Document created: 1 September 06
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall2006

Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods by H. John Poole. Posterity Press (http://members.aol.com/posteritypress), P.O. Box 5360, Emerald Isle, North Carolina 28594, 2004, 368 pages, $14.95 (softcover). 

A number of books have appeared over the past few years that address various topics about the global war on terrorism (GWOT): civil liberties, conduct of the war or individual engagements, and even plans for the coming decades. A few manage to do a good job of addressing their chosen topic, keeping the subject and proposed solutions relevant to the situation and anticipated outcome. H. John Poole’s book Tactics of the Crescent Moon is one of those.

Poole has several books to his credit, all of which address how Western forces (primarily from the United States, Russia, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) can and should deal with current or future enemy forces. In every case, the author draws on his US Marine experience in Vietnam to illustrate the inadequacies of Western leadership and tactics against Eastern (primarily Maoist, but including other Asian) tactics and leadership methods. Here, he spends the first 10 (of 12) chapters discussing individual terrorist organizations, their tactics, similarities and sources of their tactics and doctrine, and ways in which these “ragtag” groups have managed to deal blow after blow to Western forces. Poole does this convincingly by walking the reader through an exhaustive case study of Soviet/Russian conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya as well as highlighting other groups’ operations against Israeli and US forces.

Poole leaves the reader with the conclusion that Western forces can defeat these terrorist groups but not by continuing to use conventional Western tactics. In this regard, I feel that he has hit a grand slam—in order to make true progress in the GWOT, we need to fully understand what our adversaries’ motivations are and how we can counteract them. In fact, Poole titles one of his chapters “The Response Must Be Unconventional.” Indeed, although he offers nothing new in this chapter, he draws on several examples in which the carrot approach has worked far better than liberal employment of a stick—even a high-precision stick.

I have only a few concerns about the book. For example, it includes a number of maps, but they are difficult to read and of questionable utility. Furthermore, Poole’s practice of making repeated references to the use of Eastern methods, tactics, and doctrine becomes so distracting that one is tempted to skip over the section and move on. At times, that’s a bad idea because these references convey some important points. Nevertheless, the discussion becomes somewhat disjointed at times. Placing more emphasis on the core ideas of each chapter would solve this problem. Lastly, Poole spends an inordinate amount of time building his case, only to offer a disproportionately small amount of space to solutions. I would like to have seen more than one-sixth of the book devoted to solutions and proposals. The author offers some interesting ideas; it’s a shame that he didn’t take the space to build better cases for them.

Tactics of the Crescent Moon is a comprehensive, if somewhat disorganized, assessment of the direction US operations must take in the coming years. It’s worth reading, especially for any military member of any branch of service who is headed to Iraq or Afghanistan. 

Maj Paul Niesen, USAF
Scott AFB, Illinois

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.