A Question of Command
A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq
SWJ Book Review by Matthew Caris
A Question of Command (Full PDF Article)
A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq by Mark Moyar, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2009, 368 pp., $30.
Critics claim American counterinsurgency theory has become dogmatic, too fixated on making major political, economic, or even societal changes in order to combat insurgencies. Ralph Peters, Bing West, and others have written that proponents pay too much attention to the “truisms” that pervade FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5, and not enough to killing insurgents. This is how Mark Moyar frames the COIN debate in the first chapter of his book A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq. Dr. Moyar, a professor at the Marine Corps University, argues that both sides in this debate miss the real determinant in success or failure in COIN: leadership. Contending that insurgency is at its core a power struggle between competing elites, Moyar makes the case that the side that marshals better leadership, as defined by ten essential traits of commanders for COIN, will emerge victorious. He argues the particular tactics employed do not necessarily matter, though he tends to favor kinetic methods over the kinds of nonmilitary means often prescribed by COIN theorists. The book examines nine historical cases: the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Philippine Insurrection, the Huk Rebellion, Malaya, Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In each, Moyar examines the performance of counterinsurgent leaders, and how their leadership values (or lack thereof) affected the outcome.
