War From the Ground Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics (Crises in World Politics) 1st Edition

"Filled with provocative and innovative observations about the blurring of military and political realms in kaleidoscopic environments, this book is the most perceptive account of contemporary conflict I have seen. It deserves to widely read by military practitioners and their political leaders."--Conrad Crane, lead author of FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency and Director of the U. S. Army Military History Institute

"War from the Ground Up is an interesting and important meditation on the nature of the unsatisfying wars of the modern era by a man who has seen more of them than most, former Gurkha Rifle officer Emile Simpson. It should be read by everyone interested in the current war in Afghanistan and in thelikely nature of conflict for many years to come; these wars are not going away, and Simpson has done yeoman s work in helping us understand them."--John Nagl, Minerva Professor of Culture and War, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis

"How to do and how not to do counter-insurgency, by an expert and exceptionally thoughtful practitioner. Hard analysis, and happy talk-free. Essential reading for anyone seriously interested in what makes success in counter-insurgency so elusive."--Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, author of Cables fromKabul: The Inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign

"One of the most important assertions in this fascinating book is that the outcome of wars is now less subject to assessment by body counts than to the verdict of civilian outsiders, who make judgments with scant heed to pure military logic. ... This is the first book by an immensely intelligent and interesting young man, from whom much will be heard. He lays down principles of policy-making and war fighting for instance, the key in counter-insurgency is to match actions and words so as to influence target audiences to subscribe to a given narrative with a wisdom lacking in most contemporary foreign offices. ... Ministers would do well to read Simpson's fascinating and provoc


"A work of such importance that it should be compulsory reading at every level in the military; from the most recently enlisted cadet to the Chief of the Defence Staff and, even more important, the members of the National Security Council . . . It is impossible to summarize Emile Simpson's ideas without distorting them. His own style is so muscular and aphoristic that he can concentrate complex arguments into memorable sentences that will have a life of their own. His familiarity with the work of Aristotle and the history of the English Reformation enables him to explain the requirements of a strategic narrative as effectively as his experiences in Afghanistan illuminate his understanding of the relationship between operational requirements and political objectives. In short (and here I shall really go overboard) --deserves to be seen as a coda to Clausewitz's On War. But it has the advantage of being considerably shorter."--Michael Howard, Times Literary Supplement

"One of the most important assertions in this fascinating book is that the outcome of wars is now less subject to assessment by body counts than to the verdict of civilian outsiders, who make judgments with scant heed to pure military logic. ... This is the first book by an immensely intelligent and interesting young man, from whom much will be heard. He lays down principles of policy-making and war fighting for instance, the key in counter-insurgency is to match actions and words so as to influence target audiences to subscribe to a given narrative with a wisdom lacking in most contemporary foreign offices. ... Ministers would do well to read Simpson's fascinating and provocative study before they launch their next lunge into the unknown. They might then better understand how elusive in modern conflict are the concepts of winning and losing."--Max Hastings, The Sunday Times

"[A]n erudite and intelligent contribution to the literature on counterinsurgency." -- Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreig

Emile Simpson served in the British Army from 2006-12 as an infantry officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles. He completed three tours in Southern Afghanistan. He also served in Brunei, Nepal, and the Falkland Islands. He previously read history at Oxford University, and was a Visiting Defence Fellow there in 2011 on the Changing Character of War Programme.