Reviews for Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War

The average rating for Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-04-28 00:00:00 Mikayla Grant Cassidy's take on modern counterinsurgency is divergent from majority opinion which makes for a somewhat more entertaining read. Text straddles Kilcullen and Nagl about equally, a feat I'm sure both men would appreciate. Specifically in the case of Kilcullen, Cassidy goes heavily into the Winning Hearts And Minds idea and indigenous development of both force and economy as a way to pull loyalty away from insurgents. While Kilcullen leans on Maslow's Hierarchy as a base to build from, Cassidy is more generic here and tends to lump the stabilization processes together as a heap. Cassidy hammers the militaries of multiple nations for the lessons the refuse to learn, in the spirit of Nagl, as well as a subhuman method of interaction with the population. In practically every example, the issue was not a disrespect for local customs but outright brutality against the society at large. If someone is just entering into the field and reading many books on it, I would suggest reading this before either of the other books mentioned as it would provide a decent primer for those texts much more detailed treatment of the subject.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-12-18 00:00:00 Rich Sprague Scholarly, well-written book explaining various theories of counter-insurgency, and how they could apply to current anti-terrorism campaigns. Discusses the history of counter-insurgency in Russia, Britain, and the United States.