What are you currently reading in 2018

[davidbfpo]

The actual book title is 'True to Their Salt: Indigenous Personnel in Western Armed Forces by Rob Johnson', which I volunteered to review for the publishers - hence a thread for visibility purposes.

The book was published in 2017, by Hurst & Company of London. it is in hardback only, price UK£25 and 512 pgs. See:http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/true-to-their-salt/

It is available via Amazon.

This is a weighty book, with 418 pages of text, an extensive bibliography and an index - even if the author says it is a short and preliminary study!
The author, Rob Johnson, is the Director of The Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford; he was a British Army infantry officer, a military historian and has been an adviser on ‘Small Wars’ to the British Army, the US Army and the US Marine Corps.
The purpose of the book is to establish a clear, enriched understanding of how non-Western personnel contributed to the successes and failures in historical and contemporary conflicts. Whether in military intervention, counter-insurgency and the development of local security forces (summarised from pg. XI & XIII).
The historical survey, mainly from the British, French and American experience, touches upon all the factors that today cause so much concern, for example loyalty and trust that came to the fore in Afghanistan with ‘green on blue’ attacks. There is a reminder that one of the biggest imperial era crises was the ‘Indian Mutiny’, when regular locally recruited army formations mutinied and led to a bitter repressive campaign. The explanation of the slave West Indian Regiment is a revelation; whose successors proudly feature in a local commemoration service every year in Birmingham, UK.
The importance pre-1914 of irregular or frontier units is amply explained, they were often recruited from defeated enemies, for example the Ghurkhas. In both world wars mobilization of imperial manpower resources became a key factor. In the Middle East in WW1 13 of the 17 British and Imperial divisions deployed in Mesopotamia and Palestine were Indian. Once hostilities were over 85,000 Indian soldiers were deployed to end the 1920 revolt in Iraq.
Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, is amply covered (pgs. 251-269); his two writings ‘are also detailed and often brutally honest guides to the challenges an adviser could face’. Captain Barry Petersen, an Australian adviser to the Montagnards in Vietnam is given attention (pgs. 326-329). He concluded “advisers were best” and this would have strained the regular armies – all too evident more recently. (Added his book was ''Tiger Men: An Australian Soldier's Secret War in Vietnam', pub. 1988 and in 2011 another book 'The Tiger Man of Vietnam'. Her arrived secretly in 1963, unknown when he left).
The long, gruelling East African campaign 1914-1918 against the German Schutztruppe is covered briefly; each company had 5 German officers and 150 Askaris (local term for soldiers). These were the troops von Lettow-Vorbeck led in a brilliant guerrilla campaign, one fought with almost no external direction and at a huge local cost – to the native porters primarily.
There are similar chapters about WW2, the post-colonial struggles and the building of Afghan and Iraqi forces 2003-2014. In Afghanistan we have seen the repeated creation of a national army and experiments with irregulars, local police and mercenaries such as the Kandahar Strike Force.
Today we consider partnering and invariably overlook what happens when there is an exit – odd considering the many examples as the empires ended. Let alone the debacle in Mosul when ISIS launched their attack. The Harkis episode in Algeria is well-known and sits alongside the less well-known end of British rule in Aden in 1967.
Is this a “how to do it operationally” guide? No, and the concluding chapter explains why. Partnering, advising and recruitment – let alone fighting – will never be in an ideal environment.
Will these options for those who intervene and seek to use cheaper and abundant manpower meet both our objectives and those of the locals?