After more than a century of counterinsurgency experience the U. S. should have gained an expertise able to show itself from the beginning of the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It did not.  Counterinsurgency, once begun, was a derivative of the operations of the conventional army, not a designed strategy for success.  WAR OF A KIND addresses important issues in counterinsurgency and provides an experience-based approach to lessons learned in that kind of war.  The book is not a technical manual; it is a commentary based on field experience with many years of thought given to it afterward.  WAR OF A KIND will be useful to both the counterinsurgency program planner and to the advisor in the field, but is also a book for the general reader who wants to understand the complexities of counterinsurgency and the implications that come with it.  Personal vignettes from the author and others illustrate the issues being discussed with real life examples.