Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam 1st Edition

by John A. Nagl (Author), Peter J. Schoomaker (Foreword)

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ISBN-13: 978-0226567709

ISBN-10: 0226567702

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Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975.

In examining these two events, Nagl—the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Maass—argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but why the American army failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict. Nagl concludes that the British army, because of its role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics created by its history and national culture, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency.

With a new preface reflecting on the author's combat experience in Iraq, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is a timely examination of the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns that will be hailed by both military leaders and interested civilians.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] highly regarded counterinsurgency manual."

(Michael Schrage Washington Post 2006-01-15)

"The success of DPhil papers by Oxford students is usually gauged by the amount of dust they gather on library shelves. But there is one that is so influential that General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, is said to carry it with him everywhere. Most of his staff have been ordered to read it and he pressed a copy into the hands of Donald Rumsfeld when he visited Baghdad in December. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (a title taken from T.E. Lawrence — himself no slouch in guerrilla warfare) is a study of how the British Army succeeded in snuffing out the Malayan insurgency between 1948 and 1960 — and why the Americans failed in Vietnam. . . . It is helping to transform the American military in the face of its greatest test since Vietnam. "

(Tom Baldwin Times (UK) 2006-03-28)

"An extremely relevant text. Those interested in understanding the difficulties faced by Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, or who want to grasp the intricacies of the most likely form of conflict for the near future, will gain applicable lessons. [Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife] offers insights about how to mold America's armed forces into modern learning organizations. As the Pentagon ponders its future in the Quadrennial Defense Review, one can only hope that Nagl's invaluable lesson in learning and adapting is being exploited."

(Frank G. Hoffman eedings of the United State Naval Institue 2006-04-01)

"Brutal in its criticism of the Vietnam-era Army as an organization that failed to learn from its mistakes and tried vainly to fight guerrilla insurgents the same way it fought World War II. In [Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife], Col. Nagl, who served a year in Iraq, contrasts the U.S. Army's failure with the British experience in Malaya in the 1950s. The difference: The British, who eventually prevailed, quickly saw the folly of using massive force to annihilate a shadowy communist enemy. . . . Col. Nagl's book is one of a half dozen Vietnam histories -- most of them highly critical of the U.S. military in Vietnam -- that are changing the military's views on how to fight guerrilla wars. . . .The tome has already had an influence on the ground in Iraq. Last winter, Gen. Casey opened a school for U.S. commanders in Iraq to help officers adjust to the demands of a guerrilla-style conflict in which the enemy hides among the people and tries to provoke an overreaction. The idea for the training center, says Gen. Casey, came in part from Col. Nagl's book, which chronicles how the British in Malaya used a similar school to educate British officers coming into the country. 'Pretty much everyone on Gen. Casey's staff had read Nagl's book,' says Lt. Col. Nathan Freier, who spent a year in Iraq as a strategist. A British brigadier general says that 'Gen. Casey carried the book with him everywhere.'"

(Greg Jaffe Wall Street Journal 2006-03-20)

"As the United States enters its fifth year of the war on terror, military leaders are conducting low-intensity and counter-insurgency operations in several different areas around the world. Of the different books produced on this subject, LTC John Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is an absolute must for those who want to gain valuable insight on some of the hard lessons of fighting an insurgency before actually getting on the ground. The book expertly combines theoretical foundations of insurgencies with detailed historical lessons of Malaya and Vietnam to produce some very profound and topical implications for current military operations. The true success of the book is that Nagl discusses all of these complex issues in an easy-to-follow and straight-forward manner. . . . I read this book upon returning from my tour in Iraq after commanding a company on the ground for a year. I was amazed at how insightful and 'true' the conclusions were and wished that I had read it before I deployed."

(Nick Ayers Armor 2006-01-01)

"Nagl, currently a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, focuses on organizational culture as the key to defeating insurgencies: successful militaries learn and adapt."—"Recommended Reading on Counterinsurgency," Nathaniel Fick, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute

(Nathaniel Fick Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute 2005-12-01)

"The capacity to adapt is always a key contributor to military success. Nagl combines historical analysis with a comprehensive examination of organisational theory to rationalise why, as many of his readers will already intuitively sense, 'military organisations often demonstrate remarkable resistance to doctrinal change' and fail to be as adaptive as required. His analysis is helpful in determining why the U.S. Army can appear so innovative in certain respects, and yet paradoxically slow to adapt in others."—Nigel R F Aylwin-Foster, Military Review

(Nigel R F Aylwin-Foster Military Review 2005-11-01)

"One key army text is Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife by Lt. Col. John Nagl, which focuses on counterinsurgency lessons from the 1950s war in Malaya and from the Vietnam War. The title phrase was used by Lawrence of Arabia in describing the messy and time-consuming nature of defeating insurgents. Nagl focuses on the ability of armies to learn from mistakes and adapt their strategy and tactics—skills in which he finds U.S. forces lacking. He shows how the British in Malaya were nimble enough to defeat a communist insurgency, while the U.S. military in Vietnam clung to a failing doctrine of force. Sadly, the Pentagon had not absorbed such insights before invading Iraq. Nagl himself says he learned a lot more during a one-year tour in Iraq. His ideas, if applied back in mid-2003, might have checked the growth of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and prevented Sunni Islamists from provoking a civil war with Iraqi Shiites. It may be too late for the Army's new doctrine to stop Iraq from falling apart....It's past time to make Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife required reading at the White House."

(Trudy Rubin Philadelphia Inquirier 2006-08-16)

"As the Baker/Hamilton club considers America's options in the Middle East, its members would do well to browse currently hot books on counterinsurgency [including] Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam...Stimulating, thoughtful and serious."

(The Jerusalem Post Michael Leeden 2006-11-19)

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl is a Military Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Nagl led a tank platoon in the First Cavalry Division in Operation Desert Storm, taught national security studies at West Point's Department of Social Sciences, and served as the Operations Officer of Task Force 1-34 Armor in the First Infantry Division in Khalidiyah, Iraq.

Paperback: 282 pages
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press; 1st edition (September 15, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226567702
ISBN-13: 978-0226567709
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 91 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #459 in International Relations (Books)
- #426 in Asian History (Books)
- #445 in Southeast Asia History

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Customer reviews

91 customer reviews

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Wayne K

More academic then I expected. I'm sure this book is outstanding for it's intended audience.

November 16, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Far more academic then I expected. I'm sure this book is outstanding for it's intended audience.
The sad truth is that in addition to a well done lesson plan to save American lives in current and future conflict, this is ultimately another indictment of our astonishingly incompetent and self serving "leadership", tossing lives with less regard then poker chips in a nickel and dime game.
Recently read "Dereliction of Duty' by McMaster, and then struggled through McNamara's pathetic response, trying to spin the truth as no other.

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Lions Brood

Presents military culture as a compelling reason why the US lost in Vietnam

November 20, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

John Nagl's comparative study of the counterinsurgency campaigns of Great Britain in Malaya and the United States in Vietnam is an excellent assessment of how military culture effects the ability of countries to adapt to unconventional or guerrilla warfare situation. Nagl's basic argument is that the United State military culture is centered around the idea of conventional wars of annihilation were the goal is to destroy the enemy forces on the field of battle. This culture ,he argues, was reinforced by the United State's victories in the Civil War, World War 1, and Word War 2, and neglected the lessons learned from other conflicts such as the Indian wars, and the american experience in the Philippines, that were unconventional in their nature. However, the British military culture emphasized a combination of flexible military and political solutions that resulted from the British Army's history of colonial peacekeeping and empire building. A culture that allowed it to adapt to the situation in Malaya much faster in the United States was able to in Vietnam. Perhaps Nagl's most compelling argument is that the United States military fatally misunderstood the nature of war to begin with. War is not about annihilating the enemy on the battlefield, war is about creating a favorable political solution. The British were able to realize this and focus their counterinsurgency efforts on removing the insurgents from the population through population control, small unit tactics, and a more genuine and focused "hearts and minds campaign". The United States failed to learn this lesson, and instead emphasized destroying the Viet Cong in the field through massive sweep operations, airstrikes, and kill counts. While many individuals in the U.S. army and other branches recognized this strategic mistake, military culture was too strong to bring about any meaningful change in strategy. When a change did occur it was "too little, too late".
While this book is excellent, its assessment, as the author notes, is not the only reason why the United States lost the Vietnam War. The book is is a quick read and because of that it may feel at times to be an oversimplification of a very complex conflict. Readers should be reminded that Vietnam was a much harder conflict for the United States to fight than Malaya was for the British. The British had a much more stable government situation in Malaya and it allowed for a much better coordination of counterinsurgency tactics. The United States however, was forced to deal with a South Vietnamese Government that was incredibly corrupt and did little to win the support of their own population. The United States also had to face the problems of constant infiltration of North Vietnamese troops and a endless amount of supplies that could flow into South Vietnam from the North. These problems were not present or greatly reduced in the British experience in Malaya. Despite these criticisms, this book presents a well researched argument for why the US military failed in Vietnam and how it can adapt its tactics in the future. Given the United State's unparalleled conventional military strength it stands to reason that the United States will face many more unconventional conflicts in the future. More Vietnam's, Iraq's, and Afghanistan's may be on the way. If the military cannot change and adapt its culture to face the nature of unconventional wars it will continue to fail.

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T. Graczewski

Persuasive - but not for the reasons the author suggests

August 31, 2006

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book - the title of which was inspired by Lawrence of Arabia's famous quip "To make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife" - is compelling for a variety of reasons, but three are especially noteworthy.

First and foremost is the fact that no other topic is more pressing in the world of defense policy today than how to successfully wage a counterinsurgency. Even if the author of such a book as this were of limited ability and narrow experience, many policy-wonks and decisionmakers would read the case studies and conclusions closely.

Which leads to the second reason this book is worthwhile: the author's impressive academic credentials and recent real-world brush with counterinsurgency operations. John Nagl is a West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar who spent the better part of a decade studying counterinsurgency operations. It was only after this book was first published that he was sent to the Sunni Triangle as operations officer for an Armor unit thrust into a counterinsurgency mission for which it was totally untrained and unprepared. Nagl calls his year in Iraq the "most searing educational experience of [his] life" - and this from a man who survived Plebe Summer at West Point and years at Oxford. Unfortunately, there is precious little insight into his personal experience in counterinsurgency operations in the new foreword to the paperback edition. He notes that fighting an insurgency was even more difficult than he had imagined and confirms his earlier conclusion that accurate field-level intelligence is the sine qua non for success, but offers little more than that.

Last but certainly not least is the core message in Nagl's study, which is highly persuasive, although it provides little reason to believe that the US will "prevail" in any meaningful sense in Iraq. The irony is that the most convincing aspects of this book have little to do with the main thesis the author puts forward.

Nagl's central argument is that in order to be successful in counterinsurgency operations military forces need to be "learning organizations." To demonstrate this, he relies heavily on an organizational learning model developed by Richard Downie in his book "Learning from Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salvador, and the Drug War."

In the end, there are two significant problems with Nagl's chosen approach. First, the Downie model does not add much substance to his argument. Is it really a surprise that an Army that embraces a closed loop learning process will be more effective than those that do not? Indeed, that is difficult to argue against and, in fact, is something of a tautology. Second, Nagl makes a credible case that each Army develops a unique ethos - an organizational genetic code, if you will - that is based on a number of fundamental group characteristics, such as its age, size, historical mission and the specific national culture from which the officers and soldiers are drawn.

At a high level, Nagl argues that counterinsurgency operations need to be viewed holistically - as an inseparable combination of political, economic, administrative, police and military activities that stress the minimum usage of firepower necessary. Nagl's real point, it seems to me, is that the British Army, owing to its unique history in colonial operations, was naturally better suited to counterinsurgency operations than its American counterpart, which is the primary explanation for such widely different approaches and outcomes to their experience in Malaya and Vietnam, respectively.

For instance, Nagl notes that the British Army in the 1950s had traditionally played a secondary role in national defense behind the vaunted British Navy. The administrative and peacekeeping initiatives the British Army often undertook in the colonies made the organization more flexible and naturally geared to fighting limited wars with limited objectives. Nevertheless, the British learned relatively slowly as the Malaya Emergency developed in 1948, but they did learn. The British have a tradition of treating each conflict as fundamentally unique owing to differences in local culture and the circumstances involved in the war. Moreover, like their Constitution, British military doctrine had long remained unwritten. The experience gained by the British in counterinsurgency and jungle war - such as the Boer War, the Burma theater in the Second World War or the peacekeeping in Palestine - were ultimately leveraged in the fight against the ethnic-Chinese dominated communist party of Malaya. Yet, the British Army did much worse at "learning" in the Second World War when forced to adapt to the conventional juggernaut of German combined arms warfare. The British Army simply was not conditioned for large-scale conventional operations.

Nagl then contrasts this to his own US Army, which has a rich tradition as the primary defender of the nation in great wars of annihilation, with the US Civil War, World War I and World War II playing an especially important role in the Army's self-conception. Even though the armed forces of United States had plenty of experience with counterinsurgency-like operations over the centuries - the wars against the Plains Indians, the Philippine insurrection, the numerous "small wars" fought by the Marines in the Caribbean and elsewhere - such operations were not seen as the ethos of the US Army. Thus it was natural for the Army to resist fighting a war it did not consider its own. Nagl adopts the viewpoint made by Andrew Krepinevich in "The Army and Vietnam" that the Army paid plenty of lip service to reform and special operations forces in theory but never wavered from longheld conventional views on the American way in war - victory by overwhelming offensive firepower - in practice.

So, if an Army's ethos plays a fundamental role in its ability to wage counterinsurgency, are there any things it can do to improve on the margins, nevertheless? In short, Nagl says, "yes, there are."

Although he does not say so specifically, Nagl embraces the "maverick" model of doctrinal innovation posited by Barry Posen in "Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain and Germany Between the World Wars." Nagl cites the critically important role British General Gerald Templer played in changing tactics and unifying efforts successfully in Malaya. In the Vietnam case study, Nagl calls the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program the "most remarkable of American institutional innovation" in the war and says that it was all made possible by the work of Robert Komer, whose colorful sobriquet "The Blowtorch" says everything about his intensity and wherewithal. It is noteworthy, too, that Komer was a civilian in Vietnam.

Nagl argues that General Creighton Abrams understood better than any other senior commander the need for change in US doctrine to meet the demands of counter insurgency, but that the Army's conventional culture was too much for even him to completely overcome. Abrams had led the influential 1966 study known as the Program for the Pacification and Long Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), which explicitly rejected the current US policy and instead encouraged a unified command under the civilian ambassador and stressed the need to focus on local security operations and pacification efforts rather than firepower intensive "search and destroy" missions that did much to alienate the rural population from the US and allied government in Saigon. Yet, when Abrams took over for Westmoreland in 1968 Nagl claims that Abrams stopped short of rejecting (and thus discrediting) the tactics employed by his former superior.

Interestingly, Nagl frequently cites the deleterious effects of the pervasive "can do" attitude in the US Army and especially emphasized by Westmoreland at MACV. He argues that few things did more to stifle innovation and learn from past experience than the Army's long tradition of slogging through to victory in the face of dreadful defeats, from Brandywine Creek to Fredericksburg to Kasserine Pass. In the end, Nagl concludes, "The US Army's concept of how to fight and win precluded the development of a successful counterinsurgency doctrine in South Vietnam."

In closing, this is an excellent primer on two major twentieth century counterinsurgencies with two very different paths and denouements. Anyone interested in current events in Iraq and one perspective on counterinsurgency operations should read this book.

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Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam 1st Edition

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