Guerilla Warfare

Guerilla Warfare

Militant Tricks
First off, all John Poole's books should be read by the Secretary of Defense on down to the grunt in the field and more military outfits should go through his course. (Check out his website at www.posteritypress.org for more information.) Secondly, this particular book and his previous work Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Tactics should be MANDATORY READING for every soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. If you're headed that way buy these books! Put them in a ziplock bag and place them in your rucksack. If you have a loved one who's deploying to these theaters of operation and they don't know about these books buy them these books! These books may very well save their lives!

The Counter Insurgency Manual
Leroy Thompson does it again with his newest installment in his tactical manual series; "The Counter Insurgency Manual - Tactics Of The Anti-Guerrilla Professionals". This book is formatted and laid out like his previous title "Hostage Rescue Manual". For the size of the book it covers a broad subject coving everything from Guerrilla theories to small unit operations. The book contains many sidebars of historical examples and in-depth author comments, which highlight and authenticate the subject matter. The book is profusely illustrated and contains many B&W photos, many of which are unpublished Rhodesian bush war era photos (which alone make the book worth the buy) and other relevant photos. Some of the subjects covered in the book include psychological operations, hearts and minds, Ambushes, booby-traps, combat tracking and pseudo-guerrilla operations. One of my favorite chapters is "Trackers and Pseudo-Guerrillas", which includes extensive tips on tracking as used by David Scott-Donelan in Rhodesia and South African bush wars. It also goes into the Pseudo-operation concept and how it is used as formidable weapon in a low intensity conflict. This is the concept made famous by the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia, which accounted for more dead terrorist then any other unit in the war. Over all, the book is a good reference, but only covers the surface of most subjects. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a interest in special operations, with most of the skills discussed in this book being the bread and butter of most of the worlds special forces that still employ these tactics all over the world (much like how the Green Berets are operating in Afghanistan presently).

Tactics of the Crescent Moon
This book is truly remarkable. In Tactics of the Crescent Moon, John Poole provides an incredibly insightful analysis of the Middle Eastern problem and our role in trying to resolve it. He explains extremely complicated issues with remarkable clarity, examining them from historical, political, cultural, military and moral perspectives. Despite the immense scope of the book, his key insights never get lost in the complexity of his subject matter. At the most fundamental level, John Poole provides detailed tactical descriptions of exactly how our Middle Eastern adversaries fight. To illuminate the big picture, he clearly shows how these tactical examples relate to the larger cultural and political issues. He goes on to propose solutions that can help American privates survive, help commanders make better decisions, help generals develop better strategies and even help politicians make better military policies. Most importantly, the book's profound morality offers insight on how to win what might be the most important battle of all, the battle for the moral high ground. We will not win this war on terrorism if we lose touch, even for a moment, with the great and noble values that make us who we are. John Poole reminds us that when Americans go to war we bring with us our honor, our compassion, our love of freedom, and our belief in the equality of all people. Our morality is our ultimate weapon.

Aden Insurgency
Featuring vivid eyewitness accounts from combatants, civilians and terrorists alike, a new, riveting and important account of Britain's last End of Empire conflict. As Cold War tensions escalated, a brutal fight was contested with the rebel tribes of the wild interior as well as terrorist assassins in the back streets of Aden.

Revealing the truth behind the 'Mad Mitch' legend and his clash with the high command and the successes and disasters of early SAS operation, this is one of the very few modern studies to examine Britain's clandestine war in neighboring Yemen alongside her conflict in South America.

Given that Sun Tsu wrote that the first part of any strategy is to know one's enemy, it is consequently no surprise that the British efforts to stay on in Aden ended in a humiliating defeat. For years, the British didn't even know who their principal enemy was. Perhaps this complete cultural illiteracy and blindness to the political and historical undercurrents is what makes this book absolutely stellar; it seems to be an iteration of an all too frequent political process: throw English-speaking soldiers with massive firepower into an Arab country, ignore most, if not all, political and historical undercurrents, label all dissidents "terrorists" to be ignored or shot, and then ultimately watch the theoretically superior force leave in shame, defeated by unconventional warfare. Semper idem! That the British were forced to leave is no surprise, and given Aden's subsequent fate, a tragedy. Many, many former subjects of the British Empire will truthfully tell you that their lives were much better under the British.

That a British historian can, in all seriousness, write such a one-sided history is perhaps surprising, and certainly a warning to subsequent "pacifiers" of the Arab world. Perhaps the implicit lessons to be drawn from this book make it worth while to anglophones interested by the Middle East's military history.

Military Discounts