Fall 2006 - Air & Space Power Chronicle - Air Force Link

124 AIR & SPACE POWER JOURNAL FALL 2006quoting the aces themselves. Every chapter dealswith a specific World War II time frame or theaterand generally follows the same structure: a shortpreface, a description of the fighters used in thatparticular setting, and an account of the acesthemselves.Mike Spick knows his material, having publishedextensively on the subject of fighter pilots of WorldWar II. He treats his subject systematically, placingevery ace in his proper context and giving readersinsight into reasons why one fighter pilot in a specifictheater managed to score better than anotherin a different theater. Such reasons include differencesin aircraft handling, marksmanship, visualacuity, and, of course, the number and quality oftheir opponents.Because of the clear structure of the book, it isparticularly well suited for readers who do notknow very much about the role of fighters in WorldWar II. Even for those who do, parts of the bookwill fill gaps in their knowledge. In that respect,one can conclude that there are never enoughpages to write about a few special pilots who did somuch for so many.Lt Col Willem M. Klumper, Royal Netherlands Air ForceThe Hague, NetherlandsTactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant MuslimCombat Methods by H. John Poole. PosterityPress (http://members.aol.com/posteritypress),P.O. Box 5360, Emerald Isle, North Carolina28594, 2004, 368 pages, $14.95 (softcover).A number of books have appeared over the pastfew years that address various topics about theglobal war on terrorism (GWOT): civil liberties,conduct of the war or individual engagements, andeven plans for the coming decades. A few manageto do a good job of addressing their chosen topic,keeping the subject and proposed solutions relevantto the situation and anticipated outcome.H. John Poole’s book Tactics of the Crescent Moon isone of those.Poole has several books to his credit, all of whichaddress how Western forces (primarily from theUnited States, Russia, and the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization) can and should deal with current orfuture enemy forces. In every case, the author drawson his US Marine experience in Vietnam to illustratethe inadequacies of Western leadership andtactics against Eastern (primarily Maoist, but includingother Asian) tactics and leadership methods.Here, he spends the first 10 (of 12) chaptersdiscussing individual terrorist organizations, theirtactics, similarities and sources of their tactics anddoctrine, and ways in which these “ragtag” groupshave managed to deal blow after blow to Westernforces. Poole does this convincingly by walking thereader through an exhaustive case study of Soviet/Russian conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya aswell as highlighting other groups’ operations againstIsraeli and US forces.Poole leaves the reader with the conclusion thatWestern forces can defeat these terrorist groupsbut not by continuing to use conventional Westerntactics. In this regard, I feel that he has hit a grandslam—in order to make true progress in the GWOT,we need to fully understand what our adversaries’motivations are and how we can counteract them.In fact, Poole titles one of his chapters “The ResponseMust Be Unconventional.” Indeed, althoughhe offers nothing new in this chapter, he draws onseveral examples in which the carrot approach hasworked far better than liberal employment of astick—even a high-precision stick.I have only a few concerns about the book. Forexample, it includes a number of maps, but theyare difficult to read and are of questionable utility.Furthermore, Poole’s practice of making repeatedreferences to the use of Eastern methods, tactics,and doctrine becomes so distracting that one istempted to skip over the section and move on. Attimes, that’s a bad idea because these referencesconvey some important points. Nevertheless, thediscussion becomes somewhat disjointed at times.Placing more emphasis on the core ideas of eachchapter would solve this problem. Lastly, Poolespends an inordinate amount of time building hiscase, only to offer a disproportionately smallamount of space to solutions. I would like to haveseen more than one-sixth of the book devoted tosolutions and proposals. The author offers someinteresting ideas; it’s a shame that he didn’t takethe space to build better cases for them.Tactics of the Crescent Moon is a comprehensive, ifsomewhat disorganized, assessment of the directionUS operations must take in the coming years.It’s worth reading, especially for any military memberof any branch of service who is headed to Iraqor Afghanistan.Maj Paul Niesen, USAFScott AFB, Illinois