Customer Reviews

War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History

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Update: Robert Asprey died January 26, 2009. He left a major portion of his estate to New College of Florida. I knew him, wrote for and with him, and called him my mentor for over 35 years.

When War in the Shadows (WITS) was first published in 1975, it infuriated members of the US military. Asprey's denunciation of high-ranking officers' conduct of the war in Vietnam came under intense criticism. Asprey claimed the US military lost that war due to its total ignorance of unconventional guerrilla warfare. Though blackballed by military scholars for almost a decade, he refused to retract his accusations. Instead, he continued to cite 2000 years of guerrilla/terrorist warfare tactics, operations, and strategy as proof the US military violated most, if not all, principles of unconventional warfare. Nineteen years later, he revised WITS, and along with that revision came a newfound respect for his insights. WITS is still the most definitive study of guerrilla/terrorist warfare available and it continues to remind the military of the requirement to fully understand this type of warfare's capabilities and limitations.
Overall, Asprey's work is very edifying. His 30 year research effort brillantly imparts lessons needed today. His reminders to the military about going off to an unconventional theater of war "half-cocked" contain some of the most valuable military thinking of our time. WITS is more than a historical appraisal. It is a usable text of events that, while historically embedded, continue to speak to the contemporary experience of unconventional warfare.

This is a very broad, very shallow survey of the entire history of guerilla warfare from the days of Alexander the Great and his successors in the Roman Empire all the way to the (contemporary, at least in 1976 when the book was first published) War in Vietnam, with the explicit purpose of explaining the Vietnam war by placing it in its proper historical context (and thereby revealing the mistakes made). The narrative (and it is a narrative, with themes that recur with sickening frequency) spends the most time detailing the abject failure of the United States in Vietnam, and devotes smaller chunks of the book to the rest of guerilla history. This focus and the aforementioned shallowness of the historical analysis in some parts are in no way out of place or even remotely harmful to the author's thesis. He is not attempting to exhaustively chronicle the "wars in the shadows" but to build up a tremendous tidal wave of evidence to support the claims he makes during the chapters on Vietnam.

Those chapters on Vietnam are worth reading the entire unabridged 2-volume set from start to finish. Throughout the narrative the author meticulously extracts common themes from the guerilla wars of the past and builds up a vocabulary of incompetence, ignorance, supidity and brutality that is then unleashed on the planners and generals of Vietnam with all of the mad rancor of an attack dog. The author lambasts short-sighted policymakers, incompetent or fatally uncreative generals, and a hideously flawed understanding of the nature of "Communist" power, and after two thousand plus pages of his compelling argument it is very difficult to disagree with virtually anything he says. The triumph is total and complete. The conclusion, in the end, seems to be that we shouldn't get outselves involved in these kinds of wars, and if we do we should engage in them not as military conflicts but social upheavals. The author's suggested changes to the State Department (presented as a coda) seem to suggest this.

The bottom line is that this is a marvelously researched and skillfully argued thesis which sadly remains as relevant and incisive as it was thirty years ago.

A must for any Military and History buff. This book has bought me endless hours of reading enjoyment. As a Latino, of most interest to me were the chapters on the Mexican revolution, Spanish-American war and Che Guevara. Asprey writes in great detail and in chronological order, he also provides the reader with the political and social climate of the time and events that lead to any engagements against opposing forces. Keeping any opinions to himself, he just gives the fact as if we all are spectators viewing a movie. Asprey describes the guerrilla units, their political indoctrination, strength and weakness and field attire and equipment. The maps help illustrated the subject area and regions, any troop movements and battles fought that help paint the complete picture. He presents any leading figure with importance and when able too delves into their personal histories and background. I'd fancied myself a authority on History and warfare till I read Asprey "War In The Shadows" and found out just how much I wasn't aware of. So put this on your list of reading materials and tell your friends.

This is the definitive work on guerrilla warfare. No other book covers the subject with the breadth and depth equal to this one. If you are a serious student of counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, unconventional warfare, 4th generation warfare, or whatever you want to call it; you will want this two-volume set on your shelf. You will read it then refer back to it again and again. This monumental study begins with guerrilla warfare in the classical age and brings you up to date through recent conflicts. I believe the first edition of this book was through America's involvement in Vietnam but subsequent editions have been expanded to include far more since that time. I can not stress the importance of this book enough for this topic. You will not be sorry to have it ready and available in your library.

I bought this after reading the review above that says, "this updated, abridged version of Asprey's monumental survey of guerrilla warfare begins with the struggle between Persian king Darius and Scythian irregulars and concludes with the mujahedin resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan." In fact, it ends with the Cuban Revolution.

Robert Asprey's War in the Shadows is one of the best, stand alone, books on the subject of counter-guerrilla warfare. It is exceedingly comprehensive, essentially beginning with the beginning of military history and counter-guerrilla warfare. It would be one of my top three recommended books for those interested in learning about guerrilla warfare.

WitS is a broad survey of non-conventional warfare throughout history (it seems inaccurate to say that the book focuses strictly on "guerilla" warfare). The author seems to stretch at times in who he decides to include as "guerrilla." Because he covers so much ground, the treatment of each particular case is rather superficial. One would think that, since the book is supposed to be about guerilla warfare, that the author would spend more time describing organization, ideology, tactics, etc. I found myself skipping many sections just because I've already read much better books dealing with the particular subjects. It was useful as a primer as to insurgencies about which I know very little. Overall, the book was disappointing.

Not recommended.