Sarkesian, Sam C. Sarkesian, Sam C.
1. The New Battlefield: The United States and Unconventional Conflict. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986.
2. Unconventional Conflicts in a New Security Era: Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993.
McCombie, Parameters, Autumn 1995, sees this as a "scholarly, well-researched work," providing "an excellent analysis of the topic to readers who have some background in Vietnam studies or unconventional warfare." Sarkesian's "conclusions are supported by modern events in Malaysia." Despite the "brevity" of his section on Vietnam, the author "allows the reader to see easily the contrasting styles, successes, and failures of the two wars." In his valuable last chapter, Sarkesian "provides a scholarly analysis of the nature of future wars and the ability of US forces to conduct them efficiently."
3. ed. Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare. Chicago: Precedent, 1975.
Shackley, Theodore. The Third Option: An American View of Counterinsurgency Operations.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
Theodore (Ted) G. Shackley, retired CIA Associate Deputy Director for Operations, died on 9 December 2002 at the age of 75. He was a three-time recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. J.Y. Smith, "Theodore Shackley Dies; Celebrated CIA Agent," Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2002, B8.
According to Pforzheimer, Shackley has written "a primer of the essential steps for effective counterinsurgency operations in areas important to the United States." Constantinides sees the work as "unmistakably that of a man who has studied the problems as well as having faced them." However, there is "insufficient discussion of the problems and difficulties involved once a nation is committed in a counterinsurgency effort." However, Lowenthal notes that this book "[m]ay be somewhat dated in the post-Cold War world."
Shafer, D. Michael. Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Shultz, Richard. "Coercive Force and Military Strategy: Deterrence Logic and the Cost-Benefit Model of CounterinsurgencyWarfare." Western Political Quarterly 32 (Dec. 1979): 444-466.
Shultz, Richard H., Jr., et al. Guerrilla Warfare and Counterinsurgency: U.S.-Soviet Policy in the Third World. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1989.
Shultz, Richard H., Jr., and Andrea J. Dew. Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Longino, Proceedings 133.5 (May 2007), says that the authors "have done a thorough, yet concise, job assisting readers in understanding why modern warfare is different.... The book is well researched and written and flows nicely toward a conclusion full of lessons learned.... Shultz and Dew present a precise and effective analysis" of the conflicts in Somalia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
For Crowther, Parameters 37.2 (Summer 2007), this is "an excellent primer on the nature of warfare and our likely enemies in the twenty-first century." The authors argue that "tribal societies will comprise the enemies of the future.... The nature of these societies have led to a preferred type of warfare -- decentralized, violent, and family-based." One theme that continues "throughout the book is the propensity for militaries and policymakers in developed countries to underestimate the warfighting capacity inherent in these tribal/clan based societies.... [T]his book is thoroughly researched and impressively referenced."
McIntosh, JFQ 48 (1st Quarter 2008), notes that the authors "propose that an awareness of how tribes and clans operate creates opportunities for the soldier.... They push the reader to consider that the 'primitive' enemy has a logic of his own that can be anticipated and used against him. They show that while the logic of clan violence is not the only factor to consider, it is one we ignore at our peril."
To Peake, Intelligencer 16.1 (Spring 2008), this work "leaves no doubt that knowing today's enemies is essential to national survival." Ladwig, Military Review (Mar.-Apr. 2007), finds that this work "is a useful introduction to the topic of traditional warriors and modern warfare. However, the lack of prescriptive guidance for responding to the challenges posed by tribal irregulars leaves the reader wanting more."
Sturgill,
Claude C. Low-Intensity Conflict in American History. Westport, CT:
Praeger, 1993.
McCombie, Parameters, Autumn 1995, says that the author offers "amateurish, superficial analysis of what others have written" and "makes unsubstantiated, unsupportable statements.... Nor does [he] hesitate to give ill-conceived advice to the operators.... Sturgill mixes psychological operations, sabotage, unconventional warfare, and even direct action missions into one large cauldron and calls them all psychological operations, demonstrating how little he understands about any of them." The reviewer concludes that this book is of "little value to either professionals or casual observers of special operations."
Thompson, Leroy.
1. Dirty Wars: Elite Forces vs. the Guerrillas. New York: Sterling Press, 1991. Newton Abbot, UK: Davis & Charles, 1991.
Surveillant 2.1: "Counterinsurgeny expert ... describes guerrilla and counter-guerrilla operations throughout history."
2. Ragged War: The Story of Unconventional and Counter-Revolutionary Warfare. New York: Sterling, 1994.
Thompson, Robert [Sir]. Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam. London: Chatto & Windus, 1966. Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1966.
Tierney, John J., Jr. Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare in American History. Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2006. 2007. [pb]
Tovar, B. Hugh. "Thoughts on Running a Small War." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 1, no. 3 (1986): 85-93.
"[I]ntelligence (including counterintelligence) and covert action go hand-in-glove. The relationship is symbiotic; separation would be disastrous for both." (p. 87)
Towle, Philip A. Pilots and Rebels: The Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare, 1918-1988. Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1989. [Gibish]
U.S. Army and Marine Corps. The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual [COIN FM]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Kahl, FA 86.6 (Nov.-Dec. 2007), finds that "[t]he COIN FM is not an academic document, but it is deeply informed by classical counterinsurgency theory.... The manual embraces a model commonly referred to as 'clear, hold, and build.'" While "it is difficult to know whether its template can work in all cases,... overall, the COIN FM probably represents the single best distillation of current knowledge about irregular warfare."
See American Political Science Association, "The New U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual as Political Science and Political Praxis," Perspectives on Politics 6, no. 2 (Jun. 2008): 347-360.
Stephen Biddle sees the manual as "a remarkably thoughtful response to a vexing problem.... It is not perfect, however. In particular, it makes assumptions about the nature of insurgency and the relationship between the United States and the host government that are sometimes sound and sometimes not.... Iraq is precisely the kind of nonideological communal war of identity that the manual is least suited for."
To Stathis N. Kalyvas, "[t]he manual breaks little new ground." This is basically "an elaboration and reformulation of a body of work that emerged in the 1960s." It also "is in many ways a crysallization of the lessons that American commanders painfully learned in the wake of the invasion of Iraq in 2003-05. As such, it seems to have been overtaken by developments on the ground since that period."
Wendy Brown comments that "[i]f the COIN manual updates the military's approach to counterinsurgency, it remains premised on a severely outmoded figure of sovereign power, one in which American powers within the theater of war are imagined to be under the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.."
For Douglas A. Ollivant, "the manual itself is not particularly radical," but "it is a radical challenge to conventional military culture and raises deep questions about the type of military -- and especially the type of army -- the United States wishes to maintain."
See also David H. Petraeus [LTGEN/USA] and James F. Amos [LTGEN/USMC], Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) No, 3-24, Dec. 2006; Washington, DC: Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Department of the Navy, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) No 3-33.5, Dec. 2006).
Vick, Alan J., et al. Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006.
Westermann, JFQ 48 (1st Quarter 2008), sees this as "a work of critical importance for Air Force senior leadership and the rank and file. It offers a prescient analysis of COIN warfare and strategy and provides trenchant recommendations for enhancing the Service's capability in the long war against Islamic extremism."
Volpe, Kevin [LTCDR/USN] "Staying on Station." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 135, no. 2 (Feb. 2009): 42-47.
"The limited, remote, and protracted nature of IW [irregular warfare] requires continuous and persistent reconnaissance, mobility, and fire support for dispersed ground forces, a capability that aircraft carriers cannot currently provide."
White, Jeffrey B. "Some Thoughts on Irregular Warfare." Studies in Intelligence 39, no. 5 (1996): 51-59. "Irregular Warfare: A Different Kind of Threat." American Intelligence Journal 17, no. 1/2 (1996), 57-63.
"Irregular warfare ... remains confoundingly unaffected by changes in technology. In an irregular conflict, sociology, psychology, and history have more to say about the nature of the conflict, including its persistence and intensity."
Wood, John S., Jr. "Counterinsurgency Coordination at the National and Regional Level." Military Review 46, no. 3 (1966): 80-85.
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