Dragon Days: Time for "Unconventional" Tactics

NPR reported on 12/15/11 that DoD's focus had shifted from Europe to Asia and SW Pacific. This book describes the extent of Islamist and Communist expansion there and how to quell it. As both takeover tries involve drugs and are otherwise similar, only one solution is required. Instead of occupying countries or training their armies, the Pentagon must blanket the area with tiny foreign-assistance teams in the law enforcement sector. This takes more police and Unconventional Warfare (UW) ability than the average U.S. grunt or special operator currently has. Part One details the extent of the subversion. Part Two shows what the teams must know about criminal investigative procedure. Part Three has the UW techniques they will need to escape encirclement. As such, this book may be America's only UW tactical-technique manual.

Within Dragon Days are two studies: (1) how a rising superpower may be encouraging various Islamic insurgencies to screen its own Maoist expansion; and (2) what America must do to curtail either. Ostensibly, that power also provides foreign aid to the affected countries. But, the "corporations" involved are little more than extensions of its army. Thus, those countries may be at severe risk.

The U.S. military is ill-prepared for so subtle a confrontation. Instead of occupying such countries or training their armies, those forces must start to deploy "foreign aid workers in the law enforcement sector." Then, by the thousands, specially trained squad-sized units could anchor widely dispersed Combined Action Platoons. Their mission would be to help indigenous police and soldiers to reestablish local security. Without that security, there can be no viable counterinsurgency or operating democracy. Part Two of this book shows what U.S. infantrymen must know about criminal investigative procedure. Part Three contains some of the tactical techniques of unconventional warfare (UW). The latter are new to the literature and not covered by any U.S. military manual. They would allow tiny contingents of GIs to slip away unhurt whenever cut off and surrounded. Without this new kind of training, their only hope would be massive bombardment in, and forceful extraction from, a heavily populated area. Such things do little to win the hearts and minds of a population.

This book provides the training and operations blueprint for winning an unconventionally fought world war. It also points to a hidden foe.

Turret (Ft. Knox)

Dragon Days explains how to successfully counter terrorist groups. . . . Fighting terrorists in Iraq, Poole points out, is more like police work than a military operation. I highly recommend this book.

After 28 years of commissioned and noncommissioned infantry service, John Poole retired from the United States Marine Corps in April 1993. While on active duty, he studied small-unit tactics for nine years: (1) six months at the Basic School in Quantico (1966); (2) seven months as a rifle platoon commander in Vietnam (1966-67); (3) three months as a rifle company commander at Camp Pendleton (1967); (4) five months as a regimental headquarters company (and camp) commander in Vietnam (1968); (5) eight months as a rifle company commander in Vietnam (1968-69); (6) five and a half years as an instructor with the Advanced Infantry Training Company (AITC) at Camp Lejeune (1986-92); and (7) one year as the Staff Noncommissioned Officer in Charge of the 3rd Marine Division Combat Squad Leaders Course (CSLC) on Okinawa (1992-93).

In the 14 years since retirement, John Poole has researched the small-unit tactics of other nations and written seven other books. As of September 2007, he had conducted multiday training sessions (on squad tactics) at 39 (mostly Marine) battalions, nine Marine schools, and seven special-operations units from all four U.S. service branches. He has been stationed twice each in South Vietnam and Okinawa, and has traveled twice to Communist China. He has also visited Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, both Koreas, Hong Kong, Macao, northern Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Russia, East Germany, West Germany, Morocco, Israel (to include the West Bank), Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Sudan.

Between early tours in the Marine Corps (from 1969 to 1971), John Poole worked as acriminal investigator for the Illinois Bureau of Investigation (IBI) in Chicago.