Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare in American History (review)

Major warfare has been the exception rather than the rule in American history. From the colonial period to the present day, American soldiers have spent much more time and effort in limited and low-intensity conflicts, many of which were insurgencies or counterinsurgencies than in conventional wars. Iraq and Afghanistan are only the latest in a long string of such conflicts. Yet, according to John Tierney, American infantry has never been “prepared at the outset to fight an insurrection when faced with such a challenge” (p. 2).

In reviewing the history of these struggles, Tierney provides a critique that will be familiar to most military historians. He argues that, despite our frequent experience in this realm, American politicians and soldiers generally regard guerrilla and terror tactics as dishonorable and repugnant, preferring to fight stand-up conventional battles. As a result, Tierney contends, the U.S. military has tended to either avoid such conflicts or attempt to deal with them on conventional terms, deploying large well-equipped units to seek a quick military solution while neglecting the social, political, and economic causes of such insurgencies. In turn, the perceived excesses committed by our troops arouse domestic American opposition to the war in question, making it difficult for Washington to fight the type of protracted struggle necessary to defeat most insurgencies. Eventually, therefore, the Americans either adapt to the specific threat or, more commonly, train an indigenous paramilitary force and withdraw their own troops.

This thesis has much to commend it, and Chasing Ghosts generally provides an effective historical analysis to support the argument. This study is particularly informative on the subject of Augusto Sandino in Nicaragua. At times, however, Tierney stretches his definitions to make a more convincing argument. Thus, he describes long-range penetration forces, such as those of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the Civil War or Merrill’s Marauders in World War II, as being guerrillas even though they fought rather conventionally at the tactical level. Moreover, Tierney presents successful counter-insurgency operations in Greece, the Philippines, and South Korea as further proof of his contention that the post-World War II American military avoided guerrilla war as “a dirty nuisance, an internal problem” (p. 229). By doing so, he excludes the possibility that these cases demonstrate a correct American assessment that providing advisors and weapons to local armed forces was the best solution.

Any historian who writes a broad interpretative survey risks overlooking the specialized scholarship on a particular topic. In this instance, Tierney might have provided a more nuanced argument had he had access to works such as John Grenier’s The First Way of War, about colonial irregular operations, or Brian McAllister Linn’s The Philippine War, 1899–1902. In the latter case, for example, Linn provides grist for Tierney’s thesis by describing American successes in a conventional warfare phase during 1899, followed by frustrations when the subsequent guerrilla opposition broke into numerous insurgencies because of local ethnic and social differences.

Despite such issues, Chasing Ghosts succeeds in covering a broad spectrum of insurgencies in a very brief and readable format. Reading it would undoubtedly improve the knowledge and judgment of policy makers and citizens considering future American involvements in counter-insurgency.