In 1945, John Randall was the first Allied officer to enter Bergen-Belsen - the concentration camp that would reveal the horrors of the Holocaust to the world. Randall was one of that league of extraordinary gentlemen handpicked for suicidally dangerous missions behind enemy lines in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany throughout the Second World War. He was a man of his class and of his times. He hated the Germans, liked the French and was unimpressed by the Americans and the Arabs. He was an outrageous flirt, as might be expected of a man who served in Phantom alongside film stars David Niven and Hugh Williams. He played rugby with Paddy Mayne, the larger-than-life colonel of the SAS and winner of four DSOs. He pushed Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister, out of an aeroplane. He wined and dined in nightclubs as part of the generation that lived for each day because they might not see another. This extraordinary true story, partly based on previously unpublished diaries, presents a different slant on that mighty war through the eyes of a restless young man eager for action and adventure.

Here is a unique anthology of writings on revolutionary warfare and counterinsurgency, covering almost all the major struggles of the modern world. The editor, who has had firsthand experience with guerrilla movements in Asia (most recently in Afghanistan), Africa, and Latin America, provides a concise yet panoramic overview of political and military strategies in revolutionary warfare, noting their strengths, limitations, and the reasons for their success or failure.

Civil War in many areas of Southern Africa has caused human disaster on a huge scale. While Zimbabwe alone has largely escaped this, Mozambique has been reduced to the status of the poorest, most aid-dependent state in Africa and UNITA's war in Angola continues. Abiodun Alao's account of the deep-rooted ethnic and ideological divisions in all three territories explores the ways in which this state of almost permanent instability and conflict emerged during and after the struggle for independence, and the extent to which existing tensions within the region were internationalized and exacerbated during the Cold War. While the most significant element in the conflict was the dominant role of the South African state in its pursuit of proxy wars to advance its own regional interests, Alao argues that South Africa did not on its own create the dissident movements or the conditions of conflict. Pretoria had only to fine-tune some of the existing movements to suit its own purposes. Based on much original research, this book adds a new perspective to our understanding of the formation of the main rebel movements, of their support bases and their transformation into political parties, as well as providing an important account of their relationship with the South African state.

Pathological Counterinsurgency critically examines the relationship between elections and counterinsurgency success in third party campaigns supported by the United States. From Vietnam to El Salvador to Iraq and Afghanistan, many policymakers and academics believed that democratization would drive increased legitimacy and improved performance in governments waging a counterinsurgency campaign. Elections were expected to help overcome existing deficiencies, thus allowing governments supported by the United States to win the "hearts and minds" of its populace, undermining the appeal of insurgency. However, in each of these cases, campaigning in and winning elections did not increase the legitimacy of the counterinsurgent government or alter conditions of entrenched rent seeking and weak institutions that made states allied to the United States vulnerable to insurgency. Ultimately, elections played a limited role in creating the conditions needed for counterinsurgency success. Instead, decisions of key actors in government and elites to prioritize either short term personal and political advantage or respect for political institutions held a central role in counterinsurgency success or failure. In each of the four cases in this study, elected governments pursued policies that benefited members of the government and elites at the expense of boarder legitimacy and improved performance. Expectations that democratization could serve as a key instrument of change led to unwarranted optimism about the likely of success and ultimately to flawed strategy. The United States continued to support regimes that continued to lack the legitimacy and government performance needed for victory in counterinsurgency.

Between 1941 and 1944, the Germans and the Italians imposed a brutal occupation of Greece. This, as well as the outbreak of famine, drove many Greeks to join a variety of resistance movements in the mountains. The British government anticipated the German occupation of Europe and created the Special Operations Executive (SOE). One directorate of the SOE was responsible for partisan activity in the mountains and another directorate focused on encouraging espionage and sabotage in Greek cities. Over 3000 Greeks and British operated espionage networks that made a significant contribution to the war effort in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately the work of the spy and saboteur working in the shadows remained classified until the end of the twentieth century. The release of SOE documents in the twenty-first century provides an amazing insight into how intelligence operations were a critical part of the Allied victory of the Second World War. The aim of the book is to bring to life the stories of the ghosts of the shadow war.

In 1864 the capture of Brazilian steamer the Marques de Olinda initiated South America's most significant war. Thousands of Brazilian, Argentine, and Uruguayan soldiers engaged in a protracted siege of Paraguay, leaving the Paraguayan economy and population devastated. The suffering defied imagination and left a tradition of bad feelings, changing politics in South America forever. This is the definitive work on the Triple Alliance War. Thomas L. Whigham examines key personalities and military engagements while exploring the effects of the conflict on individuals, Paraguayan society, and the continent as a whole. The Road to Armageddon is the first book utilize a broad range of primary sources and materials, including testimony from the men and women who witnessed the war first-hand.

The remarkable story of the French Foreign Legion, its dramatic rise throughout the nineteenth century, and its most committed champion, General Hubert Lyautey. An aura of mystery, romance, and danger surrounds the French Foreign Legion, the all-volunteer corps of the French Army, founded in 1831. Famous for its physically grueling training in harsh climates, the legion fought in French wars from Mexico to Madagascar, Southeast Asia to North Africa. To this day, despite its reputation for being assigned the riskiest missions in the roughest terrain, the mystique of the legion continues to attract men from every corner of the world. In At the Edge of the World, historian Jean-Vincent Blanchard follows the legion's rise to fame during the nineteenth century--focusing on its campaigns in Indochina and especially in Africa--when the corps played a central role in expanding and protecting the French Empire. As France struggled to be a power capable of rivaling the British, the figure of the legionnaire--deadly, self-sacrificing, uncompromisingly efficient--came to represent the might and morale that would secure a greater, stronger nation. Drawing from rare, archival memoirs and testimonies of legionnaires from the period and tracing the fascinating career of Hubert Lyautey, France's first resident-general in Morocco and a hero to many a legionnaire, At the Edge of the World chronicles the Foreign Legion at the height of its renown, when the corps and its archetypically handsome, moody, and marginalized recruits became both the symbols of a triumphant colonialism and the stuff of legend.

The authors of this book are uniquely qualified to analyze the contemporary security landscape and promote necessary and pressing change. Each is a thought leader in his or her field. Four out of six authors are seasoned military professionals who share the view that the over-reliance on kinetic approaches over influence operations account for some of the failures of nations against extremists. Combined with civilian academic leadership this book is a practice in military civics. This collection of international perspectives, taken together, challenge commonly held assumptions and outmoded paradigms of engagement. In tribute to Co-Editor Amar Cheema, Brigadier General (R) We wish to dedicate this collaborative effort arguing for a more profitable approach to ending and pre-empting conflict as a fitting, living tribute to our Dear Friend, Colleague and Co-Editor, Brig. Amar Cheema, the consummate Soldier, Scholar and Gentleman. Brig. Cheema embodied the concept of "no one appreciates peace and stability as much as a Soldier". Editing and Co-authoring our book focused on using all elements of National Power to achieve and sustain stability is an apt legacy for our Dear Friend.

For both the United States and United Kingdom counterinsurgency was a serious component of security policy during the Cold War and, along with counterterrorism, has been the greatest security challenge after September 11, 2001. In The Soul of Armies Austin Long compares and contrasts counterinsurgency operations during the Cold War and in recent years by three organizations: the US Army, the US Marine Corps, and the British Army.Long argues that the formative experiences of these three organizations as they professionalized in the nineteenth century has produced distinctive organizational cultures that shape operations. Combining archival research on counterinsurgency campaigns in Vietnam and Kenya with the author's personal experience as a civilian advisor to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Soul of Armies demonstrates that the US Army has persistently conducted counterinsurgency operations in a very different way from either the US Marine Corps or the British Army. These differences in conduct have serious consequences, affecting the likelihood of success, the potential for civilian casualties and collateral damage, and the ability to effectively support host nation governments. Long concludes counterinsurgency operations are at best only a partial explanation for success or failure.

Here is the firsthand account of a member of one of the United States Army's three-man Tactical Psychological Operations Teams, groups of men tasked with winning the hearts and minds of Iraq's civilian population through leaflets, loudspeakers, conversation, and bribery. Transcribed from and inspired by Russell Snyder's personal wartime journal, it is a story of introspection, relating how the feelings of eagerness and uncertainty in a young man unfamiliar with war were replaced with the dread knowledge that, buried within his soul, beneath a facade of goodwill and morality, lurked the capacity to kill his fellow men. There are scenes of battle retold within the pages of Hearts and Mines, descriptions of the feelings of seeing once-familiar human bodies destroyed beyond recognition. Some days are described as being full of hope and appreciation for the beauty of the world, others with despair for the omnipresent cruelty and destruction which has a habit of consuming men when they feel unaccountable for their actions. It captures the sensory experience of living in a singular environment full of strange plants and animals, friends true and false, and determined enemies, encapsulating the existential fear of mortar and rocket attacks, as well as the ridiculousness of military bureaucracy, such as was demonstrated by a sergeant major's decision to punish graffiti artists by removing the doors of all the camp's toilets.

Responding to pressure from the United States, in 1996 the Colombian government intensified aerial fumigation of coca plantations in the western Amazon region. This crackdown on illicit drug cultivation sparked an uprising among the region's "cocaleros," or small-scale coca producers and harvest workers. In the summer of 1996, more than 200,000 campesinos joined marches to protest the heightened threat to their livelihoods. "Between the Guerillas and the State" is an ethnographic analysis of the cocalero social movement that emerged from the uprising. Maria Clemencia Ramirez focuses on how the movement unfolded in the department (state) of Putumayo, which has long been subject to the de facto rule of guerrilla and paramilitary armies. The national government portrays the area as uncivilized and disorderly and refuses to see the coca-growers as anything but criminals. Ramirez chronicles how the cocaleros demanded that the state recognize campesinos as citizens, provide basic services, and help them to transition from coca-growing to legal and sustainable livelihoods. Drawing on interviews with cocaleros, social movement leaders, guerillas, and local, regional, and national government officials, she suggests that collective identities in Colombia's Amazon region are shaped by a sense of having been abandoned by the state. Ramirez argues that the notion of citizenship mediates the dilemmas of a movement striving for inclusion in a state that excludes its members socially and politically.

Militias have proven to be a consistent and enduring challenge to achieving peace in war zones around the world. Whether armed by embattled governments in defence of their territory or fostered by external actors in the interests of greed or grievance, these groups occupy an uncertain and deeply controversial position in the changing landscape of conflict. Linked variously to atrocities against civilians or international criminal elements, part of what distinguishes them from more traditional combatants is their willingness to engage in violent tactics that defy international norms as well as a proclivity to embrace expediency in alliance-making. As such, their diversity of form, unorthodox nature and sheer numbers make achieving short-term stability and an enduring peace a consistently difficult proposition. Bringing together the lessons learned from four intensively researched case studies - the Democratic Republic of Congo, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Sudan - the book argues that the overly rigid 'cookie-cutter' approach to demilitaristation, developed and commonly implemented presently by the international community, is ineffective at meeting the myriad of challenges involving militias. In doing so, the authors propose a radical new framework for demilitarization that questions conventional models and takes into account on-the-ground realities.

An argument for a dramatically different approach to counterinsurgency, based on a reinterpretation of the nature of counterinsurgency warfare. According to the prevailing view of counterinsurgency, the key to defeating insurgents is selecting methods that will win the people's hearts and minds. The hearts-and-minds theory permeates not only most counterinsurgency books of the twenty-first century but the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, the U.S. military's foremost text on counterinsurgency. Mark Moyar assails this conventional wisdom, asserting that the key to counterinsurgency is selecting commanders who have superior leadership abilities. Whereas the hearts-and-minds school recommends allocating much labor and treasure to economic, social, and political reforms, Moyar advocates concentrating resources on security, civil administration, and leadership development. Moyar presents a wide-ranging history of counterinsurgency, from the Civil War and Reconstruction to Afghanistan and Iraq, that draws on the historical record and interviews with hundreds of counterinsurgency veterans, including top leaders in today's armed forces. Through a series of case studies, Moyar identifies the ten critical attributes of counterinsurgency leadership and reveals why these attributes have been much more prevalent in some organizations than others. He explains how the U.S. military and America's allies in Afghanistan and Iraq should revamp their personnel systems in order to elevate more individuals with those attributes. A Question of Command will reshape the study and practice of counterinsurgency warfare. With counterinsurgency now one of the most pressing issues facing the United States, this book is a must-read for policymakers, military officers, and citizens.

Osama bin Laden's words carry a great deal of weight in the West. When he speaks, or allegedly speaks, we listen. But what about the words of other key leaders in the Al-Qa'ida terrorist network? We can learn how to conduct the war on terrorism more successfully when we study their own manuals, written for their followers. But few Americans, despite their expertise in intelligence or security, know Arabic. Fortunately Norman Cigar is fluent, and here he presents the first English translation of Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin's"A Practical Course for Guerrilla War." Saudi security forces killed Al-Muqrin, Al-Qa'ida's leader in the Arabian Peninsula, in June 2004. Published posthumously, his Arabic-language manual provides a window into Al-Qaida's strategic thinking and into how these terrorists operate. Accompanying the text's translation is material on al-Muqrin's life and Cigar's cogent and detailed analysis of the key ideas in the jihadist's doctrine and the results of Al-Qa'ida's insurgency efforts on the Arabian Peninsula. This important work provides a primary source for students in the professional military education system who want to read a variety of military thinkers and develop insights into all war fighting philosophies, especially those emanating from non-Western sources. Academics, think tank analysts, and government officials in the United States and abroad will also find the work relevant to their own work on Al-Qa'ida and insurgency theory. With a foreword by Julian Lewis, MP, the Shadow Defence Minister for Great Britain.

By comparing modern counterinsurgency doctrine and operations to those of 1960s, this paper tests and ultimately disproves the assumption that doctrine as written and operations as conducted are tightly linked. Ingrained organizational concepts and beliefs have a much greater influence on operations than written doctrine, and altering these beliefs will require the U.S. military to reorient itself mentally as well as physically.

British and U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) operations have been slow to respond and adapt to the rise of the global jihadist insurgency, whose base of support is global and whose exploitation of the virtual dimension has outstripped the West's. After analyzing past British COIN experiences and comparing them to the evolving nature of the modern jihadist insurgency, the authors suggest a new framework for future COIN operations.British and U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) operations have been slow to adapt to the rise of the global jihadist insurgency. The authors analyze past British COIN experience, explore the evolving nature of insurgency, and suggest a new COIN framework.

Three parallel wars were fought in the latter half of the twentieth century in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. These wars were long and brutal, dividing international opinion sharply between US support for dictatorial regimes and the USSR's sponsorship of guerrilla fighters. This fascinating study of the 'guerrilla generation' is based on in-depth interviews with both guerrilla comandantes and political and military leaders of the time. Dirk Kruijt analyses the dreams and achievements, the successes and failures, the utopias and dystopias of an entire Central American generation and its leaders. Guerrillas ranges widely, from the guerrilla movement's origins in poverty, oppression and exclusion; its tactics in warfare; the ill-fated experiment with Sandinista government in Nicaragua; to the subsequent 'normalization' of guerrilla movements within democratic societies. The story told here is vital for understanding contemporary social movements in Latin America.

This study examines how terrorist groups transition to insurgencies and identifies ways to combat proto-insurgents. It describes the steps groups must take to gain the size and capabilities of insurgencies, the role of outside state support, and actions governments can take to prevent potential insurgencies from blossoming. The most effective U.S. counterinsurgency action would be to anticipate the possibility of insurgencies developing; it could then provide training and advisory programs and inhibit outsides support.

Six historic counterinsurgency (COIN) operations are examined to determine which tactics, techniques, and procedures led to success and which to failure. The Philippines, Algeria, Vietnam, El Salvador, Jammu and Kashmir, and Colombia were chosen for their varied characteristics relating to geography, historical era, outcome, type of insurgency faced, and level of U.S. involvement. Future U.S. COIN operations can learn from these past lessons.

Some rebel groups abuse noncombatant populations, while others exhibit restraint. Insurgent leaders in some countries transform local structures of government, while others simply extract resources for their own benefit. In some contexts, groups kill their victims selectively, while in other environments violence appears indiscriminate, even random. This book presents a theory that accounts for the different strategies pursued by rebel groups in civil war, explaining why patterns of insurgent violence vary so much across conflicts. It does so by examining the membership, structure, and behavior of four insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Drawing on interviews with nearly two hundred combatants and civilians who experienced violence firsthand, it shows that rebels' strategies depend in important ways on how difficult it is to launch a rebellion. The book thus demonstrates how characteristics of the environment in which rebellions emerge constrain rebel organization and shape the patterns of violence that civilians experience.

This analysis describes in counterinsurgency terms where the United States has gone wrong in Iraq; what unique challenges the conflict presents to coalition military forces; and what light both shed on future counterinsurgency planning, operations, and requirements. 450-character abstract: For 50 years, the United States has had ill-fated experiences in effectively fighting insurgencies. In counterinsurgency terms, Vietnam and Iraq form two legs of a historically fraught triangle-with El Salvador providing the connecting leg. In light of this history, the author analyzes where the United States has gone wrong in Iraq; what unique challenges the conflict presents to coalition forces deployed there; and what light both shed on future counterinsurgency planning, operations, and requirements.

During World War II, Roger Hilsman fought in Burma with the legendary Merrill's Marauders until he was machine-gunned. Then, at age twenty-five, he led a battalion of indigenous troops behind Japanese lines. At the war's end, he headed a POW rescue mission to Manchuria, where the prisoners included his own father. An exciting, unusual coming-of-age story, "American Guerrilla" concludes with reflections on how Hilsman's wartime experiences influenced his involvement in early Vietnam War policymaking when he served in the Kennedy administration.

Since 1983 journalist Bill Berkeley has traveled through Africa's most troubled lands-Rwanda, Liberia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire-seeking out the tyrants and military leaders who orchestrate seemingly intractable wars. Shattering the myth that ancient tribal hatred lies at the heart of the continent's troubles, Berkeley instead holds accountable the "Big Men" who came to power during this period, describing the very rational methods behind their apparent madness. A New Republic Book

During the brutal and destructive King Philip's War, the New England Indians combined new European weaponry with their traditional use of stealth, surprise, and mobility.