Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice

ISBN: 0143127764

Author: Nagl, John A.

Condition: New

From one of the most important Army officers of his generation, a memoir of the militarys revolution in counterinsurgency warfareDelivering a profound education in modern warfare, John Nagls Knife Fights is essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of Americas soldiers and the purposes for which their lives are put at risk.As an army tank commander in the first Gulf War, Nagl was an early convert to the view that Americas greatest future threats would come from asymmetric warfare-guerrillas, terrorists, and insurgents. His Oxford thesis on the lessons of Vietnam-eventually published as a book called Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife-became the bible of the counterinsurgency movement. But it would take 9/11 and the botched aftermath of the Iraq invasion to give his ideas contemporary relevance. After a years hard fighting in Iraqs Anbar Province, where Nagl served as operations officer of a tank battalion in the 1st Infantry Division, he was asked by General David Petraeus to coauthor the new Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual-rewriting core doctrine that would change the course of two wars and the thinking of an army. Knife Fights is the definitive account of counterinsurgency and its consequences by the man who was the doctrines leading architect.