Military history: post-WW2 conflicts Books

Book SynopsisDecades of Pakistani resentment over India's stance on Kashmir, and its subsequent attempt to force a military solution on the issue, led to the 1965 war between the two neighbours. It ended in a stalemate on the battlefield, and after a mere twenty-one days, the war was brought to a dramatic end with the signing of a peace treaty at Tashkent. The opposing sides both claimed victory, however, and also catalogues of heroic deeds that have since taken on the character of mythology. Although neither prevailed outright, the one undoubted loser in the conflict was the incumbent President of Pakistan, General Ayub Khan, who staked his political and military reputation on Pakistan emerging victorious. With the superpowers unwilling assist in negotiations, and Pakistan reluctant to damage its alliance with America, the agreement that followed only reinforced India's position not to surrender anything during diplomacy that Pakistan had failed to gain militarily. This book examines in detail the politics, diplomacy and military manoeuvres of the war, using British and American declassified documents and memoirs, as well as some unpublished interviews. It provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict and makes sense of the morass of diplomacy and the confusion of war.Trade Review'Farooq Bajwa's book on the 1965 war is a mature study based on original research into hitherto unpublished material. ... [H]e eschews partisanship and strives to be fair. The reader is taken all the way through the dense thicket, by each chapter on Operation Gibraltar, Operation Grand Slam and Operation Riddle. [A] lucid account.' -- A.G. Noorani, Frontline' ... a panoptic account of the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. Bajwa debunks several myths. ... Bajwa has done a commendable job in providing a comprehensive account of the conflict that will benefit students, scholars, and general readers alike. The book should be included in university courses focusing on South Asian politics and history.' -- Contemporary South Asia

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Book SynopsisWar in Afghanistan will never be understood without getting to grips with the small places - the provinces, districts, and villages - where most of the fighting occurred, away from the cities, in hundreds of hamlets, valleys, and farms amid a vast landscape. Those small places and their people were the frontlines, and it is only there that we can truly find answers to the questions that lay at the heart of the war: why people supported the Taliban, whether intervention brought peace, whether a better outcome was ever possible. Garmser is a small place that has seen much violence; a single district within one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Its 150,000 people inhabit a fertile strip along the Helmand River no more than 6 miles wide and 45 miles long. Carter Malkasian spent years in Garmser district as the political officer for the US Department of State. He tells the history of thirty years of war, from 1979 to 2012, explaining how the Taliban movement formed in Garmser; how, after being routed in 2001, they re- turned stronger than ever in 2006; and how Afghans, British, and Americans fought with them between 2006 and 2012. He describes the lives of Afghans who endured and tried to build some kind of order out of war. While Americans and British came and went, they carried on, year after year, inhabitants of a small place.Trade Review'War Comes to Garmser explores the war in Afghanistan from an explicitly provincial Afghan point of view, where foreigners (and even Kabul officials) are marginal actors rather than the centre of the story. Malkasian presents what is in effect a fifty-year oral history of a single district in volatile southern Afghanistan, illustrating the truism that all politics is local. - Even those with little interest in the politics cannot help but be drawn into the lives of the vivid characters Malkasian skilfully sketches.' * Times Literary Supplement *'Afghan officials and US commanders credit Malkasian with playing a critical role in the transformation of Garmser from one of the country's most violent, Taliban-infested districts to a place so quiet that some Marines wish they had more chances to fire their weapons.' * Washington Post *'... represents the kind of detailed study of Afghanistan that has been badly missing: Most people associated with the international military and development missions here come in for six-month or one-year stints. ... One mark of Malkasian's analytical mettle is that he presents, more so than any other writer I've read, a clear and fair picture of the Taliban and why they enjoyed so much support in the south. * New York Times *'The twelve years of this "Decade of War" have produced many good books on counterinsurgency. Carter Malkasian's War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier will be ranked among the best of them. Indeed, the value of this book extends beyond the case in question. It speaks to the unchanging nature of war and the complex, changing character of war in the information age.' * Parameters, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army *'There have been very few books about America's longest war, and even fewer good ones. ... To this short list can now be added another great book on the Afghan war, Carter Malkasian's War Comes to Garmser.' * John Nagl, Professor, US Naval War College *'In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Malkasian spent two years in Garmser as a State Department political officer. His rich, shrewdly constructed history of the area shows how tribal elders used the United States and the Taliban as resources in their own turf battles [ - ] Malkasian's gem of a concluding chapter - which analyses the opportunities the United States missed during the early years of the war and offers specific recommendations on what could and should be done now - is best appreciated after a close reading of the preceding chapters. The effort will be amply repaid.' * John Waterbury, Foreign Affairs *'Add Malkasian - a brave, brilliant and practical man - to the names Lawrence, Galula, Lansdale and Vann. This is the definitive work on counterinsurgency at the district level. An absorbing detective story that answers the questions, "how does the Taliban take power at the village level, and how can they be defeated?"' * Bing West, author of The Village and The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy and the Way Out of Afghanistan *'War Comes to Garmser is a brilliantly written, minutely detailed and rigorously honest political-military history. A microcosm of the war in Afghanistan, it is evocative of opportunities missed and possibilities yet to exploit. A must-read for those who want understanding that is more than headline deep.' * Ronald E. Neumann, former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan (2005-2007), now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy *'In the nineteenth century Britain employed political officers on the troubled frontiers of its empire. They immersed themselves in their localities, learnt about the inhabitants and heard their stories. Carter Malkasian is an American twenty-first century political officer. Outwardly his deeply revealing book is about Afghanistan's experience of war over three decades, but it is also a mirror on the US itself. His message is clear: deep historical and cultural understanding is at the heart of good strategy.' * Hew Strachan, Chichele Professor of the History of War, Oxford University *

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Book SynopsisThe October War of 1973 (also known as the 'Yom Kippur War') was a watershed mo- ment in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the modern Middle East more broadly. It marked the beginning of a US-led peace process between Israel and her Arab neighbours; it introduced oil diplomacy as a new means of leverage in international politics; and it affected irreversibly the development of the European Community and the Palestinian struggle for independence. Moreover, the regional order which emerged at the end of the war remained largely unchallenged for nearly four decades, until the recent wave of democratic revolutions in the Arab world. The fortieth anniversary of the October War provides a timely opportunity to reassess the major themes that emerged during the war and in its aftermath, and the contributors to this book provide the first comprehensive ac- count of the domestic and international factors which informed the policies of Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, as well as external actors before, during and after the war. In addition to chapters on the superpowers, the EU and the Palestinians, the book also deals with the strategic themes of intelligence and political of the war on Israeli and Arab societies.Trade Review'An important and authoritative reconstruction by one of the most talented stables of historians and experts ever assembled. "The Yom Kippur War" is highly relevant today, as the world faces a new era of upheaval with the potential for war in the Middle East. This comprehensive volume will help a new generation of readers - scholarly and otherwise - puzzle through the lessons learned from the region's most violent clash between Arabs and Israelis.' * Patrick Tyler, author of A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East from the Cold War to the War on Terror and Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country and Why They Can't Make Peace *'Finally, forty years after the October 1973 War, a comprehensive, 360-degree analysis of a seminal moment in the long-running dispute between Israel and her Arab neighbours. By looking at the war from every perspective, not only from Tel Aviv, Cairo, Damascus and Amman, but from Washington, Moscow, and Europe, the whole picture comes into focus. In the process, it shows those of us who covered the war, how little we knew and understood at the time.' * Terence Smith, Israel correspondent for The New York Times during the Yom Kippur War *

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Book SynopsisA former senior mujahidin figure and an ex-counter-terrorism analyst cooperating to write a book on the history and legacy of Arab-Afghan fighters in Afghanistan is a remarkable and improbable undertaking. Yet this is what Mustafa Hamid, aka Abu Walid al-Masri, and Leah Farrall have achieved with the publication of their ground-breaking work. The result of thousands of hours of discussions over several years, The Arabs at War in Afghanistan offers significant new insights into the history of many of today's militant Salafi groups and movements. By revealing the real origins of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the jostling among the various jihadi groups, this account not only challenges conventional wisdom, but also raises uncomfortable questions as to how events from this important period have been so badly misconstrued.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary, fascinating document. This combination of investigation, testimony and analysis will be essential reading for any one interested in the truth about the foreign involvement in the war against the Soviets and the early history of al-Qaeda. -- Jason Burke, South Asia correspondent, The Guardian, and author of The 9/11 WarsLeah Farrall and Mustafa Hamid's creative dialogue provides a unique synthesis between an insider's knowledge and a critical expert's analysis of the origins of global jihadism. Each helps the other, and both help us, see this multi-faceted movement in new and sometimes contradictory ways. -- Barnett Rubin, Senior Fellow and Director at the Center on International Cooperation, New York UniversityThis is an incredible book. Gripping, detailed, and important, it lays bare a story that is all too often shrouded in myth. Read it and understand the roots of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and many of the other crises ripping through the Middle East. -- Gregory D. Johnsen, author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America's War in ArabiaEssential reading for anyone who studies militancy in the Islamicate world. Hamid and Farrall offer a persuasive alternative history of the foundation of al-Qaeda and the internal politics of foreign fighters inside Afghanistan. This insider account is an important document that deserves to be studied for many years to come. -- Alex Strick van Linschoten, co-author of An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970-2010…a rare piece of original research into a subject that remains little understood and is often over-simplified. The book argues, correctly, that without understanding the early history of the jihadist movement we cannot hope to assess how the movement will evolve. It is also one of the few works to try to explain this history from the perspective of an early, active participant. … The Arabs at War in Afghanistan should therefore be essential reading for specialists trying to understand the Islamic State, and serve as a warning against any attempt to provide static descriptions of Salafi jihadism rather than seeing it as a continually evolving process. * War on the Rocks *As Farrell's dialogue develops, she extracts intriguing nuggets of information from Hamid such as the participation of Afghan mujaheddin fighters in the first Gulf War; the early involvement of Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI; divisions within the mujaheddin; and the rise of the Taliban. … As so many questions are being asked about what led to the rise of Islamic State, Farrell has done a commendable job in bringing us an alternative perspective on what historians will look back on as the defining period in the crisis now enveloping the Arab world. * The Australian *

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Book SynopsisA Long Watch offers a story of human complexity amid entrenched narratives of Sri Lanka's long civil war. Pulled from a dark ocean after a battle at sea, Commodore Boyagoda became the highest-ranking prisoner detained by the Tamil Tigers. For eight years, he lived at close quarters with his declared enemy, his imprisonment punctuated by high-level talks about his fate, but also by extended conversations with his jailers and scratch games of badminton played in jungle clearings. Throughout, he observed his captors and fellow prisoners acutely, and with discreet empathy for the lives of others undone by war.A memoir retold in Ajith Boyagoda's temperate voice, his is an unblinking relation of experiences difficult, moving and ironic. From going to sea, to war, imprisonment and eventual homecoming, he accepted successive realities as ordinary, in order to survive them.Trade Review'The best book yet on the war in Sri Lanka [...] It is subtle and intimate, human and generous. The author has distilled conversations about that period into a remarkable book. It is brilliant.' * Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient *'The only prisoner memoir to have emerged thus far from Sri Lanka's ill-prosecuted quarter-century-long domestic conflict, A Long Watch is an informative and important contribution to an underwritten subject, most particularly because Boyagoda unashamedly rejects the 'ruthless terrorist' narrative his countrymen might well have expected him to uphold.' * The Spectator *'A deeply nuanced, non-sensational book: it is bold, yet tender [...] an invaluable, close-up account of the ways in which those who fight in these wars survive and don't survive.' * Sonali Deraniyagala, author of Wave: A Memoir of Life after the Tsunami *'Clear, vivid, and elegant, without a trace of either false heroics or self-pity.' * Michael Frayn *

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Book Synopsis** Includes a New Postcript 'The Chilcot Report—Early Thoughts on Military Matters'** From 2001 Britain supported the United States in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'Victory' in such conflicts is always hard to gauge and domestic political backing for them was never robust. For this, the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were held responsible, and paid the price, but the role played by the High Command in the Ministry of Defence also bears examination. Critics have noted that the armed services were riven by internal rivalry and their leadership was dysfunctional, but the truth is more complicated. In his book Elliott explores the circumstances that led to these wars and how the Ministry of Defence coped with the challenges presented. He reveals how the Service Chiefs were set at odds by the system, almost as rivals in the making, with responsibility diffuse and authority ambiguous. The MoD concentrated on making things work, rather than questioning whether what they were being asked to do was practicable.Trade ReviewLong overdue, 'High Command' is a study of what's wrong at the MoD, and an excellent primer for the Chilcot report. . . . Elliott sets out an agenda for reform as well as a narrative. He does so in terms that Evelyn Waugh could not have bettered. * The Spectator *Britain will lose more wars unless military chiefs stop agreeing to impossible missions after a decade of errors in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new book warns... High Command, based on interviews with many of those at the helm of the military and the Ministry of Defence from the turn of the century, also identifies fundamental flaws inside the ministry that set the conditions for failure... Offering a rare insight into the turmoil within the armed forces during one of the most critical decisions of the two wars -- the deployment of British forces to Helmand in 2006 when they were still fighting in southern Iraq. -- Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor, The TimesEnthralling, gripping and brutally honest . . . With a gentle, skilful hand Elliott guides the reader through the complex world of 'High Command' to explain why a valiant and well-trained military force was not afforded the proper conditions to succeed -- neither in resources nor in leadership at a political level. -- General Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff, United States ArmyIt is the responsibility of the chiefs of staff to speak truth to power when Britain goes to war. However, until now they have been accorded little attention in the controversies generated by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Christopher Elliott has put that right, combining an insider's perspective with shrewdness, wit and strategic insight. If we are to learn lessons from the last decade, this is where to begin. -- Sir Hew Strachan, Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of OxfordThis is a diplomatically couched bombshell of criticism of UK decision-making and the conduct of war. A must-read for any journalist and student of IR, strategy, decision-making processes, and organisational psychology, it should be on every reading list right up there with Graham Allison's Essence of Decision. The UK MoD, and Defence Ministries the world over, should reflect on General Elliott's trenchant analysis and wise advice, lest lives and treasure continue to be wasted in ineffective or even counter-productive campaigns. -- Professor Beatrice Heuser, University of Reading'High Command' is a clear and balanced account of the strategic direction - and lack of it - in British operations over the past fifteen years. Christopher Elliott brings depressing evidence of gross institutional failure and indicates what should be done to make 'the machinery of government at war' fit for purpose. A well written book and extremely relevant to our times as yet another generation is busy involving us once again in the Middle East. -- General Sir Rupert Smith KCB DSO OBE QGM former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander EuropeElliott has provided the ideal primer for the Chilcot report, whenever it arrives. One of his best suggestions is the need for better education for senior offices, to the level of their American peers, particularly in human and political geography. -- Robert Fox, The World TodayAn outstanding book on British military leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. * Changing Character of War, Oxford University *Elliott is particularly well qualified to shine a light on the performance of the 'High Command' and does so with highly rigorous analysis, shrewd observations and perceptive insights. A compelling and disquieting account. -- Lieutenant General (retired) Sir John Kiszely KCB MC, former Director of the Defence Academy of the United KingdomAn impressively original work. Elliott authoritatively describes the blindness and blunders committed by Britain's politicians, civil servants and the military before and after the invasion of Iraq and exposes how the lessons of failure in Iraq were ignored during the venture into Helmand -- Tom Bower, writer and journalistA very welcome present this Christmas was a copy of Major General (Retd) Christopher Elliott's book, 'High Command', about British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. . . . An extremely well written and thoughtful book it examines the causes of these wars and how the Ministry of Defence coped with the challenges that they presented. * Salisbury Journal *[Elliott] is meticulous in setting out . . . who was who in key military positions during this period, the structures within which they were working and, based on interviews, their opinions on how 'the system' worked . . . Also, commendably, he concludes with some practical suggestions as to how the system might be changed for the better. * Asian Affairs *

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Book SynopsisRussia's forceful reentry into the Middle Eastern arena, and the accentuated continuity of Soviet policy and methods of the 1960s and '70s, highlight the topicality of this groundbreaking study, which confirms the USSR's role in shaping Middle Eastern and global history. This book covers the peak of the USSR's direct military involvement in the Egyptian-Israeli conflict. The head-on clash between US-armed Israeli forces and some 20,000 Soviet servicemen with state-of-the-art weaponry turned the Middle East into the hottest front of the Cold War. The Soviets' success in this war of attrition paved the way for their planning and support of Egypt's cross-canal offensive in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Ginor and Remez challenge a series of long-accepted notions as to the scope, timeline and character of the Soviet intervention and overturn the conventional view that detente with the US induced Moscow to restrain Egyptian ambitions to recapture of the land lost to Israel in 1967. Between this analytical rethink and the introduction of an entirely new genre of sources-- memoirs and other publications by Soviet veterans themselves--The Soviet-Israeli War paves the way for scholars to revisit this pivotal moment in world history.Trade Review'Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez’s account of the Arab-Israeli conflict’s military climax from 1967 to 1973 is a groundbreaking work of scholarship that reveals the Soviet Union’s hidden hand in the escalation of Egypt-Israel hostilities. [This book] is a valuable resource for Cold War historians.' -- Journal of Modern Jewish Studies'Ginor and Remez provide compelling evidence that the Soviet Union played a far more active role in preparing for the 1973 Arab-Israeli war than either Moscow or Cairo wanted to acknowledge at the time . . . Because their research is so thorough and meticulous, their critics will not find it easy to persuasively counter'.'Richly detailed.' 'Ginor and Remez’s new evidence not only brings us closer to understanding history but helps frame Putin’s current involvement in the Middle East. Their focus on primary sources from Soviet veterans raises critical questions about previous ideas on the Soviets’ role in Egypt.' 'Gives readers an unprecedented, granular look at how the Soviets supported the Egyptians during the six years between the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War . . . it should be required reading for anyone interested in recent Middle East history and Russian military history and doctrine.''This book captivated me the minute I started reading it. A forensic examination of the period, it fills in a lot of missing information and should help readers today understand Putin's Russia even better as the events in Crimea, Ukraine and other places have taken a page or two out of this Soviet playbook.' * Mark T. Clark, Director, National Security Studies, California State University, San Bernardino; President, Association for Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) *'In fascinating detail we learn from the authors just how much more deeply the USSR was involved in arming and defending Egypt during the War of Attrition and thereafter as well as how much of what we thought we knew at the time was wrong. Through their admirably diligent pursuit of post-Soviet sources Ginor and Remez have brought the period into much sharper focus. Their work offers an important lesson into how great power politics have shaped and misshaped the history of the Middle East.' * David A. Korn, former Chief of the Political Section, US Embassy, Tel Aviv; author of Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967-1970 *'In an important and unconventional reading of Middle Eastern and global history Ginor and Remez challenge the widely accepted picture of the USSR s position leading up to the Yom Kippur War. They provide evidence of Soviet support for Egypt by collecting the testimonies of Soviet veterans and cross-checking them against Western, Israeli and Arab records. The result of this work is an original and a much enlightening picture of the USSR s active involvement in the Middle East before that war and the ensuing developments.' * Aryeh Levin, former Israel ambassador to the USSR and Russia, author of Envoy to Moscow: Memories of an Israeli Ambassador, 1988-92 *'This is the most comprehensive, important, and detailed piece of research on the USSR s active military intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict during the years 1967-1973, mainly based on Soviet, Egyptian and Israeli documentary sources, until now insufficiently studied or analyzed. The book will certainly serve as instructive for Middle East researchers, teachers, students, and all interested in this subject.' * Yosef Govrin, former ambassador and Deputy Director-General for Eastern Europe, Israel Foreign Ministry, author of Israeli-Soviet Relations, 1953 1967: From Confrontation to Disruption *'A terrific book that is likely to provoke much discussion and debate -- not just history, but also a way of understanding the enduring interests and involvement of the Soviet Union in the Middle East. As we try to understand Russian behavior in that region today, this book will become indispensable in providing textured historical context.' * Daniel Kurtzer, Professor of Middle East Policy Studies, Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; former United States ambassador to Egypt and Israel *

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Book SynopsisQuicksilver War is a panoramic political history of the wars that coursed through Syria and Iraq in the wake of the 'Arab Spring' and eventually merged to become a regional catastrophe: a kaleidoscopic and constantly shifting conflict involving many different parties and phases. William Harris distils the highly complex dynamics behind the conflict, starting with the brutalising Baathist regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. He charts the malignant consequences of incompetent US occupation of Iraq and Bashar al-Assad's self-righteous mismanagement of Syria, through the implosion of Syria, and the emergence of eastern and western theatres of war focused respectively on future control of Syria and the challenge of ISIS. Beyond the immediate arena of conflict, geopolitical riptides have also been set in motion, including Turkey's embroilment in the war and the shifting circumstances of the Kurds. This sweeping history addresses urgent questions for our time. Will the world rubber-stamp and bankroll the Russian-led 'solution' in Syria, backed by Turkey and Iran? Is the 'Quicksilver War' about to reach an explosive finale? Or will ongoing political manoeuvring mutate into years of further violence?Trade Review'Well crafted and framed.' 'The strength of Quicksilver War lies in showing the dialectical interplay between domestic political authoritarianism, fierce geostrategic rivalries and constant foreign intervention. It fills a major gap in the field.' -- Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics, and author of 'ISIS: A History''Combining factual breadth with analytical depth, this fine account of the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts manages to highlight both their intertwined character and key differences between the two countries' respective history and internal dynamics. It also challenges short-term explanations of the current fragmentation by showing how decades of Ba'thist rules have paved the way for it.' -- Thomas Pierret, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam, University of Edinburgh'A masterful book. William Harris is a veteran observer of the Fertile Crescent, and a particularly perceptive analyst. He offers a balanced and nuanced view of how Iraq and Syria descended into violence, instability and suffering at the hands of competing domestic, regional and international actors. In treating Iraq and Syria as a combined war Harris offers a better understanding of the complexities and the challenges awaiting both countries before a modicum of stability can be found.' -- Kemal Kirisci, TUSIAD Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and author of 'Turkey and the West: Fault Lines in a Troubled Alliance''William Harris artfully sketches the trajectory of Syria and Iraq — two core states of the Arab world, whose geography and history made them key to the understanding of the region's past as well as its future — from stability and solidity under the dictatorships of Saddam Hussein and the Assad dynasty to civil war and Jihad.' -- Eyal Zisser, Vice Rector of Tel Aviv University and Yona and Dina Ettinger Chair in the Contemporary History of the Middle East'The catastrophic conflict in Syria and Iraq doesn’t lend itself to easy analysis. But William Harris, a politics prof at the University of New Zealand, is a knowledgeable guide.'

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Book SynopsisThe Armed Conflict Survey provides in-depth analysis of the political, military and humanitarian dimensions of all major armed conflicts, as well as data on fatalities, refugees and internally displaced persons. Compiled by the IISS, publisher of The Military Balance, it is the standard reference work on contemporary conflict.The book assesses key developments in 36 high-, medium- and low-intensity conflicts, including those in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Israel–Palestine, Southern Thailand, Colombia and Ukraine.The Armed Conflict Survey features essays by some of the world’s leading experts on armed conflict, including Mats Berdal, Elisabeth Jean Wood, Julia Bleckner, Nelly Lahoud, William Reno and Carrie Manning. They write on:• UN peacekeeping;• conflict-related sexual violence;• the Islamic State’s shifting narrative;• the changing foundations of governance by armed groups; and• rebel-to-party transitions.The authors’ discussion of principal thematic and cross-national trends complements the detailed analysis of each conflict at the core of the book.The Armed Conflict Survey also includes maps, infographics and multi-year data, as well as the IISS Chart of Conflict.Table of ContentsEditor’s Introduction Chapter One - Thematic Essays Whither UN Peacekeeping? Conflict-related Sexual Violence The Islamic State’s Shifting Narrative The Changing Foundations of Governance by Armed Groups Rebel-to-party Transitions Chapter Two - Maps, Graphics and Data Territory lost by ISIS and operations against the group in Ten years of Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’Distribution of highest reported level of rape during civil warRefugee movements to selected non-Western countriesGlobal conflict fatalities Myanmar’s newest insurgencyChapter Three - Middle East Egypt Iraq Israel–Palestine Lebanon–Hizbullah–Syria Libya Mali (The Sahel) Syria Turkey (PKK) Yemen Chapter Four - Sub-Saharan Africa Central African Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Ethiopia Nigeria (Boko Haram) Nigeria (Delta Region) Somalia South Sudan Sudan (Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan) Chapter Five - South Asia Afghanistan India (Assam) India (CPI–Maoist) India (Manipur) India (Nagaland) India–Pakistan (Kashmir) Pakistan Chapter Six - Asia-Pacific China (Xinjiang) Myanmar Philippines (ASG) Philippines (MILF) Philippines (NPA) Southern Thailand Chapter Seven - Europe and Eurasia Armenia–Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh) Russia (North Caucasus) Ukraine Chapter Eight - Latin America Central America (Northern Triangle) Colombia Mexico Chapter Nine - Explanatory Notes Index

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Book SynopsisAir Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns was commissioned at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in 1959 after completing flying training on Piston Provost and Meteor aircraft. For the next nine years, apart from a short intermission as an ADC, he served as an operational fast-jet pilot which included tours on Javelin night fighters and then fighter recce Hunters operating from Aden and Oman. Thereafter he qualified as a flying instructor, initially on the Gnat, and then the Jet Provost as a squadron commander at Cranwell. In his last year as a flying instructor he taught The Prince of Wales to wings standard. During the 1990s, Sir Richard held a succession of senior national and NATO appointments. During the first Gulf War, he was the Director of Operations in the National Joint Headquarters for all British Forces deployed to the Middle East. At the end of the conflict he led the British Recce Team to Turkey and north Iraq which resulted in the deployment of British land and air forces to the coalition that guaranteed the security of the Kurdish population in Iraq. Later, as a NATO C-in-C he was responsible for training and bringing to full operational capability the new Regional Command of Allied Forces, North West Europe. During this three-year tour, he acted as a supporting commander for joint operations in the Balkans while developing partnership for peace exercises with former Warsaw Pact countries. He returned to national duty in 1997 on his appointment as Chief of the Air Staff, responsible for the operational efficiency and morale of the Royal Air Force. During his last three years of service, the Air Chief Marshal was fully involved in the decision-making process of the Strategic Defence Review, the commitment of RAF aircraft to operations over and within Kosovo and continuing air operations over north and south Iraq. His illustrious career gave him the privilege of a rare, if not singular, perspective of the RAF, our sister services and national defence matters, witnessing a steady decline in the combat power of the UK’s armed forces as financial management took precedence over identifying strategic priorities and maintaining the vital skill-set of service personnel. His views are forensic and forthright, balanced and thought-provoking and this autobiography should be essential reading for anyone interested in the development of Allied air power over the last fifty years.

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Book Synopsis'Uplifting and utterly defiant' Matt Nixson, Daily Express 'Immediate and important ... This is an insider's account of how an ordinary life became extraordinary' Helen Davies, The TimesThis journal of the invasion, a collection of Andrey Kurkov's writings and broadcasts from Kyiv, is a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of a 21st-century war. Andrey Kurkov has been a consistent satirical commentator on his adopted country of Ukraine. His most recent work, Grey Bees, is a dark foreshadowing of the devastation in the eastern part of Ukraine in which only two villagers remain in a village bombed to smithereens. The author has lived in Kyiv and in the remote countryside of Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion. He has also been able to fly to European capitals where he has been working to raise money for charities and to address crowded halls. Kurkov has been asked to write for every English newspaper, as also to be interviewed all over Europe. He has become an important voice for his people.Kurkov sees every video and every posted message, and he spends the sleepless nights of continuous bombardment of his city delivering the truth about this invasion to the world.Trade Review'Ukraine's greatest living novelist' -- Charlie Connelly, New European Books of the Year'No one with the slightest interest in this war, or the nation on which it is being waged, should fail to read Andrey Kurkov' -- Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail'A vivid, moving and sometimes funny account of the reality of life during Russia's invasion' -- Marc Bennetts, The Times'The author's on-the-ground account is packed with surprising details about the human effects of the Russian assault ... His voice is genial but also impassioned, never more so than when deploring Putin's efforts to erase Ukrainian culture and history. Ukraine, he says, "will either be free, independent and European, or it will not exist at all". That's why the war has to be fought, with no concession of territory. And he remains quietly hopeful that it will be won' -- Blake Morrison, Guardian'It is little wonder [...] Kurkov, known for his keen eye for the absurdities of life, would pack his diary of the war with fascinating and eccentric details ... yet what makes Kurkov's diary memorable is its departures into the more quotidian gossip-filled trips to the sauna, Ukraine's morale-boosting victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, ruminations on the status of Ukrainian literature amid paper shortages, and ploys to protect animals in the country's shuttered zoos' -- Megan Gibson, New Statesman'Uplifting and utterly defiant' -- Matt Nixson, Daily Express'Immediate and important ... This is an insider's account of how an ordinary life became extraordinary' -- Helen Davies, Times

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Book SynopsisThe story of what would become the tipping point of the Malayan Emergency in favour of the security forces is retold against a background of events in Moscow, Darjeeling, Delhi and Calcutta, where senior communist party members plot to infiltrate Gurkha units and destabilise Malaya.

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Book SynopsisSouth Africa's armed forces invaded Angola in 1975, setting off a war that had consequences for the whole region that are still felt today. A far-away war contributes to a wider understanding of this war in Angola and Namibia. The book does not only look at the war from an "old" South African (Defence Force) perspective, but also gives a voice to participants "on the other side" - emphasising the role of the Cubans and Russians. This focus is supplemented by the inclusion of many never-before-published photographs from Cuban and Russian archives, and a comprehensive bibliography.

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Book SynopsisA Marine officer's innter struggle with turht after coming home from Iraq.

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Book SynopsisExamining the American discourse over war and torture, the authors investigate the opinion pages of American newspapers, television commentary, and online discussion groups to offer the first empirical study of the national conversation about the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib a year later.Trade Review"Timely and topical, Post-Ethical Society contributes to ongoing national soul-searching about who we are and how we want to go about sorting out our proper role in the world. This is not mere armchair philosophizing. Here we are presented with totally solid, historical, publicly accessible, empirical data on subjects of major national and international importance. I'm very impressed." (Christian Smith, University of Notre Dame)"

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Book SynopsisOver the years, the US has been fighting wars so far from the public eye as to risk being forgotten, the struggles and sacrifices of its volunteer soldiers almost ignored. This book features images that depict the bedrooms of forty fallen soldiers - the equivalent of a single platoon - from the US, Canada, and several European nations.Trade Review"The need to see America's twenty-first-century war dead, and to make them seen-to give their absence presence-has consumed Ashley Gilbertson for much of the past decade.... To picture death, Gilbertson decided to picture how and where the dead had lived. He set about photographing their bedrooms, many of which had been preserved by their families in much the same spirit that Gilbertson preserved them with his camera: as memorials.... But taken together, these photographs defy any effort to seek in a room's furnishings an echo of its former occupant's fate. Their power lies in reminding us of the disconnect between life and death." (Philip Gourevitch, from the foreword)"

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Book SynopsisAt the height of the Greek Civil War in 1948, thirty-eight thousand children were evacuated from their homes. The Greek Communist Party relocated half of them to orphanages in Eastern Europe, while their adversaries placed the rest in children's homes elsewhere in Greece. This book presents a comprehensive study of the two evacuation programs.Trade Review"This remarkable study breaks new ground in several areas: in its methodology, its style, and its topic. Balanced to an impressive degree, Children of the Greek Civil War succeeds magnificently in showing the parallels between the experiences of the two sides in a way that is moving as well as analytically compelling." (Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University)"

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Book SynopsisAt the height of the Greek Civil War in 1948, thirty-eight thousand children were evacuated from their homes. The Greek Communist Party relocated half of them to orphanages in Eastern Europe, while their adversaries placed the rest in children's homes elsewhere in Greece. This book presents a comprehensive study of the two evacuation programs.Trade Review"This remarkable study breaks new ground in several areas: in its methodology, its style, and its topic. Balanced to an impressive degree, Children of the Greek Civil War succeeds magnificently in showing the parallels between the experiences of the two sides in a way that is moving as well as analytically compelling." (Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University)"

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Trade ReviewCollateral Damage offers both a sophisticated analytical treatment and a comprehensive history of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the 1960s and 1970s, thus presenting a persuasive explanation of the emergence of Sino-Vietnamese friction in the 1960s and the emergence of Sino-Vietnamese animosity and war in the 1970s. -- Robert S. Ross, professor of political science, Boston College Nicholas Khoo returns to the roots of international relations theory to explain how the Chinese, Soviet, and Vietnamese behavior toward one another during the 1960s and 1970s because of their relative power. He uses new information released in China in the form of memoirs, scholarly works, and archival publications to tell a dramatic and in some ways tragic story with insight and vividness. -- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University Nicholas Khoo has performed a great service in offering a cogent and persuasive argument on the causes of the demise of the Sino-Vietnames alliance during the later decades of the Cold War. -- Robert Sutter H-Diplo RoundtableTable of ContentsList of Illustrations 1. China's Cold War Alliance with Vietnam: Historical and Theoretical Significance 2. Breaking the Ring of Encirclement: Sino-Soviet Alliance Termination and the Chinese Communists' Vietnam Policy, 1964-1968 3. A War on Two Fronts: The Sino-Soviet Conflict During the Vietnam War and the Betrayal Thesis, 1968-1973 4. The Politics of Victory: Sino-Soviet Relations and the Road to Vietnamese Unification, 1973-1975 5. The End of an "Indestructible Friendship": Soviet Resurgence and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance, 1975-1979 6. When Allies Become Enemies Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn informative and consuming account. It is an engrossing read . . . for those who want to understand the battle of An Loc itself, the state of the war in 1972, and the sacrifices of those who advised the ARVN during the war's final years. A must-read for those who think the Vietnam War was only about defeating a jungle insurgency. * HistoryNet *The Battle of An Loc could only be written effectively by a participant, and Willbanks was present as an advisor to an ARVN unit. But this is not just an eyewitness account. Utilizing newly discovered archival evidence and recently translated North Vietnamese after-action reports, Willbanks has reconstructed . . . the nearly three-month long siege . . . to answer the question that has plagued military historians since the war ended: was the Army of the Republic of Vietnam an effective fighting force? . . . A fine book with rich, vibrant descriptions of combat, weapons, and command decisions. Willbanks writes from an insider's perspective [with] the discipline of a historian who knows what questions to ask. * H-Net Reviews *Table of ContentsList of FiguresList of MapsList of PhotosPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionList of Abbreviations1. Prelude to Battle2. The Nguyen Hue Campaign3. The Area of Operations4. The Battle of Loc Ninh5. The Opening Battle for An Loc6. Second Attack on An Loc7. NVA High Tide8. The Fight for Highway 139. Breaking the Siege10. Evaluating the Battle of An Loc11. AftermathEpilogueAppendix 1. Order of BattleAppendix 2. Presidential Unit Citation, 229th Aviation BattalionAppendix 3. Presidential Unit Citation, Advisory Team 70NotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisGeneral Creighton Abrams has been called the greatest American general since Ulysses S Grant, yet at the time this book was first published in 1992, he was little known by most Americans. This book is the biography of the man who commanded US forces in Vietnam during the withdrawal stage and for whom the army's main battle tank is named.Trade ReviewA valuable addition to the Vietnam bookshelf. * New York Times *This book is a must for anyone wishing to understand the U.S. Army of today.July 2009 * Military *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPrologue1. To Be a Soldier2. Preparing for War3. Entering Battle4. Relief of Bastogne5. Finishing it off6. Doctrine and Tactics7. Occupied Germany8. In Korea9. Fort Knox and the Pentagon10. Germany and Division Command11. Civil Rights Crises12. Corps Command13. Vietnam Buildup14. Deputy Commander in Vietnam15. Tet 196816. The 206,000 Troop Request17. Taking Command18. A Very Human Touch19. Vietnamization and Pacification20. Murder and the Green Berets21. Cambodian Incursion22. In the Midst of Battles23. Invasion of Laos24. Easter Offensive25. Setting the Course26. Rebuilding an Army27. Final DaysNotesSelected BibliographyOther SourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisBorn in rural Illinois, Ken Kays was a country boy who flunked out of college and wound up serving as a medic in the Vietnam War. On May 7, 1970, after only 17 days in Vietnam and one day after joining a new platoon, the young medic found himself in a ferocious battle. This story is a reminder of the price of war and the fragile comforts of peace.Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: I'd Give My Immortal Soul for That MedalPart I1. Down in Egypt2. Where Have All the Flowers Gone?3. A Party School4. I Felt I Was Born That Weekend5. Maybe I Can Help SomebodyPart II6. My Life Changed Forever7. They Stood Alone8. Just a Damn Piece of Metal9. Back in the WorldAppendixesNotesNote on SourcesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisScholars have rarely studied a society's return to peace as a cultural category, as a formative experience common to many lives at any time in history. This collection of original essays by historians and literary critics explores the complex and difficult question of how a culture does, in fact, return to peace after a war. Combining analyses of both literary texts and historical sources, the contributors focus on the cultural, political, and personal implications of returning to peace.The volume begins with an introductory essay by its editors, arguing for the need to consider back to peace as a significant phenomenon, not just a brief step between war and peace. The first section of the volume, Return of the Combatant, begins with an essay describing how soldiers in the trenches have imagined what civilian life would be like. This, and the four other essayson F. Scott Fitzgerald''s Tender is the Night, on Japanese POWs, on the return from World War II, and from VietTrade Review“This remarkable collection extends the analysis of war literature into a new area by asking what happens after the cessation of hostilities. How can individuals, indeed entire cultures, return to peace? This groundbreaking collection shows how war's destruction and terrible creations continue long after the conflict has ended. Essential.” —Choice“[Back to Peace] attempts an 'understanding of war' not as an absolute, but as the manifestation of contradictory human tendencies: to self-destruction and philanthropy; and its analyzes the various literary responses to the processes that individuals, communities and nations undertake in order to return to the 'prelapsarian' status quo. All the editors and contributors must be congratulated for their daring approach to a theme and label, peace, that should be debated and reviewed from the points of view of history, sociology, philosophy, politics and even anthropology. It is to the credit of Usandizaga and Monnickendam that they have conducted such a pioneering study in the field of literature.” —Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies“Back to Peace, which straddles literature, history, and politics, does not disappoint. . . .The volume aims 'to initiate the pioneering work of searching for the common language of the return to peace' by examining literature of war and literature about war. And it finds this language of a return to peace in art itself-a poignant place to begin, since artists are so tellingly among the first groups to be eradicated in repressive regimes and in times of violence.” —Human Rights & Human Welfare: An International Review of Books and Other Publications“The editors . . . present 14 essays that examine textual representations of post-conflict transitions to peace.” —Research Book News“Essays that use literary and other texts to explore the experience of returning soldiers and other societal postwar transitions.” —The Chronicle of Higher Education“Back to Peace provides a critical meditation on the contested social and cultural terrains of peacetime, from Dryden's England to the more recent diaspora of Vietnamese writers in exile. The editors of this volume bring together an international group of scholars to trouble the categories of peace and war, to expose the anxieties and ambiguities that strew the paths of postwar writers. Readers of these essays will find rich evidence that the return to peace—represented in poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction—is anything but peaceful for individuals or nations.” —Jane E. Schultz, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis“The focus of this volume of essays on the literary representation of the aftermaths of wars over time and place is very significant. Although there have been many studies of gender and wartime, and this has expanded into a recognized field of academic study, little attention has been paid to the return to a peacetime landscape. To focus on this complex subject and its literature provides the opening not only for new pathways to academic teaching and research, but to important interventions in the ways we think about war literature and the many periods that fall under the rubric of ‘interwar.” —Phyllis Lassner, Northwestern University

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Book SynopsisWith visceral, previously unpublished photographs and eyewitness accounts from the front lines, three dozen of the world’s leading photojournalists reveal the inside and untold stories of the Iraq war in this groundbreaking oral history.Trade ReviewWith visceral, previously unpublished photographs and eyewitness accounts by an incredibly diverse group of the world’s top news photographers, Photojournalists on War presents a groundbreaking new visual and oral history of America’s nine-year conflict in the Middle East. The hard-hitting accounts of these practitioners would be rare in the annals of any war, yet here they reveal the inside and untold stories behind the headlines in Iraq. Each interview is logged with the year and location it took place, and is accompanied by a selection of the photographer’s work made on and off the battlefield. * PhotoArchiveNews.com *Michael Kamber’s new book, Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq, is a vital record of a conflict that will shape America, and Iraq, for decades to come. * Columbia Journalism Review *Anyone who wants to see the real war in Iraq would do well to buy a copy of Michael Kamber's new book, Photojournalists on War. It's a vivid contradiction to many of the images widely broadcast and published during the past decade. * Architects and Artisans *The Photojournalist who covers a war is usually nameless and faceless... Now there is a new important oral history, Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq by Michael Kamber…Not all the photos are about war. Some show people in their daily lives, images, which depict the results of war on often innocent civilians. All are memorable. * Hot Shoe *The book—required reading for anyone interested in the way news is gathered an disseminated these days—collects Kamber’s interviews with 39 colleagues who covered the war…so these conversations are remarkably candid—confidences shared among friends that we’re privileged to be listening in on. * Photograph *The book is wonderfully printed, which is of course important for a book of photographs. But I find it hard to know how to describe the book less superficially-that is, to describe the content. The story is painful but you'll find the images hard to get out of your head. The images in the book bust open a hornet's nest of emotions: amazement and horror, admiration and sorrow, gratitude and pain. * William-Porter.net *Photojournalists On War is THE reference book for any discussion of the War on Iraq and photography. * Photo-Eye Blog *Photojournalists on War is the result of five years of interviews with some of the world's leading photojournalists. However, finds Gwen McClure, it's also the fruit of Michael Kamber's frustration over the harrowing images that were never shown or published before … The aim of the book … is to tell the uncensored story to the general public, an audience that hasn't been privy to much of what went on there. The photographs in the book are at once stunning and arrestingly graphic. * British Journal of Photography *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[O]ne of those rare works that combines practical benefits with broad scholarly significance . . . outstanding. Its original arguments, and the diversity of peoples contained within its pages—Vietnamese, Cham, Chinese, French, French colonial, Japanese, American—ensure that the book will matter to historians of Vietnam, the United States, and the world." * Journal of World History *"Presents the history of this area as a form of stratigraphy, excavating layers of sedimented past where multiple military conflicts occurred. . . . A very welcome addition to the growing field of environmental history on Vietnam and on war and environment generally." * Environmental History *"A very welcome addition to the growing field of environmental history on Vietnam and on war and environment generally." * Environmental History *"[O[ffers readers an intriguing new perspective on the long history of military conflict and occupation in central Vietnam by integrating environmental perspectivves with more traditional military and political histories..an inspiring application of robust historical research to solving modern environmental problems caused by war." * LSE Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisArgues that any attempt to understand how the content and function of the laws of war changed in the second half of the twentieth century should consider two major armed conflicts, fought on opposite edges of Asia, and the legal pathways that link them together across time and space.Trade Review“This is an illuminating collection that challenges us to take seriously who legal arguments speak to and how. This book brims with doctrinal and historical sophistication and shows just how central Vietnam and Palestine were, and are, to the conceptual battles of the law of war.”—Naz K. Modirzadeh, Harvard Law School “Contestation over international law rages in our day, and juxtaposing its relevance in two pivotal conflicts is an inspired way to illuminate how law is transforming politics and vice versa. This collection deserves to be widely read across multiple fields.” —Samuel Moyn, Yale University "Making Endless War provides a powerful statement on how episodes of violence, however specific they might appear, cannot be understood independent of greater forces – including (and perhaps especially) the principles and institutions that present their mission as an effort to constrain armed conflict. As such, Cuddy and Kattan’s collection can be viewed as a major innovation in building a greater genealogy of global violence."--LSE Review of BooksTable of Contents Foreword: How International Law Evolves: Norms, Precedents, and Geopolitics Richard Falk 1: The Transformation of International Law and War between the Middle East and Vietnam Brian Cuddy and Victor Kattan 2: From Retaliation to Anticipation: Reconciling Reprisals and Self-Defense in the Middle East and Vietnam, 1949–1965 Brian Cuddy 3: Public Discourses of International Law: US Debates on Military Intervention in Vietnam, 1965–1967 Madelaine Chiam and Brian Cuddy 4: Legality of Military Action by Egypt and Syria in October 1973 John Quigley 5: Revolutionary War and the Development of International Humanitarian Law Amanda Alexander 6: The War Against the People and the People’s War: Palestine and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions Ihab Shalbak and Jessica Whyte 7: “The Third World is a Problem”: Arguments about the Laws of War in the United States after the Fall of Saigon Victor Kattan 8: Operationalizing International Law: From Vietnam to Gaza Craig Jones 9: From Vietnam to Palestine: Peoples’ Tribunals and the Juridification of Resistance Tor Krever 10: War and the Shaping of International Law: From the Cold War to the War on Terror Brian Cuddy and Victor Kattan Acknowledgments Contributors Index

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisArgues that any attempt to understand how the content and function of the laws of war changed in the second half of the twentieth century should consider two major armed conflicts, fought on opposite edges of Asia, and the legal pathways that link them together across time and space.Trade Review“This is an illuminating collection that challenges us to take seriously who legal arguments speak to and how. This book brims with doctrinal and historical sophistication and shows just how central Vietnam and Palestine were, and are, to the conceptual battles of the law of war.”—Naz K. Modirzadeh, Harvard Law School“Contestation over international law rages in our day, and juxtaposing its relevance in two pivotal conflicts is an inspired way to illuminate how law is transforming politics and vice versa. This collection deserves to be widely read across multiple fields.”—Samuel Moyn, Yale UniversityTable of Contents Foreword: How International Law Evolves: Norms, Precedents, and Geopolitics Richard Falk 1: The Transformation of International Law and War between the Middle East and Vietnam Brian Cuddy and Victor Kattan 2: From Retaliation to Anticipation: Reconciling Reprisals and Self-Defense in the Middle East and Vietnam, 1949–1965 Brian Cuddy 3: Public Discourses of International Law: US Debates on Military Intervention in Vietnam, 1965–1967 Madelaine Chiam and Brian Cuddy 4: Legality of Military Action by Egypt and Syria in October 1973 John Quigley 5: Revolutionary War and the Development of International Humanitarian Law Amanda Alexander 6: The War Against the People and the People’s War: Palestine and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions Ihab Shalbak and Jessica Whyte 7: “The Third World is a Problem”: Arguments about the Laws of War in the United States after the Fall of Saigon Victor Kattan 8: Operationalizing International Law: From Vietnam to Gaza Craig Jones 9: From Vietnam to Palestine: Peoples’ Tribunals and the Juridification of Resistance Tor Krever 10: War and the Shaping of International Law: From the Cold War to the War on Terror Brian Cuddy and Victor Kattan Acknowledgments Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisIn the run-up to the Iraq invasion, a number of Americans thought the idea was crazy. Now everyone, except a few die-hards, thinks it was. So what was going through the minds of the talented and experienced men and women who planned and initiated the war? What were their assumptions? Overreach aims to recover those presuppositions.Trade ReviewExcellent… MacDonald is profoundly and chillingly right in his diagnosis of the mentality that ultimately set this disastrous chain of events in motion. -- James B. Rule * Dissent *In Overreach, MacDonald methodically dissects the top ten reasons most often used to explain why the war was a failure, and in the process shows each to be self-serving, inadequate, misleading—or all of the above. He does the same for explanations of why we went to war in the first place. -- Scott Beauchamp * Bookforum *MacDonald demonstrates vigorously and with intellectual clarity why the tenets of American exceptionalism do not usually translate to other areas of the world, with Iraq being just one example. A useful analysis of failed American military initiatives that could inform future debates about interventions in traditionally despotic nations that are also split among historically hostile religious factions. * Kirkus Reviews *With gloomily apt timing, as U.S. bombs drop once again on a now deeply fractured Iraq, international relations specialist MacDonald analyzes the usual explanations for why the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq in 2003 and finds them lacking. MacDonald argues that, beyond oil, the Israeli lobby, or Bush family history, the Iraq War and its horrific outcomes owe their existence to a more general trait in U.S. foreign policy, namely, a tendency to equate the country’s values with its interests. * Publishers Weekly *Overreach is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how and why the project of ‘regime change’ in Iraq not only failed, but was incoherent from the outset. With his characteristic political acumen, meticulous research practices, and marvelously lucid prose, MacDonald reveals the tragic political (not cultural!) blindness suffered by American architects of that project. This is a gripping, sad, and immensely important story. -- Wendy Brown, University of California, BerkeleyIt is easy to forget how many supported the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003. For anyone who wants to remember what happened—and what went wrong—this is an absorbing read. We misunderstood Iraq and the war, MacDonald shows, because we misunderstood ourselves—profoundly and tragically. -- Russell Muirhead, Dartmouth College

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Book SynopsisFrom the Korean War to the conflict in Iraq, this book examines the ways in which the American public decides whether to support the use of military force. Contrary to the conventional view, it demonstrates that the public does not respond reflexively and solely to the number of casualties in a conflict.Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 "Gelpi and Feaver, and Reifler have produced a most fascinating volume on the human costs of waging war. They set out to understand under what conditions Americans would support their leaders' decision to use military force... Well researched and thoughtfully written."--Choice "Policy makers would be wise to heed the authors' findings regarding how to gain public trust and support when contemplating the future use of military power in achieving national objectives. For the citizenry, however, a warning also emerges: national leaders may attempt to keep a sinking policy ship afloat by remaining publically optimistic even when nothing can be done to save it."--Walter E. Kretchik, Military History "[T]he book is straightforward, well organized and a pleasure to read."--Thomas C. Shaw, American Review of Politics "One measure of a book's quality is whether it generates questions for future research, and this one certainly fits the bill."--Jennifer L. Merolla, Perspectives on Politics "[T]his is a well-thought-out, well-organized and well-written book. In particular, the concluding summaries at the end of each chapter provide excellent reviews and syntheses of the arguments. The authors have posed many questions that should open new horizons for scholars and policy makers."--Cigdem Pakel Atahan, Journal of American Studies of TurkeyTable of ContentsLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS viii LIST OF TABLES ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii CHAPTER ONE: Theories of American Attitudes toward Warfare 1 CHAPTER TWO: America's Tolerance for Casualties, 1950-2006 23 CHAPTER THREE: Measuring Individual Attitudes toward Military Conflict 67 CHAPTER FOUR: Experimental Evidence on Attitudes toward Military Conflict 98 CHAPTER FIVE: Individual Attitudes toward the Iraq War, 2003-2004 125 CHAPTER SIX: Iraq the Vote: War and the Presidential Election of 2004 167 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Sources and Meaning of Success in Iraq 188 CHAPTER EIGHT: Conclusion 236 BIBLIOGRAPHY 265 INDEX 283

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Book SynopsisMaking War at Fort Hood offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it. Kenneth MacLeish conducted a year of intensive fieldwork among soldiers and their families at and around the US Army's Fort Hood in central Texas. He shows how war's reach extends far beyond the battlefield into military cTrade ReviewThird Place for the 2013 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology and American Anthropological Association Honorable Mention for the 2015 Delmos Jones and Jagna Scharff Memorial Book Award, Society for the Anthropology of North America "MacLeish writes eloquently... [T]his portrait of Army life on American turf is a welcome change of pace from the recent surge of battle-focused narratives."--Publishers Weekly "In bringing troops from the background to the front where they belong, this book should be required reading for Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and anyone else responsible for sending soldiers to that folly in the desert. They should read it before they go to bed and when they wake up. MacLeish has shown them, and us, what we do to others when we send them to fight our wars."--James T Crouse, Times Higher Education "Making War at Fort Hood is an ambitious, provocative book. It will be of significant value to historians of contemporary military conflicts, the organizational culture of the U.S. Army, and the lived experience of war... It is an important work that deserves attention."--Jacqueline Whitt, H-Net Reviews "Making War at Fort Hood is essential reading for those with an interest in modern Army life and for those in leadership positions."--Lieutenant Colonel G. Alan Knight, Journal of Army History "In Making War at Fort Hood, Kenneth MacLeish ... draws on interviews with [returning soldiers] and members of their families in an ethnographic exploration of the impact of deployment on their everyday lives... MacLeish documents, often poignantly, the difficulties soldiers have in making sense of their experiences and in moving on."--Dr. Glenn Altschuler, Florida Courier "The real thrust of [Making War at Fort Hood] is to show the American public--insulated from having to care greatly by an all-volunteer army and battles being fought on credit--that it nonetheless bears responsibility for the violence being done abroad and at home in its name."--ForeWord "To its great credit, MacLeish's project refuses to paint soldiers as either noble heroes or unwitting victims, two of the most dominant and therefore the most tired archetypes of our time. In a society that has exoticized and abstracted the military, MacLeish re-humanizes it. He is also remarkably precise in how he describes the institution of the Army: how its various bureaucracies, all geared at least tangentially toward killing people and destroying property, prescribe and encompass so many aspects of a soldier's life, from the most consequential to the seemingly benign, such as haircut styles and family day picnics. MacLeish's book is smart, necessary, and insightful."--Brian Van Reet, Daily Beast "The book illuminates the impact that two wars over a 12-year period can have on deployed soldiers, their families and their community."--San Antonio Express-News "Drawing on observations and interviews conducted during a year at Fort Hood, this ethnography provides a poignant account of military life, especially the impact of war on U.S. soldiers and their families... This concise, engaging, and well-referenced text is a welcome addition to the field of military ethnography."--Choice "MacLeish offers us something richer: a sensitively rendered portrait of social actors who both do and do not get to choose their course, who force us to rethink basic notions of agency and autonomy from the vantage point of violence as a way of life."--Marcel La Flamm, Public Books "A refreshing approach."--Annessa Ann Babic, Journal of American Studies of Turkey "In this theoretically rich, empathic, and revelatory ethnography, Kenneth MacLeish ably tackles the challenges that face all US anthropologists who engage with the military... The book is impressive and engaging in theoretical terms... MacLeish has made an incisive contribution to military anthropology that will be of particular value to students of violence, care, US society, or fine ethnographic writing."--Keith Brown, Great Plains ResearchTable of ContentsAbbreviations ix Prologue: "Don't Fuckin' Leave Any of This Shit Out" 1 Introduction 6 1A Site of Exception 27 2Heat, Weight, Metal, Gore, Exposure 50 3Being Stuck and Other Problems in the Reproduction of Life 93 4Vicissitudes of Love 134 5War Economy 179 Postscript: So-called Resiliency 223 Acknowledgments 231 Appendix: Army Rank Structure 235 Notes 239 References 249 Index 261

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of a Catalogue Curatorial Award for Excellence, Association of Art Museum Curators""An outstanding catalog."---Sebastian Smee"[An] exceptional, you gotta own it, exhibition catalog." * Modern Art Notes Podcast *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1972, North Vietnam launched a massive military offensive designed to deliver the coup de grace to South Vietnam and its rapidly disengaging American ally. But an over-confident Hanoi misjudged its opponents who. This is the story of heroism against great odds.

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Book SynopsisWidely regarded as a classic on the Vietnam War, Decent Interval provides a scathing critique of the CIA's role in and final departure from that conflict. Still the most detailed and respected account of America's final days in Vietnam, the book was written at great risk and ultimately at great sacrifice by the author.Trade Review“A great service to everyone’s understanding of what happened in Vietnam in the spring of 1975. . . . Other accounts of that time will have to be measured against what Snepp, from his unique and highly informed vantage point, has produced.” —Kevin Buckley, New York Times Book Review“By far the richest document yet produced on the American and South Vietnamese end game.” —Laurence Stern, Washington Post Book World

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Book SynopsisThe press leak in 1971 of a secret government document about the Vietnam War set off a chain of events that culminated in one of the most important First Amendment decisions in American legal history. This book re-examines what happened, why it mattered, and why it still has relevance today.Trade ReviewExciting as history and compelling as law, Inside the Pentagon Papers gives us the secret documents from this famous case - and shows how thin the government's legal and factual arguments actually were. Anthony Lewis, author of Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment; ""This is a signal event, for the revelation of the Pentagon Papers brought forth Nixon's Plumbers - and the rest, as we know, is history."" Stanley I. Kutler, author of The Wars of Watergate; ""So many dazzling new perspectives on events we thought we knew and a cautionary tale for here and now."" Frank Snepp, author of Decent Interval and Irreparable Harm; ""The most complete, incisive and persuasive study of those documents yet published."" Floyd Abrams, co-counsel to the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case

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Book SynopsisWhat was for the United States a struggle against creeping Communism in Southeast Asia was for the people of North Vietnam a “great patriotic war” that saw its eventual victory against a military Goliath. Victory in Vietnam is the People's Army of Vietnam's own account of two decades of struggle, now available for the first time in English.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAfter five months of Pentagon planning and six years of implementation in Iraq, Gary Vogler discovered the secret oil agenda that sent the United States to war in the Middle East. His revealing and compelling narrative will both surprise and anger many Americans about neoconservative greed, dishonesty, and treachery. Iraq and the Politics of Oil tells the truth—and the truth about this grave historical blunder is long overdue."" - Donald T. Phillips, author of Lincoln on Leadership for Today ""Mr. Vogler’s first hand account of his years working to rebuild the Iraqi oil sector is a must-read for students of post-conflict reconstruction. It demonstrates how even with advanced planning by top industry experts, this crucial sector still faced unanticipated bureaucratic infighting, political interference, Congressional budget constraints, and deteriorating security. Mr. Vogler describes in intimate detail how a remarkable group of dedicated Iraqis and Americans came together to try to overcome these challenges, providing valuable lessons for the future."" - Ambassador Robin Raphel, former Deputy Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.""Gary Vogler spent 72 months in Iraq after the invasion in 2003 working on oil infrastructure. I know no other person better qualified to write this story. And the management of oil in Iraq over this period is an important story."" - Gordon Rudd, author of Reconstructing Iraq: Regime Change, Jay Garner, and the ORHA Story

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Book SynopsisAnalyses military campaigns from the second half of the twentieth century to demonstrate the difficulty of achieving decisive results at the operational level. Brimming with new insights, Robert Citino’s study shows why technical superiority is no guarantee of victory and why a thorough grounding in the history of past campaigns is essential.Table of Contents List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Toward World War II: The Quest for Decisive Victory 2. In Search of the Impossible: The German Operational Breakdown in World War II, 1940-1942 3. The Allies in Search of Decisive Victory 4. Forgotten No Longer: The War in Korea 5. The Arab-Israeli Wars 6. Operational Success and Failure: The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the Iran-Iraq War 7. The U.S. Army: Collapse and Rebirth 8. The U.S. Army at War: Desert Storm Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisAn alternative perspective on the Cold War that broadens our understanding of the nature of political conflict.Trade Review'A comprehensive reinterpretation of world politics in the 'short twentieth century' -- Mark Rupert, Professor of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Syracuse University, USA'Richard Saull takes the long view of the rise and fall of the Cold War and into the turbulent history of the twentieth century. A must read for those looking for another way of thinking about our dark times' -- Professor Michael Cox, Department of International Relations and Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics'Demolishes standard accounts of the Cold War and its aftermath and ends with an intricate, complex approach to the political geography of the war on terror. An indispensable book' -- Professor Marilyn Young, Department of History, New York University'Richard Saull's brilliant [book] is an indispensable account of the Cold War which challenges the standard accounts theoretically and analytically. He carries the reader along in a vigourously argued and persuasively written narrative. No other book on the Cold War comes close to Saull's striking integration of socio-economic, ideological, strategic and military perspectives' -- Professor Marilyn Young, Department of History, New York University'Saull's survey of the theoretical debate on the Cold War is sophisticated and illuminating. It raises fundamental theoretical issues about the sociology of contemporary international politics' -- Peter Gowan, Professor of International Relations, London Metropolitan UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. Introduction: History and Theory in the Cold War 2. The International Impact of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Early Cold War, 1917-1945 3. The Cold War Transformed: Geopolitical Restructuring and a New Wave of Social Revolution, 1945-49 4. The Militarization of Cold War: The Containment of the USSR 4 and the Emergence of New Revolutionary Fronts, 1950-62 5. The Final Gasp of Cold War: The Decline of US Military Superiority and the Expansion of International Communist Power, 1962-80 6. Ending the Cold War: From Militarized Counter-Revolution to the Collapse of Soviet Communism, 1980-91 7. Conclusions: Tracing the Paradoxical Ends of the Cold War and the Origins of Contemporary Conflict in World Politics Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMary Kaldor's New and Old Wars has fundamentally changed the way both scholars and policy-makers understand contemporary war and conflict.Trade Review"A timely and important book. Putting the so-called revolution in military affairs firmly to one side, Mary Kaldor has provided us with a window into the future of war." Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem "If you don’t read Mary Kaldor’s New and Old Wars, you won’t understand the world of violence we live in. And you will miss the only way out: the perspective of a cosmopolitan realpolitik that Kaldor opens up and paints in detail in her highly sophisticated and original analysis. Now revised and updated, it is the classical book on new wars." Ulrich Beck, University of Munich "More than any other book, the third edition of Mary Kaldor's brilliantly sustained enquiry into 'new wars' helps us grasp the complex terrain of political violence since the end of the Cold War. The richness and clarity of the overall presentation greatly strengthens Kaldor's stature as one of the most consistently imaginative and conceptually creative thinkers of our time on the central issues of global affairs." Richard Falk, Princeton UniversityTable of ContentsPreface to the Third Edition Abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Old Wars 3. Bosnia-Herzegovina: A Case Study of a New War 4. The Politics of New Wars 5. The Globalized War Economy 6. Towards a Cosmopolitan Approach 7. The ‘New Wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan 8. Governance, Legitimacy and Security Afterword Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThompson surveys U.S. policy toward Iraq, starting with the Gulf War, continuing through the interwar years of sanctions and coercive disarmament, and concluding with the 2003 invasion and its long aftermath.Trade ReviewThompson's books adds to the small but growing body of work addressing why powerful countries would channel foreign policies through IOs. A major strength of Channels of Power is that it pays serious attention to theory development, generating falsifiable hypotheses about state behavior and international reaction to activity at the Security Council. Channels of Power is very well written and researched and its an important contribution to the literature on international organizations and security policy. -- Terrence Chapman * Political Science Quarterly *Table of ContentsPrefaceChapter 1. The Power of International Organizations IOs and Information Transmission Statecraft and IOs The United Nations and the Legitimation of Force Case Selection and OutlineChapter 2. Coercion, Institutions, and Information The Politics and Costs of Coercion Institutions and Information Coercion through IOs Two Pathways of Information Transmission Institutional Variation and the Security Council Alternative Arguments Observable Implications and Research DesignChapter 3. The Security Council in the Gulf War, 1990–1991 Background and Events Choosing (How) to Intervene Signaling Intentions to State Leaders Transmitting Policy Information to Foreign Publics Assessing the Role of LegitimacyChapter 4. Coercive Disarmament: The Interwar Years Channeling Power between the Wars The Postwar Honeymoon Cracks in the Coalition The Decline of UN Inspections Desert Fox and Its Aftermath The Evolution of U.S. Coercive Strategy Reviving Inspections: A Divided CouncilChapter 5. The Second Iraq War: Down the UN Path, 2002–2003 From September 11 to Iraq Appealing to the General Assembly Back to the Council: Resolution 1441 Renewed Inspections A Second Resolution? Explaining U.S. MotivationsChapter 6. The Second Iraq War: Bypassing the Security Council Was It a "Unilateral" Policy? The Costs of Working through the UN Sensitivity to IO Constraints Regional Options: Constrained Forum Shopping International Reactions to Iraq 2003 The International Political Costs of the WarChapter 7. Conclusion: How the Security Council Matters Multilateralism in U.S. Foreign Policy Beyond the Superpower The Security Council as a Political InstitutionAppendix: Selected Security Council ResolutionsBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOur collective memories of World War II and Vietnam have been shaped as much by memoirs, novels, and films as they have been by history books. In Welcome to the Suck, Stacey Peebles examines the growing body of contemporary war stories in prose, poetry, and film that speak to the American soldier's experience in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Stories about war always encompass ideas about initiation, masculinity, cross-cultural encounters, and trauma. Peebles shows us how these timeless themes find new expression among a generation of soldiers who have grown up in a time when it has been more acceptable than ever before to challenge cultural and societal norms, and who now have unprecedented and immediate access to the world away from the battlefield through new media and technology.Two Gulf War memoirs by Anthony Swofford (Jarhead) and Joel Turnipseed (Baghdad Express) provide a portrait of soldiers living and fighting on the cusp of the major political and teTrade ReviewRemarkable literature and film are beginning to emerge from both the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War. Peebles explores the new landscape of such works.... Along the way, the author demarcates the new digital battlefield—blogs and Skype—that should reduce alienation but paradoxically call it into heightened relief. Part of the context of these works is the cynicism of the soldiers whose first political memory is, as Peebles puts it, an image of Monica Lewinsky, but who are still idealistic as they enter the war. This classic disjuncture empowers these works and transforms the destruction, waste, stupidity, and disillusionment that are part of all wars into powerful, moving art. Summing Up: Highly recommended for all readers. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Lines of Sight: Watching War in Jarhead and My War: Killing Time in Iraq2. Making a Military Man: Iraq, Gender, and the Failure of the Masculine Collective3. Consuming the Other: Blinding Absence in The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell and Here, Bullet4. One of U.S.: Combat Trauma on Film in Alive Day Memories and In the Valley of ElahConclusionBibliography Notes Index

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Book SynopsisKim examines the revolutionary events that shaped people's lives in the development of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.Trade Review[On] the whole Kim's argument that the revolution was largely home-grown remains convincing. Especially fascinating are her chapters on the role of women in the revolution, and her exploration of the autobiographies that all adult North Koreans had to draft to show how their individual life stories fitted within the larger framework of Korea’s recent history and the revolution. -- Michael Rochlitz * Europe-Asia Studies *Kim's work stays focused on various 'everyday' people as examples of how the North Korean revolution enabled regular peasants to build a new socialist modernity uniquely theirs. The author relies on oral histories and archival sources to bring these marginalized histories to light. Kim is well read across Korean, Russian, and Chinese sources as well as scholarship on North Korea. Her innovative approach is... a step forward from the typical Cold War approach.... Summing Up: Highly recommended. * Choice *Kim's book is a pioneering contribution to the articulation of a new paradigm. Putting it even more directly, she provides fresh, and often compelling, answers to a most fundamental question: How should the history of North Korea be written, especially in the aftermath of the Cold War? Suzy Kim has written an important book that deserves to be read widely by historians of North Korea, as well as by those of comparative communism and revolutionary processes. * Journal of Korean Studies *Concisely establishing the various lacunae and epistemological ossifications that hamstring studies of North Korea, this book makes a persuasive case for the significance of its subject. Kim argues that the everyday, especially in the formative years of the nation-state (1945–1950), posited a space for contestation, contingency, and construction by both state and society, which led to the formation of what she calls 'socialist modernity.'... Kim deftly mobilizes a range of materials, including statistics, photos, interviews, and official reports.... This is in many ways a pioneering work, the first analysis of North Korean social history in its formative years. Argued with finesse and supported by rich empirical research, it is undoubtedly an invaluable resource for all who are interested in the history of North Korea, everyday forms of socialism, and social history. -- Hyung-Gu Lynn * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Revolutions in the Everyday2. Legacies: Fomenting the Revolution3. Three Reforms: Initiating the Revolution4. The Collective: Enacting the Revolution5. Autobiographies: Narrating the Revolution6. Revolutionary Motherhood: Gendering the Revolution7. "Liberated Space": Remembering the RevolutionConclusionAppendix: Sample CurriculaNotes Index

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