Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
Poole has always struck me as a major "cutter and paster." He hauls things out of other sources, doesn't always leave them in context, and seems quite smitten with the idea that everyone (especially, as Fuchs points out, 'Eastern' armies) do everything better than we do. I wouldn't consider him a theorist in any major sense. A compiler, certainly, but not a theorist.
Agreed. and he takes a single idea and streches it well beyond its elastic capacity. If you recall, I reviewed his book Tactics of the Crecent Moon with:
Folks,

I said I would order this book, read it, and offer some thoughts so here goes:

Is it worth reading?

absolutely in that it offers an interesting perspective on counter-insurgency set in the context of today's operations.

Weaknesses:
a. Style of writing. The book suffers much from poor editing. it reads in may cases like a power point slide show run rampant. While it is a legitimate technique to repeat key ideas, Poole at times takes repetition to extreme. That also comes across in poor organization; chapters, sections, and paragraphs do not flow. Given the repetition of ideas, I felt like a hamster on a mental ferris wheel going round and round with no progress.

b. Exaggeration of certain key ideas. On this I would point to the role of Hizballah and its sponsor, Iran, especially the Iranian Sepah. Poole states that Hizballah is the main threat to the West and goes to great length to support that contention. Unfortunately his sourcing is poor and not--at least to me and I served in Lebanon and lost friends to Hizballah--convincing. I agree the Hizballah model and method are dangerous and difficult to counter; I don't see them as a universal model. A related issue is his insistence that Asian military culture permeated into the Middle East over the ages. Again it is an interesting idea but one hindered by poor sourcing and superficial analysis.

Strengths:

a. Poole focuses on the root elements of any counter-insurgency, the insurgents and the security forces who fight them. What I really liked about the book was his call for a more capable, more highly trained infantry with offensive infantry maneuver capabilities versus fires dominated thinking.

b. Related to a. is Poole's other key point, that tactical victories based on such a firepower dominated military modely are NOT victories for the forces engaged in COIN. His key point--at least to me--was that civilian collateral casualties in COIN must be given equal or even more weight that friendly casualties. Now this is not something new; the same point has been debated many times. But it is still a point worth considering.

c. Finally I liked the linkages Poole makes between culture and military operations. Some as I have already said were overstated to me. Still he does apply a logic that makes sense in understanding how a diffent culture with a different model for success can develop tactics to achieve that success--and how another culture may foolishly discount that success.

Using an Amazon rating of 1-5 stars, I would give it a 3.

Tom