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Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975.
In examining these two events, Nagl—the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Maass—argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but why the American army failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict. Nagl concludes that the British army, because of its role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics created by its history and national culture, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency.
With a new preface reflecting on the author's combat experience in Iraq, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is a timely examination of the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns that will be hailed by both military leaders and interested civilians.
(20060328)
Overrated, but still worth reading.
| Customer Rating:   | | Read this book when I was still on active duty. It got a lot of hype when OIF turned into the "long, hard, slog" and military professionals from the brass on down had to get smart on counterinsurgency real quick. I didn't feel his thesis was well supported, so in that regard this effort falls short. On the other hand, I found it a great guide to further reading on counterinsurgency - great value for the professional. For the nonprofessional, this is a decent introduction. |
NOT A GOOD BOOK ON COUNTERINSURGENCY
| Customer Rating: | | This is not truly a book about insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. According to Nagl, his thesis presented in this book is to examine "how armies learn." Nagl uses as case studies the British counterinsurgent campaign in Malaya and the U.S. campaign in Vietnam to explain his thesis on how armies learn. Consequently this is not a book about insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. It would be very misleading to promote that idea, and in fact dangerous, especially in light of what is occurring in the world today. Beyond that, Nagl uses the fallacy of a false historical analogy in attempting to compare the situations in Malaya and Vietnam. Just as there are very few similarities between our present conflict in Iraq and that of Vietnam, there are very few true similarities between Malaya and Vietnam. The second false analogy Nagl used was to compare the British Army with the U.S. Army. The two had and have different missions and approach various types of military operations in different manners, necessarily. Consequently, by using these false analogies, Nagl presents misleading conclusions. Be leery of the "Counterinsurgency Manual" also. We found many inaccuracies in it as well. For much more accurate information and views on insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, read Bernard Fall or even Galula. |
Flagrant disregard for historical accuracy
| Customer Rating: | In his book The Two Vietnams, the late Bernard Fall warned that any comparisons between British victories in Malaya and the situation in Vietnam in 1960's was nothing but a dangerous self-delusion, or worse, an oversimplification of the whole problem. Mr. Nagl should have followed that advice before he wrote this book.
These conflicts did not share much in common beyond the jungle setting and political ideology. The author's first error was not underscoring the fact that the British-led security forces did use overwhelming force to neutralize the insurgency in Malaya. By the mid-1950s the communist guerrillas were impossibly outnumbered (by more than 50 to 1) and they had no external support from foreign countries. Food control was easy for the British because Malaya imported 2/3 of its rice, and geography isolated the guerrillas from potential suppliers needed to maintain and expand the insurgency.
The most important dissimilarity is that the British did not have to fight a huge conventional field army like the PAVN, which ultimately numbered in millions of troops and thanks to China and Russia, it was armed with modern infantry weapons, tanks, heavy artillery, jet aircraft, SAMs, and radar controlled air defense. The last time the British fought pitched battles against conventional forces in Malaya, they were crushed by the Japanese Army in 1942.
The communist insurgency in Malaya amounted to little more than a few thousand guerrillas equipped with no sophisticated weapons. The small arms they did have were generally in poor condition, and ironically supplied to them by the British SOE during World War II. It was the British who raised and equipped these guerrillas to confront the Japanese occupation forces.
Geography also spared British Malaya from other communist threats. South Vietnam was bordered by three countries that were either communist or in various stages of revolt. Compared to Vietcong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army, the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were little more than a nuisance to U.S troops, but they did receive foreign military aid, and they were far more dangerous than the guerrillas in Malaya.
Unlike the Vietcong, the communist guerrillas in Malaya had no protected supply bases outside the borders. The Vietnamese insurgents were natives, but in Malaya about 90% of the guerrillas were foreign immigrants (Chinese). The massive British resettlement program of Chinese squatters was an idea that did not work with Vietnamese families who did not wish to be moved from their long-established homesteads.
A self-promoter like Sir Robert Thompson would not admit it, but the political realities of Asian self-determination may have played a bigger role in the outcome than the British armed forces. Prompted by bitter memories from the Fall of Singapore and reminded by the Fall of Dienbienphu, British officials knew that the days of white colonialism were numbered. That is why they agreed, in the middle of their Emergency, to let go of their rule and leave Malaya in exchange for the cooperation and support of the people. This was a significant concession made by the British and it cannot be stressed enough.
Finally, it would have been nice if the British Army offered more than lip service because they triggered the Vietnam war in September 1945. Major General Douglas Gracey was ordered to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, and he disobeyed instructions when he chose to restore French rule. The day before Gracey arrived in Saigon, French agents armed the Legionnaires who were released from captivity. They stormed government buildings and looted private homes. They attacked the Vietminh and other activists competing for power, as well as innocent bystanders. French and Vietnamese civilians seized on the opportunity to settle old scores. British troops sided with the French and General Gracey asked the Japanese prisoners to help because his own Gurkha troops were unable to contain the riots and open warfare. He wrongly believed that this series of actions had no serious political implications, which caused great embarrassment for Lord Mountbatten. The Japanese troops were rearmed and told to disarm all the Vietnamese militants, and remove the provisional Vietnamese Executive Committee at the Governor General's palace. Public utilities were disabled by the fighting and Martial Law was declared, sparking the conflagration that lasted 30 years.
The British were not successful at countering insurgencies in Java, Palestine, Cyprus and Aden so their collective experience is not a good model for addressing current troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
Theory From One Who Gets It
| Customer Rating: | To use a term that many in the military are fond of, Nagl "gets it." His understanding of counterinsurgency operations is both broad and deep, and his writing is smooth enough for the lay reader to comprehend without any difficulty.
Nagl's departure from the US Army will be a loss for this country's armed forces. However, since he will be taking a position at the Center for a New American Security, hopefully we can look forward to fresh work from this great military mind. |
Amazing
| Customer Rating: | | Very cool book for operators (armed forces and civilian) and regular people. It shows us what we should be trying to do in the whole world. Make people safer, and they'll help you find the really bad guys (not the everyday ones). Really worth reading. |
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