Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West, by Bill Yenne. Yardley, Penn.: Westholme, 2005. $26, 325 pp. ISBN 1-59416-016-3

Bill Yenne's Indian Wars is an excellent primer on America's first—and longest—asymmetrical war. The Native American tribes—especially in the trans-Mississippi frontier—relied on mobility, stealth, and fighting on their terms. The most successful U.S. commanders, like George Crook, recognized that traditional tactics would not work against such an enemy and developed new methods modeled on the Indians themselves.

Crook who won major campaigns in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest was a "master of unconventional warfare." His methods included relying on "small, highly mobile, and well-armed units" and learning the enemy's environment and culture: in essence, "to think and operate as Indians would." If this sounds familiar, there's a reason. "Crook's methods," Yenne notes, "were a harbinger of the special forces doctrine of the late twentieth century."

After an introductory chapter on the early Indian wars in the east, Yenne (On the Trail of Lewis and Clark, The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Tribes) turns his attention to the American west and the century of fighting there. His coverage is nearly encyclopedic and ranges from Texas to Oregon and from the Northern Great Plains to the Southwestern desert. Yenne's canvas is broad enough for the familiar household names—Custer, "Kit" Carson, "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo—and those, like the pioneering Crook, who remain generally unknown to the average reader.

The most refreshing aspect of Indian Wars is its refusal to embrace the politically-correct version of Native American culture and its clash with Western culture. The Indians, Yenne points out, were not peaceful souls living in harmony with their environment and each other before the arrival of Europeans. In fact, "warfare was a constant reality among the indigenous people." To the Indians, the Europeans were just another tribe, and when they became a threat, conflict ensued. That's not a judgment on the correctness of colonial, and later U.S., policy toward the Indians; it's simply the historical context of that policy.

Not only does Yenne have no political agenda, but he is evenhanded in his praise. He admires Crook but no less than Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce who led his people on a remarkable 1000+-mile retreat that came tantalizingly close to succeeding. Yenne quotes Chief Joseph's poignant speech announcing his surrender: "I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever." The author seems to understand that this soliloquy is a fitting epitaph for the Indian wars.

Yenne also notes that the U.S. Army was spread thin in the West and often out-manned and even out-gunned by the Indians. Despite their initial advantages, the Indians eventually were subdued as new technology arrived on the frontier: repeating rifles, the .45 caliber pistol, the telegraph and railroad. But, most importantly, they were squeezed out by the relentless westward movement of white civilization. It's no accident that the last official battle of the Indian Wars—at Wounded Knee, South Dakota—and the Census Bureau's announcement of the closing of the frontier in America occurred in the same year: 1890.

Yenne's Indian Wars is an outstanding introduction to the "longest campaign ever waged by any of the United States armed forces." It also has the virtue of speaking eloquently to the past while offering valuable guidance for the future.