From Booklist
Hammes is a career Marine Corps officer, and with this selection, he argues that the U.S. has adapted poorly in response to the new generation of guerrilla warfare. Fourth-generation warfare, as Hammes calls it, is what American forces encounter in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israelis find in Palestine, and it is the way of the future: guerrilla warfare characterized by political acumen and patience, using communications networks and strategic strikes to demoralize and exhaust conventionally superior militaries. For many military strategists, including those presently running the Defense Department, this new world order amounts to a call to newfangled technological arms, but for Hammes, smart bombs and spy drones are not the answer. The solution is to study our enemies as they have studied us and build a networked, flexible, and, here's the kicker, less hierarchical military structure that employs humans to fight the humans fighting us. As few as five years ago, such analysis would have had limited appeal, but in today's political climate, this concise, surprisingly readable book will attract a broad readership. Brendan Driscoll
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Book Description
Ongoing events in Iraq show how difficult it is for the world's only remaining superpower to impose its will upon other peoples. From Vietnam, French and US, to Afghanistan, Russian and US, to Israel and the Palestinians, to Somalia and Kosovo, recent history is replete with powerful military forces being tied up by seemingly weaker opponents. This is Fourth Generation War (4GW), and Colonel Thomas Hammes, United States Marine Corps, tells you all about it. The author explains asymetrical warfare (4GW) as the means by which Davids can defeat Goliaths. The Sling and the Stone has appeared in/on: • Marine Corps Gazette, November 2004 • The Atlantic Monthly, December 2004 • Washington Post, Nov. 17, 2004 • San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 14, 2004 • Book TV/CSPAN, Nov. 11, 2004 • Diane Rehn Show, NPR Radio, Nov. 11, 2004 • Chicago Tribune – Washington Bureau, Nov. 10, 2004 • Newsday Nov. 10, 2004 • INSIGHT, Aired Nov. 8, 2004 • USA Today, Nov. 8, 2004 • Military.com, Nov. 5, 2004 • Library Journal Reviews, Nov. 1, 2004 • Armed Forces Journal, November 2004 • CNNFN Show: Market Call, Oct. 26, 2004 • CNN Live Today, Oct. 26, 2004 • CNNFN: Street Sweep, Oct. 26, 2004 • CNNFN: The Flip Side, Oct. 26, 2004 • CNN Monday Morning, Oct. 26, 2004 • Chicago Tribune, Oct. 23, 2004 • Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Oct. 17, 2004 "4GW (Fourth Generation Warfare) is the only kind of war America has ever lost. And we have done so three times – in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. This form of warfare has also defeated the French in Vietnam and Algeria, and the USSR in Afghanistan…As the only Goliath left in the world, we should be worried that the world’s Davids have found a sling and stone that work." – Chapter 1, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century The War in Iraq. The War on Terror. These types of "asymmetrical" warfare are the conflicts of the 21st century – and show how difficult it is for the world's only remaining superpower to battle insurgents and terrorists who will fight unconventionally in the face of superior military power. This change in military conflict may seem sudden. But in his new book, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, Thomas X. Hammes, United States Marine Corps, details how "Fourth Generation Warfare" or "4GW" has evolved over decades, with powerful military forces from economically advanced nations being defeated by seemingly weaker opponents. Hammes, a full colonel on active duty, spent years training insurgents in various locations around the world. He was stationed in Somalia in the early 1990s before the withdrawal of American troops after the events in Mogadishu. In The Sling and the Stone, he uses this extensive experience and his lifelong study of military history to illuminate how war is evolution, not revolution, and that a "weaker" opponent will continually evolve to use ways to avoid direct military engagement. Instead of winning militarily, an insurgency will work to test the political will of a more powerful nation to stay the course during a war. "We win the battles," he states, "but we lose the war." Hammes has seen the capability of insurgents firsthand. "I was particularly impressed with two aspects of the men I met," he writes. "First was their utter determination to continue the struggle despite the odds. They were not deterred by fear of death…The second outstanding trait was the remarkable ingenuity they displayed for overcoming problems. I found insurgents are not impressed with conventional power. Any nation that assumes it is inherently superior to another is setting itself up for disaster." The U.S. has not properly prepared, he contends, for the military needs and political will that will be required to win a "low tech conflict" outside the expectations of the Department of Defense’s 20th century planning for a short-term conflict with a high-tech, symmetrical enemy like the Soviet Union. Featuring an overview of the first three generations of modern war, Hammes then focuses on examples of the evolution of 4GW, and how it will require decades instead of months or years to win. He also examines in detail "transnational" enemies like Al Qaeda, and how the U.S. military’s focus on high-tech weapons designed to overpower an enemy in a short amount of time means little when the enemy has a different concept of the time the conflict will last. The Sling and the Stone is must reading for anyone who wants to know what it will take for the West to "win" the war on terror. As a leading expert on insurgency, asymmetrical warfare, and the unconventional methods used by insurgents like those in Iraq and Afghanistan today, Hammes explains in full detail what to expect from the enemy in the first major war of the 21st century.


About the Author
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a career Marine, Thomas X. Hammes has spent most of his twenty-eight years serving in infantry and intelligence assignments. Colonel Hammes is considered by many in the defense community as the foremost expert in insurgent warfare. He has written numerous articles on defense issues and has appeared on PBS’s News Hour. He is a senior military fellow at the National Defense University. He lives with his family in Northern Virginia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"4GW (Fourth Generation Warfare) is the only kind of war America has ever lost. And we have done so three times - in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. This form of warfare has also defeated the French in Vietnam and Algeria, and the USSR in Afghanistan...As the only Goliath left in the world, we should be worried that the world's Davids have found a sling and stone that work." - Chapter 1, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century

The War in Iraq. The War on Terror. These types of "asymmetrical" warfare are the conflicts of the 21st century - and show how difficult it is for the world's only remaining superpower to battle insurgents and terrorists who will fight unconventionally in the face of superior military power.

This change in military conflict may seem sudden. But in his new book, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, Thomas X. Hammes, United States Marine Corps, details how "Fourth Generation Warfare" or "4GW" has evolved over decades, with powerful military forces from economically advanced nations being defeated by seemingly weaker opponents.

Hammes, a full colonel on active duty, spent years training insurgents in various locations around the world. He was stationed in Somalia in the early 1990s before the withdrawal of American troops after the events in Mogadishu. In The Sling and the Stone, he uses this extensive experience and his lifelong study of military history to illuminate how war is evolution, not revolution, and that a "weaker" opponent will continually evolve to use ways to avoid direct military engagement. Instead of winning militarily, an insurgency will work to test the political will of a more powerful nation to stay the course during a war. "We win the battles," he states, "but we lose the war."

Hammes has seen the capability of insurgents firsthand. "I was particularly impressed with two aspects of the men I met," he writes. "First was their utter determination to continue the struggle despite the odds. They were not deterred by fear of death...The second outstanding trait was the remarkable ingenuity they displayed for overcoming problems. I found insurgents are not impressed with conventional power. Any nation that assumes it is inherently superior to another is setting itself up for disaster."

The U.S. has not properly prepared, Hammes contends, for the military needs and political will that will be required to win a "low tech conflict" that is outside the expectations of the Department of Defense's 20th century planning for a short-term conflict with a high-tech, symmetrical enemy like the Soviet Union. Featuring an overview of the first three generations of modern war, Hammes focuses on examples of the evolution of 4GW, and how it will require decades instead of months or years to win. He also examines in detail "transnational" enemies like Al Qaeda, and how the U.S. focus on high-tech weapons designed to overpower an enemy in a short amount of time means little when the enemy has a different concept of the time the conflict will last.

The Sling and the Stone is must reading for anyone who wants to know what it will take for the West to "win" the war on terror. The signs for how it will be fought (and either won or lost) have been developing for decades, and the world's remaining superpower needs to heed the many examples from the recent past in order to secure a lasting victory in the future. As a leading expert on insurgency, asymmetrical warfare, and the unconventional methods used by insurgents like those in Iraq and Afghanistan today, Hammes explains in full detail what to expect from the enemy in the first major war of the 21st century.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Retired marine colonel Hammes maintains that modern warfare has evolved in four "generations," moving from the massed citizen armies of Napoleonic warfare to the apogee of firepower in World War I to the triumph of maneuver warfare in World War II. Finally, Hammes brings us up to fourth-generation warfare, or 4GW, from Mao to Vietnam, from the Sandinistas to the present. These conflicts show that superior political will can wear down a militarily superior adversary. A 4GW opponent fights across political, economic, social, and military spectrums to sap an adversary's will to continue fighting. Despite the emergence of transnational 4GW opponents like al Qaeda, the absence of a credible conventional threat, and past 4GW experiences in Vietnam, Somalia, and now Iraq, the U.S. defense establishment remains fixated on defeating a 3GW enemy. Instead of expensive weapons, we must, according to Hammes, invest in human capital, developing expertise in an adversary's language, culture, and history. Hammes offers a compellingly reasoned and supported argument that we need to reconsider how to defeat nonconventional threats to our national security. Recommended for military history and national security collections.-Edward J. Metz, USACGSC Combined Arms Research Lib., Ft. Leavenworth, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Robert Oakley, former U.S. State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and former U.S. ambassador to Somalia, Pakistan, and Zaire"Colonel Hammes provides a great service by bringing war fighting back to reality. He strips away the misleading fog created by the latest iteration of the U.S. tendency to believe that technology and weaponry win wars, not people and ideas. By looking at the past unconventional wars he shows us what to expect in the future, where there will be conventional challenge to U.S. superiority but a return to the strategy and tactics used so successfully by opponents such as Ho Chi Minh against the French first, then the U.S." — Robert Oakley

Bernard Trainor, Lieutenant General, USMC (Ret.), NBC News military analyst, co-author of The Generals"Colonel Hammes cuts to the quick in defining the conundrum of dealing with 21st century warfare, the competing concepts of its nature, and its management. His is a controversial analysis which is bound to raise the hackles of today's techno warriors." — Bernard Trainor

General Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former CENTCOM commander"Based in history and current events, Thomas Hammes explains the nasty, long-term, broad-spectrum wars we have fought and will continue to fight. It stands in sharp contrast to the short, high-tech, clean war the defense department is planning for. He focuses on how to win the war rather than just winning battles. Understanding the type of war you are fighting is the first step to winning. This book will help you understand." — General Anthony Zinni