Winston Churchill famously remarked that Russia is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” That would make Chechnya, by virtue of being inside Russia, nearly impossible to figure out. Yet Robert Schaefer attempts to do exactly that in one of the most important works on Chechnya’s insurgency to date. His analysis is relevant to all such conf licts as Schaefer provides unambiguous recommendations on how to cope with all insurgencies. This is critical to the entire work since “insurgencies cannot be viewed like other conf licts because they are a fundamentally different type of warfare”.

Famed counterinsurgency analyst Max G. Manwaring extends his research into the subject of “uncomfortable wars” in his newest book, Gangs, Pseudo-Militaries, and Other Modern Mercenaries. As Edwin C. Corr notes in the foreword, Manwaring focuses on the “asymmetrical, irregular . . . nonstate actors” he collectively terms gangs. Highly diverse in their size, sophistication, capacity and propensity for violence, relationships with state actors, and objects, these gangs range from old-fashioned guerrillas to paramilitary and vigilante organizations, from propaganda-agitator cells to criminal organizations of a great many kinds. However, they have in common their endeavoring to overthrow, capture, or simply weaken individual states or the state system as a whole to attain their goals, and in the process, their becoming the principal war-making entities of our era.

In his first book, Michael Davidson, a retired Army National Guard major general, has issued a clarion call for the U.S. military to fundamentally change course or face the sober- ing prospect of losing our next war. As a deco- rated citizen-Soldier whose long service began with Vietnam, Davidson advocates a renewed emphasis on preparing for major conflicts while doubting the wisdom of the “war on terrorism.” He reserves special criticism for the tenures of Defense Secretaries Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld as periods of wrongheaded arrogance by civilian officials. His analysis of American military history since World War II provides an important backdrop for his argu- ment that poor civil-military relations have led the United States to an extremely danger- ous strategic position. Our force is exhausted and out of balance. Returning to the model of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and General George C. Marshall, where military advice was given greater weight, would be an important step toward crafting a sensible defense strategy devoid of political posturing. The solutions he offers are wide ranging and would require radical movement away from Afghanistan and current defense strategies.