Never Quit the Fight (Hardcover)

by Ralph Peters (Author)
Key Phrases: quit the fight, strategic raids, precision weapons, United States, Middle East, Latin America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...a keen appraisal of the war on terror...Peters offers a clear-eyed, pragmatic account of what the country has done right and what it has done wrong..." --Mark Yost, Philidelphia Inquirer

"...this is grand strategy...compelling...tremendously ambitious...one of the most perceptive strategists writing today." --Robert Killebrew, Parameters

"Ralph Peters has guts and integrity...our wisest analyst." --Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Product Description
In the no-holds-barred tradition that has won him so many fans across the nation and around the world, best-selling author and strategist Ralph Peters confronts the crucial security issues of our time and the troubled times to come. With his trademark clarity and force, Peters argues that we have left behind the age of Ideologies to enter a violent period in which ethnicity and religion blood and faith will continue to be the source of ferocious rebellions, genocide and global terrorism. His compelling vision spares neither our foreign policy nor our domestic follies as the author ruthlessly outlines what it will take to protect our country against this new breed of enemies.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books (July 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811733289
• ISBN-13: 978-0811733281
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #279,889 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE best combination of strategy, psychology, & intelligence about REALITY, July 12, 2006

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This is without question one of the finest and most ably organized collections of commentaries it has been my privilege to read in all these years. It suffers from one major flaw, not the author's fault: the publisher failed to include an index. The oversight should be corrected in the next printing, and ideally included as an Errata with the books now going out to bookstores.

The author is a world-class strategist, warrior, psychologist, intelligence professional, and writer.

He returns to four familiar themes, with all new refreshing insights:

1. America has no strategy and no official means of getting there. He ends the book by pointing out that drawing lines between the US, Spain, and Portugal to African and Latin American countries with colonial ties to these countries, and then lines of modern immigration and kinship back to the US, would be a de facto strategic network worthy of consideration.

2. America has the wrong military, with too few infantry, military police, and even truck drivers. He is brutally on the mark when he concludes that the current Administration's efforts to out-source everything led to the out-sourcing of America's honor. The author is on target when he revisits his long-standing beef with the U.S. Navy, which is still trying to build to "four carriers on the Kamchatka peninsula" and the rest on China. We need a 450-ship Navy capable of executing peace from the sea, and we need an Air Force capable of two Berlin Airlifts at once, with a budget for the peace goods they will need to carry to the 30+ failed states that spawn terrorism, infectious disease, poverty, environmental degradation, civil war and genocide, and of course crime.

3. Even with the right military--that is to say, a military able to dispatch single terrorists with a single bullet, able to mount punitive "in and out" expeditionary operations, and--where called for--invade and occupy for extended periods, but with proper planning for the post-war transition to peace--military intelligence is completely broken. It cannot find the targets known to exist at the individual and tribal levels, and it cannot anticipate emerging threats. I would add that civilian intelligence is just as broken. The current Director of National Intelligence and his senior agency heads are continuing the Cold War systems that are "inside out and upside down" and have no idea how to create a modern intelligence capability that is founded on multinational and inter-agency information sharing, and on making the most of what can be known from open sources of information in all languages.

4. Faith is a strategic factor. The author is compelling when he slams not just the radical Islamic terrorists, but the ideologically insane evangelical Christians in America, for religious degradation rather than religious charity. David Johnston, author of the very influential book on "Faith-Based Diplomacy" would certainly agree. The author excels at criticism of our mis-placed faith in technology and "precision munitions" while ignoring what Army War College strategist Steve Metz calls "precision psychology." In this vein the author points out that the fastest way to calm the Earth and increase productivity while reducing poverty is to focus on human capital and the education of the poor. Michael O'Hanlon has pointed out that the single greatest return on investment comes from a dollar spent on the education of women. This is where Google.org might usefully apply it extraordinary capabilities. Free online education in all languages, and donated Internet access centers and study computers in every village across Africa.

There are two portions of the book that are priceless gems worthy of inclusion in the welcoming kits of every War College student: the ten lessons of Iraq, and Occupation 101. Buy the book for these alone, and enjoy the rest as context.

Ralph Peters is a patriot. Occasionally he will rant, occasionally he will be belligerent and unwilling to entertain the reasonable claims and concerns of the enemy, but on balance, there is no other author that I would rather read in the domain of national security, than Ralph Peters. For complementary and sometimes opposing views, I recommend Colin Gray's "Modern Strategy," Jonathan Schell's "Unconquerable World," Joe Nye's "Paradox of American Power," William Shawcross, "Deliver Us From Evil," and C. K. Prahalad's "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," but see my lists for many other suggested top-notch books in the field of non-fiction about reality.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Collection of Articles on Iraq War, August 25, 2006

By	Alan Dale Daniel (St. George, UT, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ralph Peters is a genius. At first he doesn't come through as all that grand because of the all or nothing language he uses to frame his views, but as the reader gets past those inflammatory words and chews on the substance of what Peters is saying his intellect shows through.

This isn't really a book with a thought process that flows from chapter to chapter as one would find in Cobra II or Fiasco because it is a collection of articles written by Mr. Peters over the past few years on the war in Iraq and the war on terror in general; thus, it is difficult to follow the thought processes of the author. If a person were to read one or two of the articles in isolation the position of the author would be clear but how or why the author reached the flatly stated solution or position would be lost. If you have not read a book by Mr. Peters before I would pass on this one and obtain one of his earlier works such as Beyond Baghdad.

After reading three of Mr. Peters' books I know the reasons for his positions, but at first some of his conclusions were hard to swallow. He abhors Rumsfield and some other advisors to President Bush. The author uses strong language to state his aversions and uses a lot of buzz words such as "incompetent" without giving the reader a list of the reasons for the opinion. After reading several other books on the Iraqi war I began to figure it out. Mr. Peters believes, along with a lot of highly competent military officers, that we sent far too few troops into Iraq to defeat Iraq and occupy Iraq until the government could get up and running. Then the civilian authority put in place by the Bush administration was unskilled and untrained in the task of rebuilding a country and never admitted any errors. The plan for the invasion was flawed and the end game (occupation) plan was non existent. The largest problem according to Mr. Peters is the failure to admit mistakes because what is not admitted cannot be corrected.

All of this Iraqi war error analysis can be found in other books, and the cheerleading can be found elsewhere as well, but what can't be found is the clear thinking on how to proceed from here to get where we need to go. Fiasco and Cobra II failed to talk much about where to go from where we are now to the future. Mr. Peters spends a good deal of time talking about what we need to do to improve for the future and there he is at his best.

The author believes we are in a period where tribalism and fanatic religion will be a major force in the world and we must be prepared to meet that challenge. He contends our armed forces are being organized and equipped incorrectly. Mr. Peters believes large US corporations are selling our military, through Congress, what we don't need - very expensive military hardware that isn't useful against insurgents. He thinks the concentration should be on our infantry and logistics system. We need better body armor, more ships and aircraft to deliver the supplies, aircraft designed for close air support, upgraded trucks and Humvees to protect the troops from IED's etc. We do not need another fighter-bomber which costs more than the budget for a large city. He thinks we need more aircraft that are cheaper to build and maintain, more troops and better equipment for those troops, and we need to redesign our ships and other logistic systems.

And that is the genius of Ralph Peters, he sees over the horizon to the real challenges of tomorrow. The smaller but super technical armed forces we have developed may be a liability as these terror wars go on. The troops are the key, not super aircraft. Spend our money wisely and pull victory closer.

I hope the policy makers in Washington listen to Mr. Peters. We need those kinds of changes

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Editor in Chief, Armchair General magazine, July 16, 2006

By	Jerry D. Morelock "Editor in Chief, Armchair ... (Fulton, MO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

With impeccable, nearly uncanny, timing, Ralph Peters' newest book, Never Quit the Fight, hit bookstores on July 10, just in time - among other things -- to inform the on-going debate that's swirling around Capitol Hill over the question of what to do about the U.S. military presence in Iraq and other key issues surrounding foreign policy and the global War on Terrorism. This outstanding new book by America's most original strategic thinker ought to be required reading for the proponents on both sides of the troop withdrawal argument - the "cut and run" crowd and the "stay the course" supporters. For the rest of us, those whose only "vote" on such issues comes every few years at the ballot box, Never Quit the Fight is a clearly-written, cogently-argued, must-read - it's a "short course" on the otherwise often-confusing myriad of foreign policy issues growing out of the War on Terrorism that face America today.
As comprehensive as any single volume you could read on the unbelievably broad range of foreign policy problems we face now as well as those looming in our future, Never Quit the Fight presents, in a single volume, Peters' insightful, on-target essays, written for the most part over the last three years. Taken individually, each of Peters' "no holds barred" articles -- from such publications as The New York Post, USA Today, The Weekly Standard, Armed Forces Journal, Parameters, and Army magazine -- hits readers like a glass of "Hey! Wake Up!" cold water splashed in their faces. Never Quit the Fight's superb collection - it contains 82 brilliant, hard-hitting articles -- is like getting the entire bucket all at once. Most readers will not have had the opportunity to read all of these articles when each was originally published in one of the several different periodicals. Therefore, Never Quit the Fight is their chance to read them all in a well-organized single volume, the articles placed in context by Peters' perceptive introduction. Publisher Stackpole Books (stackpolebooks.com) has, in effect, provided a real public service by producing this insightful, informative and very useful book. Given the shoddy, sensationalist reporting of the War on Terrorism by the media and the politically-driven rhetoric spewing forth from Capitol Hill, the essays in Never Quit the Fight are now made available just when we need them the most. You must read this book!
As an essayist, Peters pulls no punches with his "tell it like it is" writing style. Absolutely clear in his cogent, highly-readable narrative, Peters' prose cuts right to the heart of each subject, giving readers what is usually so sorely lacking in reports from the mainstream media and in editorials written by "ivory tower" college professor "experts" -- a healthy dose of common sense seasoned with Peters' rare (in fact, it's nearly unique today) strategic insight. No one who reads Never Quit the Fight will end up scratching his head, wondering "What is this guy getting at?" Peters examines today's most pressing issues, explains them in a refreshingly frank and lucid manner, and then tells readers what the impact of those issues is on them in honest and direct terms. His phrases and sentences are all carefully constructed to convey exactly what he means; frequently, Peters' writing is reminiscent of Hemingway at the height of his craft. When Peters writes, for example, "When fighting monsters who decapitate living prisoners in front of video cameras, you are, literally, in a knife fight to the bone. If we aren't willing to fight such enemies to the death, we might as well stay home and hide in the corner, waiting for them to come after us, which they will," readers have no doubt what he means to convey and why it matters to them.
A globe-trotter whose frequent travels include all of the world's hot spots, particularly Iraq and the Muslim world, Peters' spot-on observations of what's really happening are informed by his many years of experience as an Army Intelligence officer, as well as by his prescient strategic insight. He brings that experience and insight to his writing, and one result - the articles collected in Never Quit the Fight - is simply the best commentary in print on the War on Terrorism and the foreign policy issues that emanate from it. Buy Never Quit the Fight and read it from cover to cover. ...Better yet, buy an extra copy and send it to your Congressman.