Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict
Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 400 pp. Notes. Index. $29.95.
Reviewed by Major Barret F. Bradstreet, U.S. Marine Corps
The best craftsmen make hard work look easy. The three authors who collaborated to make Small Wars, Big Data have translated a dense body of complex empirical and econometric research—their own—into a clear and succinct single volume. These authors, who refer to themselves as Joe, Jake, and Eli throughout the text, have intersected, cooperated, and diverged for more than a decade in work focused principally on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. In 2018, just at the moment when few observers find great value in the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, these scholars announce hopeful news: Evidence and data can show what works, and why, in small wars. Their prescription is to influence the population to provide information on rebels. This approach represents the best means to reduce violence and so win the battles of any small war.
The Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) Project unites these authors with a wider team of affiliates, and empirical studies of conflict are the raw material in this study. That collective has published more than 60 peer-reviewed scholarly articles that take available microdata—military incident reports, records of fatalities, or hotline-tip volume for a specific area in a given time frame, for example—to draw inferences on what interventions might favor a return to peace.
The researchers rely on practitioners to provide the raw data. In return, the researchers make the subsequent analysis and evaluation available to all. Thus, this book represents a “greatest hits” from the ESOC collection, set in context by first-person narrative storytelling and a systematic effort to integrate the various studies into a single coherent theory of small-war dynamics.
The authors’ big idea for small wars is that asymmetric conflicts, such as those fought by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, make the civilian population critical. When the population supports the forces of order with information and tips, the government and military will be more able to provide security and services. That generic claim is bland, but specific findings are more surprising and contentious. For example, extending cellular coverage tends to favor the suppression of insurgents, though sometimes governments act contrary to that finding. Levels of unemployment have little or no impact on the manpower calculations of rebels. Big aid projects tend to generate big violent disorder, but modest and focused undertakings can generate stability. Because inadvertent killings by security forces generate a measurable harmful backlash, counterinsurgents should recognize that controversial act called “courageous restraint.”
This book is a triumph of cooperative, complementary, iterative, and interactive research using cutting-edge methods. On the other hand, this fine book also might already be a relic of a bygone era. The U.S. military is unlikely to re-create the circumstances of 2009, when ESOC began in earnest, and the pacification conducted by others in 2018 seems different from that done by the United States. Can the causal inferences for specific variables remain valid when the security environment is so radically changed? Is there likely to be a wider application of a more nefarious kind of population-centric approach that favors chastisement over persuasion—where actors make a wasteland and call it peace? This volume explores the variable willingness of a population to cooperate, but will emerging surveillance tools make involuntary sharing more prevalent and pertinent? Finally, the past research agenda of this impressive group offers little to solve a most vexing contemporary problem: how to end a small war. There’s a difference between fighting well and finishing the war.
Major Bradstreet currently is serving as an exchange officer at the École Militaire in Paris, France.
World War II at Sea: A Global History
Craig L. Symonds. Bethesda, MD: Oxford University Press, 2018. 792 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. Images. Maps. $34.95.
Reviewed by Edward Marolda
Craig L. Symonds, in his World War II at Sea, has accomplished a feat few would have thought possible. The author of highly regarded histories of the Battle of Midway and D-Day, Symonds has produced a comprehensive, globe-spanning analysis of the maritime aspects of the 20th century’s bloodiest and most far-reaching conflict. Samuel Eliot Morison and other naval historians have published works on the contribution of their country’s navy to the war effort, but Symonds has explored the actions not only of the U.S. Navy, but also of the naval forces of Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Canada, and lesser powers.
The 792-page tome describes the major naval campaigns and pivotal battles of the war through the accounts of the combatants and their civilian and military leaders. The approach is chronological, but in each section the author relates what is occurring in one theater to what is happening simultaneously in other theaters. This emphasizes Symonds’ point that the civilian and naval leaders of the belligerents made their strategies, operational plans, and decisions with global and not just regional interests or concerns in mind.
Symonds’ refreshing approach “illuminates how profoundly the course of the war was charted and steered by maritime events” (p. xi). The author credits British determination to stay the course during the first years of the war and Russia’s destruction of German ground forces with contributing to Allied success in the war. In addition, the author observes that the United States’ ability “to produce ships of all kinds—transports and escorts, carriers and cruisers, landing ships and craft—and to do so in unprecedented numbers was decisive both in the war on trade and in the war effort generally” (p. 391). Nonetheless, Symonds concludes that “while ‘boots on the ground’ [and the other factors] were essential in this war . . . it was supremacy at sea that eventually proved decisive” (p. 641).
A special strength of World War II at Sea is Symonds’ clear, concise, evocative, and eminently readable text devoid of naval jargon. In one instance, he describes a German U-boat under attack by Royal Navy warships: “The men of the U-47 could hear the eerie and insistent ping . . . ping . . . ping of the searching Asdic [sonar], and soon enough, depth charges began to detonate nearby sounding like a hammer smashing against the hull; a sharp metallic clang followed by a deafening wham. The fragile sub shuddered like a rat shaken by a terrier; lightbulbs shattered. . . . Those crewmen not working to [make repairs] tiptoed around in slippers to avoid making any sound” (pp. 15–16).
In describing individual naval campaigns and battles, the author routinely provides the reader with a good summary of the action and the contribution to success or failure of civilian and naval leaders, the operational skill of sailors, and technology. The impact of Bletchley Park, Station HYPO, and other Allied code-breaking units on combat operations substantially enhances the understanding of those events. Clear, detailed, and accurate maps and charts as well as black-and-white photographs appear where they are most relevant to the text.
As one might expect, Symonds focuses on the decision-making of Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito but also the fleet commanders, battle leaders, and sailors who made a difference in the war at sea. The author does not shy away from criticizing those actors. He relates, for instance, that “most of the errors of the Norwegian campaign could be traced to Churchill’s unfortunate meddling” (p. 58). As another example, he excoriates Japanese and German leaders: “However tactically successful, the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor stands alongside Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union as one of the most reckless and irresponsible decisions in the history of warfare” (p. 208).
Symonds has mined essential informational resources in U.S., British, German, and Australian museums and libraries to tell this dramatic story. But the strength of this work is the author’s great skill in recognizing and exploiting the best secondary sources published on the subject. As a consummate historian, Symonds readily airs different and often controversial interpretations of events and personalities by other historians.
In short, World War II at Sea should have pride of place on the reference shelf of every naval historian or reader in need of an authoritative, balanced, one-volume treatment of the monumental fight for control of the world’s maritime expanses.
Dr. Marolda has served as the Director of Naval History (Acting) and Senior Historian of the Navy. He has authored, coauthored, or edited a number of histories of the U.S. Navy and recently was awarded the Naval Historical Foundation’s Commodore Dudley Knox Lifetime Achievement Award in Naval History.
On Wave and Wing: The 100-Year Quest to Perfect the Aircraft Carrier
Barrett Tillman. Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2017. 332 pp. $29.99.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Graham C. Scarbro, U.S. Navy
Prolific aircraft carrier historian and storyteller Barrett Tillman brings his characteristic attention to detail and knack for incorporating the stories of individual officers and sailors to his sweeping narrative history of the aircraft carrier: On Wave and Wing. Mixed in with vignettes more familiar to casual students of history, the author includes myriad important-but-forgotten episodes from a century of aircraft carriers at sea.
Readers seeking a broad exposure to the history of the carrier will find plenty to chew on, as the author is not merely content to rattle off names and battles familiar to U.S. readers. Tillman also includes discussion of international aircraft carriers, including pioneering British efforts and the Royal Navy’s precipitous decline, the fits-and-starts that characterize French aircraft carrier development, and consideration of history’s almost-dominant carrier power: imperial Japan, among others.
Although Tillman’s work treads familiar territory through the Pacific from 1941 to 1945 (encompassing a full third of the book), he also devotes time to Atlantic carrier operations during the war against the Axis. Tales of Taranto and the Bismarck help shed light on carrier operations that often are eclipsed by the furious aircraft battles in the Pacific.
When discussing the years following World War II, the book shines. Stories of aviators in a high-speed, seat-of-the-pants effort to develop jet carrier aircraft cover the fabulous fighters of the ‘50s, the air war over Korea, and operations against the Soviets, culminating in hectic carrier operations from Yankee Station off Vietnam. From the Fresnel lens, to the angled deck, to air-to-air missiles, to the frightening number of at-sea mishaps, this portion of the book alone makes it must-read history.
The book also includes a wealth of photos from across the century. World War II combat photos, always compelling, are sandwiched between images of Eugene Ely, biplane Swordfish torpedo bombers, the supercarrier armada of Desert Storm, and Super Hornets in Afghanistan, making this history an excellent visual guide. Appendices include carrier aviators’ favorite topics, themselves: lists of famous carrier aviators and notable movies about carrier aviation.
Tillman’s work suffers in detail from its vast scope. Covering a century of aircraft carrier development in a mere 291 pages of narrative is no easy feat. During my reading, I found myself hungry for more information about the cloudy, early days of carrier aviation.
For example: the first night trap occurred when a pilot conducting night practice approaches got too low and trapped by accident. As a career carrier aviator, I’ve often suspected that no one would purposefully be the first person to trap at night, and I longed for more information on this episode and others.
On Wave and Wing still has plenty of the in-depth storytelling. Tillman’s readers have come to expect from his previous work. From Japanese fighter pilots recounting their own experiences in World War II, to tales of bombing raids into Vietnam, the author includes countless firsthand stories.
On Wave and Wing is an enlightening broad-brush overview of the history of the flattop. Tillman manages to distill a hundred years of history into a captivating story of men and machines, covering both well-explored paths through the Pacific and lesser-known, but vital, peacetime developments. Casual readers will enjoy the book’s breakneck pace. The author’s attention to foreign carriers and the inclusion of quirky first-person stories that encapsulate the bravado and can-do spirit of naval aviation will leave diehard carrier aficionados ready for more.
Lieutenant Commander Scarbro is a department head with the world’s greatest fighter squadron, the Swordsmen of VFA-32.
Deep War: The War with China and North Korea—The Nuclear Precipice
David Poyer. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 2018. 297 pp. $27.99.
Reviewed by Captain Bill Hamblet, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Deep War is David Poyer’s 17th book starring Dan Lenson—the U.S. Navy surface warfare officer (SWO) who has risen through the ranks and is now a young admiral. It is the fourth in a series about a war with China set in the immediate future. The previous three books in the series, Tipping Point, Onslaught, and Hunter-Killer (St. Martin’s Press, 2015, 2016, and 2017) saw Lenson in command of the Aegis-class cruiser USS Savo Island when tensions in the western Pacific between China and the United States and its allies escalate to war. In Deep War, Poyer explores the path to nuclear conflict, deterrence in the 21st century, and the narrow precipice that U.S. leaders will stand on if the answer to Graham Allison’s 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydide’s Trap? (Houghton Mifflin) turns out to be no.
Poyer is a master of the modern naval novel. If Ghost Fleet (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), by August Cole and Peter Singer, kept you up until you reached the end, then Deep War likely will have the same impact. On the other hand, if thoughts of World War III, nuclear holocaust, and U.S. power being in a precarious position are upsetting, you might not want to put this book (or the series) on your holiday reading list.
Dan Lenson is a very real naval officer, and Poyer tells his story with detail, revealing the time the author spent as a Navy SWO. Lenson and his crew worry about fuel state, electronic emissions control, station-keeping, the proper screen formation to face the most likely enemy course of action, and how quickly they will deplete their magazines in high-end conflict.
The road to war and the fighting of it in this series of novels requires little stretch of the reader’s imagination. A nationalist leader named Zhang Zurong has consolidated all the reins of power in Beijing, much like President Xi Xinping, the leader of current-day China. Breaking the U.S.–led alliances in the western Pacific and pushing the U.S. military out of the Far East are two of Zhang’s salient near-term goals. Deep War opens with the Savo Island on fire, adrift inside the second island chain. Lenson’s former executive officer, Commander Cheryl Staurulakis, is in command but waiting for the enemy to deal the ship a final blow.
The story advances quickly and plausibly while exploring cyberattacks, nuclear escalation, geopolitical maneuvering, and the role of insurgents in great power war. Proceedings readers who appreciated retired Navy Captain Dale Rielage’s May 2018 essay “How We Lost the Great Pacific War” will want to read Deep War and the three books preceding it.
Captain Hamblet is the editor-in-chief of Proceedings and a retired naval intelligence officer. From 2009 to 2012 he led a team at the U.S. Pacific Command that analyzed China’s military build-up, modernization, exercises, tactics, and doctrine.
Listen to a Proceedings Podcast interview with author David Poyer about Deep War below:
New & Noteworthy Books
By Lieutenant Brendan Cordial, U.S. Navy
Strategy, Evolution, and War: From Apes to Artificial Intelligence
Kenneth Payne. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018. 272 pp. Ref. Index. $32.95.
Kenneth Payne, a senior lecturer in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, presents a troubling, but convincing, argument on the transformative effects artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to have on the development, formulation, and execution of military strategy and international affairs. The author contrasts mankind’s traditional foundations for strategy—which is inherently biological, psychological, and evolutionary—as substantively different from that of the coming non-human AI, which can have none of those characteristics. For science-fiction fans, Payne’s vision of AI calls to mind Dan Simmons’ TechnoCore in the Hyperion Cantos series (Spectra), often with similarly unsettling prospects for humanity and its heretofore uncontested monopoly on strategy development. While decidedly a work of an academic for academics, the book expands one’s appreciation of AI’s potential beyond the tactical and operational levels and deserves wide consideration.
No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: The Life of General James Mattis
Jim Proser. New York: Harper Collins, 2018. 277 pp. Notes. $28.99.
In this biography of the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, author Jim Proser does a fine job presenting the influential battles, experiences, and relationships that have defined General James Mattis’s nearly universally lauded character. The book adds complexity to the now standard view of Mattis as a Spartan-esque warrior—aggressively decisive in battle, but reserved, stoic, and professional elsewhere. The general is decidedly a “Marine’s Marine.”
Much of the text focuses on Mattis’s actions in leading Marines in combat, first in Desert Storm and subsequently in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, the book touches briefly on his upbringing in a small Washington town and his time as a younger Marine officer who seemingly enjoyed as much as anyone a rowdy port visit—a refreshing contrast to Mattis’s popular austere image. Overall, it is a fine introduction to the Secretary and provides an engaging, narrative version of the man beyond simply that of the never married, voraciously reading “warrior monk.” For younger officers, it enriches understanding of an officer all seek to emulate.
Seven at Santa Cruz: The Life of Fighter Ace Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa
Ted Edwards. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018. 307 pp. Appendices. Notes. Biblio. Index. $29.95.
This exhaustive account of the life and professional career of one of the most prolific naval aviators of World War II proved both enjoyable and humbling. As our “Greatest Generation” becomes increasingly scarce, author Ted Edwards, a historian who specializes in oral histories, presents the invaluable perspectives of the men who helped fight and win the Pacific war. The book also covers Vejtasa’s illustrious career in training naval aviators, serving as a carrier air boss in the Korean War, and commanding then newly commissioned supercarrier USS Constellation (CVA-64), and his eventual passing over for flag rank. Much of the text is direct quotations from personal interviews Edwards conducted with Vejtasa and his contemporaries. These men’s accounts of some of the pivotal actions of the Pacific add life and nuance to the standard histories of the war. Although the battles that won Vejtasa much of his glory and the event leading up to them comprise the heart of the book, Vejtasa’s entire naval career is covered and similarly impresses and inspires.
The Last Days of the United States Asiatic Fleet: The Fates of the Ships and Those Aboard, December 8, 1941–February 5, 1942
Greg H. Williams. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018. 429 pp. Biblio. $49.95.
Greg Williams offers a meticulously researched and exhaustive account of the experiences of the ships and sailors of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet just prior to and following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The book begins with a brief history of the fleet’s genesis to set the context, but the substance of Mr. Williams’s laudable effort lies in the voluminous accounting of the actions and fates of common sailors on station after the attacks of 7 December 1941. The primary achievement of the book is the humanization of sailors who, largely because of the vagaries of war, were cut off from their shipmates, loved ones, home, and ready relief. This period of rapid Japanese expansion in the South Pacific, with the concomitant suffering of the empire’s enemies, is often overlooked in favor of the glories of Midway and other triumphs that would follow. Williams’s book serves as an effective remedy.
Lieutenant Cordial is attending Surface Warfare Officer School and is slated to serve his first department head tour on board an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer.