A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq

This timely book argues for a new, leader-centric approach to counterinsurgency, based on a reexamination of the history of counterinsurgency warfare.

According to the prevailing view of counterinsurgency, the key to defeating insurgents is selecting methods that will win the people's hearts and minds. The hearts-and-minds theory permeates not only most counterinsurgency books of the twenty-first century but the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, the U.S. military's forem...