What Are You Currently Reading? 2012

[carl]

Two books I recently read that I think were very good.

The Great Rifle Controversy: Search for the Ultimate Infantry Weapon from World War II Through Vietnam and Beyond, by E.C Ezell.

This book was written in 1982 and is probably known by most around here but I liked it and learned a lot about technical detail and bureaucratic dynamics. Two things, of many, stood out for me. First the author said American military rifle development was not a story of innovation, but mostly a story of incremental product improvement. He hoped that future decades would change that and see some real innovation. That was written in 1982 and the ensuing 30 years have seen...incremental product improvement.

The second thing was that I think the Senate committee that investigated the M-16 rifle introduction debacle concluded that there had been negligence rising to a criminal level but the program was structured so diffusely that no individual or small group of individuals could be held responsible. When I read that I realized how little things had changed in 50 years.

The other book is:

Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq by James R. Arnold.

The book is a study of 4 small wars, Philippine Insurrection, Algeria, Malaya and Vietnam. Mr. Arnold is an excellent writer and can use a sentence to convey an idea where others (like me) need paragraphs; so he has quite a lot of valuable things to say about these conflicts in not so many pages.

For example, he said that one of the primary reasons for the success of the much debated "Surge" in Iraq was that AQI overplayed its hand by its homicidal fanaticism. I haven't read that in too many other places and it is interesting to contemplate what would have happened if their political platform had extended much beyond maniacal killing.

[datroy]

For example, he said that one of the primary reasons for the success of the much debated "Surge" in Iraq was that AQI overplayed its hand by its homicidal fanaticism. I haven't read that in too many other places and it is interesting to contemplate what would have happened if their political platform had extended much beyond maniacal killing.

This isn't all that new - it is closely connected to the "Iraqi agency" argument that has picked up steam recently, but it really started at least as far back as Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who said the Anbar Awakening was the result of the Sunnis having to be the ones to make the decision that they had finally had enough.

This isn't wrong, but the problem with focusing specifically on this point, is that it is used to argue that an increase in US troops (called "the surge") was not responsible. The problem is that it considers each element of what happened in Iraq in 2007-2008 in isolation, trying to figure out which one was the cause of the reduction in violence. In reality, all of these things were connected, and without one you probably wouldn't have the other. Yes, the Iraqis had to make this decision for themselves, but it is not a coincidence that it also came at a time when the US finally was able to provide a viable alternative to AQI. Likewise, an increase in US forces was important, but more important was how those forces were used, and demonstrating to Iraqis that they had an alternative to al Qaeda that would keep them alive. "The Surge" was not just dumping additional bodies into Iraq and calling it a day. It was an ongoing, interconnected process in which the actions of the US, Iraqis, and al Qaeda all had an effect in reducing the violence at the time and weakening AQI.

To get back to the topic of the thread though, I just finished Execute Against Japan: The US Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. I am reading Gunther Rothenberg's The Art of War in the Age of Napoleon. After that will be John Lynn's Bayonets of the Republic: Motivations and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France.