Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
John A. Nagl, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005, 249 pp. $17.95.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Frank G. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps
In their noted study on military innovation, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War, professors Eliot Cohen and John Gooch define a taxonomy to analyze military disasters. They note that significant failures, whether a Pearl Harbor, the fall of France in 1940, or a 9/11, are never the fault of a single individual but rather a failure of organizations to properly anticipate, learn, and adapt. "Where learning failures have their roots in the past," Cohen and Gooch stress, "and anticipatory failures look to the future, adaptive failures suggest an inability to handle the changing present."
A significant failure to adapt is covered in lieutenant Colonel John Nagl's recently republished comparative study of British and American counterinsurgency efforts in Malaya and Vietnam. Nagl brings an enormous amount of intellectual insight and combat experience to this study. He is a serving U.S. Army officer, currently assigned to the Pentagon, and exemplifies the finest traditions of the soldier-scholar ideal. A West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar, he led a tank platoon in Operation Desert Storm and served as the operations officer of an armored battalion in Iraq. Between these tours, he earned a Ph.D. from Oxford and taught at the U.S. Military Academy.
The title of the book is from an observation by the British practitioner of irregular warfare, T. E. Lawrence. His maxim that "making war upon insurgents is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife" is fully appreciated by those who have served in Iraq since 2003. Nagl was undoubtedly one of the most intellectually prepared officers to serve in Iraq, and even he found himself struggling to apply academic theories and the lessons of history. He humbly admits that "I spilt soup on myself adapting to the circumstances of Iraq.
Nagl's thesis is simple. The British Army's success at learning and adapting to counterinsurgency in Malaya in contrast to what U.S. forces achieved in Vietnam, he argues, is a function of the distinctive organizational cultures of the two armies. While Americans doggedly insisted on treating their war in Southeast Asia as a conventional conflict with a military solution, their British colleagues were more open to innovation. Their colonial history and the backgrounds of their leaders prepared them for close civil-military interaction and the primacy of political considerations over purely military perspectives. Thus, as Nagl shows, "the British Army slowly evolved a combined civil-military political strategy that defeated the insurgency with small unit military tactics based on intelligence derived from a supportive local population."
In contrast, he finds that the U.S. Army resisted learning from French or British sources and quickly shoved Vietnam's hard-earned lessons to the side after the conflict. As Nagl puts it, the U.S. Army entered Vietnam with a sound conventional-warfare doctrine, but an approach "worse than useless for the counterinsurgency it was about to face."
The current situation in Iraq can best be studied by the anatomy of failure taxonomy in Military Misfortunes. American national security officials initially failed to anticipate the chaotic nature of the post-conflict period, and the potential for a deadly insurgency from former Ba'athists. American military officers initially failed to apply the lessons of previous post-conflict operations or counterinsurgency lessons. The lessons of the past were carefully kept in some lost vault, except for those who read the Small Wars Manual. The insurgency was not checked by large unit sweeps, lack of cultural awareness kept Iraqis at a distance, and the inept political guidance of the Coalition Provisional Authority thwarted efforts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. Only the adaptation led by enlightened and historically informed leaders such as Generals Peter Chiarelli, James N. Mattis, and David H. Petraeus, prevented a complete debacle from unfolding.
This setting makes Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife an extremely relevant text. Those interested in understanding the difficulties faced by Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, or who want to grasp the intricacies of the most likely form of conflict for the near future, will gain applicable lessons. It offers insights about how to mold America's armed forces into modern learning organizations. As the Pentagon ponders its future in the Quadrennial Defense Review, one can only hope that Nagl's invaluable lesson in learning and adapting is being exploited.
Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman is a frequent contributor to these pages and works at the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, Quantico, VA.
John Paul Jones: America's First Sea Warrior
Joseph Callo. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. 250 pp. Illus. Index. Bib. $29.95.
Reviewed by William M. Fowler Jr.
Few Americans repose in greater splendor than John Paul Jones. His sarcophagus, carved out of Royal Pyrenees marble, supported by bronze dolphins, rises up in the middle of an impressive chamher centered under the dome of the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel. During those times when visitors are allowed to enter, a Marine guard stands nearby. The grand scale of Jones' entombment is matched by the volume of Jones' biographers, more than 30 of whom have launched into print. And so Callo's work sits on a crowded shelf. Why all this fuss? Callo's answer is that Jones "captured the essential idea of the American Revolution . . . fighting for liberty." He would also add, of course, that Jones' example of courage and skill continues to set an example for the U.S. Navy. Plotting from these points Callo sails ahead on a course that provides a celebratory biography.
Relying a good deal on the superb Naval Documents of the American Revolution ( 11 volumes to date) and the equally valuable microfilm edition of the Papers of John Paul Jones edited by James Bradford, Callo limes out the conventional story of Jones' career from his childhood in Scotland to his unhappy demise in Paris, and finally to his triumphal return to America and Annapolis.
At times Callo's determination to portray Jones as an example for all naval officers becomes didactic and preachy, as does his habit of foreshadowing events or speculating on what might have happened had Jones or someone else acted in a different way. His suggestion, for example, that when Jones was serving in the Russian Black Sea Fleet he might have taken Constantinople had not Czarina Catherine's lover interfered seems a bit of a stretch.
John Paul Jones has earned his niche in the pantheon of American naval heroes; indeed he probably has the biggest niche of all. His epic battles against HMS Drake and Serapis, to say nothing of his earlier service in command of the plucky sloop Providence mark him a great commander and deserving of the title hero.
His heroic acts, however, had little effect on the outcome of the Revolution. In 1780 John Adams, a man who had been deeply involved in the creation of the Continental Navy, wrote to the President of the Congress that as he recollected on "the whole history of the rise and progress of our navy it is very difficult to avoid tears." Adams was right. If the Continental Navy had never existed it is difficult to imagine how the outcome of the Revolution might have been any different. This is not a criticism of Jones or the thousands of Americans who went to sea in the cause of independence. Building a navy was a political decision and a bad one. In its flailing exuberance the Continental Congress tried to build a preposterous naval structure on a pitiful foundation.
Jones and his fellow naval officers provided sunbursts of victory, but they never had the wherewithal to make any significant strategic impact on the conduct of the war. Callo has a tendency to grant more strategic value to Jones' successes than they deserve. The American Revolution was a naval war. but the contest was between the great fleets of France, England, and Spain.
Jones' rollicking victories alone would guarantee him a place in American naval lore, but there is something else as well. No other American naval officer in his own time, or perhaps ever, lived such a romantic life and was able to write so well about it. Others may have been as brave-Preble, Decatur, and Farragut among them-but they did not share the intensity of life that Jones embraced. Nor did they write about themselves in language that still sparkles. He was boastful, irreverent, egotistical, and at times amusing. Jones' rich archive is a biographer's dream. From these materials Callo set out to capture this officer and make him relevant to a modern world. Archives alone can never reveal the real John Paul Jones, but Callo's biography challenges us once again to reflect on this officer and the cause for which he fought. History may not repeat itself, but it can echo.
Dr. Fowler is the Distinguished Professor of History, Northeastern University, and author of Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy, 1783-1815 (Houghton Mifflin, 1984).
American Spartans: The U.S. Marines: A Combat History from Iwo Jima to Iraq
James A. Warren. New York: Free Press, 2005. Notes. Bib. Index. 375 pp. $26.00.
Reviewed by Ernest B. "Pat" Furgurson
James A. Warren has discovered that U. S. Marines-American Spartans-consider themselves "the finest fighting force on earth." By and large, they are "younger, fitter, and more intimidating than typical army soldiers." They are bound by loyalty, discipline, boldness, frugality, persistence, courage, pride, candor, directness, self-criticism, self-confidence, and sure-handedness.
All this, on page 13. sets the tone of what follows in a work that ranges from platoon firefights to Pentagon rivalry, spanning 60 years of Marine Corps triumphs and troubles. Although Warren, a military historian, has never been a Marine, he accepts the Corps' poster image as eagerly as the most gung-ho recruit. Thus his is not a critical book, but the equivalent of a freshman survey course for officer candidates and interested civilians.
Warren sets out to describe Marines in combat from H-hour at Iwo Jinia to the fall of Baghdad, and to track the political ups and downs of the Corps as it has fended off other services' efforts to absorb or marginalize its wartime role.
His opening accounts of the vicious Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns of 1945 illustrate how six Marine divisions became blunt assault weapons in World War II. His descriptions of the Marines' Korean and Vietnam wars are necessarily sketchier, focusing on major campaigns like Inchon and Chosin, Khe Sanh and Hue. But they amply demonstrate how the Corps scrambled first to fulfill its task as a force in readiness and then fought extended land campaigns far beyond the beaches. Skimming through U.S. interventions in China, Haiti, Lebanon, Grenada, and Somalia. Warren reminds us of the many and various missions given Marines throughout their long history simply because they are always ready to go. Although their involvement in the two Gulf wars has been on a greater scale than any since Vietnam, he gives it proportionately less attention because his book ends when the hardest part of the adventure there has just begun.
Today's news reports from Iraq bring on the chill of déjà vu when read alongside Warren's accounts of action in Vietnam. He recalls the familiar format, day after day-X friendly casualties, XX enemy dead, civilians unknown-numbers on the after-action scorecard in a war that would not be won by numbers, whether of casualties or tons of bombs or cases of beer. "Marine line companies faced endless patrolling in search of an elusive enemy, often on the same ground week after week," Warren writes. "The VC guerrillas' ethnicity and appearance was identical to that of the general civilian population . . . . They could vanish into a nearby village and quickly hide weapons . . . . The Vietcong were masters of homemade booby traps . . . ." Try substituting 21st-century terms such as "Iraqi insurgents" for "Vietcong," and "improvised explosive devices" for "homemade booby traps." It doesn't inspire optimism.
Current Pentagon talk of making the Army lighter and quicker does not overtly menace the Marine Corps as many earlier efforts toward reorganization have done. Proponents want the Army to train and equip for jobs that Marines have always done, except this time they don't advocate eliminating the Marines. Warren reminds us that such proposals have resurfaced repeatedly since at least World War II, and apparently will continue as long as there is a Marine Corps.
Remember that straight-talking Harry Truman, who had been an Army artillery captain in World War I, said "the Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am president that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's." This happened in late August 1950, shortly after Marines had saved the Pusan perimeter at Korea's southern tip, and 16 days before the First Marine Division's dramatic landing at Inchon. Truman promptly regretted his choice of words, but stood by his position in the argument then under way, insisting that the Corps did not deserve a place on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Give 'em Hell Harry" would not be happy to know that 55 years later, a four-star Marine is not only a member, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and another is Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, in charge of NATO's land, air, and sea forces. Of course the American Spartans have often enjoyed public relations that make the other services envious, but it was not propaganda that made such previously inconceivable appointments possible. What did it was performance in the field by the three generations of Marines who are covered by Warren's useful book.
Mr. Furgurson, a Civil War historian, was a Marine lieutenant in the 1950s and a Vietnam correspondent in the 1960s. His latest book is Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (Knopf, 2004).
Hammer From Above: Marine Air Combat Over Iraq
Jay A. Stout. New York: Presidio Press, 2005. 416pp. Illus. $25.95.
Reviewed by Commander Peter B. Mersky, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
Opening with an introduction and an unabashed tribute to the Marine Corps by an Air Force general, this highly readable collection of accounts and experiences during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) is the latest effort from retired lieutenant Colonel Stout, a former F/A-18 pilot who flew combat missions in Desert Storm. He has enjoyed a few successes, beginning with Hornets over Kuwait (Naval Institute Press, 1997), and coauthoring The First Hellcat Ace (Pacific Military History, 2001). Most recently, he produced a colorful look at today's naval air training, To Be a Naval Aviator (Motorbooks International, 2005).
Stout's supremely self-confident introduction, telling the reader why he wrote the book, is a soothing essay admittedly meant to ease his distress at being left behind for this new Gulf war. "I really was a fighter pilot no longer," he laments.
After a brief history of Marine Corps aviation-de rigueur, I suppose, even though there are several other sources of such information-Stout gives a primer on current Marine Corps expeditionary organization. Doctrinal and command responsibilities were laid out in planning sessions in 2002. All the components and services knew where they would fit in the grand scheme. The air coalition was also well divided, with an Air Force lieutenant general as its commander-the now-four-star general who wrote the book's foreword. Preparing for war at several bases and on board oncoming task force ships, the Marines sorted out logistics and their specific responsibilities. Even before combat were gut-wrenching experiences, such as the three AV-SBs caught in a violent sand storm headed for their ship as they began their recovery. Everyone involved earned his flight and specialty pay that dark night.
The author describes the confusion of the campaign's first engagements, the frustration of seniors as they pressed for action only to run into uncertain controls and the fog of war. This is not so much historical description as current events reporting. He takes us into the cockpit, onto the flight line, and into the planning rooms. We see the latest generation of AV-8B Harriers with "Litening" designation pods that "turned the ordnance-limited Harrier into a sharp-shooter." Just as Gulf War I had been a quantum leap from Vietnam, so was Gulf War II over Desert Storm, a dozen years before.
Stout provides snippets, large and small, of how the crews and support personnel took the war to Saddam, fighting weather, fatigue, confusion, and uncertainty. He describes the occasional friction between the Marine Aircraft Group staff and flight crews, specifically the restrictions on altitude. As in Vietnam some 40 years earlier, the limitations of a hard deck, below which pilots could not fly, was galling when it sometimes meant protecting the troops on the ground.
For the most part, much of the combat involves the aggressive Huey, Cobra, and Hornet crews; always ready to respond to a call for close air support from the ground pounders. It is hard not to get caught up in the heart-stopping firefights as the helo crews take out tanks, patrol boats, and gun emplacements. The F/A-18 aviators are also shown at their best, eager to recon the way forward to hit a flak or artillery battery.
But by the book's midpoint, Stout has turned his attention to other communities. CH-46 crews struggle through a blinding sand storm to lift wounded Marines to safety. KC-130 Marines horse their huge turboprop transports in and out of an airstrip near Baghdad to deliver vital fuel to Marine ground units. Although sounding rather benign, these supply missions were desperately important, and the crews put themselves in front-line danger as they flew into the combat areas.
The text is not without the occasional slip. The Navy did not fly EA-6As in Vietnam; VMCJ-1 did during the intense Linebacker campaigns in 1971-72. Aside from an electronic adversary squadron, the only Navy units to operate these two-seat electronic-countermeasures Intruders were reserve squadrons, and then, only for a few years. And oddly, Stout makes the briefest mention of two Marine Hornet squadrons on board carriers during GIF then leaves the subject. Marine VMFAs flew many missions and certainly deserve better than a mere paragraph.
He finishes with a rather silly acknowledgement essay, his good-natured but flip attempt at humor. This is otherwise a good tale made up of many sections, telling the story of our air Marines fighting in the hot, dusty, alien desert country of Iraq.
Commander Mersky has written a dozen books on military aviation, including U.S. Marine Corps Aviation, 1912-Present (Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 3rd edition, 1997). He has reviewed more than 500 books for Naval Aviation News. The Hook, and other periodicals. He was the civilian editor of Approach when he retired in 2000.