The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual | 
| Creators: John A. Nagl, David H. Petraeus, James F. Amos, Sarah Sewall
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 2810
Media: Paperback
Edition: University of Chicago Press Ed. /
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 472
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0226841510
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.0218
EAN: 9780226841519
ASIN: 0226841510
Publication Date: July 4, 2007
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Product Description
When the U.S. military invaded Iraq, it lacked a common understanding of the problems inherent in counterinsurgency campaigns. It had neither studied them, nor developed doctrine and tactics to deal with them. It is fair to say that in 2003, most Army officers knew more about the U.S. Civil War than they did about counterinsurgency.
The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual was written to fill that void. The result of unprecedented collaboration among top U.S. military experts, scholars, and practitioners in the field, the manual espouses an approach to combat that emphasizes constant adaptation and learning, the importance of decentralized decision-making, the need to understand local politics and customs, and the key role of intelligence in winning the support of the population. The manual also emphasizes the paradoxical and often counterintuitive nature of counterinsurgency operations: sometimes the more you protect your forces, the less secure you are; sometimes the more force you use, the less effective it is; sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.
An new introduction by Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, places the manual in critical and historical perspective, explaining the significance and potential impact of this revolutionary challenge to conventional U.S. military doctrine.
An attempt by our military to redefine itself in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new world of international terrorism, The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual will play a vital role in American military campaigns for years to come.
The University of Chicago Press will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Fisher House Foundation, a private-public partnership that supports the families of America’s injured servicemen. To learn more about the Fisher House Foundation, visit www.fisherhouse.org.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
Excellent & See Social Networking Analysis (SNA) Appendix July 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I believe this manual is an excellent overview of counterinsurgency strategy and some tactics. This includes the broad strategy as well as to the drill down for the units/teams/boots on the ground. Its stated audience is for battalion commanders and their staff and higher. I would recommend it to any soldier, sailor or marine regardless of rank and for U.S. citizens generally who have an interest in the topic.
According to the manual, the host nation (HN) and the counterinsurgency force (COIN) will win if they can provide security first, and then other functions of a responsive - responsive to the HN populace - HN government. Otherwise, the populace will seek security and services elsewhere (i.e., in insurgent organizations/militias). This is not necessarily a sequential ordering. While basic security is fundamental - once a baseline is reached - other governmental functions responsive to HN's populace's concerns should also be instituted, supported, and reinforced, while still improving and accelerating the improvement of the security environment for the populace. One example used is how insurgency organizations/militias can destabilize the security environment and create insecurity through terrorist strikes, in order to then be viewed by the populace as the cure to the insecurity by operating militias to defend against such insecurity, and thus try to gain popular support.
Bottom line: creation, maintenance and sustainment (or assisting/building up) of legitimacy in the host nation vs. the insurgent organizations is the contest and crux of the matter. Insurgency and counterinsurgency is a fight for the support of the populace (i.e., the big middle). This conclusion should have been clear by now - insurgency has been with us for a very long time. For some examples, in the West, you can go back to at least to Julius Caesar for lessons; see also Napoleon; in the East, you can go back to at least to Sun-Tzu's The Art of War.
According to the manual, to win an insurgency/counterinsurgency type conflict, requires staying power without intentional or unintentional signaling of wavering support for staying the distance, at least until the HN has achieved the "tipping point" in terms of legitimacy and popular support.
As an aside, there is a good appendix on Social Network Analysis (SNA), which provides a cogent overview of some of the key concepts for those not familiar with SNA or its use in war, conflict, or intelligence.
Required reading for foreign staff and U.S. leaders June 1, 2008
This manual should be required reading for any candidate for public office at a national level, as well as all foreign staff personnel. After reading the manual I was better able to understand the motivations and actions of the various factions within Iran today. It also re-enforces the idea that terrorism / insurgency is not just an issue for a single nation, but anymore is a global issue.
Best Military Manual in Ages!! May 22, 2008
This is the best manual that the military has ever published. While it is very thorough and covers every aspect of how to run a successful counterinsurgency, it is broken down into easy to understand concepts. Designed for commanders at all levels, it easily applies to every military member involved in the campaigns of Iraq and Afghanistan. This should be a must read for anyone deploying to the AOR, military or civilian as it will shape the way you think, speak, and act while trying to successfully end the insurgency that grips these countries.
Very suprised March 9, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I actually bought this book some months back but I kept putting off picking it up because I assumed this would be a dense work filled with military jargon and more acronyms than one could shake a stick at. I assumed that it would be a tedious and difficult read so I found reasons to put it off, but when I finally forced myself to begin this book I was quite shocked. The book is very easy to read and very well written. The book has just a few acronyms that I had memorized within a couple of pages after their introduction, and the book is very well laid out with impeccable organization (as should be expected I guess). I dare say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book on all levels. Of course the information and the knowledge to be gleaned from this work is extremely important.
I think if this book were to become required reading for students then I think we could prevent some costly misadventures in future because this book really details what an occupation requires. Everyone would understand that military action will require a deep level of commitment for the military and on all levels of civil society as well.
I also think it is the least we can do as citizens to educate ourselves on what our military men and women are doing and attempting to implement in situations where they face this type of conflict. One gets a sense of what a soldier goes through and the huge load that is put on the ordinary soldier. It is an extremely difficult task they are asked to perform in these situations, and they are asked to perform this task with honor and discretion in the face of terrible situations.
There are some good reviews here that speak more to the content of the work by people obviously more versed in the topic than myself, so I will just say that this book is very well done and an easy read. If you are like me and are putting off reading or buying this book, then let me just say go ahead. It is worth the money and the effort. I highly recommend this book.
 Excellent One Source Overview That Needs to Lighten Up on Doctrine December 30, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've been studying insurgent warfare for a long time before it became a hot topic... again. I still recommend Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare and Hamilton's The Art of Insurgency which is a great book but is little referenced. There are of course books by Kitson and others. (Nagl's book which I've reviewed is a good dissertation but is limited in it scope and perception. He writes the forward to this edition.) The two volume War in the Shadows is okay background but not worth a two volume read. Which brings us to the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which if you are serving and only have time to access one source, this is a dependable one.
Although the CFM is oriented more toward the current unpleasantness the principles of counterinsurgency have been carefully gleaned from the best sources and multiple situations as well as updating insurgent response for the 21st century. Keeping food deliveries out of active insurgent areas might have worked for the British in Malaya, but you could imagine the field day CNN would have with it today. Probably the best things the writers do in this manual is freely admit that the devil is in the details and that these will have to be worked out locally and supported nationally.
For those who still aren't buying into "the insurgent stuff" which unfortunately over the last 30+ years has gone under state department approved phrases like "nation building" and executive office of the President terms like "counter terrorism" you don't have to worry that the Army or Marines are going to lose their conventional edge with these approaches. The CFM makes it clear that this is only one form or warfare and that modern war can slip across the entire spectrum. What is not needed is more doctrine...what is needed is a tool box and the CFM attempts to be one of those tools.
The CFM makes many good points and I'm not going to list them all here, but the most important one I felt has to do with the assumption of more risk. Insurgent warfare requires soldiers to go out and get in the streets with people to provide the basic security for everyday activities that will lead to a legitimate government. Legitimacy cannot come from the national level down no matter what form of government people actually settle for (A basic concept found in any undergraduate PolySci 101 class which no one in the State Deptment or Congress must have taken.) The average Joe doesn't care about the grand schemes. He wants to go to work, get married, raise a family and have a shot at some level of comfort without getting killed. The key to winning against insurgents is that the most committed to providing these basic parameters for the average Joe, wins. You show your true colors and level of commitment when you have to go out and get shot at. But the alternative, which never works, and we still seem to be doing is to concentrate forces on large FOB's and separate them from the population. This has got to be one of the toughest of balancing acts to provide force protection, logistics as well as force projection and maintenance that supports an ongoing relationship with the civilian population. Fighting an insurgency is not for the faint hearted, the draftee, or those who needed to be reelected every 2 years. It takes soldiers in neighborhoods who know the people and have the power to affect their lives...albeit indirectly if possible.
I disagree with the CFM on two points. I disagree with using the idea of "counterinsurgency" for philosophical reasons. The term by its very nature places you at a disadvantage to the insurgents. I believe you fight an insurgent war and win it by being better insurgents, not by being better "counterinsurgents." But this is probably more a matter of semantics. My second area of disagreement is really the book itself. This "new" book on insurgent warfare is really a great gazette of all the current knowledge that has been around for years plus the all necessary Army doctrine, without which the lowliest private cannot have a bowel movement. The Army's "can't do it without doctrine" attitude is what made this book come out so far behind the power curve to begin with. All this information is and has been known and available but the Army couldn't "discover" it. The US has a long insurgent history that is little studied or learned from. Our nation was founded by an insurgency. We've fought insurgents throughout our history: Native Americans, especially in the West, the border struggles during the Civil War, Phillipines, Cuba, Nicuagua, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. As organizations that need to be highly adaptable, the Army and the Marines need to stop paying tuition for the same lessons over and over again. I realize that not all of this lack of organizational awareness is theirs. A great deal of the responsibility for lack of responsiveness lies at the feet of elected officials who do not do their part and provide the clarity of purpose upon which coherent military strategies are based. The mist in Congress becomes a dense fog for those who are tasked with the nation's defense.
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