The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century

I would like to start off by proudly saying that Col. Hammes is a friend of mine. We worked together while he was the Commanding Officer of the Marine's Chemical Biological Incident Response Force and most particularly during the U.S. Senate's Hart Anthrax and Dirksen-Ricin Incidents as well as many other National security events like Presidential State of the Union Addresses to Congress. This book is a bold revelation into war fighting in this century and the DOD thought process for re-training, that is necessary of fighting the new wars on enemy turf, man to man, low tech style while we rely on high technology necessary to make good Human skills decisions in the fight against radical insurgency. The good Colonel starts out in this book identifying who we are now fighting and their reasons/causes in taking up conflict against a higher technological U.S. Military force, one which is a better trained and equipped war fighting force and the enemies’ adaptation to winning small conflicts in spite of being overpowered, out gunned and better trained. Hammes outlines how the U.S. Military transforms itself to fight the Modern war without learning that we need to adapt and learn that in today's fighting, the DOD high tech conventional war may be really fighting a low tech 4th generation struggle that is localized in nature. In this book Hammes transforms the reader from many generations of wars and conflicts to today’s mission. Most of all, the author talks about a need for a whole-sale DOD transformation from not trying to win battles, but attempting to win the whole war. "It requires focusing on human aspects of society; languages, history, cultures, internal and international relationships". He states we must refocus on our people, have a better analyzation of the threat we face both foreign and domestic, and since no one can be exactly right all the time- build some flexibility into training and reactionary forces. We must re evaluate the THREAT and put emphasis on HUMINT Intel. and finally we must ensure that we have some kind of built in troop flexibility that individual commanders can quickly adapt to with their troops to win conflicts. In conclusion, readers will discover why small armies or individuals (anthrax attack) can be successful against far superior military. He even suggests that the DOD change some of its rigid structuralization to a more relevant message of winning the war. The U.S Military lost a great leader and others should emulate his cooperation in the civilian sector. One only has to look at his accomplishments at CBIRF to see the winning model he supplied. EBailor