"Imperial Grunts" by Robert Kaplan

[dbuntz]

Wanted to know if anyone else has read Imperial Grunts by Robert Kaplan. It's a pretty interesting read by a guy who does his homework.

The basic gist of the book is that the US military is changing the world not by large scale deployments like Iraq or Afghanistan, but by small scale deployments to places like the Philippines, Colombia, Dijoubti, Mongolia..etc.

The way we are changing things is by training armies to improve their NCO corps. The book has a pretty serious SF focus, since that's the basic mission of the SF is to train foreign armies, but all in all....a very good read - check it out.

[Cerebroden]

haven't read it, but I can also argue that , those very same SF are destabilizing other larger regions by pointing to the issues the iraqi police are having now, by acting way too aggresive and having issues with thier own local people based on the way they handle possible insurgents and town folk.

[dbuntz]

Cerebroden - the SF right now does very little trainup of the Iraqi police...most of the trainers for the Iraqi police are regular line units.

SF has been handling the trainup of other units like the Iraqi commando and police commando units.

Read the book if you can, and let me know what you think.

[Wes]

+1 on what dbuntz said, it is line units training the Iraqi FPS and Police units. Basicly they have MPs and CIVPOL training the Iraqi police, and have Infantry training FPS.

[DangerZoneMAV]

Got it for Christmas and finished it like three days ago. It was really good, I especially liked the chapter about Mongolia. Even though it focuses on one guy, he's living in a totally different world that no one would even imagine. Interesting book, Kaplan just has some annoying quirks in his writing, but nothing too distracting.

[captainmorganlu]

I'm about 80% through the book, really enjoying it. It was recommended to me by another LT.

Kaplan does have some quirks, such as calling BDUs "Battle Dress UTILITIES" and referring to 7.62mm ammo as "30-OUT-6". I think it's 30-Ought-6. "Ought" being an old word for "zero". I may be wrong.

Regardless, everyone should read this book.

[dbuntz]

I caught some quirks as well, but for me it doesn't take away from the overall message of the book.

This apparently is to be the first of a series on the military. I first starting reading his works a couple of years ago and found his stuff to be pretty interesting and relatively informed.

[Sammy Sandbag]

and referring to 7.62mm ammo as "30-OUT-6". I think it's 30-Ought-6. "Ought" being an old word for "zero". I may be wrong.

He's probably wrong on more than one account then. I think he ment to say .308 Win.

[Krizo]

It's...Thirty aught six .30-06

Sammy is right as well.

.308 Win, 7.62 x 63 mm, Springfield, etc. etc.

[spaceCADETzoom]

He meant .308 (or 7.62x51 NATO in gi joe speak)...which is entirely different than .30-06... .308 is fired by M14s, M240, M60, etc. .30-06 was from WWII...Garands, M1919s, 03 SPringfields, etc.

By that alone I'm probably not picking up the book. :)It may be a little thing, but it plants a seed of skepticism. It shows one of two things: 1) he doesn't know himself, and 2) he didn't research it well. Don't know which I find more alarming. I know, it's probably just a tiny kernel that slipped throught he cracks...but it's gonna be in my head if I read it. I'm sure it's a great book otherwise... I'll probably pick it up eventually, but at best it will be the equivalent a shiny new car fresh from the factory with a key scrape down the side...makes you wonder what else the factory let past...