War Nerd (Paperback)by Gary Brecher

Product Details
Paperback: 328 pages
Publisher: Soft Skull Press (July 1, 2008)
Language: English

Reviewer:
Gary Brecher AKA WarNerd has been writing articles about warfare online at Exile.ru for some years, before the Russian government closed the site down. This book is a collection of his writing. While Brecher doesn't declare any formal military experience, he scours the web to bring a candid look at whats happening in the world...

... and he seems to get it right. He believes that war is mostly tribal, and those governments fighting most of the wars going on in the world right now would do a lot better by not worrying about hi-tech too much, but concentrating on the 'hearts and minds'

Reviewer:

Don't be deceived by the toilet humour, crudity and sweeping generalisations: this is a highly entertaining book with Brecher's observations on everything from the fashion choices of West African warlords to the conflict resolution style of Pakistani taxi drivers far more amusing than any serious comedy.

Certainly, this is just a collection of essays already available on the internet but besides the benefit of being printed in book form, this also gives the author and editor the opportunity to concentrate on what they judge the most important and worthwhile of Brecher's writings.

I found this book valuable for the following reasons:

Brecher's several page summaries of the bigger and more interesting Third World wars of the past few decades which generally receive so little attention in the West, despite containing some surprising omissions (for example writing dozens of pages on ethnic conflict in South East Asia without mentioning the overwhelming Chinese economic dominance in many of these countries), provide a superficial sketch of these conflicts for minimal reader effort (but don't expect rigorous references or justification).

Brecher's analysis of the nature of warfare itself and how it's changed since the end of the Cold War is very interesting: how Western military doctrines have not always yet caught up, particularly in regard to Iraq, Afghanistan and how the USA is potentially wasting much of its vast defence budget.

Brecher's understanding of the nature of typical ethnic relations (conflict rather than harmony) is essentially common sense to anyone with the capability of independent thought who pays attention to current affairs but apparently not yet recognised by the political class who runs Western societies or the media class who back them.

If you're interested in the rest of the world outside of the West, if you're interested in military conflict, this book is a worthwhile read.