QPME: Small Wars and Irregular Warfare

Formerly available as NAVMC 2890, Small Wars Manual, was originally printed in 1940. It is one of the best books on military peacekeeping and counterinsurgency operations published before World War II. It still can help Marines prepare for low-intensity conflicts which in the 1930's were referred to as "small wars".

Field Manual (FM) 3-24/ Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-33.5 provides doctrine for Army and Marine units that are countering an insurgency. It provides a doctrinal foundation for counterinsurgency. FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 is a guide for units fighting or training for counterinsurgency operations.

This anthology presents a an overview and introduction to the topic of counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. It contains a collection of 27 articles on counterinsurgency warfare and includes a broad bibliography that collectively describe the role played by the United States in various counterinsurgency and irregular warfare efforts from 1898 until 2007, with a particular emphasis on the role of the Marine Corps in the conduct of such efforts.

This book recounts the remarkable story of how the Marine Corps instituted new programs and new courses of study to train and educate Marines in counterinsurgency and irregular warfare.

In this pamphlet the record of the Marine occupation of the Dominican Republic from 1916-1924 is presented as an example of the active role played by the Marine Corps in the Caribbean region in the first three decades of the 20th Century. It was prepared principally from primary sources such as official reports, memoirs, personal correspondence, and recollection of the Marines involved. (document)

This pamphlet is a concise narrative of the role of U.S. Marines in the American interventions in Nicaragua during the period 1910-1933. The chronicle was compiled from official records and appropriate historical works and is published to give a further understanding of Marine participation in counterinsurgency warfare during the second two decades of the 20th century.

The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) asked CNA to identify and analyze the capabilities, organization, and training required for advisory missions in the post-Afghanistan era. This report is a result of that study.

This reference publication is Mao Tse-tung's thoughts and philosophy of guerrilla warfare. It gives the reader a chance to learn about this type of warfare from one who lived and fought as a guerrilla for most of his adult life. It is important to understand his philosophy of guerrilla warfare because it is the basis of today's guerrilla forces. The book was translated and published with an introduction by Samuel B. Griffith, Brigadier General, USMC (Ret.), in 1961.

In this book, Hans Schmidt deals with United States military, economic, and diplomatic relations with the Republic of Haiti during the period in which the Marines occupied that country.

David Kilcullen is one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare, a ground-breaking theorist whose ideas "are revolutionizing military thinking throughout the west" (Washington Post). Filled with down-to-earth, common-sense insights, this book is the definitive account of counterinsurgency, indispensable for all those interested in making sense of our world in an age of terror.

In response to the irregular warfare challenges facing the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005, General James Mattis--then commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command--established a new Marine Corps cultural initiative. The goal was simple: teach Marines to interact successfully with the local population in areas of conflict. The implications, however, were anything but simple: transform an elite military culture founded on the principles of "locate, close with, and destroy the enemy" into a "culturally savvy" Marine Corps. This book examines the conflicted trajectory of the Marine Corps' efforts to institute a radical culture policy into a military organization that is structured and trained to fight conventional wars.

A Marine intelligence officer's compelling report about the status and prospects of America's strategy for success in Iraq.

This book will help students gain a better understanding of Che's theoretical contribution to revolutionary literature and the inspiration that his life and Guerrilla Warfare have provided to revolutionaries since the 1960s.

Succinct accounts of 21 guerrilla conflicts in the twentieth century Wars covered include the Boer War, the Philippine War, World War I, the Russian Revolution, World War II, Vietnam, the Algerian War, the Afghan-Soviet War, and the exploits of men like Lawrence of Arabia, Orde Wingate, Mao Zedong, and Che Guevera, shedding light on the remarkable capabilities of unconventional fighters to outlast and defeat their enemies.

Beginning with the first insurgencies in the ancient world—when Alexander the Great discovered that fleet nomads were harder to defeat than massive conventional armies—Max Boot, best-selling author and military advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan, masterfully guides us from the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire up through the horrors of the French-Indochina War and the shadowy, post-9/11 battlefields of today. Relying on a diverse cast of unforgettable characters—not only Mao and Che but also the legendary Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi, the archaeologist-turned–military commander T. E. Lawrence, and the “Quiet American” Edward Lansdale, among others—Boot explodes everything we thought we knew about unconventional combat. The result is both an enthralling read and our most important work on nontraditional warfare.

In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared.

The author's gripping account of how a team of underprepared reservists built an Iraqi battalion from the ground up and with them plunged side by side into a mystifying insurgency.

America's "small wars," "imperial wars," or, as the Pentagon now terms them, "low-intensity conflicts," have played an essential but little-appreciated role in its growth as a world power. Max Boot argues that the armed forces must reorient themselves to better handle small-war missions, because such clashes are an inevitable result of America's far-flung imperial responsibilities.

Originally published in 1896, Small Wars is an ambitious attempt to analyze and draw lessons from Western experience in fighting campaigns of imperial conquest.