Customer Reviews

Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare in American History

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Mr. Tierney provides an invaluable service reminding Americans of their long history of guerrilla warfare from our own guerrilla bands of the Revolution to our counterinsurgency experiences in Vietnam and Iraq. Each experience seems lost, however, on future generations that prefer conventional ideals of war to bring the enemy army to battle in order to destroy it in one final showdown. It has often been said that we are always preparing for the last successful war and ignoring the lessons of the wars we would prefer to forget. Perhaps it is the guilt in some of the drachonian measures we have adopted in past counterinsugencies such as the scorched-earth policies adopted against Confederate and Indian guerrillas. But guilt does not explain the entire picture.

Mr. Tierney brings our attention to how quickly and completely guerrilla wars can degenerate into bloodbaths of revenge such as the long guerrilla war along the Missouri-Kansas border. Mr. Tierney accounts campaigns, long overlooked in military histories, such as the Missouri-Kansas border war that was in chaos nearly a decade before the shots on Fort Sumter. But more than the failures or depravity of guerrilla warfare are overlooked. Also long overdue has been the attention needed for successful counterinsugency methods like those of General George Crook in the Indian wars. There are a great many lessons, good and bad, from which we can learn in our own history.

This book is organized into two major parts. Part 1 reviews guerrilla warfare in North America from the French and Indian wars through the latter 19th century Indian wars. Part 2 reviews the small wars of intervention and expansion of the early 20th century through Vietnam and Iraq. The final pages draw all together into the realization of just how much experience we have had in unconventional warfare and how we might learn from those experiences. Mr. Tierney does well not to draw too many definitive conclusions since not every situation can be met with exactly the same methods. But he does analyze some of the causes for success and failure in order to give a broad understanding of what works and what does not and why.

This is not a work such as Robert Asprey's _War in the Shadows_ intended to give a detailed account of guerrilla warfare history. And Mr. Tierney is quick to pay homage to that work in particular. It is intended more as an introduction to a study of the American experience of guerrilla war to give us an appreciation for a topic overlooked far too long and perhaps to stimulate further study in the field. It is not a detailed military history but even the most ardent military history student will find this work an entertaining and informative work. The writing style is easy to read and, for the most part, thoroughly researched. Some advanced students of military history may find some minor nit-picks to attack but the overall quality of the research is still very good and trustworthy.

There does seem to be a problem with the binding of my copy in that a few pages from the Revolutionary war period chapter somehow found their way into the chapter on the Confederate guerrilla war in Virginia. Other than that minor inconvenience (chapter titles are on the tops of the pages so you can easily remedy this problem to read them in the correct order), this is a valuable resource for understanding the nature of America's experience in unconventional war.

Chasing Ghosts, according to John Tierney "is a history that covers wars lost in memory while remaining based upon issues that have resurfaced since 9/11." The author takes us through this study of unconventional warfare in American history including occasions when Americans utilized this mode of warfare as well as when it was used against us. He has done his job well.

Clausewitz warns that failure to know and understand the war one is fighting is a recipe for disaster. Unconventional wars are hard to define and this is America's Achilles Heel, we do not know the type of war we are currently fighting so it is near impossible for us to develop an appropriate strategy to successfully wage it. Sun Tzu tells us that it is important to know your enemy, but much more so to know yourself. Unfortunately Americans not only are unaware of who they are, but they are wedded to a paradigm of wars fought face-to-face, or head-on. As a result Americans see everything in those terms. Should our enemies or allies for that matter, have different colored glasses, the United States is in trouble.

Yet US history contains a myriad of excellent examples from which we can learn pertinent lessons that are relevant not only in Iraq but in our war against international terrorism as well. However, in order to learn and apply these lessons, we have to be willing to change the color of our glasses. And this is what US senior leaders are reluctant to do.

As I read this book I saw principals for success emerging and these principals ran throughout its two hundred sixty odd pages. When the US has followed these principles it has been successful in accomplishing national objectives. The scary part is that the inverse is also true; when the US has not adhered to these principals she has suffered defeat. Presently the US does not seem to be following these principals thereby explaining why the situation in Iraq looks rather bleak.

An analysis of the guerrilla wars discussed by the author suggests that one of the most important factors that leads to success in a guerrilla or counter guerrilla war is knowledge of the local landscape. This means not only the geography but also local customs and culture. If one does not already possess this type of knowledge, such as the Patriots did, but the British did not, during the Revolutionary War it can be mitigated through the utilization of 'locals.' The US Army did this to great effect throughout the Indian Wars, in the Philippines, and elsewhere. The Marines have been particularly good at identifying tribal and ethnic splits in societies and taking advantage of these to divide and conquer.

Akin to this idea and one that the author repeatedly illustrates is the hiring, training, and employment of indigenous forces thereby removing the notion of 'invader' from the equation. The purpose of such forces is two fold. First is to provide localized security, which includes separating the guerrillas from the people. This makes it difficult for guerrillas to gather intelligence, obtain food and necessities, and maintain a source of logistical support. The second function is to use these forces as mobile strike teams designed to keep constant pressure on the guerrillas and thus give them no rest or time to reconstitute their forces.

Furthermore, everyone who reads this book will find several things that will catch their attention and cause him to bore into that area more deeply. Two things really grabbed my interest. The first has to do with the employment of air power. In several instances air power was used with great success. In instances such as Vietnam, however, it was not. A corollary is those instances in which air power was not available. If one envisions the full capabilities of air power, he can ask the question "If I had air power in (choose your war) how could I have maximized its utility?" The answer would, I posit, be intuitively obvious and one could then adapt the concept to the fight in Iraq, the war on terrorism, or some other guerrilla war. In order to do this, one has to realize that airpower would be in a supporting rather than a supported role. Could senior Air Force leadership accept such a role? I doubt it.

Another attention grabber had to do with my war, Vietnam. In that war all three services had and employed conventional war doctrines. They were not only ineffective, but an outright failure. Yet at the same time, noted the author, Special Forces "A" Teams were heavily involved in the creation and employment of Civil Irregular Defense Group units. These units were quite successful wherever and whenever they were utilized - just food for thought.

Having read this book and placing the lessons available in the context of Iraq or the war on terrorism one is compelled to ask "Have we learned nothing about guerrilla war in the past two hundred years or so?" The answer is not encouraging. Politicians and senior military leaders ought to read this book, and it deserves a place on every military professional development reading list. The wars we are now fighting, especially in Iraq, are not lost. We can still win, but we need to change the way we conduct business. This book will help us make the necessary changes in direction.

As previously noted, Mr. Tierney does a marvelous job throughout Chasing Ghosts in illustrating these and other war winning principles. If the reader of this review wants to learn more then about these principals then you need to read the book.

CHASING GHOSTS: UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE IN AMERICAN HISTORY doesn't just focus on Iraq, but on the sweeping history of U.S. involvements overseas and forces faces with unconventional methods requiring unconventional responses. Both military and general interest readers will find it essential to have such a background, reminding that the modern experience has its roots in the past. John Tierney examines these past experiences from the Revolutionary War to modern times, analyzing U.S. responses to counterinsurgency campaigns in a guide key to understand our modern dilemmas.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The author does a real service to the nation in looking for the lessons we've already painfully learned in dealing with insurgencies, asymmetrical warfare, guerrillas, factional or clan strife, etc. since we've been wrestling with it almost continuously pretty much with the first arrivals on the North American continent. The author makes a clear and sad case for how those lessons get lost over and over and are relearned after years of substantial bloodshed and terror. The book's weakness is the scope turns out to be so broad and the conflicts are generally obscure enough that the author's useful background information consumes much of the book. It probably needs to be 100 pages longer as the author leaves you wanting more of the insights that come from each conflict. The parallels of the Phillipine Insurrection of a hundred years ago to Iraq now are compelling and certainly changed my estimations of William Howard Taft, the civilian administrator who solved much of the mess along with John J. Pershing, Fred Funston, and others. There's a lot to learn on many topics from these conflicts and I think the author has far more to say, let's hope for an expanded edition down the road.

On April 22, 2008 the New York Times reported on a speech that Defense Secretary Robert Gates made at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. The article by Thom Shanker reports on the frustration expressed by Secretary Gates in attempting to change the approach of the military establishment towards the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary Gates is reported as stating that "asymmetrical conflict will be the dominant battlefield for decades to come, and procurement and training have to focus on that reality."

It seems strange that he would have to struggle to persuade the Armed Forces of this "new" reality, since, according to John Tierney's book "Chasing Ghosts" asymmetrical warfare is what the US Armed Forces have been engaged in throughout history.

John J. Tierney is currently the Walter Kohler Professor of International Relations at the Institute of World Politics in Washington DC. He has participated in various government activities as a negotiator on national security matters. He teaches courses in Foreign Policy, International Relations and National Security.

In "Chasing Ghosts", published by Potomac Books in 2006, Tierney takes us through the extensive history of unconventional warfare that US Armed Forces have been involved with since Independence. Reading the book is an eye opening experience, particularly in the context of today's seemingly never ending conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia. Secretary Gates may be rightly frustrated in trying to convey the message that the US military establishment should be retooling itself to fight unconventional warfare, but what is surprising is that although the knowledge on how to fight such conflicts should already be thoroughly embedded in the traditions of the US Armed Forces, it appears to have been all but forgotten.

"Chasing Ghosts" is a series of history lessons. The book is broadly divided in two sections that cover domestic unconventional warfare fought during the war of Independence, the Civil War and the Indian wars, and the unconventional tactics faced by US troops fighting abroad in the Philippines, Mexico, Nicaragua and Vietnam. In each instance Tierney highlights the unstructured and asymmetrical nature of the tactics faced by US Forces in each conflict, and how these were countered (or otherwise) by the commanders of the time.

Konrad Adenauer, the famous post-War German statesman, once said that "history is the sum total of things that could be avoided". Bearing this in mind, and the current problems at hand, it is very interesting to read several sections in "Chasing Ghosts" about the resistance faced by regular Army troops from irregular warfighters. For instance Tierney recalls a battle fought by the British Army during the War of Independence that took place near Fort Duquesne in Pennsylvania:
"On the morning of July 9, 1755, this column was ambushed by a lesser force of about 250 French regulars and 650 Indians. Hiding between the rocks, trees and ravines of the landscape, this outfit handed the British their worst defeat in the New World at the time."

The British had been marching in a single column in full scarlet uniforms, through a densely wooded area. This was standard operating procedure for a British Army used to fight against other disciplined forces in the great plains of Europe. This style did not adapt well to the New World. However this defeat (and others) at the hand of smaller untrained and undisciplined forces was not a watershed. The British went on to make the same mistakes over and over again later on in Afghanistan (during their attempts to occupy that country in the 19th century).

American armed forces were greatly influenced by British training, as sometimes inappropriate as that may have been. This did not always serve them well during the conflicts that followed independence, even though the guerrilla tactics they used during the War of Independence did contribute to their eventual victory over the British.

Anarchy in war zones is another aspect that Tierney explores, and here too the US military should recall the past so as not to be surprised in current conflicts where similar conditions of power vacuum exist. Tierney looks in some detail at the events that took place on the Kansas - Missouri border in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. This is where outlaws like the James brothers, the Coleman brothers and William Quantrill terrified local residents. There was no distinction made between soldiers and civilians. The state of anarchy that prevailed allowed these and other individuals to loot and cause sorrow and mayhem at will, with tenuous (if any) justifications of fighting for either side of the Civil War divide. No military solution was found for the re-establishment of law and order: the violence eventually subsided with the deaths of the main protagonists.

Tierney looks at examples of successful insurgency tactics used by inferior forces against US Army. Two conflicts that are worth recalling because of their parallels to today's conflicts are the Seminole rebellion in Southern Florida and the Philippine Insurrection. Tierney recalls that the "Seminole Indian tribe (...) conducted what was certainly the most thoroughly unconventional military campaign in North American history." The Seminoles used terrain advantage, hit and run flanking attacks and demoralized the American troops who insisted in trying to fight a European style campaign against them that was completely useless. In the end the conflict was resolved when Col. William Worth, refusing to engage the Indians on their terms, went after their means of subsistence and support by destroying their crops. Another tactic used by US Forces against the Indians was to recruit Indians themselves as scouts, who were far more knowledgeable in the ways of their opponents.

We are again becoming aware today (after having forgotten this lesson again and again) that these are tactics that seems to work well against guerilla insurgents. This point is made even more clearly by Tierney when he discusses the Philippine Insurrection.

The US "inherited" the Philippines after they defeated the Spaniards in 1898 and the Treaty of Paris gave them authority over the islands. As well as inheriting the islands, the Americans inherited an insurgency led by Emilio Aguinaldo who was seeking independence even while Spain colonized the country. Aguinaldo kept US troops bogged down in an endless war of attrition for over 10 years. In some ways this campaign had a lot of similarities to the campaign against the Indians, and US forces made many of the same mistakes all over again, for instance by assuming control of an area temporarily, declaring it safe, and then retreating only to let the insurgents (who had been in hiding) reoccupy it. Indeed this seems to be the same mistake Coalition forces are making today in Afghanistan. Tierney writes, "US leaders were formally schooled in the art of war. When the enemy left the field, conventional war theory taught, the war was over." Indeed, as happened then, and as we know now, in irregular warfare the exact opposite happens. MacArthur's cables to Washington in December 1899 declaring the war was over sadly remind us of "Mission Accomplished" and the "end of major combat operations" in Iraq five years ago.

The conflict in the Philippines was in part resolved when local scout troops captured Aguinaldo in 1901. After that, and also as a result of political pressure at home, the US began devolving authority to the Philippines. The only major conflict area that was still unresolved was the Moro led insurrection in Mindanao. The Islamic Moros were eventually defeated by Gen. John Pershing, who looked beyond purely military solutions for an answer. He addressed the economic and political grievances of the Moros, and used a divide and rule strategy to gain control of Mindanao. In today's terms he might have been accused of practicing "nation building".

It could be argued that the US had less moral authority rationales for the occupation of the Philippines at the end of last century than the Coalition forces have for being in Iraq and Afghanistan today. However if we stay, and we may not have much of a choice, we need to draw some ideas from what we know of similar conflicts that have occurred in the past.

The lessons we can draw from Tierney's book are exactly what Secretary Gates seems to be looking for: the reshaping of an Army that can work with the imagination and lateral thinking required to operate in an asymmetrical conflict environment. We should be placing far more emphasis on local intelligence resources and troops, we should work on eliminating the support networks the insurgents use, we should use our firepower in a far more targeted manner, and we should expand our actions beyond gaining dubious temporary military advantages. Insurgencies are nearly always either solved at political levels, or not at all.

This book relies on no original research, and those sourse used are incredibly out of date. He never references Andrew Birtle's work on US Army counterinsurgency operations at all, and many of his other sources are unbelievably outdated, esp. @ the American Revolution and the Civil War. He even uses reenactor websites as sources!

I am a cheesehead and actually chose to read the end of the book over the Packers Game! Great scenes that leave your palms sweating and your heart pounding! Superb messages for runners at any level or even non runners!

Mr. Tierney, starts this book with some great history of insurgent warfare as conducted by the militia forces of the colonies and briefly discusses some of the other major conflicts which the United States has been involved. Unfortunately he only teases the reader with these mini reviews of insurgency techinques employed through out our history. Nearly all of the reviews are conducted from a single point of view and many details are left undiscussed/undisclosed. I was hoping this would be a more complete anthology of insurgency and its use or negating its use by our forces.
It was a disappoint for its lack of depth and detail on so many occasions.