Small Wars: a wide reading list

[Stu-6]

I can’t believe that About Face by David Hackworth isn’t on the list.

[Stratiotes]

More from a polical level approach than to military but still a good look at how to improve the military ability with the proper resources:

_A Swift, Elusive Sword: What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?_ by Chester W. Richards
ISBN: 1932019014

For the OODA section alone:
_The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security_ by Grant Hammond
ISBN 158834178X

[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.)