Small Wars: a wide reading list

[Hacksaw]

The recommendations that preceeded this entry are all good and topical...

I would offer a good investment of time would be The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt...

If is an MBA for dummies in a single thin paperback book...

[Cavguy]

The recommendations that preceeded this entry are all good and topical...

I would offer a good investment of time would be The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt...

If is an MBA for dummies in a single thin paperback book...

Still pimpin' that book! Sure you didn't get a cut? Hacksaw made me read it when we worked together ... actually learned something from it.

Now if they made an Afghan version ...

[Bob's World]

All of the military references are good, but for when you are ready to move from the suppression of insurgents to understaning the roots of causation in the relationship between government and the governed:

"1776" by David McCullough

"Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution" by Woody Holton

"The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution" By David O. Stewart


A great walk through why men rebel (both before and after the American Revolution) and how a group of former rebels debated through a long summer how to best codify counterinsurgency as a way to govern a nation.

Read these first as the American experience is easier for Americans to empathize with than that of others. Then read the works written by insurgents. Mao, Gueverra, etc.

THEN read the work written by Colonial and Containment "COIN" authors, men who in the military service of their respective countries were sent out to help suppress or resolve some popular uprising that was perceived as threat to a national government that had been carefully nurtured and shaped to represent the interests of said foreign power. (Galula, Kitson, Tranquier, Fall, etc)

Last, read the works of guys like Nagl and others who assess the works of these Colonial, Containment and GWOT-driven "COIN" efforts and compare and contrast what techniques and approaches for sustaining such subordinate foreign governments in power were the most effective.

(most, to include myself, do this backwards, so are slow to get at the true essence of insurgency and the realization that much of what is packaged as "COIN" by the West really is not COIN at all, but rather is how to apply the military in foregin countries to preserve governments in power that are more willing to support the interests of themselves and the foreign power, than they are those of the people they rule (often with impunity) under that umbrella of foreign protection.

[Sergeant T]

Two more that are worth the time are Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. I'd also recommend getting a subscription to The Economist.

[outletclock]

You might have answered this question already, in which case mea culpa, but let me ask a basic question: what discipline do you intend to do your graduate work in? It seems you wish to focus on insurgency and the like, but from the perspective of history, political science, other...?

Regards
OC

[RedRaven]

@outletclock

I am looking into schools that actually offer a security studies program. Usually this means Political Science with a security concentration. Although some schools actually have a major in Security Studies (Kansas State University comes to mind). Failing that I will simply go for Political Science.

@Bob's World

Good suggestion, and yes it seems like I have been "going backwards" looking and Galula and the likes first...