Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money: Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World
Martin N. Murphy. New York, NY: Columbia University Press/Hurst Publishers Ltd., 2009. 288 pp. $60.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral Chris Parry, CBE, Royal Navy (Retired)
Despite modern technologies and international conventions, the sea, with its unregulated, anarchic character and conflicting or poorly exercised jurisdictions, continues to offer varying levels
of security. It also provides many opportunities for rogue states and individuals to conduct various forms of predation at sea and to exploit weaknesses and erode confidence in the international system.
Martin Murphy has assembled a formidable catalogue of historic and contemporary illegality to support a compelling analysis that suggests that criminal, terrorist, and illicit maritime activity will likely increase in the near future. He addresses the legal and jurisdictional muddle head-on by dealing with the doctrinal minefield associated with the contested concepts of terrorism, piracy, and organized crime. Murphy also evaluates the circumstances in which these activities are likely to thrive and explains the difficulties of committing—and preventing—illicit acts at sea. He rightly stresses the importance of geographic and cultural contexts, and the ability or willingness-or lack thereof-of states to fulfill their sovereign obligations.
The author reinforces his analysis with exhaustive evidence of incidents that reveal insights about groups, gangs, and movements active in areas not normally covered by generalist security literature. In particular, the activities of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), an array of Asian groups (notably those active in the South China Sea, Indonesia, and the Philippines), and Palestinian coastal raiding teams before the Oslo accords of 1993, offer clues to how sporadic activities at sea can pose a systemic threat or full-blown insurgency. He correctly concludes that successful irregular activity at sea depends on access to land-based safe havens and resources. He also reckons that dealing with maritime terrorists and criminals requires a comprehensive, linked approach that depends as much on the land-based elements as on the more high-profile operational aspects at sea.
Murphy predicts that as human exploitation of the sea intensifies, especially in areas of weak governance and variable security, the international system and global trade are likely to come under increasing pressure. Murphy also speculates that some states might be so poor, weak, or corrupt that they will be unable to prevent exploitative activity even if their interests suffer and further suggests that they may become dependent on more strategically assertive, economically driven states. This trend could be accompanied by strong states seeking to harden their economic zones into implicit assertions of maritime sovereignty and, after the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) relaxations that went into effect earlier this year, by states extending their maritime reach.
It is possible to view the sea as the physical equivalent of the worldwide Web, which, on the evidence of this book, requires more concerted commitment from states to ensure that it remains, in an interconnected and interdependent world, Alfred Thayer Mahan's "great highway." Continuing the analogy, an effective antivirus and security package needs to be in place to retain commercial confidence in the system and to deter and defeat threats to its free and unhindered use. However, in doing so, it is essential that any regulatory and security regime is not imposed that closes down the freedom of the seas or allows its exploitation by unscrupulous regimes.
Murphy's book is a timely audit of the current state of irregular play and, in serving as a standard text for enforcement agencies and military commanders, should form the basis of any sensible doctrine. Potential troublemakers at sea would also find it a profitable read. If, as he says, the trend is towards greater competition and increasing maritime disorder rather than cooperation orchestrated by a benign, predominant maritime power, a second edition of this book will be required in short order.
Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975
John Prados. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2009. 665 pp. Illus. Notes. Index. $34.95.
Reviewed by Andrew James Birtle
In the nearly 35 years since the fall of Saigon, the documented history of the Vietnam War has proven nearly as divisive as the war itself. Author John Prados attributes much of the dissension to accounts that have focused on just one or two facets of the war, atomizing the story to such an extent as to distort our understanding of the conflict as a whole. In Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, Prados attempts to correct this situation by presenting an overall synthesis. The result is 550 pages of lucid prose describing many of the events and decisions that shaped the war.
Prados focuses on political and diplomatic matters, and nearly a third of the story concentrates on the antiwar movement in the United States. Presidential decision-making and matters of high policy are the meat of the book, but relatively little is said about the war as a military event. Of the six officers who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam, only General William C. Westmoreland and General Creighton W. Abrams get any attention, and even they rank as secondary figures in Prados' tale. The American bombing campaign, the 1963 battle of Ap Bac, the 1968 Tet Offensive, and the 1972 Easter Offensive receive attention, but readers should not expect a military history, for this is not what Vietnam offers.
Prados does challenge a number of historical interpretations that have been put forward in recent years. For example, he writes off any suggestion that South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem had redeeming qualities, accusing him of "megalomania." He questions whether President John F. Kennedy intended to pull out of Vietnam, and dismisses historian H. R. McMaster's assertion that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were guilty of dereliction of duty. Finally, Prados flatly rejects both Mark Moyar's assertion that Diem could have won the war and Lewis Sorley's view that the U.S. actually did win the conflict only to see the politicians at home give away the farm. According to Prados, "triumph was not forsaken in Vietnam, nor was victory lost; there was no day that the war was won, except for Hanoi on April 29, 1975, when its troops marched into Saigon."
As the book's title states, Prados believes that the allies could never have won the Vietnam War. This explains the author's slight coverage of military events, for in his opinion, "there was no strategy capable of producing victory." Prados bases his fatalism on the notion that the United States was swimming against the tide of global revolution and nationalism. He is right, to use his Marxist jargon, that the "correlation of forces" placed South Vietnam and the United States in an unenviable position. Nevertheless, to my mind he fails to make a convincing case that there was nothing the allies could have done to produce a more favorable outcome. Indeed, his book is filled with examples of decisions that could well have altered the chain of events had different choices been made. This fact, combined with the inevitable omissions associated with such an ambitious undertaking, leads me to doubt that Prados' herculean labor will quell the disagreements that have roiled Vietnam historiography these many years.
Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes
David Helvarg. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009. 384 pp. Illus. Intro. Notes. Bib. Index. $25.95.
Reviewed by Vice Admiral Howard Thorsen, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)
When a retired Coastie like me opens a book that presumes to tell the story of the U.S. Coast Guard, it is usually with more than a little trepidation. Will it be a glamorous depiction, a retelling of well-known history, or a hatchet job? In the case of Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes, author David Helvarg was afforded unlimited access to every part of the Coast Guard organization during more than three years of research and assimilated more than enough information to write with conviction and authority, in an engaging and conversational manner. In it, I found little to object to, despite one or two inconsequential discrepancies in his facts, and I recommended the book to friends even before being asked to review it.
Helvarg describes his experiences alongside the crews of aircraft, ships, boats, small-boat stations, and command centers as they fulfill and support their daily missions. He allows the crew members to tell their stories in the first person, demonstrating the individual initiative and authority that is traditional in the Coast Guard organization.
Rescue Warriors is timely. The author describes the monumental changes being made in the modernization program under Admiral Thad Allen, whose impact will long be felt (and he provides an interesting diary-like narrative of a few days in the Commandant's schedule outside Washington). The reader learns of the Coast Guard's broad reach, from the Northern Arabian Gulf to the melting ice of the Arctic, and of the exponential increase in the number of Guardsmen whose primary function is to be prepared to use the force necessary to protect our homeland.
Helvarg evokes the different Coast Guard crews—rescue swimmers, whose lives are not unlike those portrayed in the movie The Guardian; surfmen, who embody the highest skill of small-boat coxswains; armed helos, whose primary role is to stop high-speed smugglers' skiffs by shooting out their engines; "duck scrubbers," crews who clean up after oil spills when the perpetrator is unknown or financially unable; and marine safety inspectors, who shoulder the unheralded responsibility for so many aspects of our maritime environment.
Nevertheless, Helvarg is not an unequivocal fan of the Coast Guard. While he writes that in his reporting he discovered "a part of government that works," the fatally flawed Integrated Deepwater System Program acquisition process is dissected and laid out for even the layman to understand. One wonders why Coast Guard leadership embraced and supported it for so long, in the face of objections by their own engineers.
Including the "warts and hairs" in his description of a service that he obviously holds in such high regard testifies to Helvarg's credibility. After mingling on the deck plates among the men and women who are doing the job in the field and who exemplify the Coast Guard's core values of "honor, respect, and devotion to duty," Helvarg considers the Coast Guard's historic lack of funding and aging assets and concludes, toward the end of his book, "If the Coast Guard were a private corporation, it would probably have filed for Chapter 11 by now."
Rescue Warriors provides the reader with sufficient information to understand the finest relatively unknown—and surely unappreciated—organization in the federal government: the United States Coast Guard.
Bridges to Baghdad: The U.S. Navy Seabees in the Iraq War
Rear Admiral Charles R. Kubic, CEC, U.S. Navy (Retired) and James P. Rife. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, 2009. 427 pp. Illus. Appens. Notes. Bib. Index. $35.
Reviewed by John Darrell Sherwood
In the spring of 2003, U.S. Navy Seabees stormed into Iraq alongside the First Marine Expeditionary Force. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was the first time they had fought in a large, mobile expeditionary force since the Korean War. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Seabees had mainly operated behind the lines at fixed locations. By contrast, during OIF, the Seabees kept up with a mechanized Marine force fighting a lightning war. To accomplish this, they employed a new formation called the First Marine Expeditionary Engineer Group (I MEG). Lighter and more combat-oriented than Seabee formations employed in Desert Storm, I MEG was designed from the ground up as a combat-engineering force with an emphasis on the combat element.
Seabees supported the Marines by constructing semi-permanent steel bridges and other spans over many rivers and canals during the drive to Baghdad. They also built more than 100 kilometers of highway. During the civil military operations segment following the major combat phase of OIF, the Seabees completed 158 construction projects, including 72 schools, in less than four months.
Bridges to Baghdad chronicles the history of the Seabees during the first year of OIF. The lead author of the book, Rear Admiral Charles R. Kubic, commanded the 1st Naval Construction Division and the I MEG in 2003, and the book, although written in the third person, is mainly his memoir. James P. Rife, a historian with the firm History Associates, gave context to Kubic's memoir by incorporating documents and oral histories on I MEG held by the Naval History & Heritage Command.
Readers interested in the Seabees' role in modern warfare will learn much from this book, which also broadens our understanding of the role played by the American sea services in OIF. Here we see a ground commitment by a Navy force, which contributed to the rapid toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime.
But the book is not without its faults. It examines the war mainly through the lens of Kubic, whose views are not universally shared. Some Seabees have resented his efforts to transform the community from a rear-area construction organization to a frontline combat force. They argue the Seabees lack the mobility and combat training for such warfare. The book neither acknowledges this viewpoint nor provides enough analysis to allow the readers to reach their own conclusions.
Kubic's critics often cite the human cost of OIF for the Seabees as evidence of flaws in the new maneuver doctrine. As of 2009, 20 Seabees had died, but the extent to which the new doctrine contributed to these losses remains unclear. The deadliest day occurred at Camp Ramadi in May 2004, when a mortar attack killed five Seabees and wounded 28 others. Journalist David Hackworth later claimed that Kubic, who had been visiting the base at the time, had ordered his Seabees to assemble in an open area for a pep talk, making them more vulnerable to attack. Citing an after-action report and a letter written by an eyewitness, Kubic defends his actions, arguing that the Seabees were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In any event, the fact that the attack occurred at a base rather than in the field makes it immaterial to the broader doctrinal debate over the MEG concept.
Like other memoirs, Bridges to Bagdad has its biases. Better editing might have helped the authors craft a more readable narrative. Nevertheless, it contributes to our understanding of the Navy's role in OIF and provides a strong foundation for future studies of this Seabee effort.