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Thursday, May 28, 2009 8:22 PM

Know thy military: The Canadian Forces reading list

Colin Freeze

Kandahar, Afghanistan -- Canada's Parliament made its intentions very clear last year: We're not in Southern Afghanistan for the long haul.

"The government of Canada [will] notify NATO that Canada will end its presence in Kandahar as of July 2011, and, as of that date, the redeployment of Canadian Forces troops out of Kandahar and their replacement by Afghan forces start as soon as possible, so that it will have been completed by December 2011," the motion reads.

(Note that the language of the motion is particular only to the Canadian military "presence" in "Kandahar" -- distinctions that may be important in coming months as the post-2011 future of the mission is debated.)

In any event, just a few months later the military brass finally came up with its own counterinsurgency manual. The document, now public, reveals top generals had been putting down their weapons and picking up books -- a lot of books.

A partial list of the Canadian Forces' "suggested readings in counterinsurgency," follows below.

The upshot? Counterinsurgency (COIN, in military vernacular) ain't easy -- never was, never is, never will be.

And just because a country fears being drawn into a bloody quagmire, doesn't mean that it can't try to discern lessons from the bloody quagmires of ages past.

- Islam, Karen Armstrong (2002)

- Inside al-Qaeda, Rohan Gunarathna (2002)

- The War of Ideas: Jihad Against Democracy, Walid Phares (2007)

- The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism (2001)

- The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahedeen Tactics in the Soviet Afghanistan War, Colonel Jalali (2000)

- Revolt in the Desert, T.E. Lawrence (2004)

- History of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire,

- Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, Caroline Elkins, (2005)

- Pacification in Algeria: 1956-1958, David Galula (2005)

- The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence, Tony Geraghty (2000)

- Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the IRA, M.L.R. Smith (1995)

- Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary Warfare in I Corps, Michael Hennessy, (1997)

- Communist Revolutionary Warfare: From the Vietminh to Viet Cong, George Tanham, (1967)

- Defeating Communist Insurgency, The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam, Sir Robert Thompson (2005)

- Counter-Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience, Charles Bohannan (1962)

- COIN in a Test Tube: Analyzing the Success of the Regional Assistance Mission, Solomon Islands, Russell Glenn (2007)

- Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency Roger Trinquier (1964)

- War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, Robert B. Asprey (1994)

- Mars Learning: The Marine Corps Development of Small Wars Doctrine 1915-1940, Keith Bickel (2001)

- U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860-1941, Andrew Birtle (1998)

- U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1942-1976, Andrew Birtle (1998)

And so on. ...

Feeback? colinfreezeisinafghanistan@gmail.com

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Witness: Kandahar Contributors

Gloria Galloway

Gloria Galloway

Gloria Galloway has been a reporter for nearly three decades. In addition to The Globe and Mail, she has worked for the Canadian Press, the Hamilton Spectator and the Windsor Star. She is currently a member of the Globe's Parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. Gloria has travelled to Afghanistan for The Globe on several occasions to write about the military operation and the lives of the Afghan people.

 
Sonia Verma, Globe and Mail reporter.

Sonia Verma

Sonia Verma is a reporter for The Globe and Mail, writing for the foreign and national desks. She joined The Globe the spring of 2009, and has reported from more than a dozen countries for Canadian, American and British newspapers including The Times of London and New York Newsday.

She was previously based in the Middle East, first in Jerusalem, where she reported on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the war in Southern Lebanon and the rise of Hamas. Most recently, Sonia was based in Dubai, serving as The Times’ Gulf correspondent, writing from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen. This is her sixth trip to Afghanistan.

 

Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad is a reporter with the Globe and Mail's National desk, covering technology and security issues. He has previously worked for Report on Business and the Globe's Ottawa bureau.

Follow me on Twitter: @omarelakkad

 

Colin Freeze

Colin Freeze is a national reporter for The Globe and Mail, currently on assignment in Afghanistan.

Based in Toronto, he covers national-security issues and intelligence investigations, including several ongoing trials under antiterrorism laws.

Last fall he created a comprehensive interactive timeline called "The Road to Torture," chronicling the secret interrelationship of several cases that resulted in Canadian Arabs being detained and interrogated in foreign countries after 9/11.

Mr. Freeze studied journalism at Carleton University prior to joining The Globe in 1998.

 

Jessica Leeder

Jessica Leeder is a national writer for The Globe and Mail and has undertaken two reporting trips to Afghanistan. Since joining the Globe in 2007, Ms. Leeder has been based out of the newspaper's Toronto office, where she writes news and features for the foreign and national desks. She was educated at the University of Western Ontario and Columbia University School of Journalism and has worked for several newspapers across North America, including the Toronto Star and the Dallas Morning News, where she was named Star Investigative Reporter of 2005 by the Texas Headliners' Foundation and won the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors' award for investigative reporting.