What Are You Currently Reading? 2010

[Intel Geek]

Accidental Guerilla - David Kilcullen
Starting With the Contras by Christopher Dickey today.

I'm mostly just thumbing through With the Contras. I'm doing a paper on the 1978 war in Nicaragua and I'm hoping there's some good background info on the Sandinistas. I'm waiting for At the Fall of Somoza by Lawrence Pezzullo to arrive from Amazon.

On Deck:

The Gamble - Thomas Ricks
The Peace to End all Peace - David Fromkin

[davidbfpo]

This review has also appeared on SWJ Blog:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...ent-archipela/ so if you have any comments add them there please.

The Insurgent Archipelago, by John Mackinlay, a an ex-UK soldier and now an academic, in paperback was published in late '09 and is subject of an extensive review in British Army Review (BAR) and the entire review is on the Kings of War site:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2010/02/rev...+(Kings+of+War)

Last paragraph:

But this is also why the book is to be treasured for what Mackinlay does, unusually for this literature, is say something new. With The Insurgent Archipelago he has planted a flag on new territory which others may explore too, to contest or to confirm. His theory is complete and clearly articulated and sorely needed. It deserves to be apprehended by all those whose task it is to defeat the challenges posed to the post-industrial West by global insurgency. Looking for the cutting edge of theory on insurgency and counterinsurgency? Here it is.

Amazon:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Insurgent-Ar.../dp/1849040133

I have no interest in plugging the book, just feel that it may contribute to a debate on conflict that appears to be more alive in the USA than here.

[Mike in Hilo]

Mark Moyar's latest, A Question of Command--Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq.

Cheers,
Mike.

[Mike in Hilo]

Because it has just been reissued, I decided to reread, after decades, my 1972 edition of Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An. Reaction:

Deserves to be read, but I'd recommend doing so in tandem with William Andrews, The Village War; and Eric Bergerud, The Dynamics of Defeat, which happen to treat two adjacent provinces. The book describes how mass organization over more than a decade culminating in 1965, moved the countryside of Long An beyond the reach of meaningful GVN influence. Race's point is that this was possible because only the Party's "the last will be first and the first will be last" agenda of literally capsizing the feudal social hierarchy could generate the requisite popular loyalty. As Race relies heavily on accounts of individuals who attained some standing in the Revolution after sacrificing the better part of their lives to the cause, this may be a somewhat idealized version. Andrews's The Village War, also an interview-based village study, may offer a useful counterpoint, focusing more sharply on such practicalities as the efficacy of "the medium is the message" armed propaganda.

1965 Long An was much different from the post-1970 one of my acquaintance. By then one of the more secure provinces, enemy influence was relatively localized in the minimally populated NW, where, in a reflection of the extant paradigm, it radiated out of a PAVN infiltration route cum base area. This was the Plain of Reeds swamp complex, which extended from Svay Rieng (Cambodia) to within a few miles of Saigon-Cholon. Long An Province Chief Col. Nam (1973) was not reluctant to send his RFs even into this redoubt, on battalion size ops.

Race tries to explain, with less certitude, reasons for the virtual drying up of the enemy's local manpower pool by the pivotal year 1970, a question which, IMO, holds greater relevance to the current conflicts. Having offered land hunger as a problem, he credits the promise of the GVN Land To The Tiller Program...But LTTT wasn't widely implemented until 1972. There is further attribution--to local recruitment of PFs and their assignment to their native villages; and to arming of the PSDF village militia. But none of this would have been possible without elimination of the enemy main force units. Race decries the intensely violent level of warfare of the 1967-'69 phase, and the accompanying, wrenching dislocations, including mass forced relocations and urbanization. But it may be that (as Begerud finds in his work), attrition and coercion proved, after all, to be the sine qua non....Looking ahead from a 1970 vantage point, Race believes the apparent security is ephemeral and will rapidly deteriorate pari passu with US troop withdrawal. True for sure in a number of other places, but Long An is not a good example. The problem was a steady, but manageable, drain--until the province was overrun by PAVN in 1975.

Cheers,
Mike.

[MikeF]

My apologies to all--must have pushed the button inadvertantly--Post should not, of course, appear twice--The first version happens to be the edited version..

Cheers,
Mike.

Mike, thank you for that overview. I've read Andrews, and now I want to check out the other two. If you have a chance, I'd recommend that you add these two to your collection. I've found that individual case studies focused on specific villages meld well with the regional studies.

David Donovan, "Once a Warrior King."

Kregg PJ Johnson, "LRRP Company Command, The Cav's LRP/Rangers in Vietnam 1968-1969."

v/r

Mike Few

[Mike in Hilo]

Mike, thanks again. I say "again" because I acquired The Village War solely on the basis of your recommendation in that piece you contributed to the SWJ maybe some 18 months ago... I have read Once a Warrior King--and will look for your other suggestion. Re: Race and Bergerud--if you are pressed for time, I'd say Bergerud is the must read--keeping in mind that it deals with an atypically intractable area where "..many people had forgotten why they were fighting."

Cheers,
Mike.

[MikeF]

Mike, thanks again. I say "again" because I acquired The Village War solely on the basis of your recommendation in that piece you contributed to the SWJ maybe some 18 months ago... I have read Once a Warrior King--and will look for your other suggestion. Re: Race and Bergerud--if you are pressed for time, I'd say Bergerud is the must read--keeping in mind that it deals with an atypically intractable area where "..many people had forgotten why they were fighting."

Cheers,
Mike.

Cool, Thanks for the tips and thanks for reading.

I've got a question for the group. What translation of Sun Tzu would y'all recommend. I've got a buddy studying in Shanghai right now, and he's attempting to read Sun Tzu in the original text. Two issues- First, it is written in old chinese so some of the characters are no longer used. Second, archeologist are finding more manuscripts that they think are part of the original author(s) work.

v/r

Mike

[Van]

What translation of Sun Tzu would y'all recommend.

Samuel Griffith's was the academic standard for a long time, but Thomas Cleary's is more current and pretty well respected, and has been released in several different forms. Several things enter into translation of Sun Tzu; the actual text of Sun Tzu, the commentaries of latter writers, and how it is presented in English. Cleary is good on all counts.

[William F. Owen]

I've got a question for the group. What translation of Sun Tzu would y'all recommend. I've got a buddy studying in Shanghai right now, and he's attempting to read Sun Tzu in the original text. Two issues- First, it is written in old chinese so some of the characters are no longer used. Second, archeologist are finding more manuscripts that they think are part of the original author(s) work.

The R.L. Wing translation was the one recommended to me and it makes way more sense that the Griffith translation. - E.G. It's not "Art of War."

[tcdrennen]

I have to get a new copy of The Peace to End All Peace; my TPB fell apart after the second reading. Excellent hidtory focused on the details and sequences of the blunders that created the modern Middle East.

[Brett Patron]

Articles on AQIM, the Sahel, Trans-Sahara, and that area of Africa west and north of Nigeria....

oh yeah..and "The Count of Monte Cristo" on my new e-book reader.