LTC John Nagl: collection

[William F. Owen]

Tom Odom defends Nagl's book and that's fine -- but Wilf was correct in saying the British in Malaya did some really dicey things in Malaya and (even more so) in Kenya and Nagl is remiss in not pointing out all the advantages the Brits had there -- not least that they were the government. We did use Brit Malaya-like techniques in Viet Nam -- or tried to -- and they failed miserably, partly because we were not the government, partly because we did not want to do some of those dicey things and partly because we do not have the patience the British have. Malaya was NOT a good example for anyone to adopt in COIN.

I also have anecdotal evidence that Nagl's book is indeed discounted in the British Army.

I don't think Tom does defend the book. Without wishing to put words in his mouth, and I believe he does say this, he takes from it, what is useful.

BUT... Ken is annoyingly right again, in saying far better than I could, exactly what I was trying to get across.

What "sort of" worked in Malaya, failed miserably in RVN because of the "experts" trying to tell people how to do it, instead of studying the problem from a military point of view, and then doing what is shown to harm the enemy. - which is what COIN is about. Inflicting defeat (annihilation and/or exhaustion) on an armed enemy.

I will confess to never having read Nagl's book, because both of the British Army's foremost COIN analysts (one retired, one deployed) both said, not to bother - but that is not to say that Nagl's book is not a valuable work for the audience he intended to serve.

To sound like a stuck record, I believe the US Army's (and UK to a lesser extent) problem with COIN is that it is viewed as something difficult and distinct, instead of the bread and butter of contemporary and historic military forces. The fact that this belief persists strongly indicates a lack of understanding as concerns the nature of the enemy, that means people focus on the nature of the conflict instead.