For the counterinsurgency experts of a century ago, the extension of European empire into the Middle East offered exciting possibilities. The Italians bombed Libyans on the eve of World War I, but that was just the beginning. From 1919 onward, the fledgling Royal Air Force was busy dropping bombs on Afghan, Somali and Iraqi tribesmen. In 1926, French artillery shelled the centre of Damascus. It was in this context that Elbridge Colby, an American Army captain, wrote an article, “How to Fight Savage Tribes,” in order to educate his countrymen and challenge what he saw as their naïve faith in international law.
America has come a long way since then. As the country finds itself embroiled in one unconventional conflict after another, “precision” airstrikes, drones and the use of other robotic weaponry of ever increasing sophistication have steadily pushed the military further and further away from anything resembling classical notions of the laws of war. Today it is those who seek to remind Americans of the importance of observing international law who are on the back foot.
If we have anyone to thank for this, it is men like Elbridge Colby’s son, William. He fought behind enemy lines for the OSS in Nazi-occupied Europe, then set up anti-Communist stay-behind cells in Italy (unfortunately some went rotten and started blowing up civilians), before running the CIA’s shadow war in Vietnam and ending up as the director of central intelligence. Colby junior belonged to that generation of Americans who came to terms with the world that gives Max Boot the title of his book Invisible Armies. Indeed, they formed and fought in invisible armies themselves.
Not that invisible armies had been entirely absent earlier in American history; as Mr Boot, whose previous books include The Savage Wars of Peace, reminds us, the country owes its independence to a successful insurgency of its own. But it was the era of decolonisation that turned the US into a global policeman. Since then, Washington has spawned a vast counterinsurgency bureaucracy, complete with its own training schools, foreign exchange programmes and research institutes. Even before the challenges posed by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, an awful lot of people were having to think very hard about how to fight “savage tribes”. Like Elbridge Colby (who is not mentioned here), Max Boot wants to help them; unlike Colby’s, his way is through history.
The result is a sweeping panorama that ranges over a vast terrain. It starts and finishes in the Middle East, but in between there is a span of some four millenniums (give or take the odd century) and a journey that covers much of the globe. Though full of good stories readably told, Invisible Armies could have been pruned back a bit. The early history feels sketchy, and the use of terms like “counterinsurgency” and “guerrillas” anachronistic when applied to Huns, Picts or Romans.
The story proper begins only with the emergence of certain modern conventions – the widespread use of standing armies in set-piece battles; the development of legal norms with international applicability – in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this strict sense, the history of guerrilla warfare is no more than two centuries or so old, and in fact Mr Boot’s book becomes a lot more effective once he enters the modern era.
Even then there is a great deal going on — some three separate subjects more or less rolled into one. We get the story of guerrilla warfare, and also an account of how soldiers have tried to combat it. And then, there is the history of terrorism.
More From This Section
The effort to link guerrillas and terrorists does not come off. One has the impression that Mr Boot himself was uneasy about the connection, because he begins with some sensible observations not only about the similarities between the two categories, but also about the differences.
Invisible Armies really has two authors, sometimes working together, sometimes not. There is the popular historian, thoughtful, smart, fluent, with an eye for a good story and the telling quotation. And there is the policy adviser, the senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The historian can see questions from different angles and is generally careful not to take sides. The policy adviser wants to be useful and to make the deployment of American power more effective.
Invisible Armies thus forms part of a conversation that American policy makers, commentators and historians have been having with one another since Elbridge Colby’s day as they grapple with the burdens of power. Its tenor is moderately upbeat: Mr Boot believes lessons can be learned if only we look at history the right way. The war in the shadows may be here to stay, but we should not despair, he insists, because even now the odds are against the insurgents, provided armies tackle the job with patience, good sense and a consciousness of the importance of winning over hearts and minds. Terror, after all, is often self-defeating. I think Elbridge Colby would have approved.
©2013 The New York Times News Service
INVISIBLE ARMIES
An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From
Ancient Times to the Present
Max Boot
Liveright Publishing; 750 pages; $35