Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods - Softcover

H. John Poole

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0963869574 ISBN 13: 9780963869579

Publisher: Posterity Press (NC), illustrated edition (November 5, 2004), 2004

Synopsis

This book focuses on how Iran and its various proxies fight. It is on the most prestigious pre-deployment reading lists for both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps, because it fully details the Islamists' yet-to-be-defeated 4GW method. That method is best countered by "truly light" infantry tactics, but America has had only "line" infantry since 1943. Its members travel mostly by truck and fight mostly with supporting arms. That's because the Pentagon is still practicing a "higher-tech" version of 2GW (killing as many enemy as possible). How to operate the latest equipment takes up so much of the young infantryman's day that he never learns how to sneak up on an expert defender. He and his buddies don't become any less visible by donning advanced electronics, so their traditional small-unit maneuvers remain as predictable as before. All Posterity Press books should be viewed as instruments of long-overdue change.

About this title

From the Publisher

Tactics of the Crescent Moon" shows--in detail--how Muslim militants fight at short range. From all available intelligence, it has extracted small-unit tactical trends. While the enemy's combat methods may seem amateurish, they are quite effective in a 4th-Generation-Warfare environment. They have already forced the Israeli Army out of Southern Lebanon and the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan. To make matters worse, they may be improving. In the book's foreword, Maj.Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC (Ret.) warns that the current crop of "irregulars have flexible and adaptable training techniques and tactical methods." This book should help U.S. forces to counter those methods.

From the Author

This is more than one foreign faction at work in Iraq. There is al-Qaeda and its veterans of the Afghan or Chechen Wars. But there is also Lebanese Hezbollah (an Iranian Revolutionary Guard affiliate) and its suicide recruits (largely Palestinian). Both factions are recruiting and training locals to do the fighting. Normally at a disadvantage in firepower and technology, both rely on surprise. While not yet as tactically sophisticated as the Viet Cong were 35 years ago, both are unfettered by bureaucratic restriction and doctrinal inertia. Their training method is decentralized and dynamic. It allows each instructor to refine what he teaches. Unless, U.S. soldiers and Marines follow suit, they may be facing a protracted struggle with a Vietnam-like ending.

About this edition

• Publisher: Posterity Press (NC), illustrated edition (November 5, 2004)
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0963869574
• ISBN 13: 9780963869579
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360
• Illustrator: Mike Leahy