Customer Reviews

Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces (Study in Command)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Having spent a chunk of my 12-year military career in and around Special Ops, I looked forward to reading this book. And as a continual student of unconventional warfare, I was expecting the book to be a detailed history of Special Forces, peppered with stories and detail from Stiner, someone who had obviously "been there, done that". It is not.

The subtitle of the book is "Inside the Special Forces", and it is very misleading. Early in the book, some of the history of the Jedburghs and the OSS is given, but the book soon turns into a memoir for Stiner, with Clancy giving a few explanations here and there, and basically heaping his stamp of approval and admiration on the material written by Stiner.

That's pretty much about all there is to the book. As far as the material goes, Stiner was on the inside during Just Cause, and so he presents an extremely glossed over and sanitized version of events. Anyone who was in or studying the military during that time knows that Just Cause was the epitome of a "charlie foxtrot" operation that barely came off. Special operations guys were used as shock troops and some of them - among them a platoon of Navy SEALs - were killed because the 'regular' military didn't know how to use them. He barely mentions this. Stiner was far enough away from the action not to have his career sacrificed by the fallout from Just Cause, so he gets to tell the story of how the military reorganized it's Special Operations Forces after that time. He had a part in that, so for that I guess the book is useful.

All in all, don't be fooled into thinking that the book is as advertised. A few tidbits of useful information are presented here, but not anything that isn't easily found elsewhere. Obviously Stiner is a mover and shaker, and deserves all the respect he commands, but I think it's too bad he felt he had to conceal his memoir in this book. I would have read his story if it was published seperately, but I guess if you could get Clancy to front for you, this makes a great deal of sense.

I'm a huge Clancy fan, fiction and non-fiction, but it's obvious he phoned this one in. Too bad.

I am a big fan of Clancy fiction, but this is the first nonfiction of his that I have read. While really only glancing at the cover before reading it, I incorrectly assumed a book about special forces training and combat. That turns out to be a small part of what this book really is. It is a mini-biography of Carl Stiner (a true American hero), a development history of special forces, and examples of American combat from WWII to the the Gulf War.

This is a book that every soldier and sailor should read, because it really explains how winning is so much more than just fighting with weapons. Winners need to fight with psychology, civil affairs, training others, etc. But while every soldier and sailor may benefit, it is not quite exciting for the average reader. I read this on the heels of Blackhawk Down, which is infinitely more electrifying, but understandably a different type of book. Shadow Warriors is really almost a text book, and a good one, for some.

This book fails to live up to its title - Inside the Special Forces. First, it isn't about SF, its about Special Operations. Second, it isn't Inside anything - its a poorly researched and poorly resourced piece that fails to offer any new material on Special Operations other than some barely believable anecdotes of several retired general officers (come on, Mr. Clancy, we all know Sergeant Majors tell the best stories...).

Before and during my 16 year career with the Army and the Special Forces, I have enjoyed Tom Clancy's novels and respected his deep understanding of modern warfare. Unfortunately, this hardly extends to the supposed subject of this book, Special Forces. It is quite obvious that Mr. Clancy made the most minimal contribution to this book, both in concept and writing. In my opinion, Clancy's name is on the cover to sell copies.

Clancy's co-author, General Carl Stiner, appears to have done a little more work. Unfortunately, while Stiner's record is full of high-profile jobs, including the Commander in Chief of Special Operations Command, he fails to provide more than a few superficial anecdotes to a number of special operations missions that have been told and re-told in far greater detail by other authors.

As an example of Stiner's failure to provide substantive information on Special Forces, the book takes two chapters, nearly 100 pages, to give a totally misleading account of one of the military's most-poorly led and executed invasions, that of Panama in 1989. While there are plenty of details on Stiner's relation to the XVIII Airborne Corps, there is very little information on Special Forces training, planning, or execution. Even the details on conventional units (why they are even mentioned in this book is incomprehensible) are misleading. The 82nd Airborne Division's decision to jump into Tocumen Airport hours after the Rangers had secured it is not criticized or even analyzed. (Could it be that Stiner was one of the supporters for this Hollywood-type maneuver when the 82nd could have landed quickly and safely at Howard or Tocumen and executed their mission by air assault or simply by walking out of their airplanes?).

Stiner completely glosses over the worst operation of Just Cause, the failed Navy SEAL attempt to take over Paitilla Airport, a mission that never should have been approved by higher (failed not because of the brave men who executed the raid but because of the egos above them who approved an absurd concept of operations). Instead, he spends page after page congratulating himself on a perfectly planned and organized operation. Can you imagine how perfect Iraq would have been if the battalion level commanders had been able to do monthly rehearsals and terrain walks throughout Iraq? How could you lose?

Don't buy this book for details on Somalia, Haiti, or any of the other SF operations in the 90s. They wouldn't fit with the 100 pages on Panama.

In my opinion the problem with this book is that it claims to be about Army Special Forces. In fact, the book completely fails to focus on what makes Special Forces great, which is the non-commissioned officer. Instead, Clancy and Stiner spend the entire 500 plus pages talking about how this general did this and that general did that. What really makes SF is the NCOs, not the Generals. If you want to read a good book about Special Forces, read John Plaster's SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam, Greg Walker's At the Eye of the Hurricane (fantastic info on El Salvador, Panama, and the Gulf War), or Orr Kelley's Brave Men, Dark Waters. These books tell you all about Special Ops without any of the bravado that permeates Clancy and Stiner's unfortunate work.

My advise to Clancy: stick to what you do best, fiction. My advice to you: skip this book!

I am retired Special Forces, my ultimate home base is Fort Campbell 101st Airborne Division 1/3 AD and Special Forces 3rd Brigade, Airborne Ranger. For nearly twenty years I humped the reality of what I thought not possible to convey to the average person and did not think I would ever read a book that could sum it. I have never read any of Clancy's books as I assumed it was all creative writing and whitewash. All that I need to say now is I cried due to the reality of this aided write of Carl Stiner. I will have to buy Clancy's other books now. I recommend this to all my brothers in arms for peace, and to every American in this most trying time for us all including our Special Forces. I recommend another book that goes into the details of some special forces, terrorism and Armageddon, Karl Mark Maddox's SB 1 or God.

I don't pretend to know much about U.S. Special Forces...precisely the reason I purchased this book. Having now read it, I continue to feel I know very little about this subject. While I've never been a Clancy fan and have the utmost respect for General Stiner and his work and sacrifices for our country and its foreign "relations," I walked away from this book feeling like the title was very much a misnomer. While the stories in the book are interesting in and of themselves, they failed to paint any cognizable picture of Special Forces operations I might have hoped to gain.

For any novice, like myself, interested in learning about the Special Forces (i.e. all the U.S.'s Special Forces) I would recommend looking elsewhere.

I'll give Clancy credit-- he teamed with someone very good for this book. With over twenty years in spec-ops, I have learned to be wary of Clancy's work. He's a former insurance salesman who has made his living off of writing about those who do. I recommend for those who want more-- Blackhawk Down (he's a reporter but a superb telling of what happened); Bravo Two Zero (the SAS in detail); Bodyguard of Lies ( out of print but a classic that my Bn commander gave me to read as a young team leader); I also like the fiction of Bob Mayer, James Webb and others.

GEN Carl Stiner is one of the few people in the world who could write this book. Teaming with Tom Clancy insured the high quality literary effort found in The Shadow Warrior's.

During Operation Enduring Freedom, American Special Operations units have won the public acclaim they deserve. However, developing that force was not easy, and Carl Stiner is one of the people responsible for creating the integrated Special Operations Command (SOCOM)into the unparalleled fighting force it is today. By reading Shadow Warrior's you will learn about the difficult, and sometimes tragic experiences learned at the cost of many brave men's lives. This is history you need to know and presented in a highly readable fashion.

GEN Stiner is a professional soldier and consummate gentleman. Always understated, he brings a refreshing honesty to the books about special ops that too frequently are bloated or self-serving. This is the real deal. Don't miss it. You need to know what these valiant men and women have fought and died for - too often without recognition.

I have never offered a review before, but this book was such a waste of money that I felt compelled to. Unfortunately, without the tragic events of 9/11, this book would probably never have made a dime for Clancy. It is his clumsiest attempt ever at cobbling together an old story with a weak pretext for being fresh information. Aside from the fact that the narrative itself is about as boring as a high school history text; Clancy can't seem to decide whether he wants to actually tell the story of Special Ops Forces, or offer a platform for a dry and uninspiring autobiography of Carl Stiner. The reader is repeatedly assaulted with poorly camouflaged whining about the "big" Army mistreatment and misunderstanding of SF. The final insult is a meandering, condescending, and completely irrelevant lecture on leadership from Stiner that he has no doubt bored several ROTC classes with over the years. Save your money - this is Clancy at his commercial worst!

I've read most of Clancy's novels and a few of his non-fiction works. This was by far the most disappointing. If you are interested in military history -- not military history as in battles and great campaigns -- but in the constant infighting and bureaucratic scheming that inevitably occurs, then this book is for you. The accounts of combat are sparse and most of them I've seen before in other places. Actual facts about Special Forces techniques, training, equipment, roles, and missions are not real prominent in this book which makes you wonder why it's even worth the time. Clancy must have needed a new house or something and decided to clear out his files. While I'm sure the military men that were involved with this book are all great guys, you'd have to draft me and order me to read this book, if I were to read it again.

This is an excellent introduction to the rise of the Special Forces and their strengths as adversaries, particularly in small wars and in anti-terrorist contingencies. This is the third of Clancy's military leadership books (the first two were with Chuck Horner and Fred Franks about the air and land campaigns in Iraq in 1991). They are a useful and very readable basic introduction to the American military as it has evolved over the last decade. In a few years, Clancy will have to start a new series on the ongoing transformation of defense and the military that will emerge from that process. For the moment, these books are invaluable as insightful reports on a generation of effort.

Stiner's reports on the early years of the terrorist wars (the mid 1980s when he was in the Middle East and Don Rumsfeld was the special Ambassador for President Reagan) and on the ambiguity and even opposition from Italy and Egypt to our efforts to capture terrorists gives you a better understanding of how we drifted into 9/11.

Stiner's explanation of the rise of Special Forces and the necessity for President Kennedy and Congress to impose the concept of Special Forces on the Army and then impose a Special Operations Command on the entire system is a powerful reminder that large military bureaucracies almost never reform themselves. It is a useful introduction to the fights currently underway to transform the military.

Stiner's frustrations with the regular military and especially the regular Army in trying to get the right use of Special Forces in Iraq and Kuwait in 1990-1991 and reflection on the extraordinary use of both CIA teams and SOF teams in Afghanistan are reminders of what modern enlightened military commanders can do when they stretch their thinking.

Finally, Stiner's account of the Special Forces' contribution to the survival of Kurds in northern Iraq is a vivid reminder of what we could be doing in Afghanistan and in Colombia if we were willing to design a sustainable, affordable fulfillment strategy the right way and use our specialists along the lines of their strengths.

As we continue to pursue Al Qaeda and confront anew our responsibilities around the world, this is a very useful book to reflect on what needs to be done. I recommend it highly.