COIN Academy Reading List

[SWJED]

COIN Academy Reading List (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/12/coin-academy-reading-list/)

Small Wars Journal and Abu Muqawama (http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/) recently commented on the formation of the new U.S. Army Counterinsurgency (COIN) Academy in Afghanistan. We were particularly interested in the Academy’s pursuit of building a first-class COIN library.

So… SWJ and AM have decided to aid in building the library with a little help from our friends. We e-mailed the COIN Academy requesting their reading list. They responded with titles of books and movies that once in hand would go a long way in establishing a world-class COIN library.

To streamline our effort we have set up the Afghanistan COIN Library page (http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1R33SW0L8NIUS) on Amazon.

The books and movies you purchase there and send on to Afghanistan will seed the COIN Academy’s library with a few titles that will allow the staff to better appreciate history, culture, and insurgency in Afghanistan. Eventually the titles will make their way to the library of the Afghan Defense University of which the COIN Academy will become a part. The shipping address (while hidden at Amazon) is direct to the Academy and we will track to ensure your book or movie makes it way to Afghanistan.

A tip of the hat to Small Wars Council member Carl (currently a private sector pilot in Iraq and blogger at Because We're Here Boy, No One Else; But Us (http://becausewerehereboy.blogspot.com/)) who started the ball rolling by e-mailing us an offer to send multiple copies of FM 3-24 to the Academy.

Thanks much for helping us out on this project. What do we get out of this? A pretty darn good COIN reading list!

[SteveMetz]

If you'll PM or email me the mailing address for the academy I'll make sure they're on the distribution list for Strategic Studies Institute publications.

[skiguy]

Coupla questions to clarify. What do you do? Just go to that wish list link and purchase it normally, then everything's all automatic?

And about the amazon search: Do you just have to use the search feature here, then buy it as you regularly would, or does something else need to be done? (Does SWJ gets something for any purchase at Amazon by using this method)

[SWJED]

Coupla questions to clarify. What do you do? Just go to that wish list link and purchase it normally, then everything's all automatic?

And about the amazon search: Do you just have to use the search feature here, then buy it as you regularly would, or does something else need to be done? (Does SWJ gets something for any purchase at Amazon by using this method)

Gets shipped direct to the Academy. Just make sure you check the wish list shipping address before you check out. And no, we do not get a referral fee as this list is not linked to our normal SWJ / SWC Amazon account. We tried to link it and planned on using the fee to buy even more books but using that method would not allow us and potential buyers to track which books were already purchased.

Any other purchases through our normal Amazon account - or a donation of course would be most appreciated. Lots or work goes on here at no cost to the members and site visitors...

[Schuld]

For those interested, in addition to the FM on the list, another volume on the list, Mao's Basic Tactics, is available on the web ( http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_28.htm ). In fact, this site has also published Long Live the Victory of People’s War ( http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lin-biao/1965/09/peoples_war/ ), etc. Another good volume in that genre is, 'The Chinese Army Its Organization and Military Efficiency' by Evans Carlson (of USMC Raider fame).

[SWCAdmin]

.... And no, we do not get a referral fee as this list is not linked to our normal SWJ / SWC Amazon account. We tried to link it and planned on using the fee to buy even more books but using that method would not allow us and potential buyers to track which books were already purchased.
CORRECTION.

Just in the interest of full disclosure. We have subsequently managed to adjust the linkage on the COIN Academy's reading list, and it does now generate an explicitly tagged referral fee within our account at Amazon. Small Wars Journal is reinvesting the referral fees from this effort to purchase additional books on the reading list.

Thanks also to Abu Muqawama, who has made the same modification and is similarly committed to passing on those referral fees to reinvest in the cause.

Note - you get the same low Amazon price no matter how you buy. The referral fee is effectively a slice out of Amazon profits, back to the little guys. Like us. And the COIN Academy. So thanks, Jeff Bezos. And thanks to those of you who choose to modify your Amazon purchasing behavior ever so slightly (i.e. click into Amazon through our site) and thereby help us out. It's a big boost to our tiny coffers.

Note 2 - to any of our coalition partners in this effort (see list at end of entry here (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/12/coin-academy-reading-list/)), if we haven't gotten the how-to on this fee-generating re-linking to you, let me know. Contact by PM or webmaster@smallwarsjournal.com.

[Charlie Foxtrot]

What happened to the list? On Christmas Day, there were plenty of titles left. When I went back this morning to actually purchase/contribute one, it said that all of the titles have been purchased! :confused:

Did some grand benefactor swoop in and buy them all for you?

Charlie Foxtrot

[SWJED]

... it does seem that all the remaining titles were purchased.