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Counterinsurgency: The Origins, Development & Myths of the New Way of War
Counterinsurgency has staked its claim in the new century as the new American way of war. Yet, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived a historical debate about the costs – monetary, political and moral – of operations designed to eliminate insurgents and build nations. Today's counterinsurgency proponents point to 'small wars' past to support their view that the enemy is 'biddable' if the correct tactical formulas are applied. Douglas Porch's sweeping history of counterinsurgency campaigns carried out by the three 'providential nations' of France, Britain and the United States, ranging from nineteenth-century colonial conquests to General Petraeus's 'Surge' in Iraq, challenges the contemporary mythologising of counterinsurgency as a humane way of war. The reality, he reveals, is that 'hearts and minds' has never been a recipe for lasting stability and that past counterinsurgency campaigns have succeeded not through state-building but by shattering and dividing societies while unsettling civil-military relations.
450 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2013
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163 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Porch
15 books20 followersDouglas Porch is an American historian, academic and a Professor and former Chair of the Department of National Security Affairs for the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee in 1967 and a Ph. D. from Cambridge University in 1972. He has been a professor of strategy at the Naval War College, a guest lecturer at the Marine Corps University, a post-doctoral research fellow at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the Mark W. Clark Professor of History at The Citadel.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 14, 2015
Douglas Porch is a military historian at the Naval Postgraduate School who has written about the French military history for most of his career. In his latest work, he attempts to undermine what he sees as the uncritical devotion of many contemporary scholars, generals, and public figures, or “COIN-dinistas,” to counterinsurgency. This myth contends that counterinsurgency is a viable and ethical strategy with a history of successful practice and insightful doctrine in the French and British armies. Porch ultimately aims to discourage the modern US military from its embrace of counterinsurgency by challenging the COIN-dinista’s reading of the history of counterinsurgency.
Porch organizes his book into chronological case studies that present a history of counterinsurgency since the early 19th century. His first two chapters examine the “small wars” in French, British, and American colonies in the 19th century and early 20th century, which he claims were “antecedents of counterinsurgency” in the 20th century and today (3). He argues that an early form of counterinsurgency developed in conflicts like the Boer War or France’s wars in North Africa that featured racially motivated atrocities and “population-centric” tactics like mass internment of civilians, destroying shelters and food supplies, and torture.
In chapters four through nine, Porch challenges the COIN-dinista narrative of British, French, American, and Latin American counterinsurgency history. He challenges the view that view that the French and British in post-World War II decolonization wars established a counterinsurgency doctrine that was relatively humane, often successful, and useful for American counterinsurgency thinking. He argues that British and French counterinsurgency practices remained exceptionally brutal and racist, as in Kenya or Algeria. Even in Malaya, which modern counterinsurgency theorists point to as a textbook example of counterinsurgency’s success, victory emerged from the deep weaknesses of the insurgents and British experience with imperial policing rather than the application of counterinsurgency theory.
Furthermore, Porch argues that the COIN-dinistas see Vietnam as “unfinished business” (202). They believe that counterinsurgency would have worked, but a military leadership that could not learn or adjust effectively away from their conventional mindset failed to apply the correct strategy. In contrast, Porch contends that the military actually did learn and apply counterinsurgency concepts, that a pure counterinsurgency strategy would have been ineffective against a hybrid Vietnamese foe, and that the real reason the US lost was an intractable political situation. Porch disputes yet another COIN-dinista argument in his chapter on Latin America. He argues that the failure of most insurgent movements in Latin America stemmed from the incompetence of the revolutionaries and the application of conventional tactics but not to counterinsurgency.
In chapters ten and eleven, Porch challenges the most recent COIN-dinista myth that a band of counterinsurgency experts led by David Petraeus constructed a brilliant counterinsurgency doctrine (Field Manual 3-24) and put that doctrine into action during the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, which turned the tide of the war and vaulted counterinsurgency to public prestige. Porch retorts that American soldiers had already started adapting to the insurgency before FM 3-24 and that the decline of the insurgency in Iraq resulted not from the surge but from the Sunni Awakening, political deal-brokering, ethnic cleansing, and the arming of warlords to keep the peace.
Porch’s thesis is that throughout the last two centuries counterinsurgency has exhibited a relatively consistent set of flawed and unethical views and practices that are reflected in modern counterinsurgency to the detriment of the US military and nations in which it practices COIN. Among these views and practices are a racialized and Orientalist conception of occupied societies, an unrealistic expectation that military intervention can transform social dynamics, violence against the civilian population, a tendency to upset civil-military relations by militarizing policy and personnel, a focus on tactics and operations at the expense of strategy and politics, and an irrational commitment to special operations. His study of counterinsurgency’s history is integral to this critique because modern counterinsurgency writers have designed their theories around historical theorists like David Galula and positive or negative historical examples.
As an historical argument, Porch validly if unoriginally conveys the brutality and racism of imperial warfare in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the book falters as a critique of 21st century counterinsurgency doctrine and practice mainly because Porch regularly employs straw man arguments. He presents a distorted and incomplete version of FM 3-24 and other recent COIN-dinista writings. For example, he claims that FM 3-24 “offers no strategy for success” and discounts “the fact that insurgencies are political phenomena” (303). This claim ignores FM 3-24’s repeated emphasis that insurgencies have political roots and can ultimately be solved only by redressing those original causes. Furthermore, modern counterinsurgency writing is not as much of a “lineal descendent” of imperial counterinsurgency as Porch suggests (318). FM 3-24 and the writings of specialists such as John Nagl and Andrew Krepinevich emphasize heavy restraints on the use of force, a complex understanding of insurgent motivations, addressing popular grievances , and assiduously avoiding civilian casualties. It is difficult to imagine a Lyautey or Calwell endorsing this approach. Porch may be right that modern counterinsurgency does not always yield practical results, but his historical criticism of the theory does not hold up to scrutiny. Finally, he impugns the motives of contemporary COIN-dinistas, accusing them, for instance, of trying to “discredit conventional warfare rivals, snag the top echelons of the US Army,” and “hijack the policy” (341).
The US military needs a book that critically examines counterinsurgency and the way its boosters use history. Unfortunately, Porch’s unbalanced and vitriolic book will only alienate those it hopes to persuade and encourage more angry, counter-productive bickering.
Porch organizes his book into chronological case studies that present a history of counterinsurgency since the early 19th century. His first two chapters examine the “small wars” in French, British, and American colonies in the 19th century and early 20th century, which he claims were “antecedents of counterinsurgency” in the 20th century and today (3). He argues that an early form of counterinsurgency developed in conflicts like the Boer War or France’s wars in North Africa that featured racially motivated atrocities and “population-centric” tactics like mass internment of civilians, destroying shelters and food supplies, and torture.
In chapters four through nine, Porch challenges the COIN-dinista narrative of British, French, American, and Latin American counterinsurgency history. He challenges the view that view that the French and British in post-World War II decolonization wars established a counterinsurgency doctrine that was relatively humane, often successful, and useful for American counterinsurgency thinking. He argues that British and French counterinsurgency practices remained exceptionally brutal and racist, as in Kenya or Algeria. Even in Malaya, which modern counterinsurgency theorists point to as a textbook example of counterinsurgency’s success, victory emerged from the deep weaknesses of the insurgents and British experience with imperial policing rather than the application of counterinsurgency theory.
Furthermore, Porch argues that the COIN-dinistas see Vietnam as “unfinished business” (202). They believe that counterinsurgency would have worked, but a military leadership that could not learn or adjust effectively away from their conventional mindset failed to apply the correct strategy. In contrast, Porch contends that the military actually did learn and apply counterinsurgency concepts, that a pure counterinsurgency strategy would have been ineffective against a hybrid Vietnamese foe, and that the real reason the US lost was an intractable political situation. Porch disputes yet another COIN-dinista argument in his chapter on Latin America. He argues that the failure of most insurgent movements in Latin America stemmed from the incompetence of the revolutionaries and the application of conventional tactics but not to counterinsurgency.
In chapters ten and eleven, Porch challenges the most recent COIN-dinista myth that a band of counterinsurgency experts led by David Petraeus constructed a brilliant counterinsurgency doctrine (Field Manual 3-24) and put that doctrine into action during the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, which turned the tide of the war and vaulted counterinsurgency to public prestige. Porch retorts that American soldiers had already started adapting to the insurgency before FM 3-24 and that the decline of the insurgency in Iraq resulted not from the surge but from the Sunni Awakening, political deal-brokering, ethnic cleansing, and the arming of warlords to keep the peace.
Porch’s thesis is that throughout the last two centuries counterinsurgency has exhibited a relatively consistent set of flawed and unethical views and practices that are reflected in modern counterinsurgency to the detriment of the US military and nations in which it practices COIN. Among these views and practices are a racialized and Orientalist conception of occupied societies, an unrealistic expectation that military intervention can transform social dynamics, violence against the civilian population, a tendency to upset civil-military relations by militarizing policy and personnel, a focus on tactics and operations at the expense of strategy and politics, and an irrational commitment to special operations. His study of counterinsurgency’s history is integral to this critique because modern counterinsurgency writers have designed their theories around historical theorists like David Galula and positive or negative historical examples.
As an historical argument, Porch validly if unoriginally conveys the brutality and racism of imperial warfare in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the book falters as a critique of 21st century counterinsurgency doctrine and practice mainly because Porch regularly employs straw man arguments. He presents a distorted and incomplete version of FM 3-24 and other recent COIN-dinista writings. For example, he claims that FM 3-24 “offers no strategy for success” and discounts “the fact that insurgencies are political phenomena” (303). This claim ignores FM 3-24’s repeated emphasis that insurgencies have political roots and can ultimately be solved only by redressing those original causes. Furthermore, modern counterinsurgency writing is not as much of a “lineal descendent” of imperial counterinsurgency as Porch suggests (318). FM 3-24 and the writings of specialists such as John Nagl and Andrew Krepinevich emphasize heavy restraints on the use of force, a complex understanding of insurgent motivations, addressing popular grievances , and assiduously avoiding civilian casualties. It is difficult to imagine a Lyautey or Calwell endorsing this approach. Porch may be right that modern counterinsurgency does not always yield practical results, but his historical criticism of the theory does not hold up to scrutiny. Finally, he impugns the motives of contemporary COIN-dinistas, accusing them, for instance, of trying to “discredit conventional warfare rivals, snag the top echelons of the US Army,” and “hijack the policy” (341).
The US military needs a book that critically examines counterinsurgency and the way its boosters use history. Unfortunately, Porch’s unbalanced and vitriolic book will only alienate those it hopes to persuade and encourage more angry, counter-productive bickering.
September 11, 2013
For all his pedigree as a historian, Porch does not understand what counterinsurgency is and therefore pens a long, dense but totally off-the-mark critique of it. He conflates it with colonial warfare, with the Holocaust, with foreign internal defense - whatever he can get his hands on to make counterinsurgency look bad. It is easy to make COIN look bad, and I expected a more thorough treatment from Porch. Unfortunately, this is far too rushed, far too tendentious, to be convincing. It doesn't help that Porch - and this is disturbing from a historian - cooks the book by pretending to comment on a campaign while focusing only on its first two years (Malaya) or provides what anyone with a cursory knowledge of the cases should know is only half the story (Dhofar, in passing, and also El Salvador). Finally, when he blames the British Army for not having defeated IRA by itself (286) he clearly reveals his ignorance of all things COIN, in that it is never about achieving decisive military victories but rather enabling the political programs necessary to address the causes of violence. To Porch, such a solution is interpreted as COIN's failure, which should give you an idea of how the analysis is twisted and turned in this screed of a book.
July 5, 2023
Ja, ik voeg nu ook boeken van mijn scriptie toe om de reading challenge te spekken. Wat ga je eraan doen?
October 31, 2018
With „Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War“ Douglas Porch tries to show the negative sides of the historical roots of the COIN doctrine provided in FM 3-24 (2006) and although making some good points, generally makes an unprofessional contribution to the discussion.
This book in fact tries to deliver on its title. Porch perceives a current myth of COIN in the U.S. as a highly sophisticated and benevolent technique to pacify areas without stating a source for the myths he is trying to counter. He plunges right into his attack on these perceived myths without providing any reference frame for the discussion so a reader unaware of it, has a hard time understanding what the author is ranting about.
The framework of the book is to put the perceived myths in direct relation to its historical roots in British, French and U.S. campaigns of the past. As Porch narrows his historical analysis to these three nation’s experiences and also narrows the time frame to only discuss the historical development since the 18th century his historical analysis is neither comprehensive nor varied but rather selective. Resulting from his chosen examples Porch perceives COIN as a form of imperial policing and does not hide his contempt for it as it allegedly was less professionally developed than conventional warfare.
The historical examples Porch provides are well described although sometimes not well researched and interpreted decidedly one-sidedly. The conduct and results of historical actions two hundred years old, are thus directly linked to COIN tactics of today. Here again Porch makes the assumption COIN was only a set of tactics disregarding strategy and that not only no specialized training was necessary to conduct it, but that COIN was a dead-end with regard to the development of military professionalism and eroding core military capabilities.
While the historical examples are clearly the strong point of the book and Porch’s conclusions are at least to be considered, his disregarding and abusive tone regarding opinions conflicting with his one is a nuisance throughout the book and gives a very unprofessional impression damaging his arguments. Coupled with the rather vague and unsourced description of the myths, he wants to debunk, one is left with the impression, he actually builds a strawman selecting extreme positions easy to refute and declaring them to be arguments of COIN proponents.
Overall Porch does provide some good historical examples but fails to develop them into compelling arguments or put them into a context of the overall discussion. A reader familiar with the discussion and its arguments will find some interesting things to ponder alternating with dubious conclusions, whereas someone unfamiliar will read an angry rant against unsubstantiated myths.
This book in fact tries to deliver on its title. Porch perceives a current myth of COIN in the U.S. as a highly sophisticated and benevolent technique to pacify areas without stating a source for the myths he is trying to counter. He plunges right into his attack on these perceived myths without providing any reference frame for the discussion so a reader unaware of it, has a hard time understanding what the author is ranting about.
The framework of the book is to put the perceived myths in direct relation to its historical roots in British, French and U.S. campaigns of the past. As Porch narrows his historical analysis to these three nation’s experiences and also narrows the time frame to only discuss the historical development since the 18th century his historical analysis is neither comprehensive nor varied but rather selective. Resulting from his chosen examples Porch perceives COIN as a form of imperial policing and does not hide his contempt for it as it allegedly was less professionally developed than conventional warfare.
The historical examples Porch provides are well described although sometimes not well researched and interpreted decidedly one-sidedly. The conduct and results of historical actions two hundred years old, are thus directly linked to COIN tactics of today. Here again Porch makes the assumption COIN was only a set of tactics disregarding strategy and that not only no specialized training was necessary to conduct it, but that COIN was a dead-end with regard to the development of military professionalism and eroding core military capabilities.
While the historical examples are clearly the strong point of the book and Porch’s conclusions are at least to be considered, his disregarding and abusive tone regarding opinions conflicting with his one is a nuisance throughout the book and gives a very unprofessional impression damaging his arguments. Coupled with the rather vague and unsourced description of the myths, he wants to debunk, one is left with the impression, he actually builds a strawman selecting extreme positions easy to refute and declaring them to be arguments of COIN proponents.
Overall Porch does provide some good historical examples but fails to develop them into compelling arguments or put them into a context of the overall discussion. A reader familiar with the discussion and its arguments will find some interesting things to ponder alternating with dubious conclusions, whereas someone unfamiliar will read an angry rant against unsubstantiated myths.
February 15, 2025
As with Gian Gentile's Wrong Turn, this is basically a book-length version of Hitler's Kommandobefehl. And, as with Gentile and all of Bacevich's books, this book is sparsely endnoted, citing as is also Bacevich's wont, not a single archival source or letter and rather using newspaper articles, public speeches and secondary sources. Porch covers several wars across several centuries, yet has a small fraction of the references of Mark Mazower's
Inside Hitler's Greece
, which only covers
ONE
war. This indicates that Porch, like Gentile and Bacevich, is a lazy, sloppy historian who prefers the low hanging fruit. This book far more resembles James Holland, Ben Macintyre and Nicholas Rankin's endless childish
Boys' Own
books than it does proper history along the lines of Mark Mazower, Colonel Edward B. Westermann's
Hitler's Ostkrieg And The Indian Wars
and Rudolf von Ribbentrop's
My Father Joachim von Ribbentrop
. Rudolf von Ribbentrop cites several archives, but, unlike Porch with this book, he started out wanting to write a memoir and not history, which indicates how shoddy Porch's work is.
At least unlike Gentile, he acknowledges the existence of the Indian Wars. This is marred by his peremptorily dismissing them as "razzias" when Peter Cozzens, Colonel Edward Westermann, Robert Remini and Colin Calloway's books on the matter shows them to be complex affairs wherein the military very often sided with the Indians against settlers and politicians.
That being said, he, like Gentile, disingenuously ignores the Reconstruction as an egregious failure of nation building because he agrees with the Reconstruction politically.
He says that British Indian troops were "unsuited to trench warfare in Europe," which would be news to the author of Sepoys in the Trenches.
He attacks Wingate as a failure in Burma, neglecting to mention that the Clausewitzian Irwin and Stillwell also failed in their conventional operations in Burma.
He mispells von Trotha.
He ignores the NKVD's smashing of the Baltic Forrest Brothers and of the SAS' victories in Borneo and Oman because they do not fit his theses. Likewise, he ignores the US Army's defeat of William Clarke Quantrill, John Hunt Morgan and John Singleton Mosby.
He has a bizarre, fawning obsession with Napoleon, who introduced to Europe the disease of nationalism without which there would have never been a Third Reich. He also worships Clausewitz, who manifestly failed to understand the "Tatars" (Clausewitz said that the "Tatars"--by which he meant the Mongol Golden Horde, which had long wiped out the Tatars and which was overwhelmingly Polovstsian/Cuman/Qipchaq--invadedand destroyed everything, whereas Marie Favreau revealed that the Golden Horde merely requested suzerainty over the Rus, and then, contrary to Clausewitz--and by extension Porch's--allegations, actually encouraged and supported the Kniaz (Rus Princes) as an institution.)
Porch is evidently worked up about the Wolfowitz wars. That is understandable. However, he and Gentile would have done better to attack these wars as being foreign, hobbyist wars than with what they did in attacking a method of warfare America used with ultimate lasting success from 1779 to 1922.
As well, Porch was in the US Army until 1974. If at that time he had really objected to Vietnam, why did he not publicly resign like the late Colonel David Hackworth did?
At least unlike Gentile, he acknowledges the existence of the Indian Wars. This is marred by his peremptorily dismissing them as "razzias" when Peter Cozzens, Colonel Edward Westermann, Robert Remini and Colin Calloway's books on the matter shows them to be complex affairs wherein the military very often sided with the Indians against settlers and politicians.
That being said, he, like Gentile, disingenuously ignores the Reconstruction as an egregious failure of nation building because he agrees with the Reconstruction politically.
He says that British Indian troops were "unsuited to trench warfare in Europe," which would be news to the author of Sepoys in the Trenches.
He attacks Wingate as a failure in Burma, neglecting to mention that the Clausewitzian Irwin and Stillwell also failed in their conventional operations in Burma.
He mispells von Trotha.
He ignores the NKVD's smashing of the Baltic Forrest Brothers and of the SAS' victories in Borneo and Oman because they do not fit his theses. Likewise, he ignores the US Army's defeat of William Clarke Quantrill, John Hunt Morgan and John Singleton Mosby.
He has a bizarre, fawning obsession with Napoleon, who introduced to Europe the disease of nationalism without which there would have never been a Third Reich. He also worships Clausewitz, who manifestly failed to understand the "Tatars" (Clausewitz said that the "Tatars"--by which he meant the Mongol Golden Horde, which had long wiped out the Tatars and which was overwhelmingly Polovstsian/Cuman/Qipchaq--invadedand destroyed everything, whereas Marie Favreau revealed that the Golden Horde merely requested suzerainty over the Rus, and then, contrary to Clausewitz--and by extension Porch's--allegations, actually encouraged and supported the Kniaz (Rus Princes) as an institution.)
Porch is evidently worked up about the Wolfowitz wars. That is understandable. However, he and Gentile would have done better to attack these wars as being foreign, hobbyist wars than with what they did in attacking a method of warfare America used with ultimate lasting success from 1779 to 1922.
As well, Porch was in the US Army until 1974. If at that time he had really objected to Vietnam, why did he not publicly resign like the late Colonel David Hackworth did?
February 26, 2024
The history is great in this book. With the caveat that the book assumes you already know a lot about the events described as it doesn’t explicitly describe them but rather jumps right in the middle of the events.
Overall this is an academic diatribe about how everyone did it wrong and the only ones who had any success were those who were slightly less incompetent than their peers. At no point was there a proposed solution to the problems brought up or any praise or credit given for successes that did take place. Maybe I missed the point of what the author was trying to do but overall this book was majorly disappointing and I feel less educated for having read it not more. The only thing that saved this from getting a 1 star is the historical points were great. A better structure would have been to make the book longer described only what happened and then expand on the theory afterwards. Instead theory and criticism is mixed in as you go with a noticeable bitter cynicism as its tone. Again very disappointed…
Overall this is an academic diatribe about how everyone did it wrong and the only ones who had any success were those who were slightly less incompetent than their peers. At no point was there a proposed solution to the problems brought up or any praise or credit given for successes that did take place. Maybe I missed the point of what the author was trying to do but overall this book was majorly disappointing and I feel less educated for having read it not more. The only thing that saved this from getting a 1 star is the historical points were great. A better structure would have been to make the book longer described only what happened and then expand on the theory afterwards. Instead theory and criticism is mixed in as you go with a noticeable bitter cynicism as its tone. Again very disappointed…
December 22, 2025
Read this for my research, might be one of the densest studies and books I have ever read. Extremely informative however and very well structured. My mentor used this as a litmus test for how I would perform conducting our literature review and future study.
December 17, 2013
A tremendous and damning book. Porch shreds what he calls the terrible scholarship of COIN supporters, showing how - from the beginning - many of the prized tenets of COIN (and supposed characteristics of successful COIN forces) are not supported by the historical record. More devastatingly, he shows how the negative effects of COIN - the "coarsening" of attitudes amongst the counterinsurgents, the escalation of violence against the people unavoidable in internal conflicts, the crises in civil-military relations and the blowback of attitudes, fears, and law enforcement and security techniques to the counterinsurgent's homeland. From the origins of modern COIN theory in French North Africa in the early-to-mid-18th century to Iraq and Afghanistan, Porch goes after the most sacred texts of COIN, from Lawrence to Krepinevich to Callwell. An intensively scholarly and sometimes difficult read, but a good and important one.
I have two major issues with Porch. One is his refusal to outline a serious alternative. He decries SOF-ization of the military and foreign policy and the drone, but offers no alternative to these tools for counterterrorism (themselves alternatives from long-term occupation a la Iraq and Afghanistan). While I certainly understand an overarching point that military force generally will not generate desired results or accomplish anything on the cheap, like many other COIN critics he leaves the question of what American strategy against al Qa'ida, at least some of whom are intent on committing acts of terrorism in the United States, not just in occupied lands, completely unanswered.
The other gripe I have is what I call for lack of a better term "academic determinism." As he pillories the COIN generals and the media who spin yarns about them (even as they themselves are manipulated), he always ascribes the worst motives. E.g., Thomas Ricks doesn't write glowingly of Petraeus because Petraeus directly addressed many of the problems Ricks saw with the Army in Iraq, but because he has to find a way to romanticize his favored doctrine. BS. Just because somebody is part of a historical trend doesn't mean they are knowingly motivated by it. This attitude is painfully reminiscent of COL Gentile's book on COIN, which would make many of the points Porch does in this much better work if it wasn't too busy settling personal scores.
Those gripes aside, this is really a must read, especially for anyone like myself who at one time embraced COIN as the way forward for the US military.
I have two major issues with Porch. One is his refusal to outline a serious alternative. He decries SOF-ization of the military and foreign policy and the drone, but offers no alternative to these tools for counterterrorism (themselves alternatives from long-term occupation a la Iraq and Afghanistan). While I certainly understand an overarching point that military force generally will not generate desired results or accomplish anything on the cheap, like many other COIN critics he leaves the question of what American strategy against al Qa'ida, at least some of whom are intent on committing acts of terrorism in the United States, not just in occupied lands, completely unanswered.
The other gripe I have is what I call for lack of a better term "academic determinism." As he pillories the COIN generals and the media who spin yarns about them (even as they themselves are manipulated), he always ascribes the worst motives. E.g., Thomas Ricks doesn't write glowingly of Petraeus because Petraeus directly addressed many of the problems Ricks saw with the Army in Iraq, but because he has to find a way to romanticize his favored doctrine. BS. Just because somebody is part of a historical trend doesn't mean they are knowingly motivated by it. This attitude is painfully reminiscent of COL Gentile's book on COIN, which would make many of the points Porch does in this much better work if it wasn't too busy settling personal scores.
Those gripes aside, this is really a must read, especially for anyone like myself who at one time embraced COIN as the way forward for the US military.
January 8, 2014
This book could be more accurately described as a thinly-veiled condemnation of imperialism and the related COIN tactics that accompany it rather than an attack on COIN per se. It's a pity, too, because Mr. Porch spoils some fine historical and strategic analysis with some unnecessary and regrettable exaggerations of COIN tactics and condescension toward those with whom he would disagree. Describing the Vietnam-era Phoenix program in multiple places as an "assassination" regime (it was much more than that) or decrying US "scorched earth tactics" (page 321, laughable to anyone who has spent even a day there) in Afghanistan undermines his case and calls into question some of the conclusions he draws regarding his subject. Similarly, Mr. Porch engages in childish name calling of "SOF cowboys" based on little more than Rolling Stone author Michael Hastings' less-than-scholarly treatment of General Stanley McChrystal and his teammates. He also warns, unconvincingly, that COIN fetishes have led to the diminution of civil liberties at home but ignores that conventional wars have produced the same baleful effects.
Stylistically, the book is somewhat awkward. There are minor spelling inconsistencies (General Shinseki's name, for example, is misspelled) and Mr. Porch's academic writing style gives us prose with a tendency to meander.
Having said that, the book's strength lies in its focus on the strategic context on each of the insurgencies under Mr. Porch's analytic gaze. He puts the importance of this strategic context into its proper place of supremacy over COIN tactics. Similarly, Mr. Porch is at his best in throwing cold water on British and French claims to superiority in small wars and he effectively demolishes the Nagl myth of the US Army as a non-learning institution.
As Mr. Porch avers, places where counterinsurgencies tend to take place are rarely within the sphere of America's vital national interests, are subject to the Clausewitzian factors of fog, friction, unpredictability, and chance, and are damned hard to withdraw from once engaged. That American Wilsonians (of both parties) continue to stumble into these briar patches and cause great harm to our nation makes Mr. Porch's book highly recommended.
Stylistically, the book is somewhat awkward. There are minor spelling inconsistencies (General Shinseki's name, for example, is misspelled) and Mr. Porch's academic writing style gives us prose with a tendency to meander.
Having said that, the book's strength lies in its focus on the strategic context on each of the insurgencies under Mr. Porch's analytic gaze. He puts the importance of this strategic context into its proper place of supremacy over COIN tactics. Similarly, Mr. Porch is at his best in throwing cold water on British and French claims to superiority in small wars and he effectively demolishes the Nagl myth of the US Army as a non-learning institution.
As Mr. Porch avers, places where counterinsurgencies tend to take place are rarely within the sphere of America's vital national interests, are subject to the Clausewitzian factors of fog, friction, unpredictability, and chance, and are damned hard to withdraw from once engaged. That American Wilsonians (of both parties) continue to stumble into these briar patches and cause great harm to our nation makes Mr. Porch's book highly recommended.
September 11, 2013
For all his pedigree as a historian, Porch does not understand what counterinsurgency is and therefore pens a long, dense but totally off-the-mark critique of it. He conflates it with colonial warfare, with the Holocaust, with foreign internal defense - whatever he can get his hands on to make counterinsurgency look bad. It is easy to make COIN look bad, and I expected a more thorough treatment from Porch. Unfortunately, this is far too rushed, far too tendentious, to be convincing. It doesn't help that Porch - and this is disturbing from a historian - cooks the book by pretending to comment on a campaign while focusing only on its first two years (Malaya) or provides what anyone with a cursory knowledge of the cases should know is only half the story (Dhofar, in passing, and also El Salvador). Finally, when he blames the British Army for not having defeated IRA by itself (286) he clearly reveals his ignorance of all things COIN, in that it is never about achieving decisive military victories but rather enabling the political programs necessary to address the causes of violence. To Porch, such a solution is interpreted as COIN's failure, which should give you an idea of how the analysis is twisted and turned in this screed of a book.
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December 27, 2015If you're in uniform, active or reserve components, these matters need your attention.
January 24, 2016
Must read if you want to have an intelligent debate about the War on Terror and the situation in the Middle East and US involvement/intervention.
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