46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tactical truths from the enemy's perspectives, April 8, 2002
This review is from: Phantom Soldier: The Enemy's Answer to U.S. Firepower (Paperback)
A "must-read" for anyone who truly wants to understand small unit tactics. Studying the western way of war is only half of the equation. Reading and absorbing the lessons in this book is the other half - the most important half.
This well-written and well-researched book is sorely needed in today's U.S. military. To all those blinded by the technologies involved in transforming the U.S. military, or the so-called "revolution in military affairs," this book should serve as a 'reality check.' Poole repeatedly shows how the Western over-reliance on ordnance and technological superiority was effectively countered by adversaries who recognized the West's strengths and consciously decided to focus on small unit tactics and training.
Poole's message (some may call it a warning) is clear: the West will never live up to its military potential (or up to its over-inflated militarily superior opinion of itself) if it continues to ignore pursuing the tactical excellence needed to complement its unquestioned technological superiority. The real transformation or revolution in military affairs should be the paradigm shift to ensuring that our individuals and small units are as tactically proficient as they are technologically advanced.
This book can help all Western military decision-makers think differently about warfighting and can help save lives on the battlefield.
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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Understanding the Enemy, January 3, 2002
This review is from: Phantom Soldier: The Enemy's Answer to U.S. Firepower (Paperback)
Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel John Poole has written a timely book to help soldiers understand the enemy and to learn how to fight in the post-911 wars. Based on ancient Chinese writings, some only recently made available, historical example, and his own experiences, Poole takes away a large part of the mysticism surrounding the tactics and thinking of the armies of the shadows. Further, he has the audacity to suggest that the American combat forces adapt to, if not adopt, many of these ideas.
One of the most chilling passages in Poole's book is a reflection from the 36 Stratagems, a Chinese work relatively new to the West, which translates to: "Kill with a borrowed knife or sword". Further, it is not a big stretch to link the Japanese Kamikazes in World War II to the terrorists' crashing of airliners into buildings at the beginning of this new war.
This is not a book for the advocates of the Revolution in Military Affairs. While Poole does not reject the RMA, he is clearly down in the weeds where the American fighting man will be. Nor will this book please the cognoscenti who have never seen the face of war, but this is a book that will save American lives.
How can these third world armies of the night stand up to the might of the American military machine? Poole's answer is that by using maneuver against an attrition-oriented army, these enemies have been able to wreak havoc. The focus of our asymmetric enemies is squad level tactics and low tech weapons. American Special Forces in Afghanistan have perhaps taken a page from Poole's book in applying the American Way of War asymmetrically to the elusive Taliban and Al Qaeda enemies. Operating from the ground and with indiginous forces, the Special Operations teams adapted to the environment, advised alliance forces, and provided timely direction of some very effective precision air power enabling the ground war to succeed. Clearly, however, as Poole warns, the illusive enemy is still underground, both literally and figuratively, and this is but Phase I of a long war.
It is time to revisit the long-enduring fascination with Clausewitz. The new face of war has little relation to Clausewitz, but there are many parallels with Sun Tsu. Before we can begin to fathom the terrorist or the Eastern way of war, we should be compelled to learn more about Sun Tsu and his progenies. Poole points out the major differences between the Sun Tsu and Clausewitz approaches: "While the Eastern commander avoids combat wherever possible, his Western counterpart seeks it". Moreover, the reader is led into a practical description of the Eastern philosophy of the I Ching (Book of Changes), and how it applies to Eastern tactics in a way that is easily understood by the average Joe.
Lieutenant Colonel Poole is clearly in the maneuver warfare camp. His mentors include the late Colonel John Boyd, USAF of OODA Loop fame, William S. Lind, author of The Maneuver Warfare Handbook, and Colonel David Hackworth USA (Ret). Lieutenant Colonel Poole's experience includes both enlisted and officer service in the USMC in war and peace. Whatever one's predilections for or against the philosophy of maneuver warfare, this book illuminates many perceptions and practices of the Eastern fighter. This affordable book needs to be read by all combat arms soldiers, all special operators, and all generals as a companion piece to William S. Lind's Maneuver Warfare Handbook for an appreciation of this new, and yet old, face of war and how to fight it.
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enemy Warfare -- The Phantom Soldier, January 14, 2002
This review is from: Phantom Soldier: The Enemy's Answer to U.S. Firepower (Paperback)
Phantom soldier" clearly brings the lessons of recent military history to our vision. In these new wars, the lonely American soldier, the nineteen-year-old infantryman carrying rifles with bayonets fixed and grenades dangling from his web gear, must go into the very foreign deadly tall grass and trees, the dark-canopied jungle, the high and incredibly tough mountains, the dense confusing deadly maze of the teeming cities of Asia, and as individuals, in squads and in platoons find the enemy and fight him in his backyard, with this rifle, grenade and bayonet. This is extremely foreign to a young American soldier's experience. These strange tactics, effectively blunts our strength in firepower and forces us to operate in a small-unit infantry war of soldier to soldier, rifle to rifle, bayonet to bayonet; which requires the basic small units, squads and platoons, to be very effectively trained.
War stories and movies are very popular, because history and adventure come together, with the thrill of rolling the dice in the most ancient of all of man's activities - war. "Phantom Soldier" vividly presents the actions the infantryman takes to build bunkers, set-up ambushes, attack a fortified and entrenched position covered by machine guns, and react when ambushed. In "Phantom Soldier" these Sergeants and Privates are soldiers of the countries that we fight: Japanese, Somalians, Arabians, Vietnamese, and German. "Phantom Soldier" explains in great detail the very different historical perspectives, living conditions, terrain, resources and worldviews that have produced different ways of warfare. This very interesting and unusual book is about the warfare of these oriental peoples', a war of camouflage, hit and run tactics, ambush, booby traps, sniping and of the "Phantom Soldier", the one we cannot seem to find, but finds us all the time.
"Phantom Soldier" dispels the commonly believed myth that battles go to the toughest soldiers, with the most resources. Rather it brings reality to the fore, by showing that it is usually the side that fights the smartest that wins and it is the military strategies and tactics that create these winning methods. "Military strategy" is the overall direction followed in fighting the war, and "military tactics" are the ways the fighting is actually implemented on the ground by the fighting soldiers. This fact is the major intellectual contribution of "Phantom Soldier".
John Poole is a recognized and noted expert on the history of small unit battlefield tactics. He explains, that the current American military strategy consists of massing a strong enough contingent of troops and supporting firepower in the form of artillery, air support and naval gunfire to completely crush and overwhelm the enemy in face-to-face confrontations. The famous "set-piece' battle, in which our strategy is simply to blow the enemy up and win. Our current military leaders believe that our industrial might and technological advantage, combined with the massive size of our military is the answer to all military problems we face. Unfortunately, in our current enemy is not obliging enough to sit still and face us in massed formations to slug it out, where our overwhelming firepower will prevail. Instead, the new enemy hides, he is a phantom. He lives in the hidden jungle fastnesses, treacherous mountains, and maze-like cities; where he organizes his military into decentralized, small mobile units and politically controls the population in support of his war. We therefore cannot destroy the whole country to get him. The French learned this in defeat in Vietnam and Algiers. The Americans saw the effect in Lebanon, Somalia and Vietnam. Moreover, the British and more recently the Russians were defeated in Afghanistan.
John Poole builds a very convincing case that the American military leaders have steadfastly refused to understand the need for effectively making independent and decentralized-unit tactics at the squad and platoon level part of our overall military strategy. Instead, we look to the infantry as maneuver elements at the front of the massive firepower that we deliver to crush the enemy and then infantry's job is to clean up the stragglers and debree that is left over. Because of this lack of understanding, our soldiers are not trained at the squad and platoon level for independent operations, like the enemy. We make the repetitive mistake of sending many conventionally trained maneuver battalions of seven to eight hundred men into combat with all their supporting firepower, where they are unable to effectively fight and therefore are needlessly killed. He urges our government and military to change their perception of war and therefore the training of our troops.
Every reader now gets a chance to dig in and prepare to fight. It necessarily has been written to the soldiers who carry out those tactics, the U.S. Infantryman of every rank, both past and present. Readers devoid of military experience may find some of the content overly technical. Nevertheless, sticking with the detail will create a rewarding experience of understanding and enjoyment of what a battle consists of, as if you were a soldier, digging, carrying a rifle down a jungle trail or in pathless mountains
Overall, "Phantom Soldier" is well worth reading, to see the world through the soldiers eyes on both sides of the battlefield, who have fought in such famous battles as Iwo Jima, the Battle of the Bulge, Chosin Reservoir, Hue, and the Ia Drang Valley. It makes the reader appreciate the courage needed to go to war and the skill required to win and come home. Just like the soldier who has to carry the rifle and take the bayonet charge. This reviewer served in Vietnam in the 101st Airborne and 1st Infantry Divisions and "Phantom Soldier" was reliving that time.
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