SEPTEMBER 2009

Book Review

BAD STRATEGIES: How Major Powers Fail in Counterinsurgency

Learning From the Past

Review by LtCol Greg McCarthy, USMCR

James Corum’s Bad Strategies discusses four case studies examining how Western powers failed to defeat insurgencies in Algeria, Cyprus, Vietnam, and Iraq. Algeria and Cyprus cover conflicts involving France and Great Britain, respectively, which began in the 1950s. The chapters covering both Vietnam and Iraq are familiar to Gazette readers.

The author is a former U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who assisted in writing the 2006 Army-Marine Corps Field Manual 3–24, Counterinsurgency. The book’s overall message is that there is nothing new under the sun. The book is slightly Army-centric. The author might have mentioned the Corps’ Small Wars Manual (1940) or the 1920s efforts of LtCol Pete Ellis at counterinsurgency theory that predate his cases. The author commendably credits the Marine Corps’ combined action platoons in Vietnam as being an unqualified, if underused, success. He highlights the longstanding tension within the Army’s conventional and special forces. He names GEN Creighton W. Abrams, Army Chief of Staff from 1972 to 1974, as one of the few “able to succeed” in both approaches. Certainly GENs David H. Petraeus and Ray T. Odierno have joined this category.

The Iraq chapter ends in mid-2007 before the full effects of the surge were felt. Iraq now looks slightly better than the less controversial effort in Afghanistan. His discussion of perennial interagency breakdowns in the U.S. Government shows a problem brought to new lows in Iraq.

Corum argues that Iraq missteps show a breakdown in civil-military relations, but the work would benefit from a discussion of Irving Janis’ seminal groupthink theory (1972) applied to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s leadership style. But, contrary to the author, historians may conclude that Rumsfeld was too easy on subordinates rather than too hard.

Corum’s discussion of neoconservatives, the influential intellectual force long supportive of deposing Saddam Hussein, borders on caricature. The former President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and many Members of Congress supported and implemented key decisions and cannot be characterized as neoconservatives. He also falls for the canard that civilians with no military experience pushed the Iraq war while combat veterans (notably Gen Anthony C. Zinni, USMC(Ret)) wisely opposed it. In fact, one of the chief architects of the surge was former Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane. There were veterans and nonveterans on all sides of the Iraq dispute.

France’s Algeria experience provides perhaps the most ominous parallels to the present. Controversies over how to interrogate detainees, concerns over collateral damage, and tiptoeing around the native religion echo today’s challenges. France had 6 relatively successful years in combating insurgents, only for it to unravel 2 years later.

The author’s discussion of Vietnam is uncomfortably comparable to Afghanistan—a corrupt central government alienating a rural populace, an insurgency dominating the countryside (the Viet Cong and Taliban), and a leader favoring clan over the common good (Ngo Diem and his fellow Catholics, Hamid Karzai and Pashtuns). The Diem regime fell (with help from the Kennedy administration) at 9 years; the Karzai government will mark 8 years in late 2009.

The author highlights numerous political blunders that led to setbacks against insurgencies. Seeking the support of the target civilian populace is required for ultimate success. Corum seems sympathetic to the latest fad of “smart power” or a “diplomatic surge,” often directed at Afghanistan. But this approach minimizes the importance of restoring law and order. Insurgencies cannot be defeated only militarily, but they must be at least crippled militarily. Soft power thrives in a permissive environment.

The book has one major omission that would test the author’s thesis more thoroughly. Navin A. Bapat studied 129 insurgencies from 1955 to 2005 and found their defeat coming in 4 to 7 years.1 With slightly different parameters, Naval War College Professor Donald Stoker calculated 8 to 11 years.2 The roughly 71/2 years these authors estimate is close to the median between the amount of time the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have taken to date, albeit with no quick end in sight.

The author suggests that good decisions buy time, but the larger literature indicates an insurgency life cycle that is hard to preempt. Will future leaders be given the time to address them? Does today’s iPod-driven public have the patience to crack a nearly worldwide Islamic insurgency? Counterinsurgency and its modern cousin, counterterrorism, have yet to take center stage at the Department of Defense. Corum is unquestionably correct that the balance between means and ends must be closely monitored and constantly adjusted to defeat insurgencies. Bad Strategies is a multifaceted story and a useful contribution to military audiences and decisionmakers.

Notes
1. Bapat, Navin A., “Insurgency and the Opening of Peace Processes,” Journal of Peace Research, 42: pp. 699–717, published in association with the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway, 2005.

2. Stoker, Donald, “Insurgencies Rarely Win–And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different,” Foreign Policy, the Slate Group, a Division of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC, Washington, DC, January 2007.

>LtCol McCarthy is a Reserve officer serving as a Field Historian, Marine Corps History Division, and works as a civilian on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.