Small Wars: a wide reading list

[SAMS2007]

Understanding Terror Networks by Marc Sageman
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife by John Nagl

[RedRaven]

@SAMS2007

Read those two.

@tequila

Thanks, also good idea with the online stuff, I just got a kindle for my birthday and now I know what to fill it with...

[outletclock]

In the spirit of Tequila noting that Kalyvas has research papers online, I'd suggest that, if you have access to them, you download papers that were published prior to books. Two examples:

Paper, "Strategic Logic," was published in the American Political Science Review.

Kenney, "Osama to Bin Laden" was published in Survival.

You might well be able to get the gist of the books by reading the articles, and save yourself some time.

In terms of history, what about "The Generals' War" (Gordon and Trainor on the Gulf War) and Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy (currently at two books)?

Bard O'Neill's "Insurgency and Terrorism" is an extraordinarily well-written book, particularly given it's a handbook that, in some ways, lacks a thesis.

I think Rosen's "Winning the Next War," about military innovation, is a great book.

If you aim to go into intelligence, both Intelligence and National Security, and, despite its pulp-sounding title, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence are both very solid journals, as are the Journal of Strategic Studies and Security Studies, in addition to International Security; World Politics and International Organization also publish security-oriented articles on occasion, as well as international and comparative politics more generally. If comparative politics is your thing - and if you're trying for a regional focus in the intelligence community - you might want to check out Comparative Politics and Comparative Political Studies.

"A Behavioral Theory of the Firm" and "Essence of Decision" are both nice works on organizational behavior - you can skip the case study chapters on the Cuban Missile Crisis if you're so inclined with respect to the latter.

Finally, as both history, literature (somewhat), and a primer on PC-COIN circa 1960, "The Ugly American" is hard to beat.

Again, though, you've got a very long reading list - above all else, I'd see if you can find article versions of the books to spare yourself reading that you really don't need.

Regards
OC

PS - Apologies in advance if I listed works you've already listed.

[slapout9]

Read the Cliff notes version of some of Karl Marx's writings. It's all his fault

[davidbfpo]

I'd give THINKING LIKE A TERRORIST: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent by Mike German - a miss - disappointed was I.

Replace with: 'Inside the Jihad' by Omar Nasiri (2006) and 'Rebel Hearts' by Kevin Toolis (1996).

Surely 'The Looming Tower' by Lawrence Wright, without doubt the best AQ background read?

Try 'Terrorism: How to respond' by Richard English and 'The Psychology of Counter-Terrorism' Edited by Andrew Silke.

Finally Alistair Horne's book 'A Savage War of Peace' and Professor R.V. Jones books on scientific intelligence.

Try to avoid an Anglo-US centric viewpoint, read on conflicts where neither party was involved and avoid too many contemporary conflicts. There is much to learn from history. I am sure a similar RFI on a French / Spanish / Russian speaking blog would be quite different.

[RedRaven]

Gentlemen: this is awesome...

@outletclock
I have Bard O'Niell (picked it up at the Bragg PX, in fact it was one the first books of this nature that I ever read). Also the journals are a very good idea, but dang the things are expensive I will ask the research librarian at college if any of the ones you suggested are available through our system.

@davidbfpo
I will definitely poke around and see if I can find a Russian blog of this nature. It may take me a while to figure out how to phrase this request in Russian, but what the heck its good practice

again thanks all.

[RTK]

Add Military Geography by John M. Collins.

The Bear Went Over the Mountain - Lester Grau

The Other Side of the Mountain - Lester Grau

On Guerrilla Warfare - Mao Tse Tung


I didn't see "Three Cups of Tea" on there.....