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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.0218
EAN num: 9780231129824
ISBN number: 0231129823
Label: Columbia University Press
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 328
Printing Date: June 02, 2006
Publishing house: Columbia University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 454701
Studio: Columbia University Press
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Rated by buyers 
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The book rely's on four case studies. Somalia, Chechnya, Afganistan and Iraq. The thesis is that after the end of the cold war, the wars will be fight in an unconventional scenario against clan based militias. It give a useful brief history in each case looking for learn about their way of fight had been and could be, who lead them and how, help for outsiders and how this tribe, ethnic groups and clan see war. The authors critizes military planners for not avoid surprises in opeations by ignoring the history of the area and group they will face and so not given the appropriate outlook to those would face them.
Rated by buyers 
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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 discusion 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.
Rated by buyers -
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.
Rated by buyers -
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.
Rated by buyers -
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 sucess 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 ... Read More
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