Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 135

BOOK REVIEWS

discussed. Thomas Cutler succeeds by looking at a related
but entirely different topic—command. Cutler, the director of professional publishing at the U.S. Naval Institute,
is the author of numerous articles and books, including
several editions of the Blue Jackets Manual. In The U.S.
Naval Institute on Naval Command, he tackles the complex but often neglected subject of command through an
anthology of articles selected from different periods, each
providing a unique perspective on command.
Naval Command is part of the U.S. Naval Institute’s
series of “wheel books.” Wheel books are an old naval
tradition of having books that provide “supplemental
information, pragmatic advice, and cogent analysis on
topics important to all naval professionals.” Cutler’s wheel
book succeeds admirably in this regard by providing commanders an easy resource of perspectives on the challenges of command. The articles selected in Naval Command
are from the Naval Institute’s vast archives and provide
ideas, hard-learned advice, and practical suggestions for
any individual whether serving as a commander or as a
member of a staff.
Defining leadership as “leading individuals” and
command as “leading leaders,” the stories and articles
contained in Naval Command focus on the particular burdens and responsibilities of command at sea.
Although Navy culture may be different, the lessons
and advice provided are universal in their applicability,
and readers from any service will immediately recognize the utility to their own situations.
The articles span many decades and offer insights
that will be of interest to a wide audience. Whether
shedding light on the balance between authority and
responsibility, the different challenges facing wartime and peacetime commanders, or reflecting on the
command decisions made during the pivotal battles of
the Pacific war, each article’s author provides a wealth
of advice and lessons learned to military personnel at
any level. These lessons are timeless. For example, in
Cdr. Robert E. Mumford’s article “Get Off My Back,
Sir, ” the author addresses the perceived encroachment
of micromanagement in the Navy. Although written
in 1977, his concerns and suggestions will resonate
and be valuable to commanders today.
The author wanted this book to be useful, and he
succeeds in this goal. Although each contributor has a
unique writing style, the articles in the book are very
readable. Since each chapter is a separate article, readers
MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2017

will find they can read and reflect on the advice in a
short time each day. I highly recommend the book to
all leaders, especially those going into command, for its
thought-provoking lessons and practical advice.

Robert J. Rielly, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

STORMING THE CITY

U.S. Military Performance in Urban
Warfare from World War II to Vietnam

Alec Wahlman, University of North Texas Press,
Denton, Texas, 2015, 368 pages

T

he title of this worthwhile book, Storming the
City, may be misunderstood to mean it is a
catalog of twentieth-century U.S. urban warfare
tactics, techniques, and procedures. Similar misunderstanding abounded regarding John Nagl’s Learning to Eat
Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya
and Vietnam. Despite the title, that book was not about
counterinsurgency lessons learned so much as it was
about characteristics of adaptive, learning organizations,
using two counterinsurgency case studies as contrasting
illustrations. So it is here that Alec Wahlman focuses
on the two major reasons for U.S. success as seen in four
urban warfare case studies. The first reason for success is
what he calls transferable competence—aggressive tactical
initiative to try new things, coupled with rapid proliferation of lessons learned and doctrine. The second is battlefield adaptation. One can argue these same two characteristics contributed to U.S. tactical military successes
overall in these wars. However, the urban operational
environment most effectively showcases both in action,
given city fighting’s unique and formidable difficulties.
Wahlman, a veteran analyst of fourteen years at the
Institute for Defense Analyses, examines U.S. military
ground force performance in taking Aachen (European
Theater of Operations in October 1944), Manila (Pacific
Theater of Operations in February 1945), Seoul (mobile
phase of the Korean War, September 1950), and Hue
(Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, February 1968).
Each battle earns its own chapter that begins with a short
historical orientation. The analytical treatment then
divides into six categories: (1) command, control, and
communications; (2) intelligence and reconnaissance;
(3) firepower and survivability; (4) mobility and counter
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