Counterinsurgency Wars and the Anglo-American Alliance: The Special Relationship on the Rocks
Andrew Mumford. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018. 241 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. $34.95.
Andrew Mumford performs a clever feat: he catalogs the extensive intrigues and exchanges between Americans and Britons in the past seven decades to make the point that the fascinatingly complex relationship is not so special at all. For Mumford, the very idea that there exists any special relationship is a mirage. Like a white elephant, the partnership is ruinously extravagant and not at all useful. To Mumford, British leaders and citizens should shed sentimental ideas about Anglo-American unity and instead treat this bilateral relationship like any other.
The book presents an argument, but the contents are histories of British and American experiences in counterinsurgency, fought separately and then together. These experiences present recurring patterns that inform the broader conclusion. Six separate chapters trace the “small wars” fought after World War II in Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus, South Arabia, Vietnam, and Northern Ireland. In those experiences, a recurring British pattern was to stretch anticommunism as broadly as possible to gain U.S. support or dilute opposition. A recurring American pattern was to favor the policy preferences of domestic interest groups over British policy. This special relationship was especially uncomfortable at times. That history features sharp elbows, but the final two cases, Iraq and Afghanistan, present a crescendo of building mutual recriminations when the counterinsurgency was fought side by side.
For Iraq, Mumford identifies chronic diplomatic disagreements in which the British gained access but not influence. Military relations were no better. These were frustratingly imbalanced and tainted by perceptions of British ineffectiveness in Basra. In Afghanistan, the key terrain for dispute is Helmand instead of Basra, but the pattern of recriminations and mistrust remains the same. To Mumford, the history of counterinsurgency after World War II shows that the United States and Britain have almost never been on the same page, except when they marched together in the wrong direction.
The most useful service that Mumford provides the reader is to elaborate plainly a point of view gaining currency outside of the United States. He catalogs a series of disputes that will be well-known to readers of Proceedings, adds more that may be less well-known, and connects the dots in a coherent and compelling way. He finds reason for Britain to be wary of getting too entangled with the United States in the future. That wariness is based on solid historical scholarship and not just a knee-jerk reaction to a given day’s headlines.
That’s a good reason to read Mumford’s book, but not to agree with his conclusions. The author chose to concentrate on counterinsurgency wars, but his scope is too narrow to come to grips with the ways that U.S. cooperation with Britain since World War II (as well as with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) is truly exceptional. His focus overlooks the wild intramural fights that afflicted such joint ventures as World War II and Korea. In addition, the focus on the period after 1945 neglects the massive transformation of the Anglo-American relationship after World War II. Up to the mid-20th century, most U.S. war planners had to seriously consider a military confrontation with Britain, the original “Red team.”
Is it imaginable that any plan in any corner of any U.S. headquarters today envisages a confrontation against the forces of Great Britain? That absence is historically anomalous and theoretically exceptional. In a deeper sense, Mumford is mistaken to interpret disputes as signs of rupture. The special relationship will be on the rocks when the two partners aren’t talking.
Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity 1873–1898
Scott Mobley. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018. 410 pp. Illus. Notes. Biblio. Index. $34.95.
Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945
Trent Hone. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018. 402 pp. Illus. Notes. Biblio. Index. $34.95.
Kicking off the Naval Institute Press’s new Studies in Naval History and Sea Power series, this brace of blockbuster analytical histories more than meets the series’ goal of “(advancing) our understanding of sea power and its role in global security by publishing significant new scholarship.” They set a very high bar for those efforts that will follow.
Ostensibly, there are some major differences between the two: Scott Mobley’s book covers the period from 1873 to 1898; while Trent Hone’s work deals with the 1898–1945 era. Mobley focuses on “progressivism” and “maritime strategy, American empire, and the transformation of U.S. naval identity.” Hone’s subject matter tends more toward “the evolution of fighting doctrine.” (The subtitles do matter). And while Captain Mobley is a retired U.S. Navy surface warfare officer with two at-sea commands under his belt and a Ph.D. in history, now making his first major mark as an author and historian, Trent Hone is a seasoned professional writer, software engineer, historian, and management and organizational consultant—and a life-long civilian.
But it’s in their similarities that these two books offer their most useful rewards to readers. Each is the product of impeccable scholarship. Each one builds on an already substantial literature, enabling the authors to “stand on the shoulders” of previous writers yet present far more sophisticated approaches and interpretations. Consequently, each challenges—convincingly, I believe—many previous notions about the evolution of U.S. Navy thought and performance, and the roots of how the Navy got where it is today. Each emphasizes the importance of the decentralized nature of the service, the richness of its interorganizational relationships, the seriousness with which naval officers took their potentially deadly tasks, and the virtues of those characteristics in periods of constant change. And they both plumb the phenomena of professionalism and learning, and the personalities, organizations, and processes essential to the success of each.
While Mobley unearths more fascinating early war plans, and Hone gives us more at-sea combat actions, both books are really about the development of the thinking of previous generations of U.S. Navy officers—about the nature of their profession and about how they kept learning—bombarded as they were by massive economic, technological, and organizational changes. In short, what did it mean to be a U.S. Navy officer? It’s the thinking and doing of the uniformed Navy officer corps that lie at the heart of both of these narratives—not the efforts of civilian statesmen, politicians, academics, inventors, industrialists, or even the Navy’s own vital enlisted force. Notably, each author portrays officers in blue as being in the vanguard of wider critical intellectual movements of their times: 19th-century progressivism and professionalism, and 20th-century innovation and learning.
That’s why these books are so useful to our understanding of the proper implementation of U.S. sea power today. True, they are superb histories, the products of deep and original research in critical documents often long-forgotten, with extensive and helpful notes. They should prove a welcome boon—and example—to professional historians and scholars working in other disciplines as well. But as they too turn the (many) pages of these works, contemporary serving naval officers, Navy civilians, and analysts doubtless will recognize organizational, technical, policy, and personal phenomena similar to those they themselves encounter daily, as well as the clash of ideas behind the decisions that have to be made in coping with—and indeed, staying in the vanguard of—rapid and disruptive changes.
A sampling from the authors’ own conclusions is instructive:
From Trent Hone:
The Navy’s experience . . . suggests that innovations are rarely singular events. Instead, they are more likely to be triggered by an environment that is conducive to the sustained emergence of new, radical ideas. Innovation can therefore be most effectively fostered by creating such an environment, rather than by trying to trigger a specific technique—innovation emerges from a broad system of learning. In the Navy’s case, variability was an essential part of the learning system.
And from Captain Scott Mobley:
In a sense, the Navy’s culture wars linger on, shaping officer identity today much as they did during the Gilded Age. A conflicted identity still defines the profession, perpetuating the dichotomy of warrior-engineer and engineer-warrior. Seamanship skills remain an essential facet of the naval profession, but they receive significantly less emphasis than in the era of Luce, Mahan, Fiske, and Ramsay. In the modern Navy, an officer’s technical acumen, administrative skills, and leadership abilities offer the surest means to a successful career. Some commanders—perhaps too few—also earn recognition for strategic expertise.
Find the time. Read these books. They contain wisdom to inform, inspire, and empower you as learning naval professionals, to better enable our nation to effectively wield its sea power in the coming years.
The Very Few, The Proud: Women in the Marine Corps, 1977–2001
Colonel Nancy P. Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps. Quantico, VA: U.S. Marine Corps History Division, 2018. 265 pp. Appxs. Glossary. Index. Free.
In The Very Few, The Proud: Women in the Marine Corps, 1977–2001, Colonel Nancy P. Anderson gives a well-researched history of both the women who served as Marines and the policies that affected them. This book fills an important gap in our knowledge, since most general histories of the Marine Corps gloss over the details of the integration of women. While there are monographs devoted to the history of female Marines in World Wars I and II, the most recent history of female Marines is Colonel Mary V. Stremlow’s A History of the Women Marines, 1946–1977 (CreativeSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014).
The Very Few begins where Stremlow’s work ended and takes readers up to the moments before the beginning of the war on terrorism. The book is organized thematically, with chapter topics ranging from uniforms and physical fitness to sexual harassment and discrimination. Each chapter stands on its own; however, taken as a whole, richer themes emerge. For example, the chapters “Title 10, U.S. Code” and “Combat” together weave an interesting narrative of the early 1990s as a turning point in the experiences and portrayal of women in combat, as well as in the political debates surrounding combat exclusion laws. The opening chapter (“Entry-Level Training”) and the closing chapter (“Uniforms”) together highlight how much the success of integration depends on uniformity in training, leadership opportunities, standards, and appearances.
The greatest strength of this book is the sheer number and variety of sources. Throughout the text, readers will hear from female Marines of all ranks, as well as male Marines, senators, scientists, journalists, Commandants of the Marine Corps, and even a few Presidents. Yet, even with so many prominent voices, the stories of female Marines are never drowned out. Their voices easily are the most important sources in the book; and there are many of them. As part of her research, Anderson sent dozens of history submission forms to Marines who served during 1977–2001. The form itself is the first page of “Appendix F: In Our Own Words.” The rest of the appendix consists of the personal stories of the women who submitted them, which add depth and color to the themes covered in the text: initial training, physical fitness, camaraderie, and isolation.
Anyone with an interest in recent military history, Marine Corps history, or women’s history should read this book. For those unfamiliar with the specific vocabulary and many acronyms of the Marine Corps, Anderson provides a sizable glossary. She also gives many definitions along the way, as well as an appendix dedicated to explaining the Marine Corps’ training programs. Anderson thoroughly explains the details of how the accession, training, and billeting of women changed over time, the science behind various physical fitness tests, and the policy debates as they played out in Congress.
For women currently serving, this book also could serve as a ready source of strength and inspiration. Throughout the text, it is always the women who are fighting to take on tougher training exercises and more dangerous jobs. However much debate happened in the media and in Congress, the female Marines living and working with their peers did more in six months “to advance acceptance of women among male military members and the DoD leadership than two decades of political argument and human relations training.”
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: A Graphic Novel
Pete Katz. New York: Canterbury Classics, 2018. 128 pp. $19.99.
Award-winning illustrator Pete Katz’s sixth graphic novel is a refreshing take on Master Sun’s classic treatise of military strategy. The new medium helps spark fresh insight and illuminate subtlety into the traditional interpretation. The book markets itself as a “bringing the age-old military principles to life for a new generation”—a task effectively accomplished.
The aesthetic quality and overall construction of the book are top notch. The binding, feel, and cover graphics combine to present a very attractive product. As the graphic novel itself is largely a work of art, aesthetic appeal is paramount, and Katz’s work delivers.
Master Sun’s principles are explored through the interactions of Master Sifu and his pupil, young Liu. During China’s “Golden Age” Han Dynasty period (206 BC–220 AD), Liu sleepily hikes up the hill each morning for training by the ex-general Sifu. Master Sifu, believing in the incredible potential of the young Liu, decides that Liu must progress beyond developing the physical skill and discipline necessary for the soldier and begin training his mind—the primary weapon of the competent general.
Master Sifu proceeds to discuss Master Sun’s strategic thought in a manner familiar to those who have read traditional translations. Chapters, each presented as a day’s lesson, follow the sequence of the popular 1910 English translation by Lionel Giles. The graphic novel couples Sun Tzu’s aphorisms with gripping illustrations depicting the tactical and strategic concepts. For example, a teaching on the need for subtlety and ambush is accompanied by a sequence of graphics depicting an unsuspecting group of soldiers being quickly dispatched by a concealed force. Particularly for the images of violence, the illustrations enhance the visceral aspect of The Art of War not readily apparent in the stolid text-based versions.
Although expected given the medium, the graphic novel does not include the complete text of The Art of War and should not be considered an authoritative depiction of the master’s work. For the average reader very little, if any, strategic value is lost, but a more critical reader may be better served by a traditional translation.
Overall, I was impressed with Katz’s graphic novel version and can heartily recommend it to devotees of Master Sun. For both seasoned and burgeoning leaders, this graphic novel version is a worthy addition to your strategic library.
New & Noteworthy
Shattered Minds: How The Pentagon Fails our Troops with Faulty Helmets
Robert H. Bauman and Dina Rasor. Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2019. 282 pp. Notes. Index. $34.95.
Recent U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to an increase in traumatic brain injuries, and in Shattered Minds, authors Robert Bauman and Dina Rasor point to two possible causal factors involving faulty helmets. Their investigative work alternates between two stories illustrating how soldiers in these conflicts may have been outfitted with subpar helmets. In one, they cite the work of a retired Navy doctor advocating the Army and Marine Corps adopt more effective and comfortable internal helmet padding. The other story is one of retribution against whistleblowers who discovered their North Dakota Kevlar factory was knowingly supplying the armed forces with material not up to specifications.
Reading like a good investigative-journalism series, the book is a great—and frustrating—exposure of the way military bureaucracies can be out of touch with what is needed in the field or on the deckplates. Shattered Minds is recommended reading for those both in and out of the armed services—and is especially recommended for those working in the defense industry and the procurement process.
Wings of the Rising Sun: Uncovering the Secrets of Japanese Fighters and Bombers of World War II
Mark Chambers. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2018. 336 pp. Appex. Biblio. Notes. Index. $35.
Wings of the Rising Sun offers a fascinating look into how the United States obtained valuable intelligence on Japanese aircraft during World War II. Much of this work was accomplished by capturing Japanese aircraft—sometimes badly damaged in crashes—and then passing them to a special team to fly them and note their characteristics. The team also engaged in simulated dogfights with comparable U.S. aircraft and then composed detailed manuals capturing their findings.
Packed with rare photographs of Japanese aircraft both as-found and during their test phases, Wings of the Rising Sun also republishes long extracts of flight characteristics from World War II–era intelligence manuals. It has several original depictions of cockpit layouts and lists where some of these captured aircraft are on display. This book is ideal for World War II historians as well as for aviation buffs of all kinds.
The Third Reich is Listening: Inside German Codebreaking 1939–45
Christian Jennings. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2018. 352 pp. Biblio. Glossary. Notes. Index. $32.
While the Allied efforts to capture and break the complex Enigma cypher have been depicted repeatedly in both fiction and nonfiction, The Third Reich Is Listening offers a glimpse at cryptography from “the other side.” The book begins with a look at German cryptographic processes during World War I, and how lessons learned (including the acquisition of Enigma machines) were incorporated during the interwar years. The bulk of the work details how German cryptography was able to support forces during the war itself, on land and at sea, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Berlin.
In addition to viewing World War II through a different lens, this book also is of interest for the examples of how both sides coded and decoded messages during that time, and how they were able to break each other’s codes. While those with an interest in World War II naturally will gravitate to this title, it is also a good read for anyone who enjoys codes and puzzles.
Flight Risk: The Coalition’s Air Advisory Mission in Afghanistan, 2005–2015
Forrest L. Marion. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018. 356 pp. Appxs.. Notes. Biblio. Index. Illus. $39.95.
In Flight Risk, retired Air Force historian Forrest Marion details the U.S. Air Force’s efforts to train and advise the Afghan Air Force following the 2001 U.S. invasion. The book begins with a short history of the Afghan Air Force, from its first aircraft acquisitions in 1919 through the Taliban era, and then becomes more in-depth in covering the relationship between the United States and allies and the Afghan Air Force since the commencement of Operation Enduring Freedom. Over time, the United States made strides in professionalizing the Afghan Air Force, but Marion states that a 2011 attack on air advisors was a major setback.
Flight Risk encapsulates the challenges of advising a military whose cultural norms differ greatly—particularly in terms of professionalization—from those of the advising nation’s, and is recommended for both students of the Afghan war as well as anyone who may be involved with advisory missions to foreign armed forces.