Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military [Hardcover]

John Arquilla (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2008

Despite staggering defense costs, the U.S. military has not learned how to confront terrorist and insurgent networks. Traditional thinking and special interests have concentrated on potentially outdated systems, like aircraft carriers and heavily armored vehicles. Our ability to wage irregular warfare against networked forces has been stunted. Meanwhile other nations have innovated and developed techniques that will surpass the capabilities of the hidebound American armed forces.... Worst Enemy offers an inside analysis of the events that have derailed our efforts to transform the nation's military into a leaner, lighter, and much more "networked" force. Mr. Arquilla places these events in historical context and assesses Donald Rumsfeld's role as secretary of defense of the post-9/11 era.

Editorial Reviews

Review

As we extricate ourselves from Iraq, the U.S. military, and particularly our ground combat forces, must be restored, and they must be restructured and reformed for the 21st century's new challenges. No better manual exists for how and why this should be done than John Arquilla's well-reasoned, thoughtful, and enlightened analysis. America's leaders, in and out of uniform, must pay heed if our security is to be guaranteed. (Hart, Gary )

This is a warning, by someone who knows, that we, the people, must find ways to help our military do what it seems incapable of doing—revolutionize its approach to dealing with terrorism and other international threats. But Arquilla, unlike many who seek revolutionary change, makes his case with style and sly wit—often leaving us laughing through our tears. (Seymour Hersh )

John Arquilla's book is magnificent. It presents the clearest, most coherent and most convincing argument for radical change in our military that I have ever seen. He shows that a reconstituted U.S. military, networked together and moving at light speed, can work far more effectively with less than a quarter of its present strength, and can dispense entirely with that 'emblem of hierarchy,' the Pentagon. (Bevin Alexander )

John Arquilla's work is a mind bomb—it explodes the archaic assumptions that continue to hamper the US military's performance in the 21st Century. We either listen to John or pay the price. (John Robb )

His book is a compelling one, and a worthwhile read in particular for those of us with rare access to the perspective of military leaders and strategists. (Gemma Cooper-Novack Feminist Review Blog )

Worst Enemy offers not just the usual critical insights into what has gone wrong, but offers solutions to remedy problems in American defense policies, and comes from a professor of defense analysis. As such, it's an excellent survey… (Midwest Book Review )

[Arquilla] offers an insider's account of the bureaucratic turf wars over military transformation and discusses the challenges in trying to push innovation amongst America's hidebound military. (Book News, Inc. )

The author writes clearly and explains himself as he goes along, for the benefit of readers lacking a military background. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch )

About the Author

John Arquilla is professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. A Ph.D. graduate of Stanford and a former policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, he has also written The Reagan Imprint, From Troy to Entebbe, In Athena's Camp, and Networks and Netwars. He lives in Monterey.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher (April 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566637503
• ISBN-13: 978-1566637503
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #673,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Worst Enemy a Disappointment, April 18, 2009

By 

J. Harrold "Jim H" (Omaha, NE) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military (Hardcover)

Mr. Arquilla's Worst Enemy is a disappointment, especially since the book is written by a former DOD official who now instructs at the Naval Postgraduate School, where the military sends some of its brightest young field-grade officers. My sense in reading the book was that Mr. Arquilla had a deadline to meet and ended up cranking out a hurried product. The result is a book that tries to cover too much ground and uses weak arguments to make its points. That's a shame, too, because some of the issues Mr. Arquilla discusses need to be debated.

In one chapter, Mr. Arquilla criticizes the Air Force for its almost religious attachment to the doctrine of strategic bombing. A legitimate issue to discuss. But then he goes on to prove his point by saying that Allied air power failed to dislodge Saddam Hussein from rule during Desert Storm, and so that proves that strategic bombing was a failure. In fact, Saddam Hussein remained because President Bush Sr. knew the coalition would fall apart if we tried to remove Saddam from power. So we chose instead a strategy of containing Saddam. The failure to remove Saddam was a lot more complicated than just the relative success or failure of strategic bombing.

In another chapter, Mr. Arquilla discusses sexual assualt in the military. Again, this is a topic that should be discussed and debated. But again, he uses poor examples. He says Army Specialist Lynndie England (later court-martialed and convicted of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib) was "impregnated" by a male soldier. True, but she became pregnant as a result of consensual sex. So how does this even speak to sexual assault? In the same chapter, Mr. Arquilla says the military needs to prosecute sexual assualt. That is also true, and in my experience as a military officer, it seems that it is prosecuted. Could the military do a much better job? Certainly, but Mr. Arquilla offers absolutely no facts to back his arguments. No data, no statistics, just an assertion.

Mr. Arquilla zeroes in on the dangers of military officers becoming too involved politically. He cites skewed intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq under President Bush Jr. He takes the military and the CIA to task for cooking the books on the issue of WMD. But in this chapter, he fails even to mention a few other names of people who might have had something to do with this selective use of intelligence. Names like Vice President Cheney, SecDef Rumsfeld, Deputy SecDef Wolfowicz, DOD strategy czar Feith. If one is going to talk about this subject at all, it is absurd to not mention the roles of these individuals.

Mr. Arquilla even makes this same mistake when he talks about abuse of prisoners. Here he is not simply making an oversight, he makes an inexcusable omission. He says the military failed by abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other places. This is true, but the fact is the only agency which has actually prosecuted its members for these crimes is the Department of Defense. And once again, when he talks about this subject, he fails to include even one member of the administration. We now know that from very high levels, prisoner abuse was given legal sanction.

Mr. Arquilla uses all these examples of military failings (and a lot more) to eventually get to his thesis that the military must reorganize into small teams to fight "Network Warfare." This is an interesting subject in and of itself, but the first part of the book does little to lead to this discussion. In effect, it's as if he wanted to write two books, but did not have the time. This does not mean it is not a valid subject to talk about. But even when he talks about this subject, his evidence is scant and misses the mark.

He cites the 9/11 terrorists of an example of a small network based operation that can carry out its operations at low expense and with a high degree of secrecy. What? Criminal enterprises always work this way, and making the point that in this case these criminal-terrorists were unfortunately successful is not an argument for the DOD to organize this way. He also says operations in Afghanistan did not succeed until SecDef Rumsfeld was able to overcome the objections of the generals and insert special ops network-based teams. That might be true, at least operationally, except the part about Don Rumsfeld ever worrying about what objections a general might have. But even if we did defeat the Taliban, we still have a huge strategic quandry in Afghanistan.

To me, this is the biggest disappointment of the book coming from someone with Mr. Arquilla's resume. There are vast differences between tactics, operations, and strategy. He blends them all in the same pot. We did not get into a mess in Iraq because of a failure to insert special ops teams. We are still battling in Iraq because we had no national strategy on why we were there, how we expected to fill the governance vacuum after we took out Saddam Hussein and his military, how we expected to rebuild Iraq, and what our exit strategy was. These things should have been thoroughly vetted at the outset, but the administration would not allow any such strategic considerations.

This book is worth reading, but only to start discussions. The author needed to spend a lot more time writing it if he really wanted to prove his points.

10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Offers solutions to remedy problems in American defense policies, June 9, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military (Hardcover)

For several years now the U.S. has been making staggering expenditures on its military might - but has shown few actual signs of learning new ways of subduing terrorism and its networks. WORST ENEMY: THE RELUCTANT TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY offers not just the usual critical insights into what has gone wrong, but offers solutions to remedy problems in American defense policies, and comes from a professor of defense analysis. As such, it's an excellent survey for any military library or any college-level collection strong in military analysis and discussion.

18 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Short sighted thinking..., June 9, 2008

By 

lordhoot "lordhoot" (Anchorage, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military (Hardcover)

From reading this book, our worst enemy appears to be the author who advocate shortsighted remedies for our nation's military and take a wrong lessons from past to create his current solutions. In this book, the author take us to tasks on all that is wrong with our military, its sizes, its spending habits and its strategies and tactics. He based greatly on what is going on today to say that we don't need carrier groups, that our army can be 100,000 and that is enough or the Marines Corps should be reduced to 30,000 from today's strength of 193,000. He claims that warfare fought today do not required such massive military forces and money (once again it all about the money) could be spend else where.

What the author and his book totally failed to realized is that our military is a reflection of our economic, political and military strength. Or it could reflect those weaknesses as well. Determining our military policies based on what kind of enemy we are fighting today will leave us totally vulnerable to any future enemies we may have to fight. Our next enemy might be North Korea or even China, both got military forces that can take massive hits from us and counter with their own. The author would have the military back in pre-Pearl Harbor mode by his solutions and once more, money appears to be the cause of his mantra. Defense expenditure is the price of being a great power in our world but this author would have us believed that we don't have to pay the piper for our standing in this world.

Take our carrier forces for example which the author regards as useless, wasteful and highly vulnerable. Floating airstrips that can send massive forces almost anywhere on the world, the author fail to realized that our carriers were used more time in peace then in war and we were able to maintained the peace because we have the carriers. He takes a wrong take from the Falkland War for example, failing to realized that combined arms of surface, air and underwater is the key to victory even in this modern age of missiles. Author harped on Soviet submarines as more effective means of naval power then our carriers. But the author totally failed to tell the readers that the submarines of the Soviet Union cannot and could not project Soviet power while our carrier groups reminded our friends and foes that we are not to be toy with. The author and others like him believes that weakness in our military strength does us no harm. But history tells us that it was due to that same weakness that got us into the war with Britain (1812), Mexico (1848), encouraged the Civil War (1861), led to Kaiser's disdain (1917), Japanese military disdain for our strength in 1941 and led North Korea to invade South Korea in 1950. All due to our perceived weakness as a military power. The author even came down on George Washington for copying the disciplinary concept of the European armies to defeat the British even although only when the American army became "regulars" did they met the British equally in open field battles and defeated them. The author on the other hand, thought we should be applying hit and run irregular tactics that repeated proven itself to be long term defeat policy. After all, Indians were defeated by using these tactics in the end. Even the Vietnam War was finally won by NVA regular troops overrunning ARVN and physically taking over the entire country.

I found the book to be poorly researched, poorly thought out and extremely shortsighted in perception. All wars are temporary but we should never use one to determined the future for the rest. The fact that he uses Gary Hart as one of his inspirations should tell some of us about the author. Our military is an organization that will fight in many wars, in many part of the world and against many types of foe. Our military must be able to adjust and adapt to all conditions but it must have the means and manpower to do so. The author's solutions will crippled our military without anything in return. The current war is but a passage in time as when that war is done, I am sure with some regret, another will be waiting. Price of Pax Americana will never be cheap.