Counterinsurgency Warfare by John S. Pustay

Counterinsurgency Warfare by John S. Pustay is an attempt to come up with a policy for the West. This was published in the early 1960s before widespread involvement in Vietnam. Some of Pustay's analysis on tactics and strategy is quite interesting. He obviously agrees with the British school. The book is hamstrung by some bizarre concepts. Third World nationalism is apparently not valid real nationalism. This is just bizarre. His solution for American policymakers is to create a thoroughly convoluted bureaucracy [Well it was the 1960s]. He even lays out who will chair the committee at different times. I rather doubt the complex setup he suggested would work in practice. The author was in the Air Force so he does have some interesting things to say about aircraft usage during an insurgency.

Recommended as an interesting relic of counterinsurgency theory before Vietnam.

For more reviews take a look at My Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Partisan and Guerrilla Warfare bookshelf.

Noteson 07

I manage to get through 152 books last year. My Q1 was pretty slow. As for 2008 I think 200 is a nice round number.

2007 Book Awards

Here are my choices for the best of 2007. These are books I've reviewed. They weren't necessarily published in the last year but as the NBC summertime slogan goes "its new to me".

Science Fiction and Fantasy

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Honorable Mention

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Thriller

Wheels of Fire by Terence Strong

Iraq

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

World War II

Killing Hitler: The Plots, The Assassins, and the Dictator Who Cheated Death by Roger Moorhouse

Casual Rex by Eric Garcia

Casual Rex by Eric Garcia. What if 16 species of dinosaurs survived into the modern-day world? What if they crammed themselves into rubber suits so they would look like us? Garcia takes this rather bizarre premise and puts it on top of a PI story. A group much like Scientology is trying to convince dinosaurs they should run free. Our hero has been sent out to recover one of their members. Naturally complications occur. This is actually a prequel. I had read the original book Anonymous Rex a year or so before the blog and enjoyed it. This is also superb. Downright funny in places.

Highly recommended!

Is available through Abebooks.



For more Science Fiction and Fantasy book reviews take a look at My Science Fiction and Fantasy bookshelf.

Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918 by Bruce I. Gudmundsson

Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918 by Bruce I. Gudmundsson this is an excellent study of German infantry tactics. Gudmundsson describes the various versions of the German training regimens for breaking through trenches. Interestingly he credits the original idea for infiltration tactics to be from analysis of the Boer war. There is also reference to operations were lessons were learned. There are occasional comments about how German WWI tactics led to World War II Blitzkrieg I would have appreciated more on this. Much of the book is based on German sources.

Highly recommended!

For more ancient history book reviews Take a look at My Ancient History bookshelf.

250th review

I just posted my 250th book review. It was Armies of the Carthaginian Wars by Terence Wise. Not bad for 1 1/2 years.

Armies of the Carthaginian Wars by Terence Wise

Armies of the Carthaginian Wars by Terence Wise. Time for another Osprey title. This is a pretty good summary of the equipment and training of both sides of this ancient conflict. Most of the reconstructions are based upon archaeology and educated guesses. Most interesting was a discussion of the Iberians who were used as auxiliaries. I haven't heard much about these before. As usual lots of illustrations and photos.

Recommended.

Is available through Abebooks.

Short of Glory by Alan Judd

Short of Glory by Alan Judd is a satire about Africa and the British Foreign Office. Are hero is sent to a fictional African police state to help find a member of the British delegation who is missing. the social commentary is not particularly profound. Bureaucrats are hypocrites, the West deals with thugs that sort of thing. For the most part this is a decent story. One minor irritation is that the characters will make speeches at the drop of a hat. Characters will say various racist and politically incorrect things are hero will attempt to debate them but his arguments are very weak. I'm not sure if this was by design.

Recommended.

Is available through Abebooks.

The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual Forewords by John A. Nagl, David H. Petraeus, James F. Amos

The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual Forewords by John A. Nagl, David H. Petraeus, James F. Amos this is the current manual published by Chicago press. The introductory material contains a discussion of American policy or lack thereof as well as a description of the writing process well worth the cost of the book. The manual itself is what one would expect. The British school of counterinsurgency seems to have strongly influenced this. There's some not very subtle criticisms of the strategy used in the Vietnam War. I wouldn't recommend reading at cover to cover its rather hard going rather a thematic chapter at a time could be easier. No counterinsurgency or Iraq bookshelf would be complete without this.

Highly recommended!

For more reviews take a look at My Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Partisan and Guerrilla Warfare bookshelf.

Aircraft Down!: Evading Capture in WWII Europe by Philip D. Caine

Aircraft Down!: Evading Capture in WWII Europe by Philip D. Caine is a rather disappointing collection of stories of Allied pilots trying to avoid capture. The major problem is that Caine has fallen into the "popular history" trap of providing internal monologue. "He knew he had to get away from the crash site quickly." The stories themselves are actually pretty good and would make excellent novels. The pilots often had to trust people on very little evidence as well as come up with new ideas on-the-fly. There is a far too short introduction discussing the history of the various underground lines used to move personnel to neutral Spain. Two of the stories involve planes crashing in Greece and Italy which was interesting.

Not recommended!

Is available through Abebooks.



For more WWII book reviews Take a look at My World War II bookshelf.

Scythians 700-300 B.C. by E.V. Cernenko

Scythians 700-300 B.C. by E.V. Cernenko is an Osprey title on these nomads of the Russian step. This was originally published in the 1980s. Osprey commissioned and translated the Russian experts text. Since there aren't any existing records by the Scythians themselves it's difficult to describe their history. The reconstruction is done through the accounts of the Greeks and Persians. Most of the book describes archaeological finds particularly scale armor. Naturally with an Osprey title one of the main attractions is the art work which is lovely as usual. I'm sure their have been all sorts of new findings in the last 20 years but this is still a nice introduction.

Recommended.

Is available through Abebooks.



For more ancient history book reviews Take a look at My Ancient History bookshelf.

Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition by Robert W. Merry

Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition by Robert W. Merry Is an analysis of American foreign policy and history. Merry argues that there's been several streams of thought in American foreign policy they are the idea of progress which led to Francis Fukuyama's end of history thesis, liberalism interventionism championed by Woodrow Wilson, the neoconservatives basically imperialists and finally Huntington's clash of civilizations. The analysis is actually pretty good discussing various obscure theorists and nicely in capsulizing their arguments. The problem is when we get to the discussion of real-world events.

Merry believes in the clashe of civilizations. Which leads to some bizarre conclusions. One of the large sections of the book is on the Balkans. According to the author NATO and the United States should not have been involved and if anything should have been much more supportive of the Serbs. Merry does acknowledge the war crimes but does not seem to comprehend the level of outrage they produced in the US and Western Europe. Going forward America should support anybody as long as they are willing to suppress Islamist forces. Funny I think that's what got them into this mess in the first place. Saudi Arabia should be ignored instead Iran should be cultivated. There's no reference to the Israeli position on this. The book concludes with some ranting about Islamic immigration.

It's too bad first 100 pages were superb.

Recommended for the discussion of the different positions except for the clash of civilizations which is not dealt with in a particularly evenhanded way.

Is available through Abebooks.

Muscat Command by Peter Thwaites and Simon Sloane

Muscat Command by Peter Thwaites and Simon Sloane is a memoir of Thwaites's time as commander of Oman's military. This took place during the insurgency in Oman. The insurgents supported by Yemen and the Chinese attempted to overthrow the government. Much of the discussion is about Thwaites going out on patrols and trying to get the Sultan to develop an actual hearts and minds strategy. He's rather opinionated about the other British services that were supposed to assist particularly the Air Force. A very interesting piece on a little-known conflict. The final chapter written by Sloane after Thwaites's death give some perspective on what his personnel thought of him. The book has several appendices including reports and more letters discussing Thwaites.

Highly recommended!

Is available through Abebooks.

Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy Is Failing by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke

Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy Is Failing by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke is a discussion of why big ideas as opposed to nuanced policies are so dangerous in American foreign policy and how they can be fixed. Naturally the media goes in for a lot of criticism but think tanks and various academics such as Bernard Lewis, Samuel P. Huntington and Noam Chomsky are criticized for selling out. The concluding section of the book discusses China and how it must be dealt with on a rational basis or else there could be war. Some of the scenarios were interesting such as increasing strain on Chinese aquifers requiring China to by grain on the open market thereby making it unstable. Unfortunately occasionally the authors say they're not going to do something like attack the media for how to use experts then proceed to do it for the next 15 pages.

Recommended.

Is available through Abebooks.

Oh hell

Terry Pratchett diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.