Secret Armies

by James Adams

Book Overview

Secret Armies gives a sobering and controversial assessment of special forces in action around the world. A highly readable, often shocking, comprehensive account of irregular warfare waged by special forces since 1945. 8-page photo insert.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553281623
• ISBN13: 9780553281620
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book

If you want info on world's special ops forces this book is very good. It is somewhat dated, but still worth reading.

Previous Reviews Seem a Bit Biased, no?

As a solid historical synthesis and commentary, this book should be judged based on what it sought to be: a concise synthesis of the history of SpecOps, with a focus on the significance of SpecOps for the Cold War. The synthesis was intended to be timely and accessible to popular audiences, useful to policymakers who were not specialists in the field, but wanted to have a birds-eye view, but also not too controversial to the modal perspective among specialists. This last agenda is of course the hardest to achieve, because Military Science and Military History are rich with pet-theory-mongers, special-interest storytellers, and revisionists with an agenda. In my opinion, the book succeeds in its first two missions. As I am not a Military Scholar specialist, I can only surmise based on the tone of some of the reviewers that Adams has managed to inflame the indignation of at least some extremes along the continuum of theorists and pundits. One of the previous reviewers seems to have gathered the take-home message that "the West was the cause of the suffering" during the Cold War!?! Did you actually READ the book? The third reviewer appears to have had his ego-bruised by Adams recounting of the many mistakes resulting from very deeply-ingrained structural, organizational, and cultural inflexibilities in the US military, and lack of harmony in SpecOps-Conventional relations/competition in particular. If there is one thing military men are even more keen to fight over than territory-in-war, it is authority and funding from their respective governments, especially during times of relative peace. It is one thing to be "for your side," and ideally a totally separate thing to be "critical of your sides mistakes." We only avoid repeating the mistakes of history by being as objective about it as we can be. As the book progresses, Adams marshals a strong argument that Spetsnaz had a better track record of successful operations, that SAS was also at times quite effective, but that US SpecOps up to that date had been neglected, misused, misunderstood, poorly supported, and poorly integrated into the US Military Command Structure and dogma. Adams simply synthesized the broader historical background for this empirical generalization at a time when it was a very hot topic. No doubt, even if these generalizations are factual, they are now HIGHLY dated. But after all, that is the point of history. I'm about half way through the book and I haven't encountered any reference that are so invidious as SAS="B Grade" Spetsnaz="A Grade" etc. Adams does indeed tell in concise detail about some of the key successes and failures of the SpecOps groups of each nation. I have not encountered anything language that I'd deem "contemptuous" toward the valor, the committment or the good-intentions of any branch of the US military. The only thing about which he seems remotely contemptuous is his discussion of totalitarian, ruthless East-Bloc policies and actions, to which he was

an enlightning rewiew of covert operations by evil empires

Recommended reading for those looking for the truth regarding the undercover war between the East and West from WW2. Hostages, terror attacks, invasions, and counter insurgancy by Delta Force, SAS, and Spetsnaz are covered in fine detail; the overzealous tactics by the Reagan administration (involvement in Grenada, Contas, Vietnam, Iran/Iraq war, Angola), in achieving their selfish goals still leaves a sour taste in this reviewers mouth; yet again this book proves that the USA's world babysitter mentality, has caused more misery in the world than has stopped. An eye-opener, although with end of Cold War- rather dated commentary today.

Barely Finished This One!

While this book claimed to provide the inside story of the world's elite special forces, all it really did was highlite past missions. Between beraiding the US capabilities and predicting WWIII, Adams never really gives us any story that wasn't in the paper. Anyway, try the Commandos by Douglas Waller if you want a good account of US elite fighters.