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Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam | 
 enlarge | Author: John A. Nagl
Creator: Peter J. Schoomaker
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 4588
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 280
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0226567702
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.504
EAN: 9780226567709
ASIN: 0226567702
Publication Date: September 15, 2005
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Product Description
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.
(01/15/2006)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 44 more reviews...
 Flagrant disregard for historical accuracy July 20, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
In his book The Two Vietnams, the late Bernard Fall warned that any comparisons between British victories in Malaya and the situation in Vietnam in 1960's was nothing but a dangerous self-delusion, or worse, an oversimplification of the whole problem. Mr. Nagl should have heeded that advice before he wrote this book.
These conflicts did not share much in common beyond the jungle setting and political ideology. The author's first error was not underscoring the fact that the British-led security forces did use overwhelming force to neutralize the insurgency in Malaya. By the mid-1950s the communist guerrillas were impossibly outnumbered (by more than 50 to 1) and they had no external support from foreign countries. Food control was easy for the British because Malaya imported 2/3 of its rice, and geography isolated the guerrillas from potential suppliers needed to maintain and expand the insurgency.
The most important dissimilarity is that the British did not have to fight a huge conventional field army like the PAVN, which ultimately numbered in millions of troops and thanks to China and Russia, it was armed with modern infantry weapons, tanks, heavy artillery, jet aircraft, SAMs, and radar controlled air defense. The last time the British fought pitched battles against conventional forces in Malaya, they were crushed by the Japanese Army in 1942.
The communist insurgency in Malaya amounted to little more than a few thousand guerrillas equipped with no sophisticated weapons. The small arms they did have were generally in poor condition, and ironically supplied to them by the British SOE during World War II. It was the British who raised and equipped these guerrillas to confront the Japanese occupation forces.
Geography also spared British Malaya from other communist threats. South Vietnam was bordered by three countries that were either communist or in various stages of revolt. Compared to Vietcong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army, the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were little more than a nuisance to U.S troops, but they did receive foreign military aid, and they were far more dangerous than the guerrillas in Malaya.
Unlike the Vietcong, the communist guerrillas in Malaya had no protected supply bases outside the borders. The Vietnamese insurgents were natives, but in Malaya about 90% of the guerrillas were foreign immigrants (Chinese). The massive British resettlement program of Chinese squatters was an idea that did not work with Vietnamese families who did not wish to be moved from their long-established homesteads.
A self-promoter like Sir Robert Thompson would not admit it, but the political realities of Asian self-determination may have played a bigger role in the outcome than the British armed forces. Prompted by bitter memories from the Fall of Singapore and reminded by the Fall of Dienbienphu, British officials knew that the days of white colonialism were numbered. That is why they agreed, in the middle of their Emergency, to let go of their rule and leave Malaya in exchange for the cooperation and support of the people. This was a significant concession made by the British and it cannot be stressed enough.
Finally, it would have been nice if the British Army offered more than lip service because they triggered the Vietnam war in September 1945. Major General Douglas Gracey was ordered to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, and he disobeyed instructions when he chose to restore French rule. The day before Gracey arrived in Saigon, French agents armed the Legionnaires who were released from captivity. They stormed government buildings and looted private homes. They attacked the Vietminh and other activists competing for power, as well as innocent bystanders. French and Vietnamese civilians seized on the opportunity to settle old scores. British troops sided with the French and General Gracey asked the Japanese prisoners to help because his own Gurkha troops were unable to contain the riots and open warfare. He wrongly believed that this series of actions had no serious political implications, which caused great embarrassment for Lord Mountbatten. The Japanese troops were rearmed and told to disarm all the Vietnamese militants, and remove the provisional Vietnamese Executive Committee at the Governor General's palace. Public utilities were disabled by the fighting and Martial Law was declared, sparking the conflagration that lasted 30 years.
The British were not successful at countering insurgencies in Java, Palestine, Cyprus and Aden so their collective experience is not a good model for addressing current troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 Theory From One Who Gets It July 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
To use a term that many in the military are fond of, Nagl "gets it." His understanding of counterinsurgency operations is both broad and deep, and his writing is smooth enough for the lay reader to comprehend without any difficulty.
Nagl's departure from the US Army will be a loss for this country's armed forces. However, since he will be taking a position at the Center for a New American Security, hopefully we can look forward to fresh work from this great military mind.
Amazing May 17, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Very cool book for operators (armed forces and civilian) and regular people. It shows us what we should be trying to do in the whole world. Make people safer, and they'll help you find the really bad guys (not the everyday ones). Really worth reading.
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam February 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Good read. Great knowledge. I wish the authore had stayed in the army becasue he knows what he is talking about.
Shows the pain of organizational culture December 23, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As the war in Iraq slides into it's fifth year I am sure most Americans are perplexed on why things remain so screwed up over there. Why can't American's just handle it and come home. This book sort of explains the why. This book is excellent. It really defines what an insurgency is. It isn't like the traditional war like WWII which we see on the history channel. Anyone who wants to get perspective on events needs to read this book.
The book has a second point too which anyone can apply. This book shows how the organizational culture can effect the ability to solve problems. The author does that in studying the British experience in Malay vs. the American experience in Vietnam. He shows how the British were adapt and could learn then apply as they go along. The LTC then shows how the American's were not flexible and paid the consequences. LTC Nagel shows how the American's were so preprogrammed in fighting a WWII type battle they couldn't grasp any other solution. The Generals were preprogrammed in Vietnam to such a degree they threw out any fact that upset the model in their mind. They may have changed the buzz words but the core way of doing business was the same throughout Vietnam for the Americans, search and destroy. While the British had a way to listen and apply the lessons learned from the bottom up. The result of such innovation was that they won their war and we didn't. Insurgencies tend to be as much of a political fight as anything else. LTC Nagel shows that in the book.
Any manager of any large organization needs to read this book because it shows how organizational culture can choke a team to death.
LTC Nagel does identify what an insurgency is but doesn't offer much remedy to fighting that war directly. He does talk about how the British did it and how some American's had theories in handling that type of war. It would be interesting to hear of his insight in the context of Iraq. However I feel that the planners in this surge probably read this book. It has a lot of similarities with the British Malay model.
Overall it is an easy read. He does get lost in the military terms a little. The material he talks about is the same concepts you read about in the newspapers. It will help the reader understand what is going on.
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