Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4224 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

Review
 "[A] highly regarded counterinsurgency manual."—Michael Schrage, Washington Post

(Michael Schrage Washington Post 04/01/2006)

"The success of DPhil papers by Oxford students is usually gauged by the amount of dust they gather on library shelves. But there is one that is so influential that General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, is said to carry it with him everywhere. Most of his staff have been ordered to read it and he pressed a copy into the hands of Donald Rumsfeld when he visited Baghdad in December. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (a title taken from T.E. Lawrence — himself no slouch in guerrilla warfare) is a study of how the British Army succeeded in snuffing out the Malayan insurgency between 1948 and 1960 — and why the Americans failed in Vietnam. . . . It is helping to transform the American military in the face of its greatest test since Vietnam. "—Tom Baldwin, Times (UK) (Tom Baldwin Times (UK) 03/20/2006)

"An extremely relevant text. Those interested in understanding the difficulties faced by Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, or who want to grasp the intricacies of the most likely form of conflict for the near future, will gain applicable lessons. [Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife] offers insights about how to mold America''s armed forces into modern learning organizations. As the Pentagon ponders its future in the Quadrennial Defense Review, one can only hope that Nagl''s invaluable lesson in learning and adapting is being exploited."—Frank G. Hoffman, Proceedings of the United State Naval Institute (Frank G. Hoffman eedings of the United State Naval Institue 01/01/2006)

"Brutal in its criticism of the Vietnam-era Army as an organization that failed to learn from its mistakes and tried vainly to fight guerrilla insurgents the same way it fought World War II. In [Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife], Col. Nagl, who served a year in Iraq, contrasts the U.S. Army''s failure with the British experience in Malaya in the 1950s. The difference: The British, who eventually prevailed, quickly saw the folly of using massive force to annihilate a shadowy communist enemy. . . . Col. Nagl''s book is one of a half dozen Vietnam histories -- most of them highly critical of the U.S. military in Vietnam -- that are changing the military''s views on how to fight guerrilla wars. . . .The tome has already had an influence on the ground in Iraq. Last winter, Gen. Casey opened a school for U.S. commanders in Iraq to help officers adjust to the demands of a guerrilla-style conflict in which the enemy hides among the people and tries to provoke an overreaction. The idea for the training center, says Gen. Casey, came in part from Col. Nagl''s book, which chronicles how the British in Malaya used a similar school to educate British officers coming into the country. ''Pretty much everyone on Gen. Casey''s staff had read Nagl''s book,'' says Lt. Col. Nathan Freier, who spent a year in Iraq as a strategist. A British brigadier general says that ''Gen. Casey carried the book with him everywhere.''"—Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal (Greg Jaffe Wall Street Journal 12/01/2005)

"As the United States enters its fifth year of the war on terror, military leaders are conducting low-intensity and counter-insurgency operations in several different areas around the world. Of the different books produced on this subject, LTC John Nagl''s Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is an absolute must for those who want to gain valuable insight on some of the hard lessons of fighting an insurgency before actually getting on the ground. The book expertly combines theoretical foundations of insurgencies with detailed historical lessons of Malaya and Vietnam to produce some very profound and topical implications for current military operations. The true success of the book is that Nagl discusses all of these complex issues in an easy-to-follow and straight-forward manner. . . . I read this book upon returning from my tour in Iraq after commanding a company on the ground for a year. I was amazed at how insightful and ''true'' the conclusions were and wished that I had read it before I deployed."—Nick Ayers, Armor  (Nick Ayers Armor 11/01/2005)

"Nagl, currently a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, focuses on organizational culture as the key to defeating insurgencies: successful militaries learn and adapt."—"Recommended Reading on Counterinsurgency," Nathaniel Fick, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute (Nathaniel Fick Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute 08/16/2006)

"The capacity to adapt is always a key contributor to military success. Nagl combines historical analysis with a comprehensive examination of organisational theory to rationalise why, as many of his readers will already intuitively sense, ''military organisations often demonstrate remarkable resistance to doctrinal change'' and fail to be as adaptive as required. His analysis is helpful in determining why the U.S. Army can appear so innovative in certain respects, and yet paradoxically slow to adapt in others."—Nigel R F Aylwin-Foster, Military Review (Nigel R F Aylwin-Foster Military Review 11/19/2006)

"One key army text is Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife by Lt. Col. John Nagl, which focuses on counterinsurgency lessons from the 1950s war in Malaya and from the Vietnam War. The title phrase was used by Lawrence of Arabia in describing the messy and time-consuming nature of defeating insurgents. Nagl focuses on the ability of armies to learn from mistakes and adapt their strategy and tactics—skills in which he finds U.S. forces lacking. He shows how the British in Malaya were nimble enough to defeat a communist insurgency, while the U.S. military in Vietnam clung to a failing doctrine of force. Sadly, the Pentagon had not absorbed such insights before invading Iraq. Nagl himself says he learned a lot more during a one-year tour in Iraq. His ideas, if applied back in mid-2003, might have checked the growth of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and prevented Sunni Islamists from provoking a civil war with Iraqi Shiites. It may be too late for the Army''s new doctrine to stop Iraq from falling apart....It''s past time to make Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife required reading at the White House."—Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer (Trudy Rubin Philadelphia Inquirier )

"As the Baker/Hamilton club considers America''s options in the Middle East, its members would do well to browse currently hot books on counterinsurgency [including] Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam...Stimulating, thoughtful and serious."—Michael Ledeen, The Jerusalem Post (The Jerusalem Post Michael Leeden )

About the Author
Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl is a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Nagl led a tank platoon in the First Cavalry Division in Operation Desert Storm, taught national security studies at West Point's Department of Social Sciences, and served as the Operations Officer of Task Force 1-34 Armor in the First Infantry Division in Khalidiyah, Iraq.

Customer Reviews

Flagrant disregard for historical accuracy
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 heeded 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
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
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.