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Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win

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Several colleagues of mine recommended this book - several more people said that all I had to do is read the dust jacket and put it away. Disagree. The book will explain the difficulties for fighting insurgencies, several historical examples, and the dangers insurgencies pose to big military organization and states. There are a couple dated passages concerning Iraq, but that is understandable considering the fast pace of the war. I would recommend this book, as a starter, to all those attempting to better understand insurgencies.

The premise of the book is to explain why some insurgencies, consisting of poorly equipped and numerically inferior forces, can defeat powerful nations with are, at least in comparison, limitless material resources. The author looks at specific factors of insurgencies and how these factors affected the outcomes of eleven insurgencies where the insurgents defeated a larger, more powerful opponent. He then looks at the role of external support in aiding insurgents, concluding that, statistically, it is the most significant single factor. The author then attempts to apply his analysis to the current insurgency in Iraq and draws some conclusions concerning the likelihood of an insurgent victory there.
The factors analyzed by Dr. Record are the will to fight, including the political will of the antagonists; strategy and the strategic interaction of the opponents; regime type (liberal democracy versus authoritarian) and external support to the insurgency in the form of money, weapons, personnel and safe areas.
External support, being the single most influential factor in determining the success of the weak versus the strong, rates its own chapter. This chapter does not get stuck in a scientific statistical analysis, Dr. Record analyzes qualitatively as well as quantitatively. His analysis is not a sterile comparison of a set number of variables, but a wide ranging analysis of many factors and indirect influences on the external support and the outcome of the insurgencies.
Taking on a hot media topic, Record compares Vietnam and Iraq. He highlights the differences, the similarities and how these factors can influence the outcome of the war in Iraq. He looks at strategies, will at all levels, political factors in the U.S. government and external support. This chapter is a great help in breaking some myths perpetuated by the popular media.
Dr. Record's analysis of the American way of war surpasses the insightfulness of the earlier chapters. He describes how the separation of politics and war violates all of the basic principles of counterinsurgency and as a strategy is doomed to failure in the long term. His assessment of this way of war is spot on, and explains much of recent American military history.
This apolitical way of war leads inevitably to the strategy of attrition, and tactically to search and destroy operations. This may have many short term successes, and may even be a critical part of an effective counterinsurgency strategy, but its exclusive use is counterproductive and leads to failure.
In the final chapter, Record enumerates several conclusions which must be recognized by American politicians, military leaders and, hopefully, by the American public if we are to reach any sort of agreeable conclusion to the Iraq war.
This book is very well researched, documented and presented. Dr. Record does fall into a trap which the book is trying to correct, thinking of the insurgency in strictly military terms and whether the U.S. military can defeat the insurgents in Iraq. There is no military solution, there can only be a political solution brought about by the Iraqi people. I believe these minor lapses are more a result of word-smithing in the final copy than any academic mistake on the part of Dr. Record. He also includes some incorrect data, which is only due to his lack of access to anything other than open source information; but these are almost too minor to mention.
I would highly recommend this book to any national level elected political officials, military personnel of all ranks, civil servants dealing with foreign policy or the Department of Defense and to any citizen who wants to know more than the popular media can give you. Excellent work.

In a time when the United States is wrapped up in a seemingly endless international conflict, Jeffery Record sheds light on why insurgencies such as Iraq are hard to combat and, in some cases, are capable of winning their wars. "Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win" is an insightful book that takes an in depth look at several cases throughout history where small military forces were able to win over their adversaries. It brings to light the politics of such wars against insurgents and explains how several factors eventually lead to the submission of the apparent "Goliath."
A Goliath, explains Record, is a nation with a strong superiority over its opponent. This usually refers to the side who's military, technology, size, and financial backing puts them at an obvious advantage.
This book is a crucial read for members of both the pro-war and anti-war camps. Those who completely oppose the war will come to realize that it is a lack of popular and political support of the war effort that is a main contributing factor for the victory of the insurgents. Conversely it can be learned by those who are of the pro-war side that wars against small forces in foreign, unfamiliar terrain are susceptible to high failure rates.
Goliath does not always lose either. The victory of insurgents over their personal Goliath is an abnormal phenomenon. As Record says, most of the time the more powerful force does prevail. However under certain, predictable circumstances, the insurgents do win. One of these circumstances is when the insurgents have outside help from another nation. In the case of the American Revolution, the Americans had the help of the French before it had even been agreed upon that a revolution would be their course of action. Record makes the case that insurgencies on their own cannot succeed because they do not have the money or resources to participate in a long, drawn out war against a military power far superior to their own. That is why they require assistance from a third party to fund or contribute munitions to their cause. Also, political and popular support of the military action is imperative to the victory on either side. The problem is that in Democratic nations, such as the United States, it is less likely that political support will last for a long period of time. Insurgency with no sign of an end is a great killer of popular support for stronger nation. As Record points out, the insurgent nation is fighting for a great cause, their independence, while the aggressor is only fighting for an ideological cause, such as spreading democracy.
Beyond being well respected, Dr. Record is an easy read. Record is not a long winded individual who tried to impress the reader with big words and complex sentence structures. Rather, Record writes for comprehension. His goal is to have the reader clearly understand the key points he is trying to make throughout the book. This writing technique will be greatly appreciated by the reader who cares less about the fluff and more about the substance. Fluff free and fact full, "Beating Goliath" is a great read for the individual who wishes to achieve a greater understanding of what has been going on for the past decade in the middle East.

First, the author describes other authors who have studied uneven (asymmetrical) wars and reviewed their theories and conclusions. This saved me from reading two other books. I got the information from counter points of view all in one book.

Second, the author is realistic. He states that the bigger side usually wins ... BUT, when weaker side does win, he shows that some conditions must be met.

Third, it was a great read. I was studying this for social protest. That is, my question was, "how does a less powerful group protest a large corporation and win." In this sense, I was not really reading the book for actual war. However, I could not put the book down. It was really interesting.

*** Lastly, the one reviewer who put the book down due to "big words" may have been a little unfair. Yes, the author is an intellectual, however, the reading level was not that high. I do not study war, but the terms (such as asymmetrical conflict) the author uses are what people in this field use to describe sides in a conflict. So I felt that I learned a great deal of terminology that will be helpful in the future. If I ever want to search Google for more information on the subject, after reading this book, I now know the keywords.

So, all in all, this was one of the best books I have ever read. I now understand the current way and why each side is doing what it is.

GREAT :)

Like Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed this book takes a conclusion and grafts evidence onto it. The book claims that insurgencies are destined to suceed, especially against America, because insurgencies have characterisics that Goliaths do not, such as grass roots support, supply, guerilla tactics, time, and other things.

The 'evidence' is the Iraqi insurgency, Vietnam and the American revolution. It is true that these insurgencies did suceed, for vastly different reasons.

But what about the ones that didn't? The Malay insurgency from 1945-1960? The Huk insurgency in Vietnam? The Khmer ROuge insurgency after 1978? The dozen or more insurgencies in Eastern India? The Ukrainine insurgencies against Soviet Russia in 1924 and 1946? The Kurds against Turkey? The Serbs against Croatia in 1994? The MPLA in Angola? The 'Shining Path' in Peru or the Tupamarus in Paraguay. For that matter what about Sparticus, the Gauls, the Druids and the Jews against the Roman empire?

For every insurgency that won, the Afghans against the Soviets, Fidel in Cuba, Hizbullah, the Rwandan Patriotic Front and Mugabe in Zimbabwe, there are many that do not. One thing may be true: Insurgencies usually beat democracies. But not always, the first Phillipino insurgency was defeated by 'Black Jack' Pershing between 1899-1901. The Boers lost to the British. But democracies have less will and usually respect human rights better than others. By contrast Stalin could simply kill and deport all the base communities of the insurgents.

This book only goes half way. It could have given us much more nuance and instead wanted to prove something that is not provable.

Seth J. Frantzman

This book offerexd no-insight what so ever on how guerilla warfare is executed. It used a lot of big words that just kept saying the same thing. I readx this book beacuse it was listing on a reading list suggested for personnel in the armed forces. I just hope the person that recommended it is getting good kick backs from the writer, becuase that is the only reason any one would buy this product.

F.H. San Antonio