Old CI Books

[BMT (RIP)]

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/04/Business/Strategic_control__by.shtml

BMT

[NousDefionsDoc]

Thanks to a member of this board, I now have a copy of the Galula book in my library. It is paperback, but well done. I will be watching this company for more offerings.

[Go For Broke]

Great link. Thanks much!

V/R,

[Peregrino]

Useful resource - especially given the reading habits of this group. FYI - Peregrino


Strategic control, by the book
A St. Petersburg man brings military and strategy books back into print. The works are must-reads for intelligence experts and generals-in-training.
By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published October 4, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ST. PETERSBURG - Jamie Hailer is supplying America's military leaders and intelligence specialists with expertise on dealing with global terrorism from the comfort of his home near downtown St. Petersburg.

Far from being some James Bond character, with real-life, cloak-and-dagger experiences, Hailer, 37, is the owner of a boutique publishing house that specializes in resurrecting highly regarded but out-of-print books on military history and strategy.

Hailer's best seller is a 40-year-old work on counterinsurgency written by a French army officer who served in China, Southeast Asia and Algeria. Since starting his company as a sideline in March, Hailer has sold about 2,400 copies of David Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice to everyone from intel experts to generals-in-training.

"I kind of stumbled on a subculture of retired CIA and Army guys who are pulling their hair out about us blowing it in Iraq like we did in Vietnam," said Hailer (pronounced Hi-ler). "When they found out I was publishing this book, they pushed it like crazy."

Rick Newton, an instructor at the Joint Special Operations University at Hurlburt Field in Florida's Panhandle ordered 100, then e-mailed his buddies at West Point and the Naval War College; they also wanted the book.

Newton, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said he had been looking for the Galula book for a couple of years before being put in touch with Hailer.

"It's the only book I'd found which takes strategic-level goals and links them to what soldiers on the ground have to do," Newton said of the book, written in 1964 while Galula was on a fellowship at Harvard. "You read it and scratch your head and say, "He got it right."'

Next thing Hailer knew, the head of the Command & General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, where the Army trains its top brass, ordered 1,500 copies, saying he wanted to put the book in the hands of every student.

Then came e-mail from some sources at the CIA, suggesting that Hailer try to track down a 1978 book on the formation of the Saudi kingdom.

"They said they'd been looking for the book for years and that the only copy had walked out of their library," Hailer said.

Now available through Hailer Publishing for $29.99 is Ibn Sa'ud's Warriors of Islam by John Habib.

Hailer, who did graduate work at Missouri State University in defense and strategic studies, is a civilian who has made military strategy his career. His first job was as a defense and aerospace lobbyist in Washington, D.C. For the past three years, he has worked in alliance development with General Dynamics in St. Petersburg, doing long-range planning.

Hailer began moonlighting as a publisher after reading an article late last year in Inside the Pentagon , an independent weekly journal published in Washington. The author took an informal poll of active and retired generals, defense and intel experts, asking them to name books that would help officers and troops understand the insurgency in Iraq.

"Perhaps the most enthusiastic endorsements from officers and experts ... are reserved for out-of-print or hard-to-find books - mostly on counterinsurgency warfare - that seem to have gained new urgency and application in Iraq," wrote ITP's senior correspondent Elaine Grossman.

Hailer said that statement triggered an enterprise he'd been mulling over for some time, after finding an out-of-print book he wanted on the British Royal Navy was selling on the Internet for more than $1,200. Hailer decided to make his first reprint effort the Galula book because a retired CIA officer told ITP's readers to "run - not walk - to the Pentagon library and get in line" for the book, which he considered "a primer for how to win in Iraq."

Hailer, who had read the Galula book in graduate school, found a copy in the University of South Florida's library. He then tracked down Greenwood Publishing Group in Westport, Conn., the company that had acquired the book's original publisher, and got an enthusiastic response.

"I was lucky I found someone supportive on the first phone call," Hailer said. "He said, "Knock yourself out. We don't even have a copy."'

Hailer drew up a simple contract, agreeing to pay Greenwood royalties for reprint rights (Galula died in 1967). He found a Fort Lauderdale company that was able to make a high-quality scan of the book without destroying it, then he shipped the electronic file to a printer in Minnesota who can produce as few as 10 or as many as 2,000 copies in a run.

The hardest part, said Hailer, is tracking down the rights' holder. In most cases, the copyright for out-of-print books resides with the publishing house, but widespread acquisitions in the industry have made it difficult to trace old contracts. In a couple of cases, the rights have reverted to the author, leading Hailer on more than one global goose-chase.

"I've been tracking one guy for a year-and-a-half now," Hailer said. "His last known address was Florence, Italy, and his last known communication was in 1990. I think he's long gone and for all I know he left no heirs."

Hailer said his sideline is minimally profitable, thanks in part to volunteer help from family members. His sister has designed the company's Web site (www.hailerpublishing.com) his brother has done cover art, his wife handles shipping and his 6-year-old son, Nathaniel, mostly stays out of the way.

In addition to taking future book suggestions from ex-military like Newton, Hailer looks for out-of-print titles that are considered seminal works and are selling for outrageous prices on the Internet.

"If it's selling for $100 or more on the used-book market, that indicates there's enough of a demand to generate a profit," he said. "If used copies are selling for $5, I can't compete with that."

Hailer said his efforts have been well-received by most publishers, who consider royalties from reprints to be found money. And the Galula reprint was so successful, its original publisher decided not to renew his contract.

"Greenwood decided to start up its own counterinsurgency product line when they saw what I did with that first book," he said. "Now whenever I call them about a book, they say, "Oh, we'll probably do that ourselves."'

Which is okay by Hailer, who figures if he sells 100 copies of a reprint, recoups his cost and gets a valuable book back into print, he's doing his job.

But Hailer is still a bit surprised that it took his part-time effort to bring back works like Galula's, who offers particularly relevant advice on how to treat prisoners.

Captured by Mao's forces in China, Galula said prisoners were treated well, given a week or two of indoctrination, then released. The rationale was that a few prisoners might be converted; if not, upon their release, they might not be trusted by their own people.

"In a page and a half, Galula tells how we could have won the war," Hailer said. "You realize all this has happened before. I just hope (this advice) is not too little, too late."

--Kris Hundley can be reached at 727 892-2996 or hundley@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 4, 2005, 02:15:30]

[CoLawman]

Excellent post Peregrino!

[Ret10Echo]

Pergrino,
These may be considered "old" books, but Defense Tech has just recently posted an excerpt from Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice by David Galula

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003507.html

[Shar]

Here's the direct link for ordering the Galula book from Greenwood now that Greenwood took back the publishing rights:
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/B9303.aspx

and from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0275993035/ref=wl_it_dp/105-1963214-9354821?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3A2JI0EKU015A&colid=IH9FCWACA74F

In paperback it is $29.95, it is $74.95 in hardcover and you can find what might be some of the early editions in hardcover floating around the amazon.com "used and new" seller pages for upwards of $85+ if that's your fancy (I'd definitely check with the seller though now that Greenwood is republishing both hard and paper covers).

[5POINT56]

The guy has a great web page. This book seems interesting and rather timely.....anyone read it? I've got it on order......

www.hailerpublishing.com

The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War by John J. McCuen

From the Author's Preface:

"Undoubtedly, some of my readers will accuse me of ignoring the deeper causes of revolutionary wars….......Nevertheless, experience indicates that often the governing authorities do not recognize the danger in time and allow a revolutionary movement to spawn. By this time, mere reforms will not only be ineffective but will be thwarted by the revolutionaries who want only to oust the old regime. Much more important, however, will be the fact that often the Free World cannot allow the country to pass under the control of Communist-supported (or Islamic Fundamentalist) revolutionaries. In such a situation, we cannot predicate our actions on what might have been. WE MUST ACCEPT THE SITUATION AS IT IS, AND WIN."

Although he's a supporter of the "Hearts and Minds" school, McCuen takes it a step further, and advocates that one should take the techniques of the insurgent, AND USE THEM AGAINST HIM. By establishing groups of indigenous "counter-insurgent insurgents", who are free to take the fight to the enemy in their cross-border sanctuaries, McCuen argues that fighting "fire with fire" is the only way to win.