Author(s): Fred M Kaplan

American

Universally received as an important work by the best military analyst writing today, the inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars who--against fierce resistance from within their own ranks--changed the way the Pentagon does business and the American military fights wars. The insurgents made the US military more adaptive, but their self-confidence led us deeper into wars we would have done better to avoid. Based on previously unavailable documents and interviews with more than 100 key characters, including the group's ringleader, General David Petraeus, "The Insurgents "unfolds against the backdrop of two wars waged against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one led at home by a new generation of officers--Petraeus, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and H.R. McMaster--who were seized with an idea on how to fight these kinds of "small wars," and who adapted their enemies' techniques to overhaul their own Army. Fred Kaplan explains where their idea came from and how the men and women who latched onto this idea created a community (some would refer to themselves as a "cabal"), which maneuvered the idea through the highest echelons of power. This is a cautionary tale about how creative ideas can harden into dogma, how smart strategists--"the best and the brightest" of today--can win bureaucratic battles but still lose the wars.