Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II by U.S. Army, John A. Nagl, John A. Nagl (Foreword by)

From the Publisher

“American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis like American soldiers or not.”

The U.S. military could certainly have used that bit of wisdom in 2003, as violence began to eclipse the Iraq War’s early successes. Ironically, had the Army only looked in its own archives, they would have found it—that piece of advice is from a manual the U.S. War Department handed out to American servicemen posted in Iraq back in 1943.

The advice in Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II, presented here in a new facsimile edition, retains a surprising, even haunting, relevance in light of today’s muddled efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds. Designed to help American soldiers understand and cope with what was at the time an utterly unfamiliar culture—the manual explains how to pronounce the word Iraq, for instance—this brief, accessible handbook mixes do-and-don’t-style tips (“Always respect the Moslem women.” “Talk Arabic if you can to the people. No matter how badly you do it, they will like it.”) with general observations on Iraqi history and society. The book’s overall message still rings true—dramatically so—more than sixty years later: treat an Iraqi and his family with honor and respect, and you will have a strong ally; treat him with disrespect and you will create an unyielding enemy.

With a foreword by Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl reflecting on the manual’s continuing applicability—and lamenting that it was unknown at the start of the invasion—this new edition of Instructions forAmerican Servicemen in Iraq will be essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of Iraq and the fate of the American soldiers serving there.

Richard Fraser - Library Journal

In 1943, as part of its global World War II deployments, the United States stationed troops in Iraq. The brief handbook issued then, and now offered in facsimile, shows the army apprising troops of what to expect in Iraq and sketches its ethnic and religious makeup. Its primary purpose was to foster caution in interacting with a complex society with which Americans were unfamiliar. Sixty years later, the U.S. Army returned to Iraq, this time to defeat the Iraqi armed forces and assist in installing a new regime. The defeat of the Iraqi forces was quick and thorough, but the creation of a new political order was not. Faced with an insurgency in the wake of the conventional campaign, the United States floundered, hoping that it could translate its conventional superiority into success against an enemy that fought an unconventional war. The new Counterinsurgency Field Manualattempts to offer a formula for success. Its basis is that counterinsurgency warfare is a political struggle that has a military component, rather than a strictly military campaign. Counterinsurgency war is a struggle for legitimacy; the host government and its American allies must provide security and at least basic services in order to earn the population's confidence. The insurgents need merely to undermine the government by whatever means they can. The currently operative manual explains that American service personnel must be able quickly and precisely to calibrate their actions to a given situation. Ironically, our armed forces today find themselves needing the type of cultural sensitivity that was considered an obvious ingredient for success in 1943. It is likely that the new field manual will be in usefor some time, and that the World War II instructions will often be cited as a comparison to it. Both are recommended for academic and public libraries.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0226841707
  
• ISBN-13: 9780226841700
• Format: Hardcover, 44pp
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Pub. Date: July 2007
• Sales Rank: 136,370

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents