Tag Archives: Book Review

All the Ways We Kill and Die

April 14, 2016 Guest Author Leave a comment

Castner, Brian. All The Ways We Kill And Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2016, 356pp. $25.99

By Commander Jeremy Wheat, USN

In the heart of Florida’s Emerald Coast, on Eglin Air Force Base’s aptly named Range Road, stands a simple memorial that is modest in both form and function. Nicknamed “The Wall” by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians of all services, the memorial permanently enshrines the names of EOD warriors who gave their life in the performance of their duty. Today there are 314 names on The Wall. This May we will add six more names, bringing the total added since 9/11 to 131.

All The Ways We Kill And Die is the story of one of those names – Technical Sergeant Matthew S. Schwartz, United States Air Force – but in many ways, this is all of their stories.

All The Ways We Kill And Die reads like a good work of fiction with a rich cast of characters and well developed whodunit plot line, all set in a postmodern military genre of special operations forces, robots, and drones. However, it is Brian Castner’s literary style that makes this a welcome addition to any bookshelf. Similar to his first work, The Long Walk, the language is raw, it is real, and it is that of a warrior. The meta-narrative, the structure of the book itself, the pace and tempo of the prose, everything about this book is reflective of an EOD response to an IED strike: tend to the wounded, collect the evidence, and target the bomber. More so, it provides a unique perspective of warfare in the 21st century and for that reason alone, All The Ways We Kill And Die should be cataloged in the annals of modern American military history.

Memorial8 — Maj. Mark Fogle and Chief Master Sgt. Neil Jones salute the Memorial Wall after the names of fallen Air Force explosive ordnance disposal technicians were read during the 45th Annual EOD Memorial Ceremony May 3, 2014 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Sam King.

Technical Sergeant Matt Schwartz and the other two members of his EOD team died on January 5, 2012 when an IED detonated under their vehicle on a dirt road in Afghanistan while conducting a route clearance patrol deep into Helmand Province. Aside from its deafening roar, most people don’t think about the chaos an explosion creates, but EOD technicians know it well. We are trained to calculate the change in air pressure a detonation creates and how much of that pressure the human body can withstand. We know the raw force that is produced in an explosion and what happens when a body is thrown around inside an armored vehicle as a result. We also understand what happens if that same armored vehicle catches fire and you’re trapped inside.

Matt Schwartz’s official autopsy would later reveal he died four times in that single IED blast. Four distinct ways to die that all occurred near-instantaneously, and he probably didn’t even know it happened. In response to the news of Schwartz’s death, Brian Castner defaults to his training as an EOD officer and immerses himself in the EOD response process to answer one question, “Who killed his friend that January day?” Not how. Not why. Who? What his experience in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught him is there is one person at the center of an IED’s being. Best known in Arabic by his kunya, al-Muhandis, we would come to know him by his nom de guerre, the Engineer, the master designer. “The only thing I knew for sure about the Engineer was how he killed, all of the ways we died at his hand. The war was a chess match, and al-Muhandis always went first.”

To understand the Engineer, one has to understand his life’s work, the IED. How it is built. How it is emplaced. How it functions. How it kills. The evidence of an IED is left with those who come in closest contact with it, namely the EOD technicians who disarm it before it detonates, and those who taste the fumes of its blast and survive when it does. What Castner finds at the intersection of these two groups is an untold story of the Surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and of those who bore the brunt of the deadly interaction between the U.S. and the jihadists. In 2011, at the height of the Afghanistan Surge, the EOD community suffered a casualty rate ten times greater than the average for all American soldiers. During the Iraq Surge, casualty rates for EOD technicians doubled. Equally horrific, “at the height of the fighting seasons in the [Afghanistan] Surge an amputee was created, on average, every twenty-four hours,” proving there are other ways to die even if you make it off the battlefield.

“Ask what makes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unique, and an incorrect superficial analysis might conclude the IED, the greatest casualty-maker of the last fifteen years. But the IED is just an insurgent’s weapon, not a tactic or strategy in and of itself. No, the innovation of this conflict was the method by which the IED was developed, how it was manufactured and emplaced, how quickly it evolved in reaction to our defenses, and, most significantly, the anonymity of the intellect behind the design. The average soldier could not say who they were really fighting.” (pg. 54)

At the juncture of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan gave birth to a niche field of forensic biometrics, allowing us to transform warfare to an individual experience. To see through the IED’s anonymity, Castner turns to a team of professionals: the biometric engineers and intelligence analysts who transform the IED’s evidence into an identity and, by extension, a specific person to be hunted. Analyzing the details of an IED’s construction, for example the gauge of wire used or the type of shrapnel added to enhance an IED’s maiming effects, allows a skilled analyst to discern patterns and identify distinct IED makers. Forensic analysis of the strand of hair from a piece of tape or a fingerprint on an IED component gives them a name. Providing an objective link between bomb and bomb maker, biometrics allow forces to do more than simply react to al-Muhandis’ pawns. It enables them to get inside of his kill chain and disrupt his chess match. “In modern war, rather than kill any person, we kill that person. That particular person, but not another. War has always been personal, but now it is individual, specific to the associated alias and photo and fingerprint and DNA sample and dossier. The point is this: some people are worth killing more than others.” But who does the killing and at what cost?

All The Ways We Kill And Die gives an insider’s perspective on what could be the most romanticized aspect of America’s post -9/11 wars: the integration of drones, special operations warfare, and battlefield

contractors to hunt and kill the individuals in their dossier. What Castner finds is not a fanaticized Hollywood interpretation. It is a gritty and complex world that challenges the common perceptions of 21st century warfare. “Why demonize the thing [drones] keeping soldiers out of harm’s way? The answer, which nobody wants to admit, is that they think without dead Americans, or at least Americans at risk, there would be far more dead Iraqis and Afghans. They can’t say it, but that’s what they think.” Do Brian Castner’s forensic analysts and special operators find al-Muhandis? Can they bring closure to his investigation and personal loss? In his own words, Castner believes “the Engineer is both a battlefield phenomenon and a very few flesh-and-blood individuals, probably less than a dozen, though I doubt anyone knows for sure. He is the aspirational target for a generation of special ops intel analysts and a specific man responsible for the device that killed Matt.”

Above all else, All The Ways We Kill And Die is a deeply personal memoir, a lamentation for a lost brother. Castner closes the book with a unique insight into the covenant of the EOD community as he takes the reader to the ceremony by which we add names to The Wall. As a brotherhood “we live well and we mourn well. We remember.” I wept four times in the 308 pages of text as I thought about the families I have stood beside when they buried their husbands and fathers. I dare you not to do the same. I spent many hours reflecting about my own time spent downrange; every name on The Wall that I know, each post-blast analysis of a fellow EOD technician that I conducted, every ramp ceremony, and of course my own “Alive Day.” In short, I remembered. For that opportunity alone, I am grateful to Brian Castner for authoring the elegy of Technical Sergeant Matthew Schwartz. A man I never met, but now know, and will never forget.

Commander Jeremy Wheat is a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer and veteran of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Naval War College, and the Navy’s Maritime Advanced Warfighting School. He is currently serving on the staff of Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet in the Plans and Policy Directorate. His opinions do not represent those of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Navy.

Book Review

Practise to Deceive: Learning Curves of Military Deception Planners

March 24, 2016 Guest Author Leave a comment

Whaley, Barton. Practice to Deceive: Learning Curves of Military Deception Planners. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016, 256pp. $39.95.

By LT Robert “Jake” Bebber USN

Lawrence Freedman opens his magisterial tome “Strategy: A History” identifying the elemental features of strategy across time as “deception, coalition formation and the instrumental use of violence.”[i] It is no surprise that “deception” is the first essential element of strategy. “War is uncertain business,” as Whaley notes in his opening introduction, and “deception is the only weapon that a warrior can wield that, to the extent it succeeds, will impose uncertainty and the element of surprise on the opponent.” Deception is ultimately about surprising one’s enemy.

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Much has been written about deception and its importance in war, and Dr. Barton Whaley (1928-2013) is almost certainly one of the preeminent authorities on the matter. However, it is one thing to appreciate the importance of deception and entirely another to craft deception operations in support of military plans. Thankfully, Dr. Whaley has left us with a guide. Practise to Deceive [ii] is designed with the planners themselves in mind, providing insight into the type of thinking and procedures that make successful and unsuccessful deception planners. Early on, Whaley identifies the central role of commanders in deception planning and addresses important command and control issues, such as whether deception planning is best handled by the intelligence or operations cells in a military organization.

Those who work as physicians are said to “practice medicine” which conveys an important point. You may go to medical school, be awarded a medical degree and receive a license to work as a physician, but what truly makes you a good doctor is the constant repetition and experience of clinical practice. Deception is no different. A military course on deception planning is only the beginning. One must constantly practice and refine techniques, learn and study the art and science behind it. Since deception is ultimately about manipulating your opponent’s mind, the best practitioners are those who are well read in a broad variety of fields such as the natural sciences, biology, history, and psychology. Skills and knowledge atrophy over time. Indeed, from a broadly cultural perspective, Whaley notes entire tribes, countries and civilizations experience patterns of discontinuities, and in effect, have to relearn and rebuild from scratch. Our natural stereotypes about civilizations such as ancient Byzantium or modern China are “flat out wrong.”

Whaley’s analysis seeks to identify common traits of deception planners over time and provides useful observations. Excellence in deception is independent of rank, branch of service, or even military service. Deception planners tend to operate in small teams drawn from diverse backgrounds and experiences. They tend to have acute insight into both the enemy and their own side. Since the opportunities to actually use deception in war are rare over time, the study of past experience is critical. Finally – and probably most important – commanders must play an active part in deception planning. Ultimately, deception planning supports the commander’s goals and objectives, so his participation is key.

Practise to Deceive helps by providing the reader with 88 case studies of deception plans and operations. The book examines these cases from the perspective of the planners themselves. These case studies are broken up into four sections: cases of those who were in the early part of their career or new to deception, more experienced planners in specific operations, cases of how planners “sold” their commanders on deception plans, and finally deception planning at the institutional level. Most of these case studies are short, just three to ten pages in length.

In the later chapters, Whaley outlines the ten planning steps required for deception. These steps will lead the planner to determine what he wants the enemy to perceive and how he wants the enemy to react, considering the tools at his disposal. It lays out not only what the planner does but also how the planner thinks. In many ways, these steps mimic steps in writing creative fiction, storytelling, or screen play writing. Writing a deception plan is about leading an audience to reach a conclusion of the author’s choice. It just so happens that the author wants the audience to reach the wrong conclusion and ultimately be surprised.

It should come as no surprise to learn that Dr. Whaley’s life was more than just practicing and writing about military deception. He was an expert magician and lifetime member of the Magic Castle in Los Angeles and the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and a prize winning author on the subject. He brought his interest to the military in 2004, hosting workshops at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, on magic and the military.

Bart_Whaley — The author, Dr. Barton Whaley, passed away in 2013.

Whaley’s life and work should leave our senior military and national security leaders wondering whether our country is continuing to develop the talent and tools to practice good deception. This is critical to ensure not only that we can deceive our adversaries, but also help prevent us from being deceived (counter-deception). Deception, as both a practice and an art, is not something that one can master in a short time. It requires unique individuals who have to be recruited, trained, cultivated, and provided the opportunity to practice their craft. To practice deception, we must better incorporate deception planning and operations into exercises, training and war-games at all levels from tactical to strategic. Whaley concludes Practise to Deceive with this same advice, recommending that the U.S. consider the Israeli model to train both deception and counter-deception. History suggests that constantly having to relearn deception whole cloth comes at great cost. Ideally, we will take steps to keep the butcher’s bill small. Dr. Barton Whaley’s book is an excellent place to start.

LT Robert “Jake” Bebber USN is an information warfare officer assigned to the staff of U.S. Cyber Command. The views expressed here do not represent those of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy or U.S. Cyber Command. He welcomes your comments at jbebber@gmail.com.

[i] Lawrence Freedman. Strategy: A History (Oxford University Press: New York, 2013).

[ii] The book uses the British spelling of “Practise” instead of the American spelling.

[iii] From Dr. Barton Whaley’s obituary, available at: http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary-print.aspx?n=Barton-Whaley&lc=6922&pid=166273115&mid=5624174

Asia-Pacific, Book Review

Red Phoenix Burning

March 22, 2016 Guest Author 1 Comment

Bond, Larry and Chris Carlson. Red Phoenix Burning. Larry Bond and Chris Carlson, 2016. Kindle. 510pp. $11.99

By Bret Perry

When it comes to the techno-thriller, most defense wonks reminisce about older titles from authors such as Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and Stephen Coonts as the genre has moved away from its roots. So when I discovered that techno-thriller extraordinaire Larry Bond (read CIMSEC interview the authors here) planned to publish a sequel to his classic novel Red Phoenix on a large-scale Korea war co-authored with Chris Carlson, I immediately became excited.

For readers new to Bond, Red Phoenix was his second book, following his collaborative effort with Clancy on Red Storm Rising. It revolved around a massive conventional war in Korea featuring a North Korea invasion of the South and a desperate counteroffensive by the Republic of Korea (ROK) and her American ally. When I picked up Red Phoenix Burning, I didn’t know what to expect. Would it just be a third massive conventional Korean conflict with even more explosions than its predecessor? It turns out that I was only right about the explosions.

Red Phoenix Burning takes place in the modern day featuring the notorious Kim Jong-Un regime in power. Even though the Kim regime was removed in Red Phoenix after the ceasefire brokered by Beijing, Bond and Carlson explain how Chinese displeasure with Seoul’s growth and American alignment triggered them to put Kim Jong-Un in power in order to maintain a balanced Korean Peninsula. This, combined with a US administration focused on more pressing conflicts in the Middle East, effectively creates a 2016 geo-political feel.

Keeping with what’s believable, Red Phoenix Burning does not open with another massive invasion of South Korea by Pyongyang. Rather, Bond and Carlson focus on the stability (or to others, instability) of the North Korean regime. After an assassination attempt eliminates much of Kim’s inside circle (who is shortly finished off afterwards in a brutal manner), civil war emerges in North Korea featuring three sides: loyalists to the Kim regime, the Korean People’s Army (KPA), and Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). The obvious loser: the people of North Korea.

The way Bond and Carlson set up and present this three-sided civil war is one of the most interesting aspects of the novel. To many, including this reviewer, the Hermit Kingdom’s secrecy and propaganda make it hard for normal observers to identify the different power structures driving the Kim regime. The authors of Red Phoenix Burning fill this gap and provide a tremendous amount of insight as they describe the strengths and weaknesses of the three factions. One would expect for the KPA to easily sweep control with its military resources, but the WPK’s numbers and extensive involvement throughout North Korean society make them a formidable opponent. Loyalists to the Kim regime are nearly just as threatening due to their access to the state’s chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As a result, clashes endure, only creating more causalities and a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, less than a couple hundred miles to the south, South Korea is trying to determine not only what is going on, but what they should do. At first, Seoul launches a couple of thrilling special operations forces reconnaissance missions into North Korea, but eventually decides to initiate a full scale invasion to achieve something very close to the hearts of the Korean people: reunification. As North Korean forces are bogged down in a civil war, the South Korean military is able to push north quickly and easily outmaneuver what remnants of the KPA try to defend their territory. Seoul’s American ally provides limited intelligence and humanitarian support as movement north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) would trigger Chinese military intervention.

Nevertheless, the prospect of bordering a unified Korea led by Seoul and the uncertainty surrounding the former Kim regime’s WMDs force the Chinese to intervene. Like the South Koreans, the PRC’s military invasion faces minimal resistance and turns into a race to seize as much territory as possible. The US is forced to react and begins pressuring Chinese interests in both the Yellow Sea and South China Sea, but is hesitant to escalate the conflict and potentially start a third world war. Without revealing the ending—what’s left of the KPA command recognizes that a Chinese occupation would ultimately prevent reunification and attempts to reach a ceasefire with the WPK in order to ally with the ROK. More importantly, the firing of SCUD missiles by Kim loyalists reminds all factions of the risks of North Korea’s scattered and destructive WMD arsenal.

As the aforementioned plot illustrates, Bond and Carlson do an excellent job with creating a believable geopolitical environment. Their defense expertise, wargaming experience, and extensive research allows them to color in well-written military engagements—most notably the urban assault on Pyongyang. But unlike some of Bond’s previous titles that revolved around epic conventional conflicts (such as Vortex—this reviewer’s personal favorite), Red Phoenix Burning is not a novel purely focused on the military dimension of another flashpoint crisis-turned-war. Rather, Bond and Carlson place a greater emphasis on political factors such as US-PRC relations, the ramifications of a North Korean humanitarian crisis, America’s reluctance to dive into a Korean crisis due to more pressing Middle East engagements, and how the world’s superpowers treat North Korea’s WMDs. Although this entails fewer scenes featuring first person accounts of tank battles and naval engagements, it creates a more plausible environment that readers can buy into and envision as a potential future scenario for the Korean peninsula. Even though Red Phoenix Burning features less battlefield action than some of Bond’s previous novels, it demonstrates how fiction can better help us understand the most significant geopolitical ramifications of the collapse of the Hermit Kingdom.

Although readers might have appreciated some maps accompanying the military engagements, Red Phoenix Burning is a solid book for defense professionals eager for some fiction, and a must for those interested in the Korean Peninsula. For readers, Red Phoenix Burning will keep you entertained while feeding your intellectual curiosity.

Bret Perry is a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The comments and questions above are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily reflect those of any organization.

Africa, Book Review

Book Review: Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea

March 2, 2016 Guest Author Leave a comment

Robin Geiss and Anna Petrig. Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: The Legal Framework for Counter-Piracy Operations in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. Oxford University Press, 2011. 340 pp. $110

By Alex Calvo

The Law of Counter-Piracy Operations: From Hollywood films to some Chinese popular perceptions of their Eastern neighbors, piracy and pirates retain a powerful hold in contemporary culture. However, it is their most recent incarnation in areas like the Gulf of Guinea, the Malacca Straits, and the Horn of Africa, that is carefully followed by anybody involved in maritime affairs, from ship owners and operators to naval officers and international lawyers. Among other aspects of piracy, the legal regime of pirates and operations against them is of the foremost importance, and therefore any volume devoted to them proves a welcome addition to the literature on the sea and what Julius Caesar labeled as “hostis humani generis,” or the enemies of humankind. This is exactly what Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea purports to be, and actually is: a single-volume treaty on the law applicable to counter-piracy operations, with a regional focus on Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. The book achieves the goals of providing a comprehensive approach to the subject, with plenty of primary sources, case law where applicable, and legal commentary on controversial or unclear aspects. While readers may note the absence of topics such as the rights of victims, the ransom industry, and non-Western legislation, this does not detract from the overall quality of the work, which furthermore contains a number of sources in its appendixes which can be very useful to the practitioner.

As clear from the title, the subtitle, and introduction, this book seeks to provide the reader with a detailed explanation of the different legal regulations and principles under which piracy is fought in one of the corners of the world where it is most pervasive, and which, crisscrossed by myriad SLOCs (sea lanes of communication), no major power can ignore it. In connection to this, the first aspect of the text we should note is that this is indeed a law book, and perhaps more accurately a “black letter law” book, in the sense that it focuses on positive law, with just the minimum amount of social, economic, and other considerations provided in Chapter one and later interspersed in the text. When the authors delve outside the strict borders of the law, it is to better explain the rationale behind legal rules, a good example being their discussion of judicial and prison capacity in- countries like Kenya (p. 174-179) and the Seychelles, which supports and complements their explanation of the agreements signed between them and the European Union for the local trial and imprisonment of pirates. Having said that, they also discuss possible future developments of the law, such as specialized international tribunals to deal with piracy (p. 179-184).

A second important characteristic we may stress is the logical fashion in which the text is divided into parts, and then subdivided into chapters, which very much aids for the reader who wishes to go through the text from beginning to end, and those who prefer to go straight to one of the issues discussed in the volume. A third strong point is that, while focused on positive law, the authors stop to discuss areas where applicable rules may not be clear or even be controversial, providing a summary of arguments and their own views. An example is the practice of embarking law-enforcement personnel from one country on a naval (or state) ship of another, with the associated legal complexities.

This photo taken Sunday, Jan. 4, 2009 provided by French Defense Minister shows suspected pirates arrested by Marine commandos of the French Navy in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia coasts. French government officials say the Jean de Vienne intercepted and captured 19 pirates Sunday as they tried to take over two cargo ships, one Croatian and the other Panamian. French Navy vessel Jean de Vienne is seen on background. (AP Photo/French Navy/French Defense Minister/HO)

The Book’s Strong Points: The text provides a comprehensive look at applicable legislation and extensive discussion of unclear aspects. As noted, the authors make an extensive effort to cover the different legal aspects of the fight against piracy, adding their commentary and summaries of other views where positive law is unclear or developing. Examples include three possible interpretations of Article 105 UNCLOS, providing universal or limited criminal jurisdiction, a conflict-of-law rule, or a reaffirmation “that prosecution is based on domestic criminal law and procedure” (p. 149-151), and a discussion of the differences between transfers and extradition, noting how generally speaking “in the piracy context, the change in custody is not brought about by the formal means of extradition” and “transfers in the piracy context do not fulfill the characteristics of deportations or exclusions.” (p. 192-194)

Three gaps: Non-Western Views, Piracy Victims, and the Ransom Industry and Middlemen

There are three aspects that, if incorporated in future editions of the book, may make this work even more complete. First of all, we should note a lack of Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Russian, and South Korean views, even though all these countries contribute to the struggle against piracy in the Horn of Africa. It would be interesting to find some legal commentary, domestic legislation, or actual cases, from these jurisdictions. Second, we cannot fail but note a complete and utter disregard for piracy victims, who are basically absent from the text. While the death penalty, torture, and the principle of “non-refoulement” are dealt with extensively (p. 210-220), there is no discussion of reparations for victims, and of their procedural standing other than when serving as a connection point for states to exercise jurisdiction.

The authors’ concern with the human rights of alleged and convicted pirates is commendable, and so is their extensive treatment of those rights in their book, but caring about the rights of the accused should not be seen as incompatible with at least providing some cursory explanation of those of the victims. Finally, another notable absence is that of the “middlemen” and more widely the “industry” managing ransoms, and their possible criminal liabilities. No look at the legal framework of the fight against piracy is complete without an examination of the rules and practice designed to strangle their finance, but despite the subject occasionally emerging in the pages of the book, there is no section specifically dealing with it. Is it perhaps too sensitive?

Conclusions: It is a useful and quite comprehensive study, though suffering from some gaps. We can thus conclude that this is a book that anybody interested in piracy and counter-piracy operations, the law of the sea, and more generally maritime and naval affairs, will find useful, both as a detailed introduction to the legal rules applicable to counter-piracy operations, and as a reference work. It is to be hoped, however, that future editions incorporate non-Western views, victims’ rights, and the law applicable to pirate financing.

Alex Calvo is a guest professor at Nagoya University (Japan) focusing on security and defence policy, international law, and military history in the Indian-Pacific Ocean. Region. A member of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) and Taiwan’s South China Sea Think-Tank, he is currently writing a book about Asia’s role and contribution to the Allied victory in the Great War. He tweets @Alex__Calvo and his work can be found here.

Robin Geiss and Anna Petrig. Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: The Legal Framework for Counter-Piracy Operations in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. Oxford University Press, 2011. 340 pp. $110

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.