Tequila Junction: 4th-Generation Counterinsurgency

John Poole keeps doing it. Doing what you may ask? He keeps providing our military leaders, of all ranks, excellent books on how to train and develop U.S. forces to deal with threats today and in the future that understand 4th Generation Warfare. I like Tequila Junction because I agree totally with John, that the biggest threat to the U.S. right now is just across our Southern border. Not from the state of Mexico itself, but from the non-state groups, the drug cartels that are starting to dismantle the state of Mexico and are pouring violence across our borders. And as the political leadership of Mexico (not all), but most continue to put self before service, and remain corrupt, the masses will continue to turn toward these groups to provide them a way to live. This, coupled with our own political leaders failing to secure our border, now seven years after 9/11 due to back channel political deals with the government of Mexico, has become the biggest threat to our nation. But, as John has done in his other excellent books, he outlines the problem, but recommends a workable solution. It will just take leaders of character to implement it. I think so highly of John's books that I made his Last Hundred Yards one of my two main text books when I taught ROTC at Georgetown University (the other one was the Maneuver Warfare Handbook by William S. Lind). I also have pushed all his other books to my multitude of contacts as recommended mandatory reading for their students. In recent visits I have seen his books on the shelves and in the hands of instructors and students at the U.S. Army Infantry School, Military Intelligence School, and in ROTC programs,as well as the United States Military Academy at West Point (all of which are using my book Raising the Bar to teach adaptability). Keep it up John, Don

LTC Poole was written another stellar book concerning the subtle workings of the Chinese & muslim extremist groups operating in Central & South America. The Chinese are fighting a war against the US "by other means" & in this manner hide behind a smokescreen of narco-gangs such as MS-13 & other drug cartels using their drug sales as a self-supporting mechanism to fund their activities within the continent. While all eyes & intelligence resources are looking to the East and wondering what will happen in Iraq & Afghanistan now that President-elect Obama is taking office, Chinese intelligence is developing contacts & networks to support anti-American activities in the future. The Chinese plant seeds & understand that they must give them time to grow strong, so as to make it difficult to up-root them later. The Chinese also understand to stay under the radar to the US intelligence community. In this they have done an outstanding job & the tree of insurgency grows. Only tactics discussed in Poole's new book can the US government hope to prevent the establishment of a threat to the south of it's border. According to LTC Poole, the way to combat the insurgency in South America is utilizing a police methodology of community policing & getting the local civilian population to understand that the gangs & insurgents will only cause them grief & suffering. Give the local residents the means & support necessary to fend off a smart adversary. Fending off the Chinese & muslim extremist threat at this point does not necessarily mean weapons procurement & killing. As Poole quoted Ghandi in Part Two, "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary." However I beg to differ with Ghandi since the US was born out of the American Revolution, which was not act of non-violence but bloody resistence to tyranny! Also an American icon by the name of Al Capone was quoted as saying, "You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than just a kind word." The 4th Generation Counterinsurgency tactics explained by LTC Poole work & work very effectively but keep the big stick around just in case.

Outstanding book...promotes out-of-the-box thinking and reframes developing threats. It addresses a number of issues our government is not paying much attention to: -issues pertaining to homeland security- Poole explains how migration, uncontrolled illegal immigration, contributes to the destruction of a nation-state. The United States is facing this problem now but our government is almost doing nothing about it. -addresses how illicit activities related to illegal immigration create a market for narco-trafficking which feeds terrorist financing... making the war on terrorism a self licking ice cream cone in favor of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas (a Shi'i Iranian backed terrorist group and Palestinian backed Sunni terrorist group). -the activities create exploitable venues for nation-states which desire to diminish/manage United States influence, China being one example...Russia and Iran a possible second. The subversion of society provides competitive nation-states and means to wage war against the United States via nonmilitary means. This is the essence of fourth generation warfare... leveraging society, subverting societies, in order to achieve victory while undermining US technological military superiority. The state is unable to maintain its territorial integrity and eventually begins to wither away. John is saying the emperor is naked

I just finished reading the latest book by John Poole, "Tequila Junction 4th-Generation Counterinsurgency." The book is outstanding. I could not put it down. It's not a novel, but if your interest or responsibility is security, it reads like one. Tequila Junction is, a lesson on current world events including intelligence gathered on non-Muslim threats to America from Central and South America and their links to China. The first part of the book discusses this intelligence and the possibility of politically oriented and drug funded threats to the United States. Yes back to drugs funding political oriented cartels, gangs or maras (MS13, M18 and others) as well as terrorist groups all cooperating in this effort. Poole talks of the United states narrow focus on Al-Qaeda has had its attention diverted from this part of the world. "Latin America provides the perfect example of what can happen from to narrow a focus. Because so little al-Qaeda activity there, U.S. leaders have all but ignored a potential catastrophe at their doorstep. In a place where the two biggest threats to personal freedom combine (drugs and revolution), they have settled for another of their patented "top-down" solutions. Such a solution will have little chance where the source of the problem has yet to be determined." A reader can easily see based on Americas past and current craving for drugs where the implications at home to security and the law enforcement community are obvious if these threats are allowed to go undisputed. In the second part of the book, Poole describes the unconventional tactics necessary, the military will need in counterinsurgency efforts. These unconventional methods are indirect and involve methods related to police problem solving and indirect conflict. Poole describes 4GW methods of recognizing the gangs and maras as part of the solution-that it is more important to "convert ones foe than to kill him." He talks about, "wars of the future must be won by some other way than expert snipers and pinpoint bombing. The name of the game is no longer to kill as many foes as possible, but rather to sway the allegiance of as many as possible." This is related to law enforcement methods utilized today that are paramount to forming community partnerships and winning community members over in an effort to curtail crime and solve crime problems here at home. Poole discusses these links between law enforcement and military efforts in a way that is easy to understand. In the latter parts of the book Poole describes methods to use and how to implement these methods effectively. He talks of leadership and the importance of front line personnel being able to think and make decisions on their own based on the overall mission of winning foes over. The book in its appendix titled "Bottom-up Training" describes better training methods to prepare those whose job it is to solve these serious problems at home and abroad. Those in Law Enforcement and Homeland Security s

LtCol Poole's books have been with me on my military deployments and contract security assignments overseas. They have all become intelligence and tactical studies that have given me insights and ideas on how to do my job more effectively. John Poole with Tequila Junction gives information for military and law enforcemnt working in South/Central America and Mexico. The information in his latest work gives the information needed that commanders, military manuals and intell reports don't say or synthesize for use on the ground. Once again a must have book.