Marlowe does Galula

David Galula, the Chuck Berry of counterinsurgency theory, is the subject of a new monograph by Ann Marlowe:

It places Galula’s two great books in the context of his exposure to Mao’s doctrine of revolutionary warfare in China, the French Army’s keen interest in counterinsurgency in the second half of the 1950s, and the transmission of French doctrine to the U.S. military in the early 1960s. It also discusses home-grown American counterinsurgency pioneers like General Edward Lansdale, who promoted Galula’s American career and encouraged him to write a book. It details the counterinsurgency fever of President John F. Kennedy’s administration, a nearly forgotten episode. Galula died in relative obscurity at the age of 49 in 1967. He had the odd historical luck of not having been a part of the counterinsurgency fever of his day, but of ours instead. Both those who think counterinsurgency has been embraced uncritically and those who think it has not been followed enough will find intellectual ammunition in Galula — and food for thought in the relationship of his ideas to his time.

Tom: It looks interesting but a friend at the Pentagon who already has read it sends along this review:

She conflated Charles and Victor Krulak early in the document and oddly dismisses General Krulak to obscurity despite his influence during and after the Vietnam war. Even Mr. Gates in recent speeches has noted Krulak’s influence, but Ms. Marlowe claims he disappeared with Lansdale and had no influence. Her grasp of the Combined Action Program is limited and could have been developed further, both its utility and its limitations.

She does a great shop with Galula’s personal history and breadth of experience (proving Bruce Hoffman correct, he has long extolled David’s travels to China and study of other conflicts). 

Uses a selected set of revisionists like Drs. Birtle and Moyar (and Gentile) to make Westmoreland into some kind of genius, without even a superficial grasp of the larger literature. The former are credible scholars, who do substantial research, but whose findings still fall outside the mainstream. Overall, this product’s principal shortfall is the utter lack of context or understanding of the Army’s institutional culture at stake, or the influence of Army officers like Harry Summers who desperately sought to provide a thin veneer of phony intellectualism by misappropriating Clausewitz to their cause. 

Ms. Marlowe is strongest in research, lots of lengthy quotes, but these do not by themselves carry the argument for her. Ultimately she fails to carry thru on suggestions that pop-centric COIN isn’t the solution today, infers it wasn’t all it could have been in the 1960s, which may be true, but this is NOT the same as offering an alternative to today’s problems.

At any rate, I plan to read the monograph as soon as I get out of Chosin Reservoir, which I have been reading about for several weeks. Best book so far in my month or more of reading is Roy Appleman’s East of Chosin. Absolutely hair-raising.