War from the ground up : twenty-first century combat as politics / Emile Simpson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

As a British infantry officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles Emile Simpson completed three tours of Southern Afghanistan. Drawing on that experience, and on a range of revealing case studies ranging from Nepal to Borneo, War From The Ground Up offers a distinctive perspective on contemporary armed conflict: while most accounts of war look down at the battlefield from an academic perspective, or across it as a personal narrative, the author looks up from the battlefield to consider the concepts that put him there, and how they played out on the ground.Simpson argues that in the Afghan conflict, and in contemporary conflicts more generally, liberal powers and their armed forces have blurred the line between military and political activity. More broadly, they have challenged the distinction between war and peace. He contends that this loss of clarity is more a response to the conditions of combat in the early wenty-first century, particularly that of globalisation, than a deliberate choice. The issue is thus not whether the West should engage in such practices, but how to manage, gain advantage from, and mitigate the risks of this evolution in warfare.War From The Ground Up draws on personal experience from the frontline, situated in relation to historical context and strategic thought, to offer a reevaluation of the concept of war in contemporary conflict.SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER MEDAL FOR MILITARY LITERATURE 2013.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Simpson argues that the typical approach to war--a means to achieving political solutions--needs rethinking. Blending academic theory and personal accounts of his experiences in Afghanistan, Simpson makes the case that contemporary counterinsurgency is different from Carl von Clausewitz's conception of war in several fundamental ways. First, war is not a contest between two poles; instead, it is a complex constellation of a variety of competing actors, each with parochial interests. As such, outright "victory" over one side has far less meaning in counterinsurgency. Simpson argues, however, that major powers mistakenly interpret counterinsurgency campaigns as typical wars with two poles--a practice that is seriously flawed. The book's combination of theory and practice is refreshing, although the writing is a quite dense in places. Additionally, the author could have done more to identify more clearly how precisely counterinsurgency strategy could change to better reflect the conditions he describes. Summing Up: Optional. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students, and professionals. E. Chenoweth University of Denver