Episode Notes

Everyone and everything has an origin story, while I had a sneaking suspicion early on in my modest career in special operations and irregular warfare (IW) that something was fundamentally wrong with the western way of war in these endeavors, it was Douglas Porch who probably set my course straight. In this book, he makes a compelling historical and logical case for why the IW efforts planet-wide have not only been a failure but ones that repeat themselves again and again.

References:

Douglas Porch Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War

Ann Scott Tyson American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Grant

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Mark Bowden Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Bob Scales Scales on War: The Future of America’s Military at Risk

Aaron B. O’Connell Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Hollywood

Hy S. Rothstein Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare

Robert Asprey War In The Shadows: The Guerrilla In History

Special Forces Detachment Mission Planning Guide HQDA January 2020

My Substack

Email at cgpodcast@pm.me.