Insurgency & Revolution – Page 13 – Public Intelligence Blog

2006/10/202009/12/04

Review: Triumph Forsaken–The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (v. 1)

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, War & Face of Battle

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Revisionist, Questionable, Valuable, and a Starting Point,

October 20, 2006

Mark Moyar

I write this in Lubbock, Texas where historian Mark Moyar presented his conclusions in very summary form to one of the most extraordinary collection of individuals to ever gather on the topic of “Intelligence in the Vietnam War,” an event co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Intelligence (Central Intelligence Agency) and the Vietnam Center (Texas Tech University).

While I came to hear authors like George Allen, whose 50 years of on-the-ground experience are presented in NONE SO BLIND, the definitive work on intelligence in the Viet-Nam war, and C. Michael Hiam, first time author who has done an utterly amazing job in describing, defending, and honoring Sam Adams in Who the Hell are We Fighting?, I have to credit this author, graduate of Harvard, student of Christopher Andrew the singular at Cambridge, with ripping me out of my chair and forcing me to think about the relative merits of documentation versus oral histories versus personal observation (I was there from August 1963 to late 1967).

Here are three bottom lines on the book:

1) It is some of the most erudite, earnest, well-intentioned, and potentially explosive revisionist history directly relevant to the intelligence-policy relationship as well as relations among nations.

2) It is lacking in an understanding of how the veterans of the war actually perceive it, taking both secondary sources and original documents from varied governments including China and Viet-Nam, at face value.

3) It merits the benefit of the doubt, a serious reading by those that were actually there, and inputs, in the form of oral histories, to the Oral History Project Head at the Vietnam Archive (Texas Tech University). If you have substantive comment to make on this book, don't stop here at Amazon–call them at 806.742.9010 and schedule a short telephone interview to add your oral history to the collection.

I read a lot and have had a fortunate life. I have always known that governments lie in the documents and their public statements, that secondary sources are all too happy to bend the truth to make a case, but it was not until this moment that I realized just how very urgent it is to dramatically increase our oral history and direct understanding of every aspect of the Viet-Nam debacle, one we repeat today in Iraq and Afghanistan, where those fighting have no memory of both the successes and failures of the past.

My gravest concern with this important and worthy book is that it plays to what the extremist unilateral militants–including the chicken hawks now serving–want to hear: that imperial adventurism can succeed if one just intervenes a little more harshly, a little sooner, with a bit more cleverness.

I have been an iconoclast, and I now find myself defending and praising an individual for having produced a work that conflicts sharply with my narrow understanding of the reality as I lived it, and that of the many others attending this conference.

I regard this book as a very courageous and intelligent offering, one that must be regarded as a work in progress, and one that will add substantially to our understanding once the author has a chance to write an epilogue that factors in the comments of those now living who were actually there.

Five stars for brave brains. This author must be reckoned with.

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2006/10/042010/05/31

Review: State of Denial–Bush at War Part III

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Stake in the Heart of the W Presidency

October 4, 2006

Bob Woodward

Here are the highlights I drew out that make this book extraordinary and worth reading even if it leaves one with a political hang-over:

1) The Federal Government is broken, and was made worse by a President who knew nothing of foreign policy, a Vice President who closed down the inter-agency policy system, and a Secretary of Defense who was both contemptuous of the uniformed military and held in contempt by Bush Senior.

2) My opinion of the Secretary of Defense actually went UP with this book. Rumsfeld has clearly been well-intentioned, has clearly asked the right questions, but he let his arrogance get away from him. Given a choice between Admiral Clark, a truth-telling transformative person, and General Myers, an acquiescent warrior diminished to senior clerk, Rumsfeld made the right choice for his management style, and the wrong choice for the good people in our Armed Forces. I *like* Rumsfeld's Anchor Chain letter as it has been described, and wish it had been included as an Appendix. Rumsfeld got the control he wanted, but he sacrificed honest early warning in so doing.

3) This book also improves my opinion of the Saudis and especially Prince Bandar. While I have no tolerance for Saudi Royalty–the kind of corrupt debauched individuals that make Congressman Foley look like a vestal virgin–the Saudis did understand that Bush's unleashing of Israel was disastrous, and they did an excellent job of shaking up the President. Unfortunately, they could not overcome Dick Cheney, who should resign or be impeached for gross dereliction of duty and usurpation of Presidential authority.

4) Tenet's visit to Rice on 10 July is ably recounted and adds to the picture. It joins others books, notably James Risen's “State of War,” “Hubris,” FASCO” and “The End of Iraq in presenting a compelling picture of a dysfunctional National Security Advisor who is now a dysfunctional Secretary of State–and Rumsfeld still won't return her phone calls…..

5) The author briefly touches on how CIA shined in the early days of the Afghan War (see my reviews of “JAWBREAKER” and “First In” for more details) but uses this to show that Rumsfeld took the impotence of the Pentagon, and the success of CIA, personally.

6) The author also tries to resurrect Tenet somewhat, documenting the grave reservations that Tenet had about Iraq, but Tenet, like Colin Powell, failed to speak truth to power or to the people, and failed the Nation.

7) Rumsfeld recognized the importance of stabilization and reconstruction (and got an excellent report from the Defense Science Board, not mentioned by this book, on Transitions to and From Hostilities) but he vacillated terribly and ultimately failed to be serious on this critical point.

8) This book *destroys* the Defense Intelligence Agency, which some say should be burned to the ground to allow a fresh start. The author is brutal in recounting the struggles of General Marks to get DIA to provide any useful information on the alleged 946 WMD sites in Iraq. DIA comes across as completely derelict bean counters with no clue how to support operators going in harms way, i.e. create actionable intelligence.

9) Despite WMD as the alleged basis for war, the military had no unit trained, equipped, or organized to find and neutralize WMD sites. A 400 person artillery unit was pressed into this fearful service.

10) General Jay Garner is the star of this story. My face lit up as I read of his accomplishments, insights, and good judgments. He and General Abizaid both understood that allowing the Iraqi Army to stay in being with some honor was the key to transitioning to peace, and it is clearly documented that Dick Cheney was the undoing of the peace. It was Dick Cheney that deprived Jay Garner of Tom Warrick from State, the man who has overseen and understood a year of planning on making the peace, and it was Dick Cheney that fired Garner and put Paul Bremer, idiot pro-consult in place. Garner clearly understood a month before the war–while there was still time to call it off–that the peace was un-winable absent major changes, but he could not get traction within the ideological fantasy land of the Vice Presidency.

11) Apart from State, one military officer, Colonel Steve Peterson, clearly foresaw the insurgency strategy, but his prescient warnings were dismissed by the larger group.

12) General Tommy Franks called Doug Feith “the dumbest bastard on the planet,” –Feith deprived Garner of critical information and promoted Chalabi as the man with all the answers.

13) The author covers the 2004 election night very ably, but at this point the book started to turn my stomach. The author appears oblivious to the fact that the Ohio election was stolen through the manipulation of 12 voting districts, loading good machines in the pro-Bush areas, putting too few machines in the pro-Kerry areas, and in some cases, documented by Rolling Stone, actually not counting Kerry votes at all on the tallies. Ohio has yet to pay, as does Florida, for its treasonous betrayal of the Republic.

Today I issued a press release pointing toward the Pakistan treaty creating the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan as a safehaven for the Taliban and Al Qaeda as the definitive end–loss of–the war on terror, which is a tactic, not an enemy. As Colin Gray says in “Modern Strategy,” time is the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced. As a moderate Republican I dare to suggest that resigning prior to the November elections, in favor of John McCain, Gary Hart, and a Coalition Cabinet, might be the one thing that keeps the moderate Republican incumbents, and the honest Democrats–those that respect the need for a balanced budget–in place to provide for continuity in Congress, which must *be* the first branch of government rather than slaves to the party line.

It's crunch time. This book is the last straw. The American people are now *very* angry.

2006/09/292009/12/04

Review: The Looming Tower–Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

5 Star, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Iraq

Brings us from 1940's to date, superb writing

September 29, 2006

Lawrence Wright

Edit of 11 Sep 08 to add links. the rest of the world (at least one quarter of the Germans, most Arabs, mixed ratios elsewhere) is quite certain that 9-11 was either made to happen by the US Government, or allowed to happen (my own view, with Silverstein adding controlled demolitions and Gulliani helping destroy the crime scene quickly).

This is an extraordinary, gifted piece of work that covers a broader swath of history, a deeper cultural well, and more detailed personal portraits of the key players, than any other book I have read in this area. It joins Louise Richardson's “What Terrorists Want,” Dick Clarke's “Against All Enemies,” and Professor Pape's “Dying to Win” as a core reference on the rise of suicidal terrorism.

I especially liked the historical survey from the 1940's through the 1960's (Six Day War), 1970's (Sadat and rise of Arab despots), 1980's (arming of the jihadists in Afghanistan) to the 1990's (Sudan as home base).

Towering sentence: 9-11 began in Egyptian prisons–“torture created an appetite for revenge.” It was the combination of Saudi government money and Egyptian prisoners and revolutionaries tortured by that government, and then inspired by jihad in Afghanistan, that created a global remobilization of terrorism.

Penetrating insight: Arab governments funded jihadists to get their rabble-rousers out of town, but no one gave any thought to how this was creating a permanent “stateless vagrant mob of mercenaries.”

The level of detail across the book is very good, and presented in an easy to read and compelling fashion. For all that I have read, here are a few gems from this particular book:

1) Despite Clinton's claims, US simply did not take Al Qaeda seriously until late 1990's, and then the lionized Bin Laden with the Tomahawk attack, in the process enriching Bin Laden by $10 million, the price he got from the Chinese for the unexploded Tomahawk missiles that failed.

2) FBI blew it in 1996 (the book does not mention the two walk-ins that the FBI brushed off in 2000 and 2001), CIA refused to share key information with FBI, NSA refused to share Bin Laden transcripts with CIA or the FBI, the grotesque incompetence and bureaucratic idiocy–even for someone like myself who has worked for the CIA, is simply unbelievable.

3) US support to Israel, US tolerance of Israeli genocide against Palestinians, is hands down more aggravating to the Arabs than US presence in Saudi Arabia, but it was the latter that began Bin Laden's radicalization. The US seriously misunderstood the negative impact of staying on in Saudi Arabia, and Dick Cheney's violation of his promise to pull out of Saudi Arabia when Iraq was displaced from Kuwait, can be said to be directly responsible for pushing Bin Laden over the edge.

4) Muslim Brothers of Egypt have mastered “civil affairs” and are able to sponsor hospitals, schools, factories, and welfare societies at the same time that they sponsor a violent secret side.

5) Both communism and capitalism are despised by the fundamentalists for their materialism; this slightly outranks the secular Arab dictators. Jews, England, and America are in for a rough time.

6) The author has done a really fine job of investigating and recounting details of Bin Laden's life including his illnesses, his genius, and his occasional possible loss of sanity.

7) The Saudi government is a hollow shell waiting to implode; Saudi Muslims are 1% of the global Muslim population, but Saudis fronted 90% of the money for mosques and maddresses all over the world, exporting radical Wahabbism over more balanced Islamic variants that tolerate Jews and Christians.

8) Al Qaeda playbook written by an Arab trained by US Special Forces.

9) Bin Laden was happily retired in Sudan, he was re-energized out of retirement by US forces staying in Saudi Arabia, and by the King stripping him of his citizenship.

10) US economic interests world-wide, not just cultural targets within the USA, are part of Bin Laden's total plan. He believes that the US will fragment over time, as the Soviet Union did (see my review of Joel Garreau's “Nine Nations of North America”_.

11) 1994 was the first time airplanes into the World Trade Center were discussed with Bin Laden. 2001, seven years later. My personal view, based on this book and others, is that we are about to be hit again, and I would not be surprised if it were a combination of a Taliban attack on Kabul, a nuclear or bio-chemical event in the US, and precision attacks on Saudi oil pumping stations.

12) Egypt recruits boy spies on their parents by drugging them and sodomizing them, taking photos, and threatening to publish the photos. Charming…..just the kind of stuff George Bush Junior wants to legalize.

The author concludes the book with a very good nine page description (one paragraph each) of the key characters in this saga. It's not over, by a long shot–as this and other books document, terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy, and we cannot beat Bin Laden by playing into his hands with heavy handed occupation in Iraq and lightweight easily over-run forces in Afghanistan. The next twelve months could see a great deal more damage done to the West by disparate allies from Iran to Hezbollah to Al Qaeda to white supremacists to a new break-out of terrorism in Asia.

Other books that complement this one:
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory

DVDs
Why We Fight
9/11 Mysteries Part 1: Demolitions

2006/09/102009/12/04

Review: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife–Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

4 Star, Insurgency & Revolution

Excellent Building Block,

September 10, 2006

John A. Nagl

This book is an excellent building block for those militaries that expect to be sent by their political masters into harms' way “in every clime and place.”

Blessed with a Foreword from General Peter Schoomaker, formerly Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command and today the Chief of Staff of the severely beleaguered U.S. Army, this revised edition integrates the reality check that the author received under combat in Iraq, the book's first edition having been an academic reflection. The improvements are pointed out in an author's preface, and require that this edition be the one to be studied in war colleges.

The most important point in the book for me is that organizational culture–a willingness to learn and innovate or not–is an independent relevant variable for determining success under ambiguous conditions.

The author excels at documenting two facts for the future: 1) it is civil war inside of states, rather than inter-state conflict, that will be the primary military challenge; and 2) the U.S. military is not yet ready to learn and innovate, exceptions not-with-standing.

The comparison of British and US organizational cultures on page 51 is alone worth the price of the book, and can be summed up as the British excelling at long-term presence, regimental memory, bottom-up learning, emphasis on civil solutions and a minimalist use of force. The Americans are naturally the opposite, substituting technology for thinking, quantity for quality, and “shock and awe” force for reasoned instrumentalism. More tellingly, the British will go for the very long haul built on a century worth of localized presence and individualized relationships that built trust, settling for an independent country that gives England a 51% win, while the Americans demand dominance now, and 100%.

The author notes that a major contribution to British success in Malaya was the idea of a junior policeman, to offer channels for anonymous tips. The US has implemented this in Iraq, but typically relies on cell phones that most Iraqis do not possess.

The author credits Mao with having been the logical successor to Sun Tzu, Jomeni, and Clausewitz, and I would add Ho Chi Minh and today Bin Laden. Ho Chi Minh mastered tunnels; Bin Laden has leveraged suicide as a common means that changes everything about war and peace. Interestingly, the author of FIASCO was on television as I read this book, and pointed out that Paul Bremmer single-handedly gave the Iraqi insurgency the leadership (de-Bathification), the guns and volunteers (dismissing the Iraqi army), and the financing (opening the door for Iran) that would not have existed without his incredibly arrogant and ignorant decisions. It was Paul Bremmer who created the Iraqi insurgency and gave Bin Laden enormous international prestige and an increased following. See my reviews of “Blood Money” and “Squandered Victory.”

I was interested to learn from this author that the original view of the Viet-Nam war at the national level was as a replay of Korea, with the Chinese as the actual threat. Our ignorance of Viet-Nam's independence, and our deliberate refusal to allow elections, are as shocking are the ignorance of the White House regarding the Sunni-Shiite split, and its willingness to occupy Iraq rather than liberate it, to use torture and humiliation as a tactical measure without regard to its strategic cost.

The author does a good job of focusing on the importance of “the man.” History will show that Tony Zinni had it right, and Tommy Franks had it completely wrong.

I found the author's passing discussion of how the U.S. military is increasingly being charged with being an executive agent for non-military sources of national power to be especially interesting. The U.S. Central Command has 90 foreign military liaison teams co-located at its Headquarters, and a mere handful of people representing the varied agencies and departments of the U.S. Government. Inter-agency strategy and inter-agency campaign planning today are as non-existent as inter-agency tactical cooperation.

The author points out that an organizational learning model is virtually the opposition of the bureaucratic politics/budget share model that now prevails in the Department of Defense. In combination with the importance of inter-agency operations, I can anticipate the U.S. Army both replicating diplomatic, information, and economic capabilities to make up for the deficiencies of those departments, and simultaneously creating a new breed of military officer, one with the power to persuade, to be dedicated over the course of a career to herding cats–the autonomous and largely oblivious elements of the U.S. Government that are not pulling their weight in Iraq or anywhere else.

Since the early 1990's several of us have been independently proposing “four forces after next” that would cut the big war force in half, while redirecting the savings to taking small war/gendarme special forces up to $75B a year (a tripling), peace forces from zero to $100B a year, and homeland security from $15B (then) or $36B (now) to $75B a year. This author not only gets it, he helps make the case for doing precisely that. Goggling for “The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate,” no. 20 (Autumn/Winter 98-99), pp. 78-84, available online, is a good way to prepare to read this book.

I liked this book so much that I am creating a list of 13 books, none having to do with Iraq, that I recommend be read by anyone who wishes to learn not only how to eat soup with a knife at the tactical level, but how to avoid being part of someone else's soup in this new world disorder. Here is that list by title–I have reviewed all of them”

See also, with reviews:
Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War
The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
Transformation Under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century
Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places: 5th Edition (Robert Young Pelton the World's Most Dangerous Places)

Review: Blood Money–Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

Shocking, Read with “Squandered Victory”,

September 8, 2006

T. Christian Miller

This is a definite five star piece of work that approaches our failures in Iraq from a different perspective, and hence should be read with, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. It goes beyond Squandered Victory, which creates outrage over incompetence, and actually turns one's stomach with disgust toward the end.

The book starts with a very useful timeline of events, and the opening premise that Paul Wolfowitz was wrong on virtually every promise and claim made to Congress.

The author's strategic view, threaded throughout the book, is that the U.S. effort in Iraq never had coherent “supreme commander” type leadership, that virtually all elements (U.S. Army and U.S. Marines excepted) lacked both intelligence and integrity, and that this was one of the most incompetent, ignorant occupations in the history of mankind. He does seem to avoid pointing out that Rumsfeld demanded complete military control of the country, relegated the diplomats to the back room, and did not even tell Bremer for a year that there was a diplomatic plan for nation-building. This is on Rumsfeld and Bremer. History will judge them harshly.

The author documents that the US Government knew in advance that there was no plan for the peace (the State Department efforts not-withstanding) and no way of creating an effective plan.

The author is powerful in showing that “shock and awe” warfare made the transition to peace virtually impossible. 17 out of 21 Ministry headquarters buildings were completely destroyed (and then the occupying force allowed for the looting of all offices, all museums, all universities, and all stockpiles of ammunition and explosives needed for the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) that have killed so many of our troops. The oil infrastructure was not protected, was completely looted, and this lost the chance for paying anything with oil in the early years.

Immortal quote on page 40: “…a circus, a Looney Tunes version of government, hatched on the fly, delivered at random, and operating without instruction.”

Reconstruction cost estimate: $2.4 billion. Actual cost: $30 billion and rising. Results after several years: less than 10% of the needed work. Money unaccounted for: $18 billion.

The author differs from those who supported sanctions in pointing out that the sanctions virtually destroyed Iraq's health system.

Psychologically, the author suggests that the months of lip service to freedom and reconstruction raised hopes that were then dashed. One is reminded of the Davies J-Curve from the 1970's–revolutions occur not among the oppressed, but among those who have been shown the prospect of freedom and prosperity, and then had it taken out of their grasp.

On contracting, one's stomach turns with every page. Cost plus, no incentive to save; U.S. companies doing for millions what Iraqi companies would do for tens of thousands; U.S. contractors earning $60K and more, foreign laborers imported for $3000 a year. The author specifically quotes contractors as saying they knew they could steal the process blind in the first year, which would be “open season.”

I consider this book to be the eventual final nail in the coffin of the Private Military Contractors. The author documents how the military's very unwise reliance on private contractors for combat zone logistics led to a need for private contractors to provide security, to the point that 22% of the reconstruction dollars are going toward Private Military Corporations (PMC).

My global reading program suggests that the Bush-Cheney Administration will go down in history as having pulled off the most blatant program of planned lies to the public, Congress, and the United Nations, and the most blatant slight of hand in switching the burden from a properly staffed military command to a war-profiteering mélange of PMCs. There is no question in my mind but that we need to eliminate PMCs along with Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) in the future, and we need to properly fund four forces after next: big war force, small war and gendarme force, peace force, and homeland security force. The US military today is a Cadillac built for the superhighway, when we need 10 jeeps, 100 motorcycles, and 1000 bicycles.

The author condemns both the U.S. Government in all its parts, and the PMCs in all their parts, for issuing frantic and confused orders and never really getting their act together. This book is the obituary for Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Paul Bremmer, among others.

EDIT of 10 Dec 07: Since then war crimes of contractors have become an issue, see Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror and varied media stories.

2006/04/272009/12/04

Review: Who the Hell Are We Fighting?–The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars (Hardcover)

6 Star Top 10%, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power

Moving, Brilliant, Superb Nuance, Ethics of Intelligence,

April 27, 2006

C. Michael Hiam

Edit of 15 Jun 09 to add the following additional links:
The Trial of Henry Kissinger
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
Pathology Of Power

There are other books on this issue of “cooking the books” and the strategic consequences of falsifying or prostituting intelligence, but this book by a first-time author, C. Michael Hiam, jumps to the head of the line. This is one of the most exciting and absorbing books on intelligence it has ever been my privilege to read. It is not a substitute for Sam Adams' own book, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir nor for George Allen's None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam or Bruce Jones' War Without Windows or Jim Wirtz The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Stemme) or even Orin de Forest's book Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam.

I am especially moved by this book because it treats Sam Adams, who was reviled as often as he was a hero, in a gentle fashion, and makes it clear that the bottom line was that Adams was right and Adams had integrity. The book is superb at explaining why General Westmoreland had to back down when he threatened CBS with libel because too many witnesses were prepared to say that it was Westmoreland who ordered that the number of “enemy combatants” never go above 300,000. The military officers who loyally but stupidly followed that order, and the CIA bureaucrats who unethically “folded” on this important issue of “who are we fighting and how many” are tarred and feathered by this book, and right so, as it applies to the run up to war in Iraq and the planned bombing of Iran.

There are other CIA heroes in this book, notably Ed Hauch who got it right on the first day–he and others who actually knew Ho Chi Minh knew him to be a nationalist and knew we could not win, but it would take us 10 years to figure that out. Same same Iraq only we did not have any CIA people with both the knowledge and the integrity to speak out, just George “slam dunk” Tenet, the world's greatest intelligence prostitute.

As we consider tactical nuclear weapons for Iran, it is instructive to read in this book that the military planned for nuclear missile batteries to be inserted into Da Nang and Nha Trang.

As we reflect on how the Army Chief of Staff was ignored when he spoke of the need for major land forces to stabilize Iraq, only to be ignored, it is instructive to read in this book that Walt Rostow and others knew full well the standard rule of thumb for insurgencies, the need for a 27:1 ratio.

McNamara was deceived by Westmoreland–fast forward to Iraq and we have on the one hand a prostitution of intelligence, and on the other a series of truthful wise Army generals whose advice was ignored by civilians.

The author has done a really first rate job of capturing the nuances of the CIA and the military. His discussion of the hours spent on chit-chat unrelated to work reminds me of the AIM system today, where CIA has discussion groups on everything from teen-age drivers to menopause–in my experience, most CIA headquarters people are actually working only half the time.

The author will be long admired for this book, and on page 122 he delivers the coup de grace in citing Sherman Kent, speaking to Sam Adams, and asking “Have we gone beyond the bounds of reasonable dishonesty?” What an incredibly good job the author has done with this book.

I have been energized by this book, which validates my long-standing fight to induce intelligence reform. I was called a lunatic in 1992 when General Al Gray and I gave up on four years of internal appeals and publicly brought up the need for emphasis on open source intelligence. 18 years later we finally have a few well-meaning but impotent individuals without a program, without money, without staff, and without a clue. We will march on, and the intelligence reform will be imposed now rather than induced. I anticipate legislation on an independent Open Source Agency soon–unlike secret intelligence, public intelligence cannot be manipulated nor ignored.

The book gave me new insights on Sam Adams and on the entire order of battle methodology. Those trying to understand the Global War on Terror and the issues of foreign fighters versus home guard insurgents would do well to read this superb volume.

The author points out that Tet was a huge military failure, one that could have been exploited by the US military had they not been so deficient in intelligence about small units and the guerrillas (immortal paraphrase: “here we are in a guerrilla war and no one is counting the guerrillas”). The author educated me on the work that Sam Adams did on the Khemer Rouge in Cambodia, and saddened me when he discussed how Sam Adams' next project was going to be Chinese strategy–now wouldn't that have been something?

For the Information Operations folks, the book briefly but ably covers the Viet Cong “Military Prothlesizing” corps that was responsible for POW conversions into agents, for running psychological operations against the Saigon regime, and for penetrating the South Vietnamese Army and government, with a success rate of 30,000 or 5%. When combined with what Jim Bamford tells us on Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency about North Vietnamese Signals Intelligence, we can only marvel as the manner in which they beat our ass in the intelligence war, in part because of our lack of ethics in both the military and at the highest levels of the CIA.

Viet-Nam unraveled the Johnson presidency; I fully expect Iraq and Iran to unravel the Bush presidency. This book could not have emerged at a better time, and I recommend it very strongly to all intelligence, military, and policy professionals.

2006/03/172009/12/04

Review: Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (International and Security Affairs Series) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Insurgency & Revolution

Top Ten Book. Moral Legitimacy, Inter-Agency Unity of Effortt, Deep Language & Cultural Skills,

March 17, 2006

John T. Fishel

Max Manwaring is one of my heroes, and it upsets me to see the publisher do such a lousy job of posting information about this book, which is a gem. This book was a classic when it was first published, and it is even better now that it has been updated and the SWORD model slightly refined. Along with The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century and Max's other edited work, which I cannot find on Amazon, “Environmental Security & Global Security,” this book is about all any professional needs for a good clear appreciation of how to address low intensity conflicts, complex emergencies, and operations other than war.

The authors understand what Will and Ariel Durant emphasized in their summative The Lessons of History when they said that morality is a strategic value. The heart of this book is about the non-negotiable value of moral legitimacy to govern as the precursor to addressing root problems and preventing terrorism and instability. Winning uncomfortable wars is an IO/psychological and sociological challenge, but you cannot win them, regardless of how much might, money, or message you put on target, if you are not moral in the first place (and if your supported government is not moral).

The other two core messages in this book focus on the urgency of unity of effort across all agencies and the coalition, and the desperate need for LONG-TERM operations with LONG-TERM funding and LONG-TERM commitments from the leaderships of the nations as well as the United Nations and other NGOs. The authors are damning of both the US Congress and the UN for failing to be serious about budgeting for long-term stabilization and reconstruction operations.

The SWORD model has seven parts: unity of effort; legitimacy of the coalition and the supported government; interdiction of support to the belligerents; effective supporting actions by the coalition; military actions by the coalition; interactions between the coalition and the belligerents; and finally, actions tailored to ending the conflict.

Ambassador Corr could easily be credited with being the third author. His forward provides a sweeping review of history while his conclusion emphasizes that we cannot win without first having “a deep understanding of the cultures and languages…”

A few case studies round out the book. Colombia, where my mother was born, has long been one of Max's special interests. His identification of the three wars (narcos, insurgents, and paramilitaries) reminds me of Tony Zinni's elegant distinctions among the six Viet-Nam wars a) Swamp War, b) Paddy War, c) Jungle War, d) Plains War, e) Saigon War, and f) DMZ War.

Max is far more polite and diplomatic than I am, but his message is clear: US policy is in la-la land when it comes to crop eradication. On pages 197-198 he points out that farmers make four times more from narcotics than from the next available legal crop, and that they are trapped in circumstances where even if they had a profitable legal crop, there is no credit, there are no roads, there is no market, there is no security, for them to evolve legally. Credit, roads, market, security–for the LONG TERM.

Another book that really drives home the ineptitude of our short-term interventions is the one by William Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict Two other nuanced books I recommend with this one are Robert McNamara and James Blight's Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century and Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.