Phantom Soldier: The Enemy's Answer to U.S. Firepower

"Phantom Soldier" should be on the reading list of every force professional in America--despite author Poole's almost arrogant assertion that Americans do everything wrong. As with most prophets, he overstates the case. For example, Poole keeps harping on how America is focused on "technology" when he means "hardware." Technology is much more than hardware--it is the practical application of knowledge. The tactics and techniques discussed in "Phantom Soldier" are knowledge, practically applied. It is true that American military people brag about "American initiative" while tightening top-down control over the individual front-line infantryman. It is also true that infantry training could be better. The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are changing the military--with large numbers of Internet-savvy soldiers and Marines on-line, tips and tactical techniques are being swapped with a speed that makes the ossified TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command) seem AWOL. Many of Poole's recommendations are being put into practice already. There's still a lot to be done.The descriptions of how the Oriental warrior thinks and fights are accurate. As for the details on the battles, there is a lot of room for doubt. Poole said it himself--the Oriental warrior shows a false face, letting us see only what he wants us to see, which is often merely reinforcing our own false premises. But saying that the East is behind the West in technology is inaccurate. Oh, perhaps the hardware in the East isn't as new, but quite often the hardware isn't appropriate to the battlefield. Displaying a false face is a technology. Avoiding the use of electronic communications is a technology to defeat our mastery of the air waves. Hardware always brings new problems to the situation it was supposed to solve--using these new problems to defeat the hardware's advantage is an old technique.The United States infantry has always suffered disadvantages and had advantages over its foes. In the French and Indian Wars, the colonial militia was famous for adopting Indian techniques and beating the Indian at his own game. These techniques were wrongly credited with defeating the world's then-finest army, the British Royal Army--not true. The difference between victory and defeat is often just a matter of perception. Poole brings this out on the chapters concerning Vietnam. It was often the case that both the American and communist forces involved in a battle could declare victory--which flies in the face of zero-sum common sense. Most people would logically conclude that one side would lose and the other would win--and that's that! A significant minority will concede that perhaps both sides can emerge as losers from the same battle. Victory in battle is a matter of achieving specific "successes," such as the western notions of seizing real estate, capturing weapons and personnel, and counting enemy dead. By these metrics, the United States lost the Revolutionary War--and the War of 1812.Even during the dark days of World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, American military units could and did fight the Oriental way and win. That wasn't the norm, and in fact successful programs that had been developed during America's long war against the Indian nations and the "Banana Wars" of the 20's and 30's did see some success in the Vietnam War--but these programs were ended from the top. Marines were exposed to Sun Tsu during the 1930's, and several Marine officers served with Mao. The problems that led to the termination of these programs were lack of media savvy, lack of "success indicators" for the innovators, and the sad fact of ego clashes between rather junior innovators and senior leadership. You cannot "win" when everyone else thinks that you've lost--and you can still lose when everyone else thought you were winning--winning and losing are often merely a matter of perception. The Soviet Union was "winning" the Cold War right up to the moment that the Berlin Wall fell down because the American media had been seduced and the "warmonging" American administration had little credibility. A large part of this was the lack of indicators about who was winning and losing in the Cold War. How could the United States be winning with severe drug problems, rampant crime, unemployment, and widespread poverty? These problems were successfully concealed by the Soviet Union--until their house of cards collapsed. Innovators often lack social skills. Being a little monkey, rather than one of the 500-pound gorillas, also hurts. Senior leaders define "success" and "failure." When the little monkeys clash with the big monkeys--or the 500-pound gorilla--the little monkeys lose. It's a problem that Poole will have getting his ideas accepted as doctrine--he's stepping on senior toes.I recommend "Phantom Soldier," warts and all, because the emphasis on deception in war, on decentralized control, on training first-class infantry are the keys to winning the peace in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and the "war on crime" in the United States. Poole mentions it in his other books--we've got a homefront war against terrorists from the Middle East who are constantly trying to destroy the Great Satan. China has a vested interest in harming America. There are many nations that would like to see the United States knocked down several notches. Our own news media downplays American successes and Middle Eastern excesses and plays up the "underdog" Islamic "insurgency" and American "atrocities"--the reason is the nature of news as entertainment and the economics of a "free press." Fortunately, Osama bin Laden and his cronies are more interested in winning the hearts and minds of Middle Easterners and Muslims than Americans, so their announcements don't always play well in this country. They do a better job than Saddam Hussain did!Poole's appendix includes a thoughtful explaination of Sun Tzu's principled of war for practical application. I liked his index and bibliography--and I am in the process of checking his sources. That's the soul of the scientific method--independant verification.Too bad that performance in war games counts for so much careerwise. In a zero-defect military, the textbook answer is the only right one during military exercises. This led to poor performance for the American submarine service during the initial part of World War Two, but fortunately, the Japanese practiced Sun Tzu only on the tactical level and not strategically. With a fixation on warriors (and war ships) the Japanese not only failed to successfully interdict the American logistics system, but failed to protect their own. The place to make mistakes is in training. Making them in battle cost lives. Poole rightfully criticizes the mainstream American military mindset, but doesn't identify its source. Even so, Poole's insight into the tactical mindset of the Oriental warrior makes this book a valuable addition to our society's force professional's library.

It's taken me quite a while to get around to reading this book and the tigers way as i bought these in 2008 but they were extremely good reads and I will explain why.You should probably read the Tigers Way first before reading this one as this book seems to lead from it but this book is all about the eastern way of waging war and the differences in tactics between the eastern and western way.Now keep in mind when I say western I am using the authors version of it which basically refers to American military strategy as countries like germany, russia fall under what the author conclude as a eastern strategy.This book is an extremely insightful right into the way eastern forces fight compared to America with a special focus on Vietnam and it is quite an eye opener especially if one is not familiar with the differences of how these two forces fought each other.Western warfare seems to focus on attrition warfare which means that success is based on how many of the enemy you kills where as eastern warfare is all about maneuver warfare which is all about destroying strategic targets and disrupting communications, using feints, ruses and deception to basically keep your opponent on his toes.A perfect example of the above is how when during the vietnam war the VC exploited the fact that American would not bomb a location if there were friendlies within 200 metres of that location so when American troops would start to retreat after having called in airstrike the VC would follow them so that they would not be in the area that was being shelled and then when they would setup an ambush for the US troops who would now think that the area was clear and then start walking back to the area that was shelled and get ambushed on the way. It seems quite logical when you think about but it's almost an alien way of thinking.Another example was how on IwoJima the japanese had dug tunnels all under the island and so they would wait for american to pass their position before opening fire sporadically from numerous different locations to the front, rear and side to keep the US soldiers guessing as to the exact location of where the japanese soldiers were.Another examples was how the before the japanese would assault a position they would throw concussion grenades and then charge into combat and then kills the US up close an personal without firing their guns because the grenades were meant to simulate artillery fire and the US soldiers would then drop down thinking that they were about to be barraged with artillery and that the reason they didn't fire their weapons was to keep up the deception.Now even before I read this book i was familiar with books on eastern strategy such as the book of five rings, book of family traditions and sun tzu art of war but what was interesting about this book was how it provided excerpts from a lot of these book from both china and japan which and showed how they were present in both and really elaborated the points and provided real world examples of how they had actually been used..The book begins by referring to the numerous different types of formations used by asian forces and the differences in small unit tactics that the asian unit uses and the advantage of a bottom up approach to orders rather than the top down approach that is employed by the US.The book then finished with an interesting look on the new types of technology that the US is going to employ and the problems with them. I will admit though that the author somewhat heavily overestimates the tactics employed by the VC as there were examples of them ill trained but still their is a lot of food for thought and it would be to the detriment of soldiers not to read this book considering the hiding that the USA copped during the Vietnam war.

Can't believe this was written by the same man who wrote The Last Hundred Yards!I really don't know where to begin; amateurish, historically inaccurate, anthropologically inept? All apply. The so called Eastern way of war, touted by Poole as somehow inherently superior to an equally mythical Western way of war (actually more accurately an American approach to warfare) is so silly as to defy comprehension. He lumps the Russians, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese together as "Asian" only to later discard the Russians and replace them with the Serbs!. An overwhelming majority of his examples come from the Vietnam war with some examples from the Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II and the odd Chairman Mao guerilla quote thrown in for good measure. In fact he even illustrates his belief in the existence of an Eastern way in war by quoting a Chinese text Sun Bin's Art of War as somehow a canonical text yet most of the manouevres listed are nearly typical of military tactics used all over the world. While I'm on the subject of illustrations, what the hell is going on with all those pictures of plants?! Yet, if the "Oriental" is so sophisticated why didn't the Japanese win WWII? Or why did Chinese communist and nationalist units have such a hard time fighting their Japanese opponents if they were all Orientals? (Maybe that was the problem?!). Traditional field craft is a neglected art to be sure (more so in the US Army) and if that's the only lesson to be learned from the book then so be it. Yet, even in those supposed lessons learned Poole is hamstrung by his limited dataset and historical myopia; commenting upon the Battle of Hue City he states that a future 4GW / Manouevre warfighter (his adherence to that nebulous and inchoate idea is itself a handicap) must be wary of urban terrain (a commonsensical observation) and the proclivity for opponents to fight from the upper stories of buildings which enable the opponent to control the urban terrain (p.166). However, during the Chechen conflict, Chechens avoiding the upper levels of buildings preferring to ensconse thesemlves in basements, cellars and lower ground floors in the knowledge that Russian heavy arty and airpower would obliterate the upper stories. The Last Hundred Yards taught its lessons much better. I ignored 75% of the message of the book but was still interested in the analysis of North Vietnamese tactics (which makes up the bulk of the book accompanied by some very lacklustre videcaptured images from television documentaries) and the analysis of Japanese tactics on Iwo Jima. The "Oriental" way in warfare then appears to be nothing more that the NVA's tactics against US troops in Vietnam. In fact analysis may be too kind a word as much of the work, as has been commented upon by another reviewer, comprises entire paragraphs liberated from works that I suspect would be better read on the original. I could go on but won't, suffice to say I was so flabbergasted by some of the claims that I doubted Poole wrote the book. If there is such a thing as military orientalism (though I personally despise Edward Said's work) then this comes very close to it. From the looks of things he peaked very early with The Last Hundred Yards and has been coasting ever since. If you are a Poole fan or absolutely have to read the book, for whatever reason, buy it second hand like I did. It will lessen the blow. I only bought it because The Last Hundred Yards (which I had read before) is so damned expensive.

This book is very interesting, whit a deep analysis of the tactics and doctrines of the guerrilla's fighters who fought against america.