Reading lists - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

Reading lists

Other suggestions from notable readers and writers:

Lt. Col. Frederick “Fritz” Gottschalk is an Army officer who served in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

“One goal of my reading,” he says, “is to try to understand why the terrorists (and the societies that support them) hate Americans enough to kill themselves while attacking us and our allies, and to try to understand how our own military and other agencies can best counter this threat to our nation.”

His list:

• “Black Hawk Down” by Mark Bowden, 2000. I learned how difficult it was to operate in an urban environment in which most everyone wants to kill you, and how difficult the near-real-time communications capabilities can be for the leader on the ground.

• “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001” by Steve Coll, 2004. This book, plus the 9/11 Commission report, should be mandatory reading for understanding how our government enabled and missed the rise of the organization that has been attacking us since the 1990s.

• “The Carpet Wars: From Kabul to Baghdad: a Ten-year Journey Along Ancient Trade Routes” by Christopher Kremmer. 2003. This book introduces the different pulls on the Arab society that are mysterious to an American: Families, tribes and religions, and how they are affected by the Arab world’s modern states and governments.

• “What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East” by Bernard Lewis, 2003. Instead of the institutions of leadership, learning and discovery that marked earlier Arab cultures, a population has been left to scratch out a living in a part of the world that has only one resource the rest of the world wants: oil.

• “Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda” by Sean Naylor, 2006. An incredible documentation of how difficult it is to operate on today’s battlefield and how much more difficult we can make it with our own operating techniques. (Naylor is a Military Times senior writer.)

Col. Michael Belcher, director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Va., says a military career — whether four or 40 years long — is too short to read bad books.

These suggestions compiled by the faculty of the War College have scholarly merit, impact and timelessness, and “will underpin professional military education, not only for this decade, but for decades to come”:

• “Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime” by Dr. Eliot Cohen, 2003. A historical study of statesmanship and civilian-military relations.

• “The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One” by David Kilcullen, 2009. Counterinsurgency theory put into practice.

• “The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050” by MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, 2001. The history of technology and transformation.

• “Leadership: The Warrior’s Art” by Christopher Kolenda, 2001. Anthology of the application of combat leadership.

• “The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual” by Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. James Amos, 2007. Counterinsurgency concepts, tactics, techniques and procedures defined.

• “Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War” by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss, 2007. The causes and consequences of small-unit combat leadership gone awry in a counterinsurgency operation.

• “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” by P.W. Singer, 2009. The future of military technology and transformation.

• “The Utility Of Force: The Art Of War In The Modern World” by Gen. Rupert Smith, 2007. Analysis of the modern system and a model for the future fight.

• “Decoding Clausewitz: A New Approach to On War” by Jon Tetsuro Sumida, 2008. Modern analysis of classic theory.

Nathaniel Fick, of the Center for New American Security, points to David Kilcullen’s “The Accidental Guerrilla,” also recommended by the Marine Corps War College.

Dr. Elizabeth Samet, professor of English at the U.S. Military Academy and author of “Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point” suggests Rory Stewart’s “The Places in Between” for “nuanced insights into Afghanistan.”

Former Army officer Craig M. Mullaney, author of “The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education,” suggests these books: “Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier” by Alexandra Fuller, 2004, and “The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World” by Rupert Smith, 2007.

Lt. Col. Michael J. Shinners, fresh from Iraq, steps outside the military wire to suggest Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.” He says the look at baseball’s Oakland A’s offers lessons “invaluable for an Army rethinking age-old assumptions.”