S2 Book Club Notes: the Dehibilitating Tools of War

Hey everyone, finally got finished up with The Debilitating Tools of War. Quite an interesting book all around, but a bit odd for those not familiar with the author.
In his latest book, H. John Poole makes quite a few arguments, largely centered around the physical tools of warfare. Just to summarize somewhat indelicately, I think the author has taken many notes from his previous books which focus on gear and tools, and put all of that content into one book solely focusing on the physical details of war. Unfortunately, this makes the reading exceptionally random; it does not flow well at all, is very repetitive at times, and perhaps makes some strange arguments.
Classic Poole.
For those that aren’t really familiar with the author H. John Poole, he is a well-known author focusing largely on military tactics at the squad level. He’s also a very controversial figure in the realm of military doctrine as many of his claims are not within the realm of accepted doctrine.
To put it very bluntly, some of the claims he makes are outside the realm of modernity, but other ideas he has are quite interesting. Very much along the lines of everyone’s favorite book, Fry the Briain: The Art of Urban Sniping by John West. For those that have read that book, you may remember that some chapters are utterly fascinating, and really the first literary look into some historical events…but other chapters are filled with ideas or interpretations that aren’t…quite…right. This is essentially a good summary of most of John Poole’s works.
Now I don’t wish to be excessively critical of Poole, when he was writing in the 80’s and 90’s a lot of his work was ahead of it’s time, and some of those trends are repeated in Debilitating Tools.
I think a lot of people were expecting this book to be Poole’s take on drone warfare, to which my disappointment was immeasurable and my day ruined. Still, there are some interesting notes that can be gleaned from this work, so let’s run down each section of the book.
Part 1: Phasing Out the U.S. Ground Pounder
In this opening 11-page section, Poole argues many random ideas. The main central idea is related to the sentiment that the average modern infantryman lacks a proper understanding that they might actually get shot in combat, and that their leadership may also either lack this understanding, or conceal it so as to send troops into battle that are not entirely prepared for the situation they are in. So right off the bat, we’re diving into some very hot claims.
Part 2: The Continuing Need for a Stealthy Assault
In short, fancy tools like night vision goggles are bad, the Viet Cong operated without NVGs effectively, so you can too.
And yes, I can hear the grinding teeth from here.
Part 3: Surveillance Devices
At last, the chapters on drones, to include small quadcopters (which the author calls “tiny helicopters”). Most of the “doctrine” for these chapters either comes from news articles or prepper websites. To give credit where credit is due, some good points are made with regards to the basic protects against drones, such as standoff distance and dispersing. However the citations for these ideas are the battle of Iwo Jima, which is…well, yeah.
But again, to be fair, the list of publicly available drone countermeasures is spot on: detection equipment, better radar, cameras, RF jammers, etc. All good stuff, but really only a sentence or two describing each, and really I think this is just a way of Poole acknowledging this technology exists, before we get back to talking about Okinawa.
Part 4: Targeting Equipment
Weapons, IR lasers, and the like. This section begins with Poole arguing against the use of weapon-mounted lights, as the enemy will shoot at the light, and pistol mounted lights are purely marketing Instead he offers the alternative tactic of holding the flashlight off to the side, aiming the pistol with one hand.
I can almost hear the Velcro of the Uncle Mike’s holster, and feel the weight of the D-cell Maglite while reading this chapter. But all jokes aside, I don’t mean to pick on Poole too much, but I think that in today’s world this “fudd lore” is a bridge too far for being taken seriously, even for me who tries to keep an open mind on such things, and respect the long and winding tactical road that has led us to modern doctrine. I really do understand this, and try to be as respectful as possible, but it’s 2024, and some of these ideas are outdated to the point of being very dangerous.
Part 5: Land Navigation Aids
Summarized: GPS bad, compass good. This is certainly a sentiment that I can get behind to a degree, though I wouldn’t necessarily completely void the use of GPS devices in all situations. However, Poole is absolutely right that the average soldier has become too dependent on such devices, and with the war in Ukraine confirming just how likely it is for a GPS denied environment to manifest in warfare, this is a good idea to consider.
However, I myself have been working on some content and experiments that show that even in the most GPS denied environment, GPS devices might not be totally and completely useless, and that GPS jamming is actually not that effective unless the jammer is right on top of you. But anyway, more on that later, don’t want to spoil too much now.
Part 6: How U.S. Technology Gets Circumvented
This section concludes the book, and wraps up a lot of ideas pertaining to how the author thinks American (or “Yank”, as he puts it) doctrine should change. It is nice to see the inclusion and mention of the current war in Ukraine, however there really isn’t any information or wisdom conveyed regarding this conflict for the most part. However, it doesn’t take long before we’re back to Cushman’s Pocket and the battle of Iwo Jima.

Only in a John Poole book would you get a painting of a Maoist-era Chicom official as a reference photo for the typical Chinese soldier. It’s hilarious, and I love it.

Closing Thoughts:
At the risk of sounding really insulting, but lacking the means by which to soften the blow, I think that some of Poole’s concerns are valid, but a complete swing-and-a-miss in most cases. By his own words most of the time, he really just comes off as being irrationally anti-technology without fully articulating the idea. Personally, I understand the hesitance to bring new tools to modern combat. But Poole is of the era where things like night vision are “widgets” which cause troops to “stumble through the barely discernable microterrain”. This idea, outlined on page 18, probably says all we need to know.

We all know how important night vision is for modern combat, and even today you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in today’s world, regardless of age, that advocates troops not use night vision equipment to assault an objective.
All of this really sort of cements the idea (and I don’t know how correct it is) that Poole is a symbol of the post-Vietnam era of military doctrine where the US tried out a lot of stuff, but didn’t have the Gulf Wars just yet to test things out in. I am absolutely certain without question that a lot of younger folks would call Poole the king of fudd lore, the “boomer” era of military doctrine, where the US was at a crossroads of sticking with a WW2 mentality or understanding the need to change to meet the modern battlefield. I myself wouldn’t necessarily put it this way, as it sounds really degrading to be honest, but it’s probably what most people today are thinking. I’m sure some of the younger guys reading this would quite literally laugh at most of Poole’s ideas, just for their sheer ancient perspective. Quite literally no one would buy this book from a PX somewhere downrange, and actually implement anything from it, since the good information contained within has been known for many years.
I flipped through the book to find the most modern citations and I couldn’t find any reference to any MILITARY doctrine more recent than the year 2000. For Chapter 10, which covers night vision and thermal devices, almost all of the source material comes from what I think is a website called “Preparedness Advice” from the year 2015. Other sources on the war in Ukraine come from Business Insider, which are more recent (2023), but only 2-3 sentences.
Upon reflection, I will admit that my own thoughts on this book are rather harsh, I’m sure many would say harsher than necessary. But I think that is due to a larger issue that I have seen becoming quite a hinderance to good information on the topic of warfare. That is, a relationship in which respect is a one-way street.
I have the utmost respect for Poole’s era of combat, after all we would not be where we are today without the foundations of the past. This happens throughout history among the rank-and-file soldiers, even if it’s forgotten by higher leadership. Those fighting the current war would do well to respect the history and tactics of the past, even if we know better nowadays. Take the use of tourniquets, for instance. Even in the 1990’s it was a taboo subject to use TQs in combat, only being reserved as a last-resort device administered by a medic or doctor. Nowadays, every single soldier is required to carry at least one TQ, in most cases several. Why? Well, equipment gets better, we learn more, and things change. Those of us today can look back at the era of the old-school “fish”-style tourniquets (the TK-4’s) and think of how awful it must have been to have such little capability, even just a few years ago. We can look back at the early Starlight scopes in awe, and have a lot of respect for the dudes who humped those things through the jungles of Vietnam, far from home, surrounded by thousands of miles of unfriendly jungle.
But do the soldiers of that era look forward to our era, in the say way we look back to theirs? From my own experiences…not really so much.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen that respect for the past eras of warfare not be reciprocated so much when it comes to the new ways of warfare. Far too often, a “new” technology (that’s actually been around for many years) is rejected because the older generations of leadership do not understand it, but also take a more visceral approach to it without giving it consideration. I’m sad to say that often times the respect we younger folks may have for the older ways of warfare sometimes are not reciprocated. There is sometimes little desire for older commanders to express the same level of differing opinion, but respectful disagreement when it comes to new things in war. This isn’t always the case, but it seems to be becoming more of a problem as a new era US warfare doctrine begins. Where Poole personally irks me is in situations where long-established doctrine is still insulted because it wasn’t used on Iwo Jima. I would understand the hesitance to night vision if the only night vision devices a person was exposed to were from the Vietnam era. I would hate that garbage too, if it had just came out and I was issued it. But it’s 2024. We’ve had at least 20 years of Gen 3 NVG tubes, to the point that they are in common use by even dirt-poor insurgents around the world. And, adopting a condescending tone when talking about such ideas rings a bit hollow, considering that we in the modern era are trying to do our best to be respectful of the older eras of warfare.
No decent human being is going to make fun of someone using ALICE gear in 2024. Would I do it? No, I think there are a lot better options. But I’m not going to dunk on someone for using it due to price, it’s what they have, or even for the nostalgia factor. Training, tactics, and teamwork are vastly more important anyway, so if it works for you and isn’t a safety concern, go for it. Where this open-mindedness ends, is where the hesitance to embrace new ideas creates huge problems, and huge risks. If the guy that’s rocking an ALICE setup claims that it’s superior to literally everything else that has come after it, I might have a few reservations. Particularly if that guy also comes at me with a snobby, condescending tone as if I know nothing at all. Far too often this sort of thing happens in the world of doctrine writing.
Ironically, Poole himself over the years has tried to advocate against the exact thing he’s done in this book; thinking only inside the box of what is doctrinally acceptable. These days, I feel like the older crowd demands respect, but is unwilling to give it to younger doctrine-makers, even when combat data backs them up. Let me just say that if I had a commander that told me I need to leave my NVGs behind, and sneak around in the dark like Charlie in the jungle…in the year 2024…well, I would have more than just strong words for him the minute we got outside the wire.
I genuinely and completely understand the hesitance to embrace new ideas in the realm of warfare. There is a lot to be said about tried-and-true methods, over new stuff that may not work in combat situations. However, how long does something have to be used before it’s considered to be “tried-and-true”? I am greatly concerned that since the war in Ukraine has shown us how the nature of war never changes, and sometimes century-old tactics do have their place, this doesn’t mean we should go back to, say, puttees and bolt-actions. On the one hand, I myself have seen some “toys” be used in warfare that didn’t really work. But on the other hand, some developing technology that has been around for a few years and has gotten a lot better is ignored because it hasn’t met the arbitrary standards imposed by the older generation of warfare doctrine writers.
Naturally, people gravitate towards their own era of warfare because it’s what they know and are familiar with, which is perfectly fine. But far too often this results in younger guys being told to just accept the superiority of the older doctrine, without question. It’s all a balance; having a healthy respect for what works, but willing to accept new things that work too is really important, and I get the idea that this ideology is only present in a few people writing doctrine these days. Especially if the respect for the older ways of doing things was not earned, but mandated.
Hopefully this makes some sort of sense without being too insulting; I think that far too often there’s this battle between the older generations of warfighters, and the newer lads of the Post-GWOT era. There’s far too much generational conflict as it is without any of us adding to it. But I will admit that sometimes I have a hard time rationalizing that I’m supposed to respect doctrine that didn’t work, and accept risks because a manual about 40 years behind the times told me too. If I was in a trench, soaking wet, looking up for drones and hoping my family just a couple miles away is alright, I would have little time or consideration for Poole’s era of military logic.

I cannot help but think that this half-page illustration (and it’s caption) are in reference to the author himself.

But to end on a positive note, this book is a good reminder of how we should all try to do the right thing and keep an open mind with regards to doctrine, even if sometimes that mentality is not reciprocated so much. We of the GWOT era can read books like this, and glean a lot of good and wholesome ideas that may save lives on the battlefield, and we can have the respect to not outright dismiss tactics that don’t quite fit the modern battlespace anymore…but would older generations do the same and learn from us and what we’ve developed from more recent history? Either way, the times are a changing, that’s for sure. I don’t know if these ideas are super helpful for a more prepared citizen which probably won’t see traditional armed conflict break out in America anytime soon (and least not in the ways we might expect). But perhaps the larger lesson is to never stop learning. Nowadays, we may clown on the US military in many ways. But, one thing that I have seen is a HUGE willingness for low-level leaders to actually put the work in to learn something. During Vietnam, the average boot Lieutenant was just trying to stay alive most of the time, and even when not in combat he was not interested in anything more than the here and now.
In our modern times, we’ve got even junior-level guys writing doctrine in active warzones. Every unit has not just one, but several NCOs that are all trying to read, learn, and study the ways of the past, and implement new ideas for the future. Are they successful most of the time? No, not really, but that’s okay. Are they sometimes misguided by hubris? A lot of the time, definitely. But the work is being done to improve and grow. That, I can certainly understand and appreciate. And this is a good call to action for all of us, even though we many not be so invested in a hot-war at the moment. We can sit in the tent and just try to make it through the “deployment” that has become an American existence, or we can make the best of our situation to learn and grow.