dramatically impacted the way armed conflicts have been fought since the book’s initial publication in 1965. Whether ideological, nationalistic, or religious, all guerrilla insurgencies use similar tactics to advance their cause. War of the Flea's timeless analysis of the guerrilla fighter’s means and methods provides a fundamental resource for any reader seeking to understand this distinct form of warfare and the challenge it continues to present to today’s armed forces in the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere.
Customer Reviews:
A bit dated.......2007-10-13
Although this book is supposed to be a classic study of guerrilla warefare is sorely needs to be updated with modern tactics. One glaring flaw is the lack of appreciation for modern communications. The focus of this book is the success of communist guerrillas in central and south America. There is little modern additions. What about the Islamic rebellion in Iran? What of the guerrilla activities in the US during the Vietnam war? Everything in this book seems to end with Castro. The basic tactics of the guerrilla are explained over and over. Unfortunately, these tactics are much more difficult to employ in modern times. The reactionaries have invested heavily in new technology. For example, the advantages of night attacks are largely ended.
This book needs an updated companion. Perhaps during the aftermath of the next revolution a new more relevant text will be written. I look forward to that publication.
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On Sale at Home of US Special Forces.......2007-09-08
First published in 1965 and recently re-issued, this book is written by the only American who was with Castro instead of the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. In retrospect, and given that the anti-Castro Cuban exiles used their CIA training to assassinate John F. Kennedy (see Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History, this American is clearly a just man and a wise man.
There are two bottom lines to this book:
1. No indigenous people have ever lost, in the very long run, to foreign occupiers. See also The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
2. The win-win for both democracy and capitalism is to do away with unilateral militarism, immoral capitalism, and predatory "false" democracy that embraces dictators rather than publics. See Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions; The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project); Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror; and Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025, among others.
The author ends the book with three recommendations for US foreign policy that I for one happily adopt:
1. Abandon all forms of military assistance
2. Declare an Economic "New Deal" for the Third World starting in South America and the Caribbean and Central America.
3. Embrace the Revolution, and live up to our Constitutional ideals of justice and liberty for all.
The author packs numerous pearls of wisdom, firmly rooted in ground truth, into this book.
1. Governments assume they are legitimate when they are not, they assume a monopoly on force while ignoring crime. Legitimacy and morality are strategic assets that most governments have abandoned. Cf. The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century.
2. Terrorism has been the logical asymmetric response of the poor and down-trodden since time immemorial. The author points out the hypocrisy of Israel, which was founded on the basis of terrorism against the people, claiming that terrorism targets non-combatants, while we ignore the fact that the US Air Force bombs entire villages of non-combatants without a second thought.
3. Class war produces the conditions that spawn successful revolutions, which the author is careful to define as those revolutions that have or can acquire popular support. The corruption at the top, and the poverty at the bottom, eventually collide.
4. Guns are the least important tool of the guerrilla (and all of the guns are provided by the occupying power or the illegitimate military). Guerilla operations are a state of mind, a spreading awareness of the possibilities of ultimate invincibility, firmly founded in root legitimacy.
5. The author points out the two fallacies to avoid, both heavily characteristic of current US operations in Iraq:
a. Revolutions and insurgency are NOT a conspiracy, e.g. Iran may be aiding the insurgency in Iraq, but at root the insurgency is home grown and will continue until the US is driven out.
b. Counter-insurgency is NOT about tactical "methods." The long war is about the will and rights of the people everywhere. As General Smedley Butler, USMC concluded, War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
6. The author is a gifted writer. He points out that conventional armies are burdened by a dependence on bases and "things" (vehicles, weapons systems) while the guerilla is "liberated" by their poverty, able to move past roadblocks by simply walking in the jungle 100 meters to the left or right. Conventional forces focus on patrols and real estate. The guerilla focuses on the message and the public.
7. The guerilla is a voice, a message. The fact that the guerilla exists means that the political process has FAILOED. The primary asset the guerilla has is not a weapon, but their relationship with the community of people within which they survive.
8. The author believes that in the era of globalization, the laboring class has been empowered but does not fully realize its power to carry out a legal general strike, to demand labor unions, to not consume products whose "true cost" is onerous.
9. The guerilla is militarily weak but politically strong and economically dangerous. I continue to marvel at the idiocy of Dick Cheney in seeking to capture Iraq's oil and intimidate Iran (Persia) while ignoring the fact that ten oil pumping stations in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, if blown up, can take oil to $200 a barrel overnight.
10. Three conditions are cited as being necessary for a revolution:
a. No other alternative.
b. Cause is compelling.
c. Possibility of success.
11. A general strike by the public can follow an armed insurrection, or stand on its own as a clear signal to the government that it has lost its legitimacy and authority. I cannot help but feel that the United States of America is today badly in need of a legal ethical general strike by the public that continues until Dick Cheney resigns from office and Congress declares an end to our unilateral militarism around the world.
12. The essence of guerilla warfare is to take the profit out of oppression and occupation (colonialism, corruption by corporations) with a clever strategy that is clearly and publicly enunciated, and popular as well.
13. Time, space, and will favor the people over any occupying force. Occupiers lose twice:
a. Their presence provokes anger in the people.
b. They supply the insurgents with all the arms, ammunition, food, and other supplies needed (this is one of two dirty little secrets of the US occupation of Iraq; the other is that we have returned 75,000 of our honorable men and women to America as multiple amputees who are not being well served by the Veteran's Administration).
14. US *talks* about hearts and minds but *spends* only on death and destruction. We are still not serious about global stabilization & reconstruction, humanitarian assistance & disaster relief.
As I put the book down on the flight back from Tampa, I thought to myself that this author is completely correct in pointing out that terrorism is of, by, and for the indigenous people, and it is neither deviant nor apart from the fabric of the society it seeks to save. The author also points out that terrorism is vastly less costly than conventional war in every sense of the word: dead, wounded, collateral damage, destruction of infrastructure, and financial as well as moral cost. The author makes it quite clear that the USA is in *denial* when if fails to understand that an insurgency is a civil war, not a conspiracy or communist or terrorist inspired "conspiracy."
The latter half of the book provides a series of truly absorbing and sensible "lessons learned:"
1. Algeria taught us that urban areas can be occupied and dominated by torture, but at a cost so huge that the occupying government is weakened politically and economically. Cheney remains in denial on this point.
2. The three "failures" of indigenous revolution in the short term:
a. Philippines, government combined social work with amnesty and land grants that took away the basis for revolution among the Huks.
b. Malaysia, the insurgents lacked a rural base with its own food production capability, and could be isolated.
c. Greece, the guerillas lost contact with the public and lost militarily by engaging conventionally.
The author cites Sun Tzu in pointing out that there is nothing "modern" about terrorism or warfare. It is all based on deception and competing claims to legitimacy. He lists six conditions for a successful revolution in his conclusion:
1. Valid popular grievances
2. Sharp social divisions (or ethnic)
3. Unsound or stagnant economy
4. Oppressive or illegitimate government
5. Moral leadership within the guerilla movement
6. A foundation on the truth rather than lies
For the 27 secessionist movements in America, the author notes as have others that anytime an empire is engaged in a far-off debilitating military campaign, internal secessions are easier to accomplish.
In my view, the USA is clearly vulnerable to precision sabotage of the kind that Peter Black, Winn Schwartau, and I discussion in the early 1990's. We were ignored, and today our infrastructure is ten times to a hundred times more likely to collapse from its own decrepitude that from "enemy" action. The two "mainstream" political parties are so corrupt they have run American into the ground (Cf. Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
I may never be Director of National Intelligence, since I am predisposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and that is best gotten with the 96% of the information that the secret world refuses to notice. However, if I were, we would have three objectives and three objectives only:
1. Terminating all dictators through buy out plans they cannot refuse.
2. Ending all corruption by any government, organization, or individual.
3. Providing free connectivity and free on demand education in all languages to all people, with hundreds of millions of volunteer tutors able to education the five billion poor "one cell call at a time."
Guerrilla Warfare lessons never learned........2007-06-13
Oddly enough the US Military refuses to study and learn from Guerrilla wars we've been in. They all want to fight WWII all over again. That's why they loved Desert Storm 1. Now they are in Iraq and can't get out of it. The politicians and generals and people at the Pentagon ought to be made to read these books ever few years.
A good read.
The Best Work on Guerrilla Warfare.......2007-05-30
Seeking to learn more about guerrilla warfare, I read Che's Guerrilla Warfare and Mao's On Guerrilla Warfare, yet I felt somewhat unsatisfied with each of those works and purchased Taber's War of the Flea hoping for better. Taber's work far outshines the works of Che and Mao. Taber has the advantage of not having a legend to defend and draws from both works, as well as The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Taber focuses not only on the Marxist inspired revolutions of recent times, but also on the revolutions of national liberation in Palestine, Cypress, and Ireland. Through all of these, he demonstrates how the application of the philosophy behind Guerrilla warfare presents the organized state or foreign colonist with only the prospect of political and/or military defeat.
The lessons in Taber's work are as true today as they have been throughout time. They are lessons that Americans should learn. One cannot win a war against guerrillas. One can either pull out, reach a negotiated defeat, or expend one's precious time, resources and the lives of the young in a hopeless struggle descending into inevitable defeat.
Reprint of a Classic.......2007-02-21
There have been a lot of books on guerrilla warfare. They typically fall into one of two categories. Those by Americans are written by university or military types who have studed irregular warfare from an academic or counter guerrilla war aspect. (Example, the forward to this book by Bard E. O'Neill of the National War College.) The other class of books are those written by practictionners who are not American such as Che Guevara. This book was written by an American serving with Castro's forces during the revolution in Cuba.
The book was first published in 1965 and became a classic. Long since out of print, the occassional rare copy that became available was quickly purchased at any price. Now Potomac Books has reprinted the original book, with as stated, a new forward.
If you are headed to Iraq buy it, it will give you a better understanding of what's going on. If you're interested in Iraq, buy it before it is gone again. If you're in the media, don't bother, your interest is ratings not reporting.
Book Description
This is an in-depth analysis of the strategic theories of John Boyd, the leading US strategist.
The book corrects the common misinterpretations of his work, showing how his thinking impacted on US military doctrine and defense policy over the past 25 years. Boyd is important for his introduction of scientific and philosophical developments into a methodology for strategic thinking. This book presents these complex ideas in an enlightening context.
Customer Reviews:
New Insights into a Modern Classic.......2007-01-20
John Boyd's answer to the problem of winning in any form of conflict, the "Discourse on Winning and Losing," is a set of roughly 300 charts, and Dutch AF Col Frans Osinga has set himself the task of guiding his readers through them. It is a formidable assignment. Boyd, you see, did not intend the briefings of the Discourse to be read on their own. For years, he would not give out copies until after the presentation, and it had to be the "whole brief or no brief." It may seem obvious, but it was in briefing format not so much in tribute to Sun Tzu - although The Art of War is, like the Discourse, a set of bullet points - but simply because he didn't feel that there were enough readers inside the Beltway to make it worthwhile.
Osinga accomplishes his mission magnificently. If you are interested in Boyd's problem of how to win regardless, stop right now and order the book. If you have not heard the briefings, my recommendation is to begin with chapter one, then skip back to chapter seven for a summary of Boyd's influence on strategy. Then, download the charts, go back to chapter two, and work your way through the rest of the book. [The briefings are all available on Defense and the National Interest.]
Is it a tough read? Do you know of anything really worthwhile that is easy? Just as there is no royal road to mathematics, there is no royal road to Boyd. I was present at the creation of many of these charts, and I found a lot in this book that was new and helpful in broadening my understanding (for one thing, I have not, as Osinga did, read Boyd's original notes in the source books).
This book is a distilled version of Col Osinga's Ph.D. dissertation, which he completed while serving as a research fellow at the Clingendael Institute of International Relations in The Hague. He has done an excellent job of making academic rigor accessible to the general reader - the only equations, for example, are the ones Boyd used in "Destruction and Creation" - while exploiting the depth of research that a dissertation requires. There are 32 pages of single-spaced notes and 12 of bibliography.
I enthusiastically recommend Science, Strategy and War to all students of strategy, particularly those more concerned with where strategy is going than where it has been.
Book Description
4GW (Fourth Generation Warfare) is the only kind of war America has ever lost. And we have done so three timesin Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. This form of warfare has also defeated the French in Vietnam and Algeria, and the USSR in AfghanistanAs the only Goliath left in the world, we should be worried that the worlds Davids have found a sling and stone that work.Chapter 1, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. The War in Iraq. The War on Terror. These types of asymmetrical warfare are the conflicts of the 21st centuryand show how difficult it is for the worlds remaining superpower to battle insurgents and terrorists who will fight unconventionally in the face of superior military power. This change in military conflict may seem sudden. In The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, Thomas X. Hammes, United States Marine Corps, details how Fourth Generation Warfare or 4GW has evolved over decades, with powerful military forces from economically advanced nations being defeated by seemingly weaker opponents.
Customer Reviews:
The 4th Generation of Warfare.......2007-08-24
Colonel Hammes' book is about the 4th generation of warfare (4GW). 4GW differs from the other 3 in that it intends to defeat the enemies' will to fight (hearts and minds) rather than his means to fight (armies, communication and industry). Hammes provides numerous examples of conflicts where 4GW has been used around the globe with varying degrees of success. Where the book loses some focus is in detailing changes necessary to the government and military of the United States to implement 4GW. Very little attention is given to either the Navy or Air Force. The book also does not try to show how a 4GW strategy could have been used effectively by the United States in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq or even if we would have become involved in these conflicts if we knew they would take decades to resolve. Overall the book provides an excellent primer on how superpowers can be defeated and the future of war in general.
A breath of fresh air.......2007-07-08
If you're both confused and annoyed by the endless cacophony since September 11, 2001 by politicians, pundits, columnists, and tv and radio talk show hosts proclaiming to be experts on modern warfare, then this book will come as a real relief. This is a level-headed, unbiased, rational, in-depth, and intellectual tour de force that takes a good hard look at the reality of modern warfare. Unlike so many other commentators on the subject who are so blinded by ideology that they are incapable of making an honest examination, Colonel Hammes sweeps all that aside and delivers a highly credible assessment of the nature of the enemies we face today, why our current military structure is incapable of dealing with it adequately, and what we need to do to correct that situation. I never once got the impression that he was rooting for any particular political party, philosophy, or ideology. Instead, he comes across as truly detached from political debates and concerned solely with doing what is necessary to prepare the United States to deal with the enemies of today and tomorrow.
Hammes begins with a solid (though perhaps too brief) examination of the history of fourth generation warfare (4GW), which I found to be highly enlightening. Not being a military history scholar myself, I learned a lot from that part of the book alone. That history lesson is a very good lead-in for his assessment of the current state of threats around the world, and then finally a discussion of what steps we must take to deal with those threats. What he calls for is nothing short of a revolution in the way our military is structured and the way it operates, from the lowest levels all the way up to the Dept. of Defense and indeed the entire federal government. It's not a simple solution by any means, but that's what makes Hammes' assessment even more credible. In an age when we are constantly inundated with simple-minded "solutions" to complex problems, this book, while quite sobering, is refreshing to read.
I did feel like Hammes probably goes a bit beyond his area of expertise toward the end of the book when he discusses several topics outside the realm of military affairs, but overall this is a solid performance that everyone would benefit from reading.
Essential.......2007-05-07
One can hardly understand the war against terror and the conflict in Iraq without understanding the ideas articulated by Col. Hammes. An essential read.
sling and the stone.......2007-02-26
Very informative book by a former USMC officer. Provides insight into long term insurgent plans in the middle east, and reasons for the neccessity of continued persistence. Begins with a short review of the evolution of modern warfare into forth generation war, and the adaptation of 4GW in the twentieth century by various revolutionary groups. Also gives a brief but very good history of the Jewish and Palestinian conflict. If you think its time to just get out of the middle east this book might change your way of thinking. The book gets a little boggy toward the end, but overall an excellent read.
Put this in each military academy curriculum.......2007-02-16
And in OCS and Officer Basic Course and wherever future military leaders are trained. Then get the policy wonks on the staff of each member of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to read it. This is the future of war for DOD and Homeland Security and the sooner they recognize that fact and start retooling from the Rumsfeld technocrat philosophy and flatten the hierarchies the better chance our military personnel will not fight another Vietnam or Iraq with pollyanna expectations. If we had gone into Iraq with Col Hammes prescription...well.I believe he was on the advisory staff in the Baghdad and saw close up what was happening. Good book, a little tiresome in detail for a lay reader, but absolutely essential for understanding where we made (and are still making)our mistakes and what we need to do to fix them.
Book Description
Since the end of the Cold War, conventional militaries and their political leaders have confronted a new, brutal type of warfare in which non-state armed groups use asymmetrical tactics to successfully fight larger, technologically superior forces. In order to prevent future bloodshed and political chaos, it is crucial to understand how these unconventional armed groups think and to adapt to their methods of combat.
In Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias, Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew investigate the history and politics of modern asymmetrical warfare. By focusing on four specific hotbeds of instability-Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq-Shultz and Dew conduct a careful analysis of tribal culture and the value of clan associations. They examine why these "traditional" or "tribal" warriors fight, how they recruit, where they find sanctuary, and what is behind their strategy. Traveling across two centuries and several continents, Shultz and Dew examine the doctrinal, tactical, and strategic advantages and consider the historical, cultural, and anthropological factors behind the motivation and success of the warriors of contemporary combat.
In their provocative argument, Shultz and Dew propose that war in the post-Cold War era cannot be waged through traditional Western methods of combat, especially when friendly states and outside organizations like al-Qaeda serve as powerful allies to the enemy. Thoroughly researched and highly readable, Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias examines how non-state armies fight, identifies the patterns and trends of their combat, and recommends how conventional militaries can defeat these irregular yet highly effective organizations.
Customer Reviews:
Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias.......2007-07-29
I was excited when I saw the title, thinking that it was a timely work on an important subject. I was sorely disappointed. I am surprised at some of the people who are listed on the back cover who recommend the book; faced with the alternative explanation, I will accept that they actually did not read the book through.
The book is tremendously redundant throughout, wasting many pages to reiterate what was said a few pages previously. There was very poor quality control throughout the book as well; many misspellings and sentences which appeared to be pasted together from disparate attempts and not word-smithed.
The authors do not achieve their own stated goal, to provide a set of principles which could be applied to conflicts transcending time and space to enable understanding of potential enemies and operational environments. They fail miserably at this. Their analyses at the end of each chapter serve only to regurgitate what was said in the rest of the chapter, sometimes less concisely. The authors also enjoy throwing around the current most popular misused term in U.S. military circles: Asymmetric Warfare. They use this frequently and in many different contexts, often contradicting their own usage of the term. They never lay out exactly what this means to them or how it is defined by any other institution. It is used by the authors as a catch all phrase to explain strategy, tactics or anything which does not include exact force parity on the battlefield.
The authors have completely ignored the massive amount of work done through the previous century on Guerrilla Warfare. This is perhaps their most egregious mistake. They seem to believe that because their subjects of discussion are from tribal societies that their "asymmetrical warfare" is somehow unique in history. They continuously demonstrate their lack of understanding of even the most basic of tactics and strategies, or even the principles of warfare.
The chapters outlining the four areas which they profess to analyze and illuminate their "principles" do provide some basic understanding of these four areas (Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq). However, even this seeming contribution is fraught with errors and popular misconceptions pulled from the press, many which are just wrong and could have been corrected in this book if a little research had been done from original sources. Their section on Iraq degenerates into a regurgitation of press reports, perpetuating myths and illuminating nothing; they do not seem to be aware of what is going on there. And in Afghanistan they claim that the Pashto were not incorporated into the campaign to eliminate the Taliban or in the government. Do they not realize that President Karzai is Pashto? It was the defection of the Pashto which made the Taliban crumble so rapidly.
Overall, this book contributes nothing to understanding, and actually confuses, the issue of how to fight non-nation state actors. The authors provide no original research and no unique understanding. The book was a miserable failure. And it could have been so good. I gave it one star because the is no zero star rating.
For a really useful tool to understand this subject read "Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse" by Bard E. Oneill. For a very thorough and concise book on Jihadist ideology read "Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror" by Mary Habeck.
Operational Level Analysis of Traditional Cultures.......2007-03-30
Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias by Richard Shultz and Andrea Dew is a solid introductory text that aims to guide current Intelligence Analysts with a framework to assess current and potential adversaries to US Forces worldwide. The operational framework they propose is specifically designed to analyze unconventional and guerrilla forces rather than the traditional military assessments that were designed and created for use in a conventional war (with the Soviet Union). Six questions are used to create their framework:
1) What is their concept of warfare?
2) Organization and Command and Control?
3) What are the Areas of Operations?
4) What are the Types and Targets of Operations?
5) Constraints and Limitations to the use of force?
6) The influence of outside actors?
The authors then explore four historical and contemporary case studies on how this framework would have assisted policy makers. The case studies are Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. Over all the best case study is Iraq, due to the level of detail that the authors give- they describe the different `types' of insurgency and their historical basis, which impressed me. The worst is Afghanistan, where too much history is given too little type, and in the end we are left without much substance on the current operating environment there. I found the Chechnyan and Somali studies interesting and relevant, and the bibliography provides a guide to further and more detailed reading.
Overall, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the tribe, clan and religious structure and history of the societies. This is a relevant and worthy addition that many intelligence professionals can benefit from. Because these features are defining aspects of traditional cultures, they should hold an equivalent status in our analysis of them.
My only disappointment stems from the fact that because of their operational focus, many intelligence professionals in fields `closer to the ground' will find that their ideas, while interesting and worth keeping in mind, are not extremely helpful to the tactical level of intelligence analysis. For instance, although they explain why a Former Regime Element in Iraq has different motives for fighting than an Islamist in Iraq, this is not much use to a smaller, more specific area than say, Baghdad. To the intelligence professional concerned with the Bay'a, Al-Amel or Saydiyah Muhallahs within Baghdad, the most useful questions revolve around types and emplacement techniques of IEDs, and how these may be related to the structure and orientation of a specific insurgent group or cell; how, when, and where, do sectarian groups operate . . . These questions are of the most immediate concern, and will likely have the most substantive effect once the answers are found.
That being said, this book was a very interesting read, and a valuable one.
Tribes and Clans vs Superpowers.......2007-03-24
Using four case studies of conflict, Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq, the authors highlight the differences between conventional warfare with clearly established front lines and unconventional warfare there the is no front and engagements are hit-and-run surprise attacks with battlefields in the streets of a cities.
Until the times of these conflicts, American and Russian troops were trained to fight along the lines established by Alexander the Great and Napoleon, where divisions fought divisions, and one battle could have a decisive result. But in these conflicts the authors point out that the attackers often numbered less than 50 and before the defenders could organize their divisions to repulse the attack, the attackers, wearing the cloths of the locals, would melt into the population. No one was there for the division to fight.
The Red Army's experiences in Chechnya are cited as an example of tribal tactics. The Chechens would allow a column of Russian tanks to penetrate deep into the narrow, winding streets of their ancient cities. They would attack and disable the lead tank with a barrage of hand held rockets and then do the same to the last tank in the column. With the column of tanks unable to move forward or backward, the Chechens would pick off the remaining tanks before the Russian air force arrived.
All together, the book provides an excellent summary of the events encountered by the superpowers when they fought in Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But the main point of the book is, with a little study of the culture and practices of Tribes and Clans in these areas, the U.S. (and the Russians) would have anticipated how the insurgents and militants would respond to invasion - and how and where they would fight.
The authors argue that what transpired in all four cases could have be predicted and countered.
How do you win if you have different definitions for "victory"?.......2007-02-21
Insurgents, Terrorists, And Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat is a very useful contribution to the growing body of literature of modern conflict. While the subtitle of the book suggests a tempo-centric view of the Now, the book's purpose is really to demonstrate the value of anthropological analysis of the irregular warriors we are facing today. Unlike "modern" states who might employ irregular tactics, the authors look at the societal and cultural interactions specific in warrior societies, or "martial races" (a term indifferent to ethnicity), and their resulting organizing principles. This is done to satisfy Sun Tzu's admonition to "Know the enemy" which we do not. The absence of this knowledge, in simple terms, means we not only don't know or understand why or how the enemy fights but we don't even know how defeat or subordination, perhaps a better word, is defined by the enemy or conforms to their belief system. Afterall, both victory and defeat must be acknowledged by all sides.
In 2004, Major General Robert Scales went before the House Armed Services committee and recounted a conversation he had with a commander from the Third Infantry Division (then) recently returned from Iraq. Scales had asked about the improved situational awareness worked during the march to Baghdad. The response foretold the future, as well as described the past: "I knew where every enemy tank was dug in on the outskirts of Tallil. Only problem was my soldiers had to fight fanatics charging on foot or in pickups and firing AK 47s and RPGs. I had perfect situational awareness. What I lacked was cultural awareness. Great technical intelligence....wrong enemy." This book not only helps lay the ground work to identify the enemy, but also makes us look at their motivation from a different angle.
The authors, Richard H. Shultz and Andrea J. Dew, lay out the framework and goals of the book at the very beginning. This book is not out tactics or even strategy, but "operational art", the middle ground between Strategy (big "S") and Tactics (big "T"). Using case studies of Somali, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the authors demonstrate their theories through both recent and historical encounters. Some of their analysis is interesting as elements of previous success were clearly not understood and led to later failures.
The authors submit the following framework, all explicitly or implicitly found in Sun Tzu's 33 paragraphs on Offensive Strategy (which includes the advice to Know the Enemy and Know Yourself), as a means of better understanding the questions how and why that are critical to success.
1. What is the concept of warfare?
2. What is the Organization and Command and Control?
3. What are the Areas of Operations?
4. What are the Types and Targets of Operations?
5. Are there any Constraints and Limitations to the use of force?
6. Do they receive support and assistance from Outside Actors? If so, who are these Actors and in what form does the help come?
These are seemingly basic questions that go unasked, let alone answered.
In addressing American operational art, the combination of time and tempo (popular example: "Shock and Awe"), the authors don't make specific prescriptives but suggest incorporating new (to us) understandings of how the enemy organizes and operates. Shultz and Dew show that OODA loops don't matter when the invaded don't see war as "organized violence" requiring "paper, forms, and documents", don't mirror our hierarchy, and have different priorities. The behavior of the enemy is far different from modern Western principles and thus has different levers and pressures points for manipulation. Our focus on whether or not the engine of insurgency is religious or socio-political may ignore the underlying realities of the why and how in specific instances. Like in the West, religion may be a Gramscian distraction and our focus on it blinds us to the levers and pressure points necessary for successful operations.
The case studies note strong martial traditions and historical features that checked internecine violence. In Somali, for example, the authors show how these mechanisms were purposely broken to intentionally foster internal conflict, leading the path to disintegration of the state. They also show how our tactics empowered our target instead of breaking his support system. The enemy in Afghanistan and elsewhere know how their people organize and exploit it while we doom ourselves by imposing our own organizing and motivating principles on them. With parallels to the motivators of modern suicide terrorism, the authors look at warrior traditions and legacies, as opposed to cultural and social structures to reframe the perception of our Other.
Modern, West-centric theories such as "Fourth Generation Warfare" look at conflict with the "Gap" countries as a new way of warfare when the reality is quite the opposite. Likewise, simplifying insurgencies as monolithic or based in religion potentially blind us from opportunities to co-op and disaggregate and even to know how to define victory.
The authors are critical of both the US intelligence services and its endemic mirroring and of the shortcomings or military analysis. A case in point on the latter is the example of the USMC case study of Chechnya that looks at Russian failures in the 1994-1996 war and the study's absence of any analysis of the Chechens themselves.
Insurgents, Terrorists, And Militias does a good job demonstrating the value of knowing the enemy and showing how we don't. More importantly, it shows that our lack of understanding is counterproductive and fuels the engine of opposition. This should be on any counterinsurgency and irregular warfare reading list, as well as readings on the Gap. Be prepared to scribble in the margins as you read.
Academia Only Goes So Far.......2007-01-21
As a former Marine who has had experience in dealing with unconventional operations and counter-insurgency warfare, I agree with fellow Marine, D.A. Leonard "devintvi", below. The book does make some valid points, specifically that US leaders do need to understand the enemy before jumping into the odd quagmire that may seem feasible at the time. In recent history, both the US and Britain have been involved in unconventional warfare at least since the 1950s - for the US, we can go back to 1920s Haiti, Guatamala, Nicaragua, the Philippines, etc. However, even after all that experience with unconventional warfare, our leaders, planners and policy-makers still don't seem to have learned any lessons on the simple fact that I was taught in Boot Camp: "KNOW YOUR ENEMY."
That said, however, simply reading or "researching" what other writers and academics have said about unconventional warfare, or playing "game theory" about clans, cults, cells, or whatever, can only give an academic so much information. There is considerable difference between theory and practice, so for a valid analysis on current aspects of asymetric warfare, the analyst/academic needs to get out of their ivory tower and view the game up close and personal. At least do the research a basic combat journalist does when he or she is imbedded with a unit conducting such operations.
Simply arguing the same old liberal (read academic) saw that the government is inept in the current war, something with which I agree, just doesn't wash in and of itself. There needs to be more indepth analysis to make the argument, which has been going on for generations, more valid. For example, how many actual terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, clan members, etc., have the authors interviewed? Evern been to Gitmo?
When discussing terrorists, insurgents, etc. in the current context, unlike previous, possibly more logical foe, it might also be feasible to identify the current Islamic combatants, not as mere clan members, but as the religious fanatics they are, who are actually willing to die for their rabid beliefs and, in doing so, hope to help anihilate the West.
Overall, an interesting, but ACADEMIC, view of the issue of the modern warfare we face. Certainly some useful information, but also "game theory" that doesn't really help the Grunt in the field who is dealing with a hopped up fanatic with explosives and an automatic weapon. I guess the book's attraction will depend from what side of the fence the reader is actually looking.
Book Description
This volume in the Praeger Security International (PSI) series "Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era" reveals how French officers who served in Indochina, like the author, Roger Trinquier, fought fierce rear-guard actions against ideologically motivated insurgents in the 1940s and 1950s to a far greater extent than their American counterparts later faced in Vietnam. The lack of coherent strategic direction from Paris in the chaotic years of the Fourth Republic left the military with the task of making political decisions in the field. With the original introduction by Bernard B. Fall and a new foreword prepared by Eliot A. Cohen.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-01-04
This book was written in 1964, distilling the author's decades of counterinsurgency experience in Indochina and Algeria. However, as I was reading it, I found that he could have been speaking about Iraq in present day. In reading this book, a reader can realize exactly where we went wrong in Iraq and what we need to do in order to get it right. Unfortunately the generals still haven't learned from Trinquier's experience or apparently read the book. However, the planned "surge" (being discussed as of January 2007) would be in line with what Trinquier recommends.
I am also reading the Galula book. I find the Trinquier book to be an easier read, and possibly a better book (although Galula gets all the recognition).
A Learning Tool.......2007-01-03
This should required reading for anyone about to deploy to OEF or OIF. The lessons taught in this book have direct applicability to today and the types of conflicts that we are currently engaged.
Customer Reviews:
A Profound Work .......2007-07-21
Looking at the other reviews on this book, many complain that it is a simple, out-dated work, with few insights provided. I see this book as being written with the goal of a general educating his soldiers. Short this book creates the structure of how the general want's to see guerrilla units created (this book focusses only on guerrilla warfare). The reason that there is no complex indepth writting in this book is that it would limit the officers' ability to use their imagination to create fully functioning guerrilla units. Leaving the flesh off, forces the leaders to adapt to their specific area of operations putting the flesh on the structure themselves. There is a lot to be drawn out of this book, and to only skim or read it once is doing the reader doing himself/herself a diservice. I bet that Bin Laden has read this book more than once, now if we can only get our politicians to read it once.
The Beginner's Guide to Understanding Guerilla Warfare.......2007-06-04
Mao Zedong's, On Guerilla Warfare, is an excellent beginner's guide to understanding guerilla in all its aspects. It is clearly written and very easy to understand from a layman's point of view. Several important lessons can be easily gleaned from the text (like how support of the people is all important). In addition, it is a short book that can be read in a day or two. Rarely such books on warfare are brief as this one (except for Sun Tzu's Art of War).
This book should be required reading for any military officer now serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. In spite of its implied communist overtones, the lessons gleaned from On Guerilla Warfare are completely applicable to the wars of today.
A How Too Book.......2007-04-04
A manual on how to change the world by a man that did. Gives insight into Mao's thinking.
Mao's Masterpiece on Guerilla Warfare.......2007-03-26
Despite its title, this is two books in one. The editor/translator, Samuel B. Griffith II, writes an extensive and deep review of Mao's work, from the perspective of an American officer. Taking into account the timeline of his various comments, beginning when the US and Mao's communists were allies during World War II and ending when the US was entrenched in Vietnam, Griffith's remarks reveal both admiration for Mao and, later, panicked urgency. Indeed, by the time the US is in Vietnam, Griffith is calling on established nations to develop programs to eradicate guerilla movements, an interesting viewpoint considering the fact that the United States itself was born of such a movement.
Mao's approach to presenting guerilla warfare is far more abstract than that of Che. To his credit, Mao explains the relationship between Guerilla units of various types and traditional established military forces. This, I believe, is a product of his experiences as first a guerilla and later a participant in a united front against Imperial Japan. The complexity of the situation in China, along with the spatial and temporal scale, make Mao's experience and assessment far more general and representative of guerilla warfare as a whole than Che's experience and assessment. Where Che dealt primarily with small insurrections/revolutions against smaller parties in smaller conflicts, Mao's guerilla experience consumed most of his lifetime and ranged from insurrection, through anti-imperialist warfare, and finally in revolution.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an abstract approach to guerilla warfare from what probably was the most experience man in history on the topic.
800 Pound Gorilla, does Guerilla.......2006-04-21
Mao Tse-Tung: revolutionary, visionary, God-Emperor of Dune, damned fine singing voice. In all honesty, I kow-tow before Mao, certainly a genius of military and political strategy and tactics who ranks up there with Napoleon: sure he cracked a few eggs in making his hyper-power omelette, but look what he had to work with! Look what he did! Look how he turned a withered, senescent, chopped-up concession-ridden fiasco into a bristling, somewhat scary little monster that managed to hold off the two duelling superpowers of the Age!
In due deference to the Great Chairman, Mao was a man ahead of his time, and a long way behind it: he was very Zen. He was a Warrior-Philosopher King. He was focused: he once said "Power flows from the barrel of a gun". You think Mao would have put up with Michael Moore blabbering around in the Great Hall of the People, or had any patience for fools at the New York Times op-ed desk babbling on about Gitmo?
More to the point: Mao slaughtered millions of his own people, and yet he still had higher approval ratings than Bush!
With that in mind, let us all do a little bow before Mao. If he's up there, somewhere, beaming down at us from the Great Heavenly Hall of the People: hey, man, take a bow, Mao!
With that in mind, I was actually hanging out in a bookstore this evening, checking out the wares, and I asked the prim, no doubt uber-liberal, schoolmarmish clerk if they had a little Mao. She said they stocked "On Guerilla Warfare", so I sat back and dug a little on the Mao scene.
Guess what? "On Guerilla Warfare" ain't all that. No doubt, it's the kind of book some sextegenerian dinty-eyed Boston hippy with a long greasy grey ponytail would dig on---ironically the very guy, if a Revolution did come, would spend his final seconds twitching on the end of somebody's bayonet.
Anyway: the point is, "On Guerilla Warfare" is hopelessly dated. It's nowhere near as yummy and relevant as the Little Red Book, and I can boil it down for you as follows:
*Your army is small and nimble. Keep it moving, keep it stealthy, use the shadows, don't face off against a field army or you'll die like a dog.
*Win hearts and minds, Comrade! Work in the fields with the peasants: rebuild the villages the Imperialist running dogs and their Capitalist masters have burned and razed!
*Fight the Peasant's War! Cheap, cheap, cheap---Mao invented Top Ramen!
*Use Retreat as an Offensive Tactic. Pull back, draw the Enemy in, and pull back again---until you're on what Sun Tzu called "Deadly Ground", and then smash the b*stard.
All of this stuff has been handled before, by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, and far more elegantly.
Not that "On Guerilla Warfare" is a bad book. On the contrary: this is truth in advertising---Mao wrote a stripped-down instruction manual for fighting a modern army with a chickensh*t ragtag peasant army. His bonafides? He won. He kicked Japanese a**, then he turned around and kicked Chiang Kai-Shek back to Formosa. Good going, Mao!
It's just that---well, Jesus, it's very dated. All kinds of stuff about the 'Japanese fascist Imperialist army', the weapons and 'material issued the Peasant Comrades fighting Imperialist Tyranny', that sort of thing. And as it is an instruction manual, it's prosaic in its specificity, to wit: "the K-Ration, issued by the American imperialists in the hope of using our valiant Comrades as stopgaps against the Japanese Imperialist Fascist invaders, is actually a useful weapon: it is cold, and blunt, and can crack a skull."
You see what I'm sayin', Dawg? Word!
As a work of incipient tyrant psychology, it is a little interesting. Mao is obviously writing to impress: in a way, it's amusing to envision a time when Mao felt he needed to score points.
But in the end, I'm sorry to say, "On Guerilla Warfare" is a bore, a snore, a big zero. Unless you've got a big beef with the invading Japanese Imperialistic Fascist Army---these days relegated to packs of hungry tourists with camcorders---I'd avoid.
Then again, this is a slim little volume, so you can skim it in the bookstore (or library, Comrade) in 30 minutes. Then you'll have the knowledge you need should a Japanese Fascist Aggressor creep out from beneath your bed: you can smash him in the head with a K-ration.
JSG
Book Description
This book earns the title! Over the course of 172 pages, I have taken all of the great material in the first edition and added to it a series of recipes and procedures which produce military grade explosives from commonplace items and materials. In doing so, I conclusively prove that the restrictions which have been placed upon the access to the commercially produced explosives which were so freely available in my youth are all futile. The real enemies in "the war on terror" are not inanimate objects such as explosives. The real enemies are the politicians who have flung open our borders to infiltration by Moslem guerrillas. These guerrillas are already well versed in the techniques of improvised weaponry manufacture.
This treasure trove of explosive information features The Hardware Store Nitro Recipe, Fuel/Air Explosives, military equivalent ammonium nitrate formulations, nitromethane mixtures, and a vastly improved detonator section.
The expose`of the folly of our present policies doesn't stop there either! Read all about the construction of remote control cruise missiles and RC torpedoes. Claymore mines and air cannons add spice to the stew. Then top it all off with my commentary on the easiest ways to obtain all the materials mentioned in the book.
I've read all the books on the topic of explosives from tiny paperbacks to 600 page texts written by PhDs. I have no hesitation saying this book tops them all! It's my hope that when you finish reading this book, politicians will no longer be able to fool or distract you by blaming an inanimate object such as explosives for the direct results of their disastrous policies.
Customer Reviews:
This book is incredible.......2007-06-28
It's unbelievably informative, the chemicals are available through available resources, it reads like a novel, it's just REALLY GOOD all around. When I first got the book I just thumbed through it for hours and was just about stunned at how easy it was to make something as infamously powerful as nitroglycerin. I thought the "fun with explosives" chapter was really...fun, as well as informative and extremely clever. Uncle Fester has obviously done extensive research...first hand. I definitely recommend this book.
Great Book.......2006-03-04
This book is spectacular. Fester goes into great detail about the nitric esters, and how nitric acid works on many of these chemicals. His writing on FAEs (Fuel/Air Explosives) is great, quite the entertainment. By far the best part of this book is his description in the manufacture of nitroglycerin. He covers two methods for creating nitroglycerin - one of which uses items all bought at the hardware store (you'll be amazed). He also covers ammonium nitrate explosives, acetone peroxide (for blasting caps), nitromannitol, nitroglycol, RDX (and C-4), PETN, and much much more. He also covers a very cool method for synthesizing nitric acid from sulfuric acid and potassium nitrate - I was impressed.
fascinating read.......2006-02-25
I highly recommend this book for any one in military or law enforcement. Understanding how explosives are made helps you recognize the signs of some one making explosives. Who knew you could use stump remover, drain cleaner, and drug store glycerin to make nitro glycerin? Along with a $200 chemestry set as well.
practical and usefull.......2004-10-17
this book really has all you need to become a conoisseur of the finer explosives. It covers everything from material choice, recipes for the main high explosives through to detonators, safety and storage tips. Each recipe also includes a very good explanation on how to procure certain of the chemicals needed without leaving a paper trail 5 miles long. I can say from personal experience that these recipes do indeed work, and with a bit of creative chemistry one could convert these recipes to work with some of your day to day bathroom, tool shed or cleaning products to produce some crude yet effective explosives(I have succeeded in this without any chemical experience whatsoever).
the book gives an insight that explosives are within the grasp of any DIY terrorist with even half a decent brain.
learn how to protect yourself from them, BUY THIS BOOK!
Best book on Improvised Explosives ever!.......2004-09-30
The title says very little about this most amazing book. I love high-explosives. I like to play with them. And I have a little bit of experience with it... I'm a former special-operations officer with 16 years of service in my country's intelligence agency (something like a "mix" of CIA/FBI/Secret Service, now extinct), and I have done years of overseas "contractor" work... I've been in five major guerrilla wars (Angola, Mozambique, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Lebanon), and alt. I had previous experience with improvised explosives, that old "Black Books" on improvising ordnance did not help me, when I needed it most. Old warriors never die (they only go to Hell to regroup), and I even ask some "insiders" on contrating me to work in Iraq, earlier this year, as a "security advisor", but they find me too fat & unfit to be of use in there... a close friend, former Royal Marine and veteran of Northern Ireland and Malvinas/Falklands, who lived in another big town here, go there, and now is doing what he was trained for... and alt. in all wars we once fought we can get any ammount of firearms, ammo, support weapons, you name it, there was a lack of high-explosives to we "Soldiers-of-Fortune" play with... If I had this amazing book with me on "my wars" back in the '80's, I could do things in a better, faster, more funny way, if you can get what I'm talking about. I love high-explosives, as I told earlier, even being outside of any war, and experiments with this books' fuel-air devices make me fell young again, even with the small earthquake people feel around... with the most potent "toy" described (and a very easy to use one), I get a fireball the size of a truck! I LOVED IT!!! Well, if you want real fun, this is the book for you. Stop reading feeble books that can only "instruct" you, or dangerous books that can only teach you how to blow yourself in hundreds of pieces. Uncle Fester knows what he writes about - and knows a LOT.
Book Description
Some rebel groups abuse noncombatant populations, while others exhibit restraint. Insurgent leaders in some countries transform local structures of government, while others simply extract resources for their own benefit. In some contexts, groups kill their victims selectively, while in other environments violence appears indiscriminate, even random. This book presents a theory that accounts for the different strategies pursued by rebel groups in civil war, explaining why patterns of insurgent violence vary so much across conflicts. It does so by examining the membership, structure, and behavior of four insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Drawing on interviews with nearly two hundred combatants and civilians who experienced violence firsthand, it shows that rebels’ strategies depend in important ways on how difficult it is to launch a rebellion. The book thus demonstrates how characteristics of the environment in which rebellions emerge constrain rebel organization and shape the patterns of violence that civilians experience.
Book Description
"For my money, John Robb, a former Air Force officer and tech guru, is the futurists' futurist."
—Slate
War in the twenty-first century will be very different from what we've come to expect. Terrorism and guerrilla warfare are rapidly evolving to allow nonstate networks to challenge the structure and order of nation-states. It is a change on par with the rise of the Internet and China, and will dramatically change how you and your kids will view security.
In Brave New War, the counterterrorism expert John Robb reveals how the same technology that has enabled globalization also allows terrorists and criminals to join forces against larger adversaries with relative ease and to carry out small, inexpensive actions—like sabotaging an oil pipeline—that will generate a huge return. He shows how taking steps to combat the shutdown of the world's oil, high-tech, and financial markets could cost us the thing we've come to value the most—worldwide economic and cultural integration—and the crucial steps we must take now to safeguard our systems and ourselves against this new method of warfare.
Customer Reviews:
A parsimonious Examination.......2007-10-15
I purchased Brave New War expecting a fresh view, or at least an adequate review, of the contemporary security issues challenging states within the world. Unfortunately, Robb's book adds nothing that cannot be gleaming from current events and occasional sessions reading the newspaper. His argument is outlined within the preface, that globalisation has empower non-state actors by allowing them to gain technological symmetry with modern states and that their attacks require minimal financial resources for spectacular financial impacts upon national and global economies. Unfortunately, this argument is repeated verbatim on nearly every page. The book also makes sweeping generalisations and claims, which include the assertion that traditional interstate warfare is over. There are better sources of information available for both the seasoned and occasional reader elsewhere.
Some good points but I wonder about the prescience.......2007-09-18
Futurist John Robb sees us going through a period in which increasingly things will get very local with people and organizations hiring private security companies to protect them. He sees a breakdown in global trade because of terrorist activities (both oil and security will become so expensive that a lot of trade will lose its value). Nation states will lose much of their power and legitimacy because of defective centralized command organizations (much the way communist economic systems failed) and because their great armies will be ineffective, even irrelevant, in combating the decentralized "swarm intelligence" of the Internet-like terrorist structures.
We can see in the fiascos of the Bush administration with the great George W. as "I'm the Decider" and Dick Cheney and his neocon cronies as Designers, that the view from the top, when it becomes superimposed upon the real world, can lead to disaster. Quite simply the "intelligence" at the top is no match for the independent intelligence spread out among the populace. There is more wisdom in the Internet than in the all the heads in Washington.
However I have departures from Robb's text that I would like to present. First of all he keeps talking about how the terrorists are winning. What are they winning? They kill people and destroy wealth, but what do they gain? Bin Laden may be a hero in the many parts of the Muslim world, but he has gained nothing but that celebrity. The terrorists are creating no wealth. They get their finances through donations, illegal activities, such as dope smuggling, and kidnappings for ransom and the like. Legalize street drugs and stop paying ransoms and where will the bulk of their financing come from? Counterfeiting designer jeans? Stipends from Saudi princes? Currently they are enjoying international notoriety and support partly because of the overreaction of the US. A lot of money goes into homeland security. Little if any of it goes to Al Qaeda. Bush has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iraqi sand, and some of that no doubt is benefitting Al Qaeda, but wiser leaders will come to power in the Western democracies in the future and will not aid the growth of Al Qaeda as Bush and Tony Blair have done.
Robb sees the nation state as at a disadvantage vis-a-vis guerilla organizations. He relies on ideas from Israeli military strategist Martin van Creveld to come to this conclusion (see especially page 28). But guerilla organizations only have an advantage in their homeland against outsiders. Imagine the Vietcong or Al Qaeda conducting a guerilla war while hiding out in the United States. They would not have the support of the populace and without that support a guerilla army is lost.
Robb states that the Bush administration invaded Iraq "to transform the political landscape of the Middle East." (p. 34) This is an after-the-fact justification since the stated reason (WMDs and Al Qaeda connections) was revealed as a lie, and the underlying reason (control of oil--remember Iraqi oil was going to pay for all this) was found not to work. Bush actually invaded Iraq in order to run for a second term as an "at war" president. Being at war also allowed him to greatly increase the power of the executive branch of government. As Commander-in-Chief he pretty much had his way with Congress and the American press, which is the reason he is still strutting around like a peacock.
Robb sees Baloch tribesmen as gaining "returns on investment (ROIs) of at least 1,000 to 1" in their "systems sabotage" attacks in Pakistan. (p. 84) But to use such terminology is a bit silly and is part of where I think Robb goes wrong in his overall analysis. The "return on investment" that the Baloch terrorists or any terrorist organization gets from blowing things up is little or nothing. However, by showing that they can and will sabotage structures and kill people, they may get financial support from those who want the Pakistani government overthrown. That's the way the economics of terrorism work. You don't--to repeat myself--create wealth by destroying wealth, unless you get the contract for rebuilding! Take away the financial support that terrorists are getting and squelch their criminal enterprises and they are out of business.
On page 100 Robb makes a similar point using the term "rates of return" instead of ROI. He's talking about Nigerian guerillas blowing up Shell Oil facilities and finds that "the rates of return on these attacks are phenomenal." The only return they are going to get is if somebody pays them to stop or they are able to take over the government or the facilities. The (inadvertent, I presume) glorification of terrorists by the Bush administration and the press no doubt gains them some support from somewhere (Iran and Saudi Arabia?).
Despite what I see as errors in Robb's conception and conclusions, I still think this is a very good book that makes some important points. For example Robb predicts that "the knee-jerk solution [to terrorist attacks] will be to centralize security in the hands of the nation-state." But he sees this as "a wrong-headed approach. It will bring us to the brink of a police state for very little benefit." (p. 156) Another good point is from page 158 where Robb states that "preemptive war followed by aggressive nation-building" as a reaction to terrorism and extremism is "wrong." He calls this "the Bush doctrine" which has obviously failed, as he points out on page 160. He notes that Iraq and Afghanistan since the invasions by the United States have "become havens and sources of even more instability than they were before we invaded."
An important title.......2007-09-12
For those interested in where the world will most likely be heading in the next twenty years, this book is a must read. Robb paints a compelling portrait of what he terms "global guerrillas," those motivated, for whatever reason, to wear down the state by targeting its critical infrastructure. Learning how these groups operate and how globalization is empowering them is enough to make this book well worth your time. Robb puts forward a solid study of these non-state actors, which, for me at least, elucidated a large portion of the current chaos in Iraq.
Where this book stumbles is in the latter portions, when Robb is iterating what must be done to effectively counter global guerrilla groups. His ideas are indeed challenging, and ultimately my critique is more with his articulation of these ideas. However, while it does not seem that he specifically set out to draw up a blueprint, I still think more examples and stronger analogies would have helped his case.
In summation, I enjoyed this book immensely. It brought new ideas forward that got me thinking about recent world events in a new light. It challenges the reader to rethink current strategy and how the world can best counter the threats being posed to it from increasingly powerful non-state actors.
OK, but not great.......2007-07-18
Robb's done some excellent analysis on his blog, which I am a frequent visitor. I looked forward to this book in which expands on many of the points previous hit upon in the blog.
He did a good job of describing some of the tactical changes in warfare and how small loosely linked groups are all working towards a common outcome; that of creating an on-going state of chaos which eventually weakens and undermines the state. While his prose is good in this regard, he did not make the case that this is some type of 'Brave New War'. Rather it smells like typical guerrilla warfare with better tools (telecommunications).
Ultimately, it is on this point that the book loses its energy. After putting forth a framework for open source insurgency, Robb takes scenario after scenario and forces his explanation into this narrow framework. In several cases it is apparent he is fitting square pegs into round holes. The book loses some credibility in these cases.
I liked it though, and found it well worth the money. However, Brave New War does not go into the category of grand strategic thinking. Rather, it is a solid look at some of the emerging tactics of what others have called World War IV.
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Great Read - Highly Recommend........2007-07-16
John Robb presents us with an excellent synthesis of future security trends in a highly readable book. When I finished I felt compelled to wrestle with the ideas myself. I wanted to read more, jot down ideas and engage in the conversation. To me, that is what a great book can do.
Readers of John Robb's Global Guerrillas blog will recognize many of the themes that here he weaves into a more thoughtful and polished presentation. I would have liked to have seen more of his thinking on what structures will emerge on the 'blue force' side in reaction to the rise of the global guerrilla. However, the picture of the trends he presents is an excellent start.
Some claim Robb's vision is dark. His ideas are absolutely unflinching and in an era where change is accelerating an unflinching look is what we need. If you follow current security trends Robb's work is invaluable to gaining perspective on where things are headed. I recommend the book.
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- Learning Python, Second Edition
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- Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror
- O Jerusalem
- One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer
- Operation "Citadel", A Text and Photo Album, Volume 1: The South
- Panzer Leader
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Strategy
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Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare
On Guerrilla Warfare
The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
Inside Terrorism
