Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat [Hardcover]

The strength of this book is its attempt to lay out a framework for analyzing tribal-based insurgents, terrorists, and militias in layman's terms. I believe other reviewers have missed the point of the book -- it's not meant to be a description of today's threat, but a methodology for militarily analyzing how and why tribal-based groups fight. The authors recommend the following criteria as a substitute for traditional Military Capabilities Analysis: the tribe's concept of warfare; its organization and command and control; its areas of operations; the types and targets of its operations; its constraints and limitations; and the role of outside actors.

The authors make their argument by first discussing the differences between the western way of war and "primitive warfare," and then assessing the way wars have evolves since the end of the cold war. The third chapter specifically discusses tribes, clans, and groups based on lineage and kinship.

They then use the "case study" approach to test their analytical construct with chapters on Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. At the end of each chapter they analyze those conflicts based on the analytical criteria noted above. Finally, in the last chapter, they again use their analytical criteria to establish analytical lessons-learned.

All-in-all this is an excellent book for those who are interested in the analysis of tribal-based military threats. It makes the point very well that conventional analytical approaches are not suited for the analysis of tribes and clans, and recommends a different approach.

Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat (Hardcover)

4 Stars

This isn't a bad book. I rated it four stars. Why? There are a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is Robert Kaplan has covered the subjects much more in depth in his series of books on the newly emerging post Cold War era. Indeed, a typical reader of "The Atlantic Monthly" will see that authors of Schultz and Dew are mostly giving their versions of the observations that Robert Kaplan has already written. So, the typical reader is left with a choice. They can either read this book or read Kapan's book, the best of the lot is "Imperial Grunts".

Authors Schultz and Dew give a fine break down of the typical militia command structure most nations face when fighting against Muslims. However, the militia breakdown is much better covered in "Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods" by H. John Poole and Ray L. Smith. So, the results are Authors Schultz and Dew give sort of a Cliff notes version of militia structure, combat methods, weapons and equipment.

The biggest problem that the West faces is a second guessing American media that has a never ending demand for news. The fact of the matter is the USA loses over 10,000 citizens per year in traffic accidents and has another 40,000 injured. Hardly anything is written in the by-lines of the local papers. Conversely, there is much hand-wringing over approximately American 2,500 war dead since 9-11 fighting. It should be noted that the Soviet Union was engaged in a series of savage civil wars from the time of its revolution in 1917 until the early 1920s. The Soviet Union united all the various states of that social republic under an iron willed fist. Conversely, when the Russian media was permitted to act like the American media in the mid-1980s then the Soviets quickly lost Afghanistan, lost their nation, and quickly become involved in warring in Chechnya. The fact of the matter is the old steel willed Soviet Union would have quickly cut off the Muslim terrorists, taken the territory back, and executed any and all who were involved with the rebels. A way must be found to get a nation's media to realize the problem the long term problem of insurgency and support the steps against insurgency. The Soviet Union could not get their media to support a war against Afghanistan. The result is they lost the war, their nation, and are now involved in fighting on their soil.

Perhaps that is the biggest shame of this book. The West wants to have civilized meeting with the terrorists. However, terrorism is guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare is done until conventional forces grain strength to attack using normal means. Note, in Vietnam the Viet Cong used hit and run tactics against the USA and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the 1960s. In 1975 the North Vietnamese Army took Saigon using normal Soviet block military tactics. The point is Guerilla war is done from weakness. Conventional war is done through strength.

"Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat" will give a causal reader a good introduction to the problems of modern insurgency warfare. I would recommend it to that type of reader. For a better US over view of the problem then read "Imperial Grunts". To learn of specific militia combat tactics then read "Militant Muslim Combat Methods".

This book does have good information and can inform the typical reader of the problems encountered with fighting modern insurgents and militias.

As a fomrer US Force Recon Marine with service in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, my unit spent a great deal of time studying various terrorist/insurgent.guerilla organizations. This book makes some very good points, but not all of it is accurate. the book (along with a recent article by Mr. Shultz) makes the claim that

Consider the British experience during the 1980's and 90's in Northern Ireland. By working hand-in-glove with the Special Branch of the local police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, British intelligence agents penetrated the ranks of the Irish Republican Army, eventually capturing and incarcerating a legion of its leaders and operatives.

A former top-ranking I.R.A. commander who later became an informer told us that, when he was imprisoned with higher-ranking I.R.A. officials, they lamented over and over that the British strategy was so effective and their ranks were so depleted by the end of the 1980's that "the boys can't move, can't operate, always have to be looking over their shoulders." As a result, Britain was able to negotiate a relatively successful end to hostilities and to contain most of the splinter groups that refused to abide by it. (end).

The above analysis by Mr. Shultz, is highly innacurate. Military analysts have concluded that the IRA was able to uncover and kill 60% of the informers withing their ranks. Also, the fact that the IRA launched a devestating and highly effective commercial bombing camapign against Britian from 1990-1997, refutes the idea that the IRA "was so infiltrated, it couldn't move". In fact the IRA continued to move and basically bomb and assassinate at will far into the 1990's. It is widely believed that this bombing campaign forced the British to negotiate a peace deal with Sinn Fein and the IRA. This is one of several highly speculative conclusions that makes this book a decent, but far from perfect analysis of modern "Assymetrical warfare"