Wrong Turn: America¿s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency

by Colonel Gian Gentile

Overview

A searing indictment of US strategy in Afghanistan from a distinguished military leader and West Point military historian—“A remarkable book” (National Review).
 
In 2008, Col. Gian Gentile exposed a growing rift among military intellectuals with an article titled “Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Army’s Conventional Capabilities,” that appeared in World Politics Review. While the years of US strategy in Afghanistan had been dominated by the doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN), Gentile and a small group of dissident officers and defense analysts began to question the necessity and efficacy of COIN—essentially armed nation-building—in achieving the United States’ limited core policy objective in Afghanistan: the destruction of Al Qaeda.
 
Drawing both on the author’s experiences as a combat battalion commander in the Iraq War and his research into the application of counterinsurgency in a variety of historical contexts, Wrong Turn is a brilliant summation of Gentile’s views of the failures of COIN, as well as a trenchant reevaluation of US operations in Afghanistan.
 
“Gentile is convinced that Obama’s ‘surge’ in Afghanistan can’t work. . . . And, if Afghanistan doesn’t turn around soon, the Democrats . . . who have come to embrace the Petraeus-Nagl view of modern warfare . . . may find themselves wondering whether it’s time to go back to the drawing board.” —The New Republic

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595588746
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Colonel Gian Gentile is an army colonel, a former Iraq War commander, and a professor of history at West Point; he was also a 2010 Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Gentile is a contributor to the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Small Wars Journal, and the World Politics Review. He lives in West Point, New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface: A Personal Note-the Hell of Baghdad xiii

Introduction: The Conceit of American Counterinsurgency 1

1 The Construction of the Counterinsurgency Narrative 11

2 Malaya: The Foundation of the Counterinsurgency Narrative 35

3 Vietnam: The First Better War That Wasn't 59

4 Iraq: A Better War, Version 2 85

5 Afghanistan: Another Better War That Wasn't 113

Afterword: Truth as a Casualty of COIN 137

A Note on Sources 142

Notes 145

Index 181

Editorial Reviews

"Here in this timely, incisive, and unflinchingly honest volume, the essential task of dismantling the myths already enshrouding America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begins. . . . An important book that will give Washington's war-mongers and militarists fits."
—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

"Colonel Gentile asks us to confront some blisteringly urgent questions. Have COIN tactics ever worked the military magic their proponents claim? Or have they merely provided cover for beating exits from wars that never should have been fought in the first place? . . . Wrong Turn deserves a wide readership by all who must make these supremely important strategy decisions—as well as those who will live with the consequences."
—David M. Kennedy, professor of history, Stanford University, and editor of The Modern American Military

"Counterinsurgency rises over and over again from the ashes of defeat. It is Gian Gentile's ambition to 'drive a stake through its heart,' and in Wrong Turn he has succeeded—brilliantly."
—Marilyn Young, professor of history, New York University

"A brilliant and persuasive book . . . offers by far the most convincing explanation extant of why America has not succeeded recently with COIN.”
—Sir Colin Gray, professor of international relations and strategic studies at the University of Reading

"A lively, provocative and readable book . . . never misses its mark."
—Hew Strachan

"Based on his personal experience in Baghdad as well as some fine historical scholarship, Colonel Gentile takes aim at America's current COIN doctrines and shows how ineffective they really are. An exceptionally courageous book, clearly and forcibly written."
—Martin van Creveld, author of The Transformation of War

"Gentile finds the common flaw in our failed strategy as evidenced in our last three military misadventures. . . . We did not lose the Vietnam War—it was never ours to win. Is Afghanistan becoming a repeat performance?"
—Volney Warner, General (Ret), U.S. Army

"How I wish we'd had this telling critique of counterinsurgency warfare before Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It would have been far harder to make those tragic mistakes. A must-read for our national security experts, and U.S. citizens."
—Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and former columnist for the New York Times

From the Publisher

"The story on which the current practice of [counterinsurgency] depends…is a myth [and] a recipe for perpetual war," insists Gentile (Securing the Snake's Head: The Question of Air Power as a Political Instrument in the Post Cold-War Security Environment, 2012, etc.), a former Iraq War commander and director of the military history program at West Point. The author takes a spirited, polemical approach in support of his argument against "the simplistic idea that the U.S. can intervene to rebuild entire societies if the tactics are just right and the right general is put in charge." What he calls "the story" is a view of the history of wars in Malaya, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, which he considers to be tendentious at best and downright wrong at worst. Though many believe that gifted generals, like David Petraeus in Iraq, learned the lessons from Vietnam and corrected the mistakes of their fumbling predecessors, Gentile disagrees. Sifting through the countless reports that were filed, he shows just where this mythical narrative is flawed. In each case, there was no transforming succession of methods of warfare, and there was no redefining shift in leaders. Nor, he insists, are the wars referred to in the official narrative comparable, whether in scale, context or scope. The strategy adopted to force a negotiated settlement in Vietnam was not applicable in Iraq, and the Iraqi surge was less of a discontinuity than it is usually portrayed to have been. For Gentile, it is the political circumstances that are the most important elements, as well as political leadership looking for what Petraeus' predecessor Gen. George Casey called "something that appeared different." A forcefully presented, corrective analytical approach to today's headline-grabbing orthodoxy.

Kirkus Reviews