Small Wars: a wide reading list

[zenpundit]

Jihad by Kepel

[GorTex6]

Maybe we should have read this one:

Resource Wars

And what exactly is a small war?

War is a Racket(MOH recipient)

(Did I make it on some"watch list")

[Mike in Hilo]

Government and Revolution in Viet Nam, by Dennis Duncanson, Oxford University Press, 1968. The best there is among the histories of VN. A must read. Unparalleled in depth of scholarship and far more critical in its analysis than popular works such as those of Fitzgerald and Karnow. The author argues that two deeply rooted traditions have clashed throughout VN's history of two millenia--(1)an autocratic center (legacy of Confucian China); and (2)the centrifugal forces of village autonomy, local warlordism and a penchant for cultism/violent secret societies. Hence, the nascent Viet Minh and VC were sustained not by a surfeit of French or Diemist autocracy (as often misdiagnosed by Americans), but rather, were nurtured under conditions that constrained a weak center from extending its power into the villages and hamlets.
Duncanson served with Thompson, both in Malaya and for several years on the UK Advisory Mission to RVN, and acknowledges weaving Thompson's and their colleagues' thinking into the fabric of this book. Provides insights that only an insider can.

[Mike in Hilo]

Two more:

1) Modern Warfare, by Roger Trinquier. It's available in the swj Reference Library under Counterinsurgency-insurgency, but also deserves inclusion in the Reading List. Essential manual focusing heavily on "classical" urban population control/surveillance through targeting the infrastructure and organization/regimentation of the populace. Lessons of Indochina as refined in Algeria.

2) A Better War, by Lewis Sorley. 1968-75 VN coverage...And it ain't all "clear and hold;"-- important disruption of the border sanctuaries took place on Abrams's watch. ...... Surprised this one isn't on the list.

[GorTex6]

The New Great Game : Blood and Oil in Central Asia, Lutz Kleveman

Conventional thinking on a possible confrontation between the U.S. and China assumes that the geography of conflict will be off of China's coast over the Taiwan issue or as competition for the Spratly Islands heats up. In his first book, veteran war correspondent Kleveman makes the intriguing argument that the challenge to U.S. primacy will in fact take place to the west of China's hinterland province Xingjiang over the resources of the energy-rich Caspian Sea and the surrounding Central Asian republics. The central thesis, that the U.S., China, Russia and Iran are now engaged in a New Great Game, a power struggle for control of the region's vast oil and gas reserves, is thinly woven through the narrative in what is largely a war zone travel diary. Kleveman, who readily admits his conviction that the recent war in Iraq was motivated by the interests of Houston oilmen, similarly treats the war on terrorism as little more than a pretext for the presence of U.S. troops in the region to secure oil interests and pipeline routes. Thus, the book gives the impression that Kleveman has selectively presented interviews with oil ministers and locals that lend his argument the most weight, while giving short shrift to those with opposing views. The work draws attention to a little understood and increasingly important part of the world where oil, Islam and terrorism converge to create havoc, but in the end, Kleveman fails to show that competition and not cooperation will mark the development of the region's resources. Agent, Emma Parry, Carlisle & Co.(Sept.)

[GorTex6]

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives , Zbigniew Brzezinski

As the twentieth century draws to a close, the United States has emerged as the world's only superpower: no other nation possesses comparable military and economic power or has interests that bestride the globe. Yet the critical question facing America remains unanswered: What should be the nation's global strategy for maintaining its exceptional position in the world? Zbigniew Brzesinski tackles this question head-on in this incisive and pathbreaking book.

Must read, written in 1997, the GWOT will finally "make sense"

Read page 911....er 211...you will see why 2/11 errr...9/11 happened

[GorTex6]

Blood and Oil : The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum , Michael T. Klare

Since the tragic events of September 11 and the commencement of the "war on terror", the ralationship between US policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil has come under close scrutiny. In Blood and Oil, international security expert Michael T. Klare traces oil's impact on foreign affairs from World War II to the present, arguing that America's oil-influenced military actions will only increase in the coming years. By 2020, the United States will need to import twice as much fuel per year as id did in 1990, and since most of this oil will come from chronically unstable, strongly anti-American regions-the Gulf, the Caspian Sea, and Africa-recurrent involvement in violent conflict is sure to follow.
With clarity and urgency, Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament: America's wells are drying up even as its demand increases while anti-American fervor is building in the world's oil-rich nations. It is time, Klare cautions, to change our energy policies, before we spen the next decades paying for oil with blood.

Good intel....Post 9/11 follow up for Resource Wars