Off the (Electronic) Shelf: A Review by Crispin Burke

Followers of the many discussions about counterinsurgency being bandied about the blogosphere should be familiar with the name of today’s contributor. As the keeper of the influential blog Wings Over Iraq and a contributor to Small Wars Journal and many other blogs, Captain Crispin Burke, USA, is in the vanguard of rising young warrior-scholars who are translating their mastery of the classic counterinsurgency canon into the dynamic contemporary milieu of online discussion and debate about the subject. For our purposes today, though, the good old-fashioned book review is CPT Burke’s weapon of choice—but maybe he read the book on one of those new-fangled electronic devices. . . . . In any event, let us know if his assessment whets your appetite to delve into the book for yourself.

—L.M. Yambrick

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Understanding Counterinsurgency: Doctrine, Operations, and Challenges
Edited by Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney
New York: Routledge, 2010
280 pp. $145.00
ISBN: 978–0–415–77764–3

Reviewed by
CRISPIN BURKE

Compiling a collection of essays on a subject as complex, diverse, and ever-evolving as counterinsurgency is certainly no easy feat.  Yet Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney have managed to glean salient, albeit often contradictory, discussions from some of the best minds in the business in Understanding Counterinsurgency: Doctrine, Operations, and Challenges.

As suggested by the subtitle, Understanding Counterinsurgency is divided into three sections.  The first examines the development of counterinsurgency doctrine in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States.  Next is an in-depth discussion of the operational aspects of counterinsurgency, featuring essays by experts and practitioners from each branch of the U.S. military.  The final, and most important, section surveys the myriad challenges within the counterinsurgency environment, with essays focusing on the impact of governance and information operations, to the omnipresent influence of time.