Customer Reviews

The Evolution of Special Forces in Counter-Terrorism: The British and American Experiences (Praeger Studies in Diplomacy and Strategic Thought)

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This book comes nowhere near living up to its title. It is an extremely topical discussion of 1) the British and American experience in Counter Insurgency and LIC, and 2) the history of the 22 SAS and the US Army Special Forces. In both cases the author simply re-hashes old and tired arguments in a "cliff - notes" form, never spending enough time on any subject to develop his own thesis. From here he completely changes gears and discusses two hostage rescue operations that have absolutely no relevance to the previous discussion (he makes a big deal about the "fish in the sea" aspect of guerrilla warfare, and how one must win the "hearts and minds" of the locals, and yet chooses to discuss the hostage crisis at Princess Gate for Britain and the American Embassey takeover in Iran for America. In both cases none of the previous discussion about COIN applies. The respective countries could have cared less about the "hearts and minds" of the population surrounding the crisis site.) He then seems to decide he must live up to the description of his book, so in his conclusion he begins to throw out a bunch of thoughts about international cooperation during hostage rescue operations that bears no relevance to the previous discussion, and is so topical it almost appears that he wrote it as an afterthought. Finally, what really took the cake for me was the inaccuracies regarding operations and units in the book. Time and time again he makes the mistake of quoting a newspaper that was inaccurate to begin with, then uses that quote to buttress his argument. Bottom line: This book is not worth [...it]. The title is misleading and the book cannot decide what it wants to discuss. It frenetically skips around from topic to topic with little thread to pull the thoughts together.

This is an excellent study of the evolution of British and American counter terrorist CT teams. As well the author provides a well documented and detailed analysis of the problems that have been and continue to be faced by the political and military leaders/operators in hostage type situations. The detail for this study was drawn from interviews with experts and operators in the intelligence and spec ops communities,government and contemporary studies of these incidents, as well as an extensive list of books, historical papers and articles. In short this is not the book for those seeking a quick study of special forces and heroics, but rather a serious study for those professionals in the special operations /intelligence community, as well government leaders and academics who are focused upon the issues relating to terrorism and how to most effectively counter the manifestations of this phenomena.
This book is obviously a product of extensive research and provides the reader with little known insights into the British and American hostage rescue operations in London and Teheran in 1980. There are lots of interesting nuggets in the footnotes predicated obviously to Taillon's extensive research. The author also lays out to the reader an important set of criteria so as to maximize the opportunities for success in future CT operations. From the two hostage rescue case studies (NIMROD/EAGLE CLAW) Taillon draws a number of important lessons learnt, some of which can be tough medicine, particularly if you have any politcal or military biases. Reflecting upon the recent events in New York these lessons appear to require re-learning, particularly the criticality of timely and accurate intelligence.
Overall, this is a superb book authored for professional students of this type of warfare and stands alone as an excellent analysis of what critical issues demand to be taken into account, particularly when the negotiations with the terrorists ends, and the political/military operation, which hostage rescue is, begins. A must read for Delta/ SAS/GSG9 and those interested in special operations and counter terrorism.