**SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER MEDAL FOR MILITARY LITERATURE** **SHORTLISTED FOR BRITISH ARMY BOOK OF THE YEAR** In the wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and in recent conflicts more generally, liberal powers have blurred the line between military and political activity. Operationally, such blurring is highly effective: it works on the ground. Conversely, in strategic terms, it erases the distinction between war and peace. This, Simpson contends, is undesirable: how can policy control armed force, if armed force is a direct extension of policy? As the information revolution reinforces the politicisation of combat, this is likely to be an irreversible trend. The question this book seeks to answer is not whether the West should engage in such practices, but how to manage, gain advantage from, and mitigate the associated risks. Liberal powers need to win conflicts on the ground, and yet preserve a healthy distinction between war and peace. Failure to preserve that distinction will result in those powers being caught in endless conflicts for which they are operationally ill-equipped. War From The Ground Up offers a distinctive perspective in its consideration of the concept of contemporary warfare. While most accounts of conflict survey the battlefield from an academic perspective, or across it as a personal combat narrative, Simpson looks up from the front line to consider the concepts that put him there, and how they played out.
Emile Simpson is a former British Army officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, which he joined after graduating in Classics from Oxford University. Between 2007 and 2011, he completed three tours of Afghanistan.
Title: War from the Ground Up: Twenty-First-Century Combat as Politics (Conflict Classics)
Author: Simpson, Emile
ISBN: 9781849049481
Binding:
Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Publication Date: 2018-02-22
Number of Pages: 288
Weight: 0.3601 kg
'Deserves to be seen as a coda to Clausewitz's On War.''--Michael Howard, Times Literary Supplement ; 'Should be read by all aspiring military commanders and their Whitehall masters.'-- The Guardian; 'Ministers would do well to read Simpson's fascinating and provocative study before they launch their next lunge into the unknown. They might then better understand how elusive in modern conflict are the concepts of winning and losing.'--Max Hastings, The Sunday Times; 'I am constantly bowled over by Emile Simpson's insights. He produces lines that exude common sense and which, because they are pithy, deserve to be widely quoted - and will be. Put simply, this is the most intelligent book on war that I have read for a very long time.'-- Hew Strachan, Oxford ; 'Erudite and intelligent contribution to the literature on counterinsurgency.' -- Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs; 'Best book of the year by a considerable margin. ... Its paradigm-shifting arguments have implications that extend far beyond the battlefield.' -- Niall Ferguson, Bloomberg News Book of the Year; 'Emile Simpson engages with a key problem in our understanding of conflict -- the binary fallacy that sees war as essentially two-sided and as a precursor to political outcomes, rather than as a multi-player political ecosystem with its own logic.' -- David Kilcullen, author of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One; 'Filled with provocative and innovative observations about the blurring of military and political realms in kaleidoscopic environments, this book is the most perceptive account of contemporary conflict I have seen. It deserves to be widely read by military practitioners and their political leaders.' -- Conrad Crane, lead author of FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency and Director of the US Army Military History Institute; 'Emile Simpson combines academic rigour with practical perspective to explore the understanding and conceptualisation of modern war. ... An essential read for those interested in understanding both the conflict in Afghanistan and the contested and often confused nature of modern war.' -- James Denselow, International Affairs; 'An interesting and important meditation on the nature of the unsatisfying wars of the modern era by a man who has seen more of them than most. It should be read by everyone interested in the current war in Afghanistan and in the likely nature of conflict for many years to come; these wars are not going away, and Simpson has done yeoman's work in helping us understand them.' -- John Nagl, Minerva Professor of Culture and War, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis; 'How to do - and how not to do - counter-insurgency, by an expert and exceptionally thoughtful practitioner. Hard analysis, and happy-talk free. Essential reading for anyone seriously interested in what makes success in counter-insurgency so elusive.' -- Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, author of Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign; 'A bold exploration of strategic thought, well grounded in experience. It is what one would expect of a Gurkha officer, following in the footsteps of Bill Slim, the thinking man's general.' -- Carter Malkasian, Afghanistan veteran with the US State Department and author of War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier University
