Synopses & Reviews
From one of the most important Army officers of his generation, a memoir of the militaryand#8217;s revolution in counterinsurgency warfare and#160;
Delivering a profound education in modern warfare, John Nagland#8217;s Knife Fights is essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of Americaand#8217;s soldiers and the purposes for which their lives are put at risk.
As an army tank commander in the first Gulf War, Nagl was an early convert to the view that Americaand#8217;s greatest future threats would come from asymmetric warfare: guerrillas, terrorists, and insurgents. His Oxford thesis on the lessons of Vietnamand#151;eventually published as a book called Learning to Eat Soup with a Knifeand#151;became the bible of the counterinsurgency movement. But it would take 9/11 and the botched aftermath of the Iraq invasion toand#160;give his ideas contemporary relevance. After a yearand#8217;s hard fighting in Iraqand#8217;s Anbar Province, where Nagl served as operations officer of a tank battalion in the 1st Infantry Division, he was asked by General David Petraeus to coauthor the new Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manualand#151;rewriting core doctrine that would change the course of two wars and the thinking of an army. Knife Fights is the definitive account of counterinsurgency and its consequences by the man who was the doctrineand#8217;s leading architect.
About the Author
John A. Nagl is a retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Army. A graduate of West Point and a Rhodes Scholar, he received his PhD from St. Antonyand#8217;s College, Oxford. He is the former president of the Center for a New American Security and the ninth headmaster of the Haverford School in Pennsylvania.