Customer Reviews

Rules of Engagement

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I too would have to start by stating my astonishment at Mr Leonard's comments below. For those of us living close enough to understand the Irish Conflict it is very irritating to see throw away (and inaccurate) comments made from a safe distance.

Anyway the book....
This is a really important book on a number of levels. I have seen some of the reviews that have commented about the author's philosophy but it does help us understand his mind set and approach!

The title suggests this is a full autobiography but it mainly deals with Iraq with a little bit before and a little afterwards.

Collins is a natural leader and his approach to the Iraq conflict should have been a benchmark for the rest of the conflict, i.e put into place standards and controls that would allow the free Iraq people to govern themselves and allow the early withdrawal of British and US troops. Very much a thinking and intelligent leader (although he admits his mistakes) you can see how his tactics work and the resulting improvements in the areas under his control.

Equally fascinating is his view and understanding of the people of Iraq. They come across and a warm but complex people and it is easy to understand how and why they have re-acted to the conflict in the way they have. There is a small section on the way a British cemetery has been immaculately maintained through the passion and loyalty of the locals that was quite moving.

Of course there is much mention of both the famous speech and then later on, the allegations against Collins. It was dis-heartening to see the way that the British Army and establishment failed to support Collins and allowed his name to be smeared in the press when they should have stood by a true asset.

While a biography will obviously paint a reasonably positive view of the author, I think this is a frank account and I have no doubt that the British Army needs more people like Collins.

I learnt a great deal from this one and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who is interested in either the Iraq conflict or military leadership.

Before I add my own comment, I have to refer to the outrageous comments by Mr Leonard above.

Col Collins had a great career, he would not have served 2x with the SAS and 1x with DSF and been made Col of a Regt if that were not the case. He was not removed from command, his time in command was extended, the charges never included cowardice. Finally this book is not about tactics, its a statement/record of what happened, right or wrong. Its interesting that Col Collins followed the Hearts and Minds doctrine favoured by the british, and he brought back all his men alive, this can be contrasted by the alternate approaches and their impact.

On to the book, after the initial slow section on NI and Sierra Leone I found the Gulf war section well written and compelling, I read it in 24hrs as it was hard to put down. Living in the US we saw almost no visibility of UK ops so this provided great insight into the work and challenges of the UK Division.

I highly recomend this book if you want to read an alternative view of how things could have been conducted in Iraq, albeit on a small scale.

The final section on his return to Iraq feels like an afterthought and the section on the accusations and their resolution is disheartning but believable.

Overall Col Collins comes across in a positive light for me.

Colonel Tim Collins first achieved fame for his address to his troops when about to go into battle in Iraq. This elicited a letter of admiration from the heir to the British throne, and I seem to recall that it was admired in the White House too. This distinguished soldier has since left the British army in disgust, and the strange tale of how that came about can be read in the later chapters of this book.

Rules of Engagement divides into four sections as I read it. By page-count the bulk of the book consists of episodes from the Iraq war in which he was directly engaged. The final chapter reproduces the gist of an address that he was invited to make at University College Dublin, and gives us his reflections on the proper way such an operation as Iraq needs to be handled. However when he went to Iraq in his early 40's Collins was already a battle-hardened veteran, from Sierra Leone, from his native Ulster and even from commanding an emergency fire brigade in the Midlands when the fire service itself was on strike. What comes over vividly from these early tours of duty is just how clearheaded a commanding officer needs to be. Brilliant strategies in the manner of Patton v Rommel are one thing, but when the CO is dealing with opponents who are drunk, or high on drugs, or just freaked out on the sheer excitement of rioting, his own wits and not his manuals or training courses are going to provide any answers he can find. This was the experience that Collins brought to his command in Iraq, where the situation almost verged on rational by comparison. His accounts are engrossing, literate and sometimes highly amusing, at least if one enjoys, as I do, the sarky Ulster brand of humour. In one incident, seemingly very minor, he started the chain of events that led to his being subjected to one of the most despicable episodes that ever disgraced the British army. An American called Biastre, a `Major' in some kind of auxiliary unit and the Thersites of this Iliad, had picked a quarrel with Collins, emerging with his dignity somewhat impaired. By way of restoring this, Biastre submitted a report to his superiors accusing British officers in general of disrespecting Americans, and Collins in particular of nothing less than war crimes. This wretch's allegations had not the smallest semblance of probability, but the American high command solemnly passed them on to its British counterpart and Collins was required to submit to an enquiry. Someone was out to get him, someone apparently senior who briefed the media but lurked in anonymity, and I as I read the story felt, as a lifelong opponent of the death penalty, that the WW1 practice of shooting for cowardice could usefully have been reinstituted just this once.

The charges were a miserable collection of attempts to make something - anything - stick. Some would have been overlooked as trivial by an infant-school teacher, the more lurid needing only a moment's scrutiny to be dismissed, which was what happened. Collins had his supporters, including the head of the army Sir Mike Jackson himself, of whom it has to be recorded sadly that he did not seem awfully well informed regarding what was happening under his supposed command nor outstandingly able to sort the matter out, and the case duly collapsed. Collins's question seems reasonable - what army needs senior officers like the anonymous creep behind all this? His own style of leadership, questioned at the enquiry, can be read clearly from his factual accounts. British soldiers put up with perennial lack of funding, but when a mentality instinct with mental dishonesty, moral hypocrisy and a deep commitment to unfairness infects the high command they may be less willing to go along with it.

The thoughts that Collins first put to his academic audience in Dublin and now to the rest of us are a paradigm of clarity and rationality and are commended to every thoughtful and concerned citizen. I shall pick just two for present purposes. Earlier in the book Collins had commented (without drawing or implying conclusions) on a difference in ethos between the American and British armies, characterising the latter as live-and-let-live but the American spirit as one of missionary zeal. Looking back after the event, Collins ponders `Who wants armed missionaries?' In my other instance he harks back to the execution of participants in the Easter Uprising of 1916 in Dublin after the insurgency itself had been quelled. This gratuitous act led, he believes, to decades of IRA violence, having turned the motivations of a few extremists into the ideology of a whole nation. One wearies of clichés about not repeating the mistakes of history trotted out by people whose grasp of history is on a par with their command of astrophysics, but here is an illuminating historical parallel usefully presented out of concern for strategists sitting in mental darkness.

This eminent soldier's concern for the future of the British army seems only too well founded, although as a civilian I am not well placed to assess the impact of the recent changes to regimental structures and identities. Where I am with him all the way, and where I differ from many of my friends on the left of politics, is in calling for better funding for our armed services. It should be obvious by now that this is as pressing a social need as that for improvements in health, education, pensions and transport provisions; and not all my opposition to the war in Iraq nor my support for Gordon Brown's agenda on alleviating poverty will let me tolerate seeing Britain's army gradually reduced to one mobile laundry-unit.

Colonel Tim's recent pronouncements have seemed slightly eccentric. What I'm hoping is that we have not taken a real soldier from what he ought to be doing while giving a career to whoever was trying to discredit him for that.

Like his contemporary, Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer, Colonel Tim Collins describes, in fair detail, his life and times in the British Army, and how he ultimately became disillusioned with its current condition and capabilities for the future.. Much of this book concentrates on the ongoing Iraqi campaign, the false charges and his clearing of them, and a final observation about what is happening in Baghdad and Iraq in general, as a civilian working as a journalist. It also communicates a good sense of the esprit de corps within 1 R Irish, from an historical perspective and during his time in command.

The style of the book would have benefited from significantly less use of quoted speech, since it comes across as too contrived and improbably accurate. The philosophical musings are okay, but are dangerously close to the quality of that which prevails in the British Army’s High-Command, who were intent on smearing him. This was also an issue in Tim Spicer’s book.

Both of these ex-British Army officers, would find ‘Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics by George Reisman’ indispensable reading, for the proper development of their philosophical underpinnings.

(Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer's book is: AN UNORTHODOX SOLDIER)

Tim Collins comes across as a man of honour, integrity and ability.
His book is full of insight, educated comment and some great humour. He allows the reader to be with him in some very tense and dangerous situations. He also clearly shows us that desk jockeys and management wannabes have no place in judging those who have placed themselves in harms way and alludes to the fact that without practical experience and wisdom the allies will make an almighty mess in Iraq. His personal experience of injustice is a salutory warning for us all - as personalities and politics are a constant threat to justice and reason - however there is another lesson in that life will use any means to precipitate the mid-life transition - particularly in an outstanding man of action.
Tim Collins shows how the job should be done in an excellent book - we can only hope that men like him train the armies of the future.

I do not doubt the bravery, professionalism and committment of the soldiers of 1st Royal Irish, but this book does not do them sufficient justice. My critiscism is of the book's literary merit and some content and not the work done by the 1st Royal Irish.

The book is full of the self aggrandizement, mutual appreciation and backslapping of the Irish and I sensed an "I , me and myself" self centred vein in Colonel Collin's writing, well it is a sort of memoir after all. This book is definately not recommended as a work of literature. It is liberally sprinkled with anecdotes and minutae of British Army activity in a supporting role in the 2nd Gulf War, together with quotes from Machiavelli and Sun Tzu which do absolutely nothing to enhance the content. The Colonel is to be highly commended for his minimalist use of force and direct head on approach, which appeared to work in this conflict. However I was surprised at his lack of intelligence on the Sunni/Shia difference, "Is this a big deal,you know, the Shia/Sunni thing" he quotes to an aide....daaaaaah! As an ex-pat we come across his situations every day in the Middle East, albeit not on a war footing and without the danger of weapons present. His apparent naivety is all the more surprising having come from Ulster and being fully familiar with it's sectarian divisions. (there is a huge volume of information out their on these subjects just waiting to be read). Further, allowing armed men into his council meeting and complaining to Abu Hatim afterwards, was not what I would expect of somebody who professed a head on approach. This latter aspect raises a question from me on the Colonels overall leadership approach and that it sometimes lacked thought or consistency, but that is for those more qualified to answer or judge. Knowing that a primary role was the restoration of Law and Order I was also puzzled that there was no elaboration or reconciling of the release and protection of Ba athist officials whilst illuminating the reader in the briefest terms of the belligerence and cruelty of that regime.

Colonel Collin's speech was the only inspirational highlight and it was in fact the only reason I bought the book (p159/160). But by the time I reached it, I was already disappointed in the book and it had lost a great deal of it's lustre.

The book contains little or no detail on the strategy of the Gulf War (Try "The Iraq War" by John Keegan as an excellent objective view including interview with General Franks). The book contributes to a belief that the British Army (or at least this section of it) was in an also ran role with the US Marines rather than an allied component of an integrated campaign.

The Colonel's let down by those in higher circles is not surprising in the situational politics but again highlights an honest, perhaps naive expectation on his part.

This volume is poorly written , has very little depth with respect to the Gulf War, and no military strategic or tactical content of any merit. It's degree of insight into the historical context, the Iraqui people, regime or cultures is minimal in the extreme and thus it will not be known for it's historical contribution. It provides an insight into some the qualities of leadership, but raises unanswered questions on that subject.

Why did it make the Times best seller list ? I can only imagine the media hype of the speech, the euphoria of a successful military campaign now blurred by current developments, a need for personal vindication on the Colonel's part and some cute marketing. Your money could be better spent elsewhere.

My copy, which I really had to forced myself to finish, is I'm afraid, destined for a charity shop in Saudi Arabia.

This book is not a great book of strategy but a great book from a tactical point of view. Colonel Collins is clearly an experienced, resourceful and insightful combat leader. Although not all will be interested in the rundown of his early career, that background sets the stage for arguably his greatest contribution -- his experience leading 1 R Irish in the Second Gulf War.

It is shameful how his life and career were derailed by an unwarranted attack from a U.S. officer that seems to have taken the fight out of one who could have been a great general officer.

My personal favorite, and I believe the most valuable, part of the book is the last chapter ("All for the Good") where he analyzes the Second Gulf War from his perspective as an experienced counterterrorist officer.

Colonel Collins's lessons on applied leadership should make this book required reading for junior military officers.

Very good book that shows modern war from a different perspective, great way to see the second Iraq war from a different set of eyes.

As a proud former US Marine, I can qualify that this is one of the worst books written on military strategy and conflict.

I fail to see how a man who spent years being humiliated by the IRA, has ANYTHING competent to say about military tactics.
Col. Collins was the leader of the notoriously racist Royal Irish Regiment, whci spent years attempting to opress and intimidate innocent Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. It was also a unit that was on the losing end of every engagement they had with the superior force of the IRA. The thing Col. Collins is most famous for is a bravado speech he gave to his troops in Iraq in March of 2003...by the end of 2003, however, he had been relieved of his command by his superiors for cowardice and incompetence. If you want to read a great book about military tactics, read one by USMC General Anthony Zinni, or former US Army General Wesley Clark. If youi want to read a self-agrandizing book by a military disgrace...go ahead and pick this one up.