John Nagl

soldier-scholar John Nagl

John A. Nagl is a counterinsurgency writer.

Biography

John Nagl is the eldest of six children. He grew up in a Roman Catholic household in Omaha, Neb., and said he decided to attend West Point out of a desire to serve his nation and spare his family the expense of putting him through college. (His father was an electrical engineer who served in the Navy.)

According to the New York Times, Nagl 'graduated close to the top of his West Point class in 1988 and was selected as a Rhodes scholar.' He studied a Masters in International Relations for two years at Oxford before the 1991 Gulf War - during which he led a tank platoon - and then returned to Oxford to study a PhD at St. Antony's College. At Oxford Nagl 'immersed himself in the classic texts of guerrilla warfare'. According to the New York Times, 'the book that most forcefully captured Nagl's imagination' was T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, whilst his research focus was on the 'counterinsurgy' operations in Malaya and Vietnam. His thesis was published in 1997 and titled, 'British and American Army Counterinsurgency Learning during the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War' It was supervised by Professor Robert O'Neill, who was at that time director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford University. Nagl writes that O'Neill 'suggested the topic and saw it through to the end.' In 2002 Nagl's thesis was published as a book titled Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam. The introduction to a recent edition of the book was written by Gen. Peter Schoomaker, at the time the Army's chief of staff.

According to the Washington Post, Nagl served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as the operations officer for an Army battalion in Iraq's Anbar province.' A contributor note in the December 2007 Rusi Journal states that Nagl commanded, 'the 1st (US) Battalion, 34th Armor at Fort Riley, Kansas' and 'served as the operations officer of Task Force Centurion in Al-Anbar in 2003 and 2004'.

After serving in Iraq Nagl became an assistant to Paul Wolfowitz. Then under the stewardship of David Petraeus Nagl helped produce the Army's counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24. Another likeminded individual who contributed to the document was Nagl's friend David Kilcullen. Kilcullen also worked at the State Department under Wolfowitz and Nagl was probably responsible for his appointment.

Nagl then became the commander of a battalion in Fort Riley, Kan., that teaches U.S. soldiers how to train and advise Iraqi forces.

In 2008 the Washington Post reported that Nagl, then 41, had 'decided to leave the service to study strategic issues full time' at the Center for a New American Security

Views

Nagl is an advocate of the use of US military power to force and coerce social changes on other countries. In an article in The Atlantic, Andrew J. Bacevich refers to two camps within the US military he labels as ‘Crusaders and Conservatives’. These groups differ as to the extent that they believe the US military should use social and political tools to achieve its goals. Bacevich writes that Nagl is, ‘Among the Crusaders’ most influential members’. He summarises Nagl’s position as follows:

Instability creates ungoverned spaces in which violent anti-American radicals thrive. Yet if instability anywhere poses a threat, then ensuring the existence of stability everywhere—denying terrorists sanctuary in rogue or failed states—becomes a national-security imperative. Define the problem in these terms, and winning battles becomes less urgent than pacifying populations and establishing effective governance.

This focus on 'pacifying populations' and creating 'effective governance' should be understood as an implicit critism of the lack of post-war planning in Iraq, which came to be associated particularly with Donald Rumsfeld. Nagl's alternative is the use of military power combined with political, economic and cultural measures aiming to pacify resistance. This reflects Nagl's background as a student of 'counterinsurgency'. It is a doctrine which has become popular, particularly in the liberal American media. Tara McKelvey comments in The American Prospect that: ‘Counterinsurgency has a special allure for liberal writers and thinkers because it offers a holistic approach, emphasizing efforts to win the hearts and minds of local people, and attempts to transform formerly autocratic governments into ones that respect human rights, women's education, and the rule of law.’ Given this portrayal it is worth considering an historical precident used by Nagl. In his book he writes approvingly of the brutal American annexation of the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century:

Military measure were only one component of a broader political-military campaign that included effective propaganda, payment of cash bounties for weapons surrendered by the insurgents, and building of schools and hospitals in a comprehensive public works program. Those revels who maintained their antagonism were deported, imprisoned or defeated in the U.S. Army’s most successful instance of counterinsurgency theory and practice.

It is a model which Nagl advocates in the 21st century. For example he has written that:

The soldiers who will win these wars require an ability not just to dominate land operations, but to change entire societies - and not all of those soldiers will wear uniforms, or work for the Department of Army. The most important warriors of the current century may fight for the US Information Agency rather than the Department of Defense.

Affiliations

• Insurgency Research Group, has presented at a group seminar at King's College London.