Knife Fights

A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice

By: John Nagl

Narrated by: Brian Hutchison

From one of the most important army officers of his generation, a memoir of the revolution in warfare he helped lead, in combat and in Washington. When John Nagl was an army tank commander in the first Gulf War of 1991, fresh out of West Point and Oxford, he could already see that America’s military superiority meant that the age of conventional combat was nearing an end. Nagl was an early convert to the view that America’s greatest future threats would come from asymmetric warfare - guerrillas, terrorists, and insurgents. But that made him an outsider within the army; and as if to double down on his dissidence, he scorned the conventional path to a general’s stars and got the military to send him back to Oxford to study the history of counterinsurgency in earnest, searching for guideposts for America. The result would become the bible of the counterinsurgency movement, a book called Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. But it would take the events of 9/11 and the botched aftermath of the Iraq invasion to give counterinsurgency urgent contemporary relevance. John Nagl’s ideas finally met their war. But even as his book began ricocheting around the Pentagon, Nagl, now operations officer of a tank battalion of the 1st Infantry Division, deployed to a particularly unsettled quadrant of Iraq. Here theory met practice, violently. No one knew how messy even the most successful counterinsurgency campaign is better than Nagl, and his experience in Anbar Province cemented his view. The men who died under his command in Iraq will haunt him to his grave. When it comes to war, there are only bad choices; the question is only which ones are better and which worse. Nagl’s memoir is a profound education in modern war - in theory, in practice, and in the often tortured relationship between the two.

©2014 John A. Nagl (P)2014 Recorded Books

Engaging book on the broad strokes history of modern war

This refreshed my willingness to listen to audiobooks on my commute. This was an interesting perspective on the leadership surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and schools of thought in counter insurgency and modern war. I feel better informed having read it.

There's so much I didn't know.

I enjoyed this book very much because it opened my eyes to the history and background of wars and conflicts that I had only heard snippets about in the media.

Good intro into COIN

What made the experience of listening to Knife Fights the most enjoyable?

LTC Nagl is a good writer. His other book, How to eat soup with a knife, is a good read but hard to listen to because of the visual stats. But this book is much easier to listen to.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Story is about his career, how he was influenced and why good leaders exit the Army early.

Any additional comments?

I liked it, but probably will not listen to it again some of the other books I do when waiting for my new monthly credit to arrive.