Dragon Days: Time for "Unconventional" Tactics - Softcover

H. John Poole

Softcover

ISBN 10: 096386954X ISBN 13: 9780963869548

Publisher: Posterity Press(NC), 2007

Synopsis

This book shows how to control a contested region with squad-sized outposts. North Vietnam and Iran have done it. Now, North Korea may try to consolidate the South with such a strategy. Scores of tiny Western outposts could do this too. After a short threat assessment, Dragon Days describes what a single U.S. rifle squad must do to safely accomplish such a mission in Asia. It will need the following Unconventional Warfare (UW) skills: (1) some police procedure; (2) obscurely defending; (3) finding an enemy weakness; (4) making a secret approach; (5) disguising the attack; (6) precluding a counterstroke; (7) rural E&E; (8) enhancing rural terrain (9) urban E&E; and (10) enhancing urban terrain. Because of Asia's bottom-up culture, the little picture is where such an ability originates. This heavily illustrated book contains more small-unit perspective than any U.S. govt. publication. In fact, it may still constitute America's only UW tactical-technique manual.

About this title

About the Author

Through an inverted military career, Poole has discovered a few things that more promotable people miss. After spending 2 out of his first 4 years as a combat commander, he did his last 7 as an enlisted tactics instructor. That allowed him to see why U.S troops have so much trouble quelling insurgency, and with short-range combat in general. The techniques in their tactics manuals are quite simply outmoded--so unlikely to surprise a "woods-wise" defender as to be "premachinegun" in format. This little oversight on the part of their commanders and how to correct it has formed the framework of Poole's work. Since retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1993, he has has traveled extensively in both Communist and Islamist worlds and written 12 other tactics and intel. manual supplements. He has also conducted multiday training sessions for 41 U.S. battalions, 9 military schools, and 7 special-operations units from all 4 service branches. As most U.S. intelligence personnel know too little about the Eastern thought process and evolution of squad tactics, these supplements provide currently deployed GIs with a rare glimpse into their opponent's intentions. Poole has been stationed twice each in South Vietnam and Okinawa. He has further visited Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, both Koreas, Mainland China (twice), Hong Kong, Macao, North Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh, India (5 times), Pakistan (twice), Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Between early tours in the Marine Corps, he worked for 2 years as a criminal investigator in Chicago for the Illinois Bureau of Investigation. While at the IBI, he studied Tae Kwon Do.

Edition details

• Publisher: Posterity Press(NC)
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 096386954X
• ISBN 13: 9780963869548
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 484
• Illustrator: Mike Leahy