The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars who changed the way the Pentagon does business and the American military fights wars, against fierce resistance from within their own ranks. The Insurgents is the inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, led by General David Petraeus, who plotted to revolutionize one of the largest, oldest, and most hidebound institutions—the United States military. Their aim was to build a new Army that could fight the new kind of war in the post–Cold War age: not massive wars on vast battlefields, but “small wars” in cities and villages, against insurgents and terrorists. These would be wars not only of fighting but of “nation building,” often not of necessity but of choice. Based on secret documents, private emails, and interviews with more than one hundred key characters, including Petraeus, the tale unfolds against the backdrop of the wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one mounted at home by ambitious, self-consciously intellectual officers—Petraeus, John Nagl, H. R. McMaster, and others—many of them classmates or colleagues in West Point’s Social Science Department who rose through the ranks, seized with an idea of how to fight these wars better. Amid the crisis, they forged a community (some of them called it a cabal or mafia) and adapted their enemies’ techniques to overhaul the culture and institutions of their own Army. Fred Kaplan describes how these men and women maneuvered the idea through the bureaucracy and made it official policy. This is a story of power, politics, ideas, and personalities—and how they converged to reshape the twenty-first-century American military. But it is also a cautionary tale about how creative doctrine can harden into dogma, how smart strategists—today’s “best and brightest”—can win the battles at home but not the wars abroad. Petraeus and his fellow insurgents made the US military more adaptive to the conflicts of the modern era, but they also created the tools—and made it more tempting—for political leaders to wade into wars that they would be wise to avoid. Finished before the November 2012 resignation of CIA director David Petraeus, Kaplan’s study contains a curiosity: a footnote cites All In, by Paula Broadwell (2011), a biography of Petraeus by his notorious femme fatale, to the effect that Petraeus was denied the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and given the CIA instead. Why? Stay tuned while we review Kaplan’s account of a coterie of army officers who campaigned to raise the importance of counterinsurgency in American military doctrine. This grouping, which included Petraeus, shared an intellectual perspective on warfare and ascended in influence as the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan descended into protracted, irregular combat. What Kaplan offers is a highly detailed episode in the Pentagon’s bureaucratic politics, which pitted the counterinsurgency-minded officers against brass more mentally comfortable with conventional warfare and which were conducted through conferences, promotions, and annunciation of doctrine. Petraeus’ internecine victory, the publication of Counterinsurgency:FM 3-24 (2007), peaks Kaplan’s narrative, which then elides into that field manual’s application to Iraq and Afghanistan. Intensively researched and factually presented, this work most suits mavens of military affairs. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Newsworthiness instantly expands Kaplan’s intended audience; many of the figures interviewed here might, as Washington’s investigatory machine gears up, be seen again soon. --Gilbert Taylor "Thrilling reading. ... There is no one better equipped to tell the story. ... Kaplan, a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter … knows the military world inside and out. ... An authoritative, gripping and somewhat terrifying account of how the American military approached two major wars in the combustible Islamic world." -- Thanassis Cambaniss ― The New York Times Book Review “Riveting . . . Combining superb storytelling and meticulous journalism, Kaplan has produced an unparalleled account of how the U.S. military has adapted itself to the realities of the Middle East.” ― The Washington Institute, Silver Book Prize Winner "One of the very best books ever written about the American military in the era of small wars. ... Fred Kaplan brings a formidable talent for writing intellectual history." -- Thomas Powers ― The New York Review of Books “Serious and insightful. … The Insurgents seems destined to be one of the more significant looks at how the US pursued the war in Iraq and at the complex mind of the general in charge when the tide turned.” -- Tony Perry ― Los Angeles Times "Compelling" -- Dexter Filkins ― The New Yorker " The Insurgents is a tremendously clear and informative guide to the strengths and weaknesses of the military we have today and to the decisions we are about to make. …