Senator's Son is a novel that should be read by all Americans, but by several groups in particular: Policy makers (politicians, military officers, think tank members, professors); Junior officers and non commissioned officers deploying to Afghanistan or other COIN/ Small Wars; any one considering a military career. The novel can be compared to Fields of Fire by James Webb, now a senator, whose son served in the Ramadi depicted in the novel; David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerilla, a non fiction book which describes the same themes in the book; and Bing West's three books on the Iraq War, especially the last one, The Strongest Tribe.
Like James Webb, Luke Larson is a former Marine Infantry Officer who served in a Marine Rifle Company that went through the experiences that are described in the novel. The novel is based on the experience of Larson's company in two tours in Ramadi from 2005 to 2007. In between the two tours, the unit which took over for Larson's unit was the same unit in which James Webb's son served. Larson's novel describes the transition from a highly kinetic situation where Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents were actively fighting the Americans with IEDs to a more benign environment where the clear-hold-build progression of counterinsurgency outlined in the Petraeus/ Mattis COIN manual has worked. The novel is told from the perspective of a US Senator in the future who must cast an important vote on a question of whether to use US military force. The US Senator of the novel is one of the Marine officers going through the experiences in Ramadi from 2005 to 2007. The novel makes the case that those who have served in combat are best prepared, morally, to make decisions about when to employ American military power in the future. As well, the historical context of the novel from 2005 to 2007 coincides with the 2006 Senate campaign of James Webb, who switched from Republican to Democrat and ran successfully on a platform against the Iraq War, while his son was serving in Ramadi.
Larson's novel illustrates in dramatic terms all of the same themes that are discussed in the non fiction book, The Accidental Guerilla, by David Kilcullen, an Australian officer who advised both Petraeus and McCrystal. The basic idea of The Accidental Guerilla is that 90% of the people America is fighting in counterinsurgency are locals who become opponents because of the excessive use of force. A small percentage, perhaps 10%, are hard core Al Qaeda. The 10% seeks to cause the Americans to use too much force. When the Americans do use too much force, the rest of the military age male population reacts against this provocation, and, hence become Accidental Guerillas. In Larson's novel, we have an account of the complex human dynamics that occur in a population where Al Qaeda is trying to create a population of Accidental Guerillas. Step by step, we also see how the use of counterinsurgency doctrine can reverse the trend that the 10%/ Al Qaeda group seeks to employ. We see how the Marines set the conditions in which local leaders can step forward and support the Marines. We see how the junior officers become diplomats, civil servants, business men, and politicians. By the end of the novel, Larson's rifle company of 200 breaks down into 7 outposts where small groups of 7 to 10 Marines join 100 or more Iraqi Police. In this posture, the Marines are organized like the Combined Action Platoons described in Bing West's The Village. Marine non commissioned officers are "frocked" to the rank of Lieutenant because the Iraqis are rank conscious. Restraint, not the ability to kill, is the paramount quality required in this situation. While there are many dramatic accounts of the Iraq War coming out of that conflict, there is none that better describes the transition of a single military unit from this type of kinetic fighting to the non-kinetic role of counterinsurgency soldier than Larson's book.
Finally, Larson's book gives color to the broad description of the last years of the Iraq War in Bing West's non fiction book, The Strongest Tribe. Larson's unit has several of the sources that The Strongest Tribe quotes, including Rory Quinn (one of Larson's company commanders for Senator's Son), and the battalion commander, who had 3 tours in Ramadi (including one with the Division headquarters, then 2 as battalion commander in 2005 to 2007). West's book focuses on the role of 1/6 (the unit in which Webb's son served) in the crucial deployment that came between Larson's two tours in Ramadi. But, the success of the Marines in counterinsurgency in Anbar required consistent effort in an unbroken chain of deployments by 5 or 10 battalions in a given area, over the period of 4 years (since Marine Battalions served 7 month tours). Whereas West's book necessarily moves from province to province in Iraq, Larson's novel focuses on the internal dynamics in one Rifle Company from 2005 to 2007 in one geographic area, Ramadi. All of the specific tactical engagements described in West's novel are contained in Larson's book; but they are in greater detail, both within the Marine unit, and within the local context of Ramadi.
President Obama committed the US to an escalation in Afghanistan to about 100,000 troops until a point in mid-2011 when the policy would be reviewed. The counterinsurgency lessons learned in Iraq will be applied by our troops in Afghanistan, and we will likely make faster progress in Afghanistan because of those lessons from Iraq. Those counterinsurgency lessons are best transmitted to the Americans deploying to Afghanistan in the format of a novel with dramatic characters that they can understand in personal terms. This novel, therefore, should be read by every American going to Afghanistan. Moreover, it should be read by every policy maker who sends them there; and by every American who wants to understand the nature of the war that we are fighting, and most the most likely form of warfare for the coming years.
