What Are You Currently Reading? 2010

[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."

[Van]

Oh who am I kidding? My favorite interpretation of Sun Tzu (alt. spg. "Sun Zi") is the one by Tsai Chih Chung. My review of it is here.

[pjmunson]

Looking for an academic, at least well researched and hopefully noted, book on the dynamics of gangs like MS13 and 18th Street and how they have spread across borders from LA to Mexico and Central America.

On another note, recently read "No Angel" by Jay Dobyns. I found it very interesting and an easy read, not sure how much Small Wars use you'd get out of it, but it does give some idea of group dynamics of an outlaw group. Another highly recommended academic gang read is "Islands in the Street" by Martin Sanchez-Jankowski.

[davidbfpo]

PJMunson,

Looking for an academic, at least well researched and hopefully noted, book on the dynamics of gangs like MS13 and 18th Street and how they have spread across borders from LA to Mexico and Central America.

Methinks the answer lies on this RFI thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9802

I've copied your request to the RFI thread.

[Tukhachevskii]

Saul David’s Victoria’s Wars: The Rise of Empire is an impressive political and military history. I was struck by the particularly forceful notion, an appropriate asymmetry given our current pre-occupation with “asymmetric wars” in general, that a large proportion of Britain’s wars were small for us but considered major for our enemies particularly when one realises that, for the day (and even now), a major war was considered one fought only between comparable (Great) powers (or peer competitors in today’s parlance). Obviously, the Crimean War (Chapter 8) would thus count as a “large” War yet, oddly perhaps, one fought very much like a small one if only because of logistical, command and coalition gremlins. From the influence of those great PMCs (after a fashion) the East and West India Companies to changes in domestic electoral geometry (i.e., the fall of Disraeli to his erstwhile nemesis Sir Robert Peel) to the effects, often deleterious, of international rivalry between Powers that were Allies one day and Enemies the next to the financial burdens for the extension, consolidation and then subsequent “policing” of “empire” much of that past era really is prologue to our current one (in which the “empire” being extended is now that of “the rule of law”). Yet what is also striking is the manner in which, given Britain’s almost otherworldly technological superiority (in comparison with its non-European opponents), financial power and social organisation she still managed to lose wars (i.e., Afghanistan) which, by the standards of the day, should have been a walk-over due to issues which still have contemporary resonance;

[Mountstuart Elphinstone, former governor of Bombay on the proposed British invasion of Afghanistan c. 1835] [q-e]I used to dispute with you against having an agent in Caubul [sic], and now we have assumed the protection of the state as if it were one of the subsidiary allies in India. If you send 27,000 men up the Bolan Pass to Candahar [sic] (as we hear intended), and can feed them, I have no doubt you will take Candahar and Caubul and set up Soojah [Shuja, then claimant to the Afghan throne]; but for maintaining him in a poor, cold, strong and remote country, among turbulent people like the Afghans, I own it seems to me to be hopeless.[/q-e] (p. 21)

Of greater contemporary significance is the excellent book by Ali Ahmad Jalali and L. W. Grau, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War. A companion to their earlier The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan this book focuses specifically on Mujahideen TTPs during the Soviet-Afghan war using vignettes of the commanders involved from almost all of the various Mujahedeen groups that participated. Perhaps rather unsurprisingly it is remarkable to see how consistent Afghan TTPs have been with regards to the manner in which ambushes (Ch.1) , raids (Ch.2), Shelling/Mortar strikes (Ch.3), mine warfare (Ch.5) and urban warfare (Ch.14) is conducted when we compare the vignettes in this book to after action reports from current operations. Other chapters reveal Afghan TTPs in the conduct of: attacking a strong point (Ch. 4); Blocking Enemy Lines of Communication (Ch.6); Siege Warfare (Ch.7); Defence against (Soviet Spetznaz) Raids (Ch.8); Countering (Soviet) Heliborne Insertions (Ch. 9); Defending against a Cordon and Search (C.10); Defending Base Camps (Ch. 11); Counter-ambushes (Ch.12); and, Fighting an Encirclement (Ch.13). There are also numerous and revealing tidbits of information that are usually glossed over or omitted in scholarly or historical commentaries one of which, for instance, was the use of video cameras by Mujahedeen commanders which were used not for BDA, propaganda or for later training use (as I would have supposed) but rather to prove to other factions and groups that ordnance had been expended in order to justify the allotting of further weapons and supplies for future operations (p. 108fn2). The Arabs who joined in the Jihad, however, were (apparently) more interested in taking videos, in the earlier stages at least, and were considered prima donnas by many Mujahedeen groups (p129fn4). Another little know operation involved mujahedeen using sympathisers/moles in DRA (the Soviet satellite Afghan army) formations to drug DRA officers prior to an attack; fittingly, one of the Mujahedeen commanders was an M.D! (p.119). I was also surprised to learn that the DRA was not entirely ineffectual as a fighting formation at least if the Battle of Panjawee in 1982 is to go by (pp.123-5).

Having rooted around looking for work on Afghan guerrilla TTPs I was glad to have “hit the mother lode”. Accompanied by detailed maps and candid reminiscences by those involved it is thoroughly recommended. In the quote below it appears that, for one guerrilla commander at least, one up-two back really is best in a company sized attack (with what appear to be large platoon groups composed of 20man sections/squads);

[Commander Wazir Gul on a raid against a security outpost] [q-e]My group's base was in Zandeh Kalay which is some 25 kilometers south of the [Lataband] pass [on the Kandahar-Sairobi highway]. I planned the attack at the base. We left the base at 1500 and moved to the Tezin Valley where we spent the night. We carried our supplies and ammunition on mules. Once we got to the Tezin Valley, I met with the commanders of other groups and we coordinated our attack. The total strength of the combined Mujahideen force was about 150 fighters. We left what we did not need for immediate combat at Tezin and moved out toward our targets. We brought the mules with us. There were three chief components in our combined force—two fire support groups and an assault group. Each fire support group had heavy weapons (three BM-1, four DShK, three 82mm mortars). Their mission was to attack and pin down the Soviet base at Mulla Omar and the Sarandoy base at Lataband. The assault group had twelve RPG-7s and four 82mm recoilless rifles. The assault group was composed of three 20-man teams. Each 20-man team had a designated enemy outpost to attack.[/q-e] (p.93)

In another “after-action-report” concerning an ambush in the Kandahar area Commander Mulla Kalang reveals the general disregard for civilian casualties/reprisals against civilian families of rival Mujahedeen (i.e., his own countrymen) who refused to participate in the action but who would, nonetheless, be blamed for it while also revealing the Mujahedeen’s understanding of the relationship between terrain & time, their ability to co-ordinate attacks with groups from other locales and Soviet SOPs (i.e., the absence, at this time, of Soviet reconnaissance efforts contrary to extant Soviet doctrine):

[q-e]We decided to divide the 250 available Mujahideen into several groups. The groups were armed with RPG-7 antitank grenade launchers and four-to-five 82mm recoilless rifles. All ambushes were sited in the green zone to the south of the road. Each ambush group had an assigned sector of the kill zone. All groups were instructed to open fire simultaneously as the head of the column reaches the Ashoqa villages. It was expected that at that time the tail of the column would have just cleared the Pashmol villages. At that time, most of the local population still lived in their homes along the road. Few had migrated to Pakistan since no major Soviet military actions had taken place there. The Mujahideen groups coming from Malajat (the southern and south-western suburbs of Kandahar) and other neighbouring bases moved during the night to their designated ambush sites. The ambush plan was kept secret from the local population and local Mujahideen units since resistance groups based in the ambush area were reluctant to participate, fearing retaliation directed at their homes and families still living there.[/q-e] (p.44)

Also one wonders what the outcome would have been had Soviet COIN efforts been more effective at engaging the locals and sowing dissent amongst the Mujahedeen (perhaps by buying them off/co-opting them as the Romans had done with the Goths and the Byzantines had done with the Avars, Bulgars et al and turned them against one another) especially when the Mujahedeen cared even less about civilian casualties than the Soviet’s did as is evinced in a local saying amongst civilians;

[q-e] the government oppress us during the day and the Mujahedeen oppress us at night[/q-e] (p.115)