Military history: post-WW2 conflicts Books

Book SynopsisIn Brutality in an Age of Human Rights, Brian Drohan demonstrates that British officials' choices concerning counterinsurgency methods have long been deeply influenced or even redirected by the work of human rights activists. To reveal how that influence was manifested by military policies and practices, Drohan examines three British counterinsurgency campaignsCyprus (19551959), Aden (19631967), and the peak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland (19691976). This book is enriched by Drohan's use of a newly available collection of 1.2 million colonial-era files, International Committee of the Red Cross files, the extensive Troubles collection at Linen Hall Library in Belfast, and many other sources.Drohan argues that when faced with human rights activism, British officials sought to evade, discredit, and deflect public criticism of their actions to avoid drawing attention to brutal counterinsurgency practices such as the use of torture during interrogation. Some of tTrade ReviewDrohan’s book provides an excellent understanding of the rhetoric and practice of counterinsurgency and a firm foundation for understanding the universe of euphemism and defensiveness that surrounds such efforts even today. * H-DIPLO *Drohan addresses many legal and moral issues about the challenges of maintaining order and securing human rights in a revolutionary context, [and] the book’s major contribution is its detailed historical account of three insurgencies. The book is recommended for all readership levels. * Choice *Brian Drohan's book is a vital empirical study informing both humanitarianism and human rights historiographies. It opens pointedly with the diverse legal justifications provided by the British and American governments for their decision to invade Iraq in 2003. * Twentieth Century British History *Brutality in an Age of Human Rights is an important book, one that recalls the significant political damage to Britain's reputation and interests caused by the adoption of brutal methods of counterinsurgency. It is also a valuable historical reminder how easily the 'rule of law' can be effectively manipulated to enable abuse. * English Historical Review *In the context of the current debate over colonial-era reparations and compensation claims for alleged human rights abuses, Brian Drohan's timely and salutary addition to the literature will be of critical interest to legal practitioners, historians, and political scientists. * Michigan War Studies Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Maps Introduction 1. A Lawyers’ War 2. The Shadow of Strasbourg 3. "Hunger War" 4. "This Unhappy Affair" 5. "A More Talkative Place" Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the real story of how George W. Bush came to double-down on Iraq in the highest stakes gamble of his entire presidency. Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly thirty senior officials, including President Bush himself, The Last Card offers an unprecedented look into the process by which Bush overruled much of the military leadership and many of his trusted advisors, and authorized the deployment of roughly 30,000 additional troops to the warzone in a bid to save Iraq from collapse in 2007.The adoption of a new counterinsurgency strategy and surge of new troops into Iraq altered the American posture in the Middle East for a decade to come. In The Last Card we have access to the deliberations among the decision-makers on Bush''s national security team as they embarked on that course. In their own words, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief Trade ReviewThis is a fascinating contribution to the history of the war. * Foreign Affairs *An expertly researched and written oral and narrative history, The Last Card examines the excruciatingly complex process of American decision making in the run-up to the 2007 surge against al Qaeda in Iraq... This precious narrative history shows the complexities of war planning and is a most welcome addition to modern American war studies, though it is best intended for advanced readers. * Choice *It is essential to learn the right lessons from the Iraq War, and The Last Card is an important first step in what one hopes will be a much longer journey of discovery. * Survival *The Last Card is an excellent resource for scholars. It provides important and authoritative insights into one of the seminal events in American history. * The US Army War College Quarterly *The Last Card makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the subsequent course of the war, bringing scholars and policy-makers together to explore how and why the surge came to be. * International Affairs *The Last Card is unique in that the book looks to make primary and secondary contributions simultaneously. Without a doubt, the work adds to narratives regarding the Bush administration and its handling of the war in Iraq. It provides insight on a thematically complex subject, offering immediate value to scholars in several fields. * Presidential Studies Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The American Occupation of Iraq by 2006 and the Search for a New Strategy 1. America's War in Iraq: 2003–2005 2. This Strategy Is Not Working: January–June 2006 3. Together Forward? June–August 2006 4. Silos and Stovepipes: September–October 2006 5. Setting the Stage: Early November 2006 6. A Sweeping Internal Review: Mid–Late November 2006 7. Choosing to Surge: December 2006 8. What Kind of Surge? Late December 2006–January 2007 9. How the "Surge" Came to Be 10. Iraq, Vietnam, and the Meaningof Victory 11. Decisions and Politics 12. Blood, Treasure, and Time: Strategy-Making for the Surge 13. Strategy and the Surge 14. Civil-Military Relations and the 2006 Iraq Surge 15. The Bush Administration's Decision to Surge in Iraq: A Long and Winding Road 16. The President as Policy Entrepreneur: George W. Bush and the 2006 Iraq Strategy Review

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Book SynopsisThrough the voices of senior officials, teachers, soldiers, journalists, and artists, The Republic of Vietnam, 19551975, presents us with an interpretation of South Vietnam as a passionately imagined nation in the minds of ordinary Vietnamese, rather than merely as an expeditious political construct of the United States government.The moving and honest memoirs collected, translated, and edited here by Tuong Vu and Sean Fear describe the experiences of war, politics, and everyday life for people from many walks of life during the fraught years of Vietnam''s Second Republic, leading up to and encompassing what Americans generally call the Vietnam War. The voices gift the reader a sense of the authors'' experiences in the Republic and their ideas about the nation during that time. The light and careful editing hand of Vu and Fear reveals that far from a Cold War proxy struggle, the conflict in Vietnam featured a true ideological divide between the communist North and the Trade ReviewThe Republic of Vietnam is a primer and a demand for a more comprehensive, Vietnamese-written works of history...Thanks to Tuong Vu and Sean Fear's efforts, the thoughts, impressions, and words of these pivotal individuals in South Vietnamese history have been preserved. * Diacritics *Overall, the volume paints an authentic if rosy picture of South Vietnamese efforts to forge an enduring state and society for themselves. The volume should provide excellent teaching materials for undergraduateand graduate-level courses on Vietnamese history. * Pacific Affairs *Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Tuong Vu and Sean Fear 1. Coping with Changes and War, Building a Foundation for Growth, by Nguyn Đc Cýng 2. The Birth of Central Banking, 1955–1956, by Vũ Quc Thúc 3. Reform or Collapse: Economic Challenges during Vietnamization, by Phạm Kim Ngc 4. Land Reform and Agricultural Development, 1968–1975, by Cao Văn Thân 5. Striving for a Lasting Peace: The Paris Accords and Aftermath, by Hoàng Đc Nhã 6. Public Security and the National Police, by Trn Minh Công 7. Reflections of a Frontline Soldier, by Bùi Quyn 8. The Philosophies and Development of a Free Education, by Nguyn Hu Phýc 9. Personal Reflections on the Educational System, by Võ Kim Sõn 10. Life and Work of a Journalist, by Phạm Trn 11. The Vietnam War in the Eyes of a Vietnamese War Correspondent, by Vũ Thanh Thy 12. Sóng Thn's Campaign for Press Freedom, by Trùng Dýõng 13. Writers of the Republic of Vietnam, by Nhã Ca and Trùng Dýõng 14. The Cinema Industry, by Kiu Chinh 15. The Neglect of the Republic of Vietnam in the American Historical Memory, by Nu-Anh Tran 16. Political, Military, and Cultural Memoirs in Vietnamese, by Tuan Hoang About the Editors Index

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Book SynopsisKhmer Nationalist is a political history of Cambodia from World War II until 1975, examining the central role of Sõn Ng?c Thành. It is a story of nationalistic independence movements, political intrigue, coup attempts, war, and American intelligence. The rise of Cambodian nationalism, the brief period of Japanese dominance, the fight for independence from France, and the establishment of ties with the United States that kept Sihanouk on edge until his downfallin all of these, as Matthew Jagel shows, Thành was fundamental.Khmer Nationalist reveals how Cambodian nationalism grew during the twilight of French colonialism and faced new geopolitical challenges during the Cold War. Thành''s story brings greater understanding to the end of French colonialism in Cambodia, nationalism in post-colonial societies, Cold War realities for countries caught between competing powers, and how the United States responded while the Vietnam War intensified.

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Book SynopsisA Slow Reckoning examines the Soviet Union's and the Afghan communists' views of and policies toward Islam and Islamism during the Soviet-Afghan War (19791989). As Vassily Klimentov demonstrates, the Soviet and communist Afghan disregard for Islam was telling of the overall communist approach to reforming Afghanistan and helps explain the failure of their modernization project. A Slow Reckoning reveals how during most of the conflict Babrak Karmal, the ruler installed by the Soviets, instrumentalized Islam in support of his rule while retaining a Marxist-Leninist platform. Similarly, the Soviets at all levels failed to give Islam its due importance as communist ideology and military considerations dominated their decision making. This approach to Islam only changed after Mikhail Gorbachev replaced Karmal by Mohammad Najibullah and prepared to withdraw Soviet forces. Discarding Marxism-Leninism for Islam proved the correct approach, but it came too late to salvage the Soviet nation-building project. A Slow Reckoning also shows how Soviet leaders only started seriously paying attention to an Islamist threat from Afghanistan to Central Asia after 1986. While the Soviets had concerns related to Islamism in 1979, only the KGB believed the threat to be potent. The Soviet elites never fully conceptualized Islamism, continuing to see it as an ideology the United States, Iran, or Pakistan could instrumentalize at will. They believed the Islamists had little agency and that their retrograde ideology could not find massive appeal among progressive Soviet Muslims. In this, they were only partly right.

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Book SynopsisThe Korean War lasted for three years, one month, and two days, but armistice talks occupied more than two of those years, as more than 14,000 Chinese prisoners of war refused to return to Communist China and demanded to go to Nationalist Taiwan, effectively hijacking the negotiations and thwarting the designs of world leaders at a pivotal moment in Cold War history. In The Hijacked War, David Cheng Chang vividly portrays the experiences of Chinese prisoners in the dark, cold, and damp tents of Koje and Cheju Islands in Korea and how their decisions derailed the high politics being conducted in the corridors of power in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. Chang demonstrates how the Truman-Acheson administration's policies of voluntary repatriation and prisoner reindoctrination for psychological warfare purposes—the first overt and the second covert—had unintended consequences. The "success" of the reindoctrination program backfired when anti-Communist Chinese prisoners persuaded and coerced fellow POWs to renounce their homeland. Drawing on newly declassified archival materials from China, Taiwan, and the United States, and interviews with more than 80 surviving Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war, Chang depicts the struggle over prisoner repatriation that dominated the second half of the Korean War, from early 1952 to July 1953, in the prisoners' own words.Trade Review"This book represents a giant step forward in our understanding of the prisoner-of-war issue in the Korean War. The research on the Chinese prisoners is extraordinary, the stories of individuals compelling, and the analysis of the context in which they made choices balanced and persuasive." -- William Stueck * author of The Korean War: An International History *"David Cheng Chang's superlative research reveals the use of Chinese POWs as pawns in the larger Cold War standoff between the US and China during the Korean War. His cogent analysis encourages us to think about the aftermath of the war and the lives of those who made the 'voluntary choice' to join or who faced 'forced conformity.'" -- Barak Kushner * author of Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice *"The Hijacked War provides a most provocative look at the political and ethical consequences of the Korean War. Through the untold story of Chinese POWs' deportation, David Cheng Chang describes how, against the backdrop of the battle between democracy and communism, the Korean War's stakes implicated power games, historical contingencies, and human rights. His meticulous study brings to light a poignant lesson of the war—that freedom may generate violence, and democracy may beget betrayal. The book offers the long-missing piece to the jigsaw of the Cold War narrative on the East Asian front. And importantly, it compels us to ponder the price we pay for the war and peace of our own time." -- David Der-wei Wang * author ofThe Monster That Is History: History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-Century China *"Chang's exceptionally vivid prisoner's-eye account, based on camp archives and interviews with ex-POWS, leads him to condemn the key U.S. policymakers, including President Harry Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson, for their 'arrogance, ignorance, and negligence.'" -- Andrew J. Nathan * Foreign Affairs *"David Cheng Chang fills a void in the literature on the Korean War with this important book describing the experiences of Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) during the conflict and assessing the impact of their incarceration and release... Chang delivers on his pledge to answer the questions of who these POWs were, why they chose to return home or not, and whether their choice was voluntary." -- James I. Matray * Journal of Cold War Studies *"The winner of the Korean War, ironically, turns out to be Chiang Kai-shek...The Hijacked War tells the violent and tragic story of Chiang's unacknowledged victory in Korea." -- John Delury * Global Asia *"The Hijacked War is a welcome and important intervention into Korean War historiography. Chang's focus on the lived experiences of those involved in POW discussions and camps suggests the ways that local stories can reorient our understanding of events, particularly a conflict that is often told in terms of high politics and military strategy." -- Gretchen Heefner * The Journal of Asian Studies *"Besides being thus far the most in-depth exploration of Chinese POWs, The Hijacked War will be valuable to scholars studying the Korean War frontline and infiltration campaigns....Based on solid scholarship, Chang's POW biographies offer unique perspectives." -- Liu Zhaokun * Journal of American-East Asian Relations *"An ambitious China-centric work that nonetheless wonderfully captures the ambiguity and confusion associated with the breakup of the Japanese Empire and the related uncertainty of the two Koreas, The Hijacked War holds interest for a range of fields, reaching out to scholars of Northeast Asia, along with more nation-oriented subdisciplines of East Asian studies." -- John P. DiMoia * Cross-Currents *"David Cheng Chang offers an intriguing alternative explanation for the skewed anti-repatriation decision on the part of Chinese POWs and its impact on the Korean War....Hijacked War is no doubt an excellent contribution to Korean War POW studies. Those interested in the Korean War and POWs will find it very inspiring and worth reading." -- Son Daekwon * Pacific Affairs *"This well-written book poses some tough questions regarding the Chinese prisoner repatriation issue in the Korean War, a topic deserving of further scholarly examination." -- Esther T. Hu * Journal of Chinese Military History *"By moving beyond diplomatic history, Chang closes a major gap in the historiography on Chinese intervention in Korea by painstakingly unpacking the complex psyches of the Chinese POWs."With Chang's historical account, we can finally understand the myriad factors that led to Chinese POWs defecting from China to Taiwan at a two-to-one ratio (a stunning ratio compared to 7,826 non-repatriates and 75,823 repatriates among the North Korean POWs). In this twinned flipping of the script, Chang recasts Chinese POWs as the central actors of the Korean War to argue that 'the brightest minds of the mightiest power on earth [United States] were taken captive by the [Chinese] captives' (12)." -- Sandra H. Park * Journal of Korean Studies *"In telling the stories of Chinese POWs, Chang's stress on social history points to other topics in Chinese military history, such as recruitment, indoctrination, political control, awards and punishments, and other aspects of prisoner policy. Personal stories bring fresh insights into Communist POWs' motivations and perceptions. In their own words, they provide compelling firsthand accounts of their war experiences in Korea as well as their family lives before and after the war. Their stories deepen our understanding of the war." -- Xiaobing Li * Michigan War Studies Review *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe Introduction establishes the centrality of the Chinese prisoners in the second half of the war and suggests a new periodization highlighting the war over prisoners. The Korean War was in fact two wars: the first was fought over territory from June 1950 to June 1951; the second was fought over prisoners from late 1951 to July 1953. While the first war restored the territorial status quo ante bellum, the second war's only visible outcome was the "defection" of some fourteen thousand Chinese prisoners to Taiwan and seven thousand North Korean prisoners to South Korea—nearly doubling the length of the war and inflicting numerous casualties on all sides, including 12,300 American deaths in the last two years. The war was hijacked by misguided US policies and a core of Chinese anti-Communist prisoners. This chapter suggests that this surprise outcome was one reason the war became America's "forgotten war." 1Fleeing or Embracing the Communists in the Chinese Civil War chapter abstractThis chapter traces the divergent Civil War experiences of several future POWs: a Nationalist paratrooper, a Nationalist-turned-Communist doctor, three Taiwanese teenagers who joined the Nationalist army and fought on the mainland, a Tsinghua University student-turned-Communist underground agent, two Whampoa Military Academy cadets fleeing Manchuria, a forcibly conscripted Sichuanese turned a proud PLA soldier, and several idealistic students. While the Communists' ruthless persecution of the rich horrified some young people, their vastly superior discipline, vigor, and purposefulness—in contrast to the Nationalists—held powerful political and emotional appeal, especially for young people who had been neglected or oppressed under the Nationalist regime. 2Reforming Former Nationalists chapter abstractThis chapter examines the thought reform experiences of Nationalist officers, Whampoa cadets, and enlisted men in the Communist army in 1950, some of whom later became defectors and anti-Communist prisoner leaders and activists in Korea. Meticulously planned, thoroughly implemented, and backed by the threat of violence, Communist thought reform combined intense indoctrination with mandatory participation and performance. By the end of 1950, after a year-long indoctrination, or "thought reform," ex-Nationalist personnel—"liberated soldiers"—seemed to have completely surrendered to their captors, physically, emotionally, and sometimes intellectually as well. While the Communist ideology and methods won some converts, others remained unconvinced. To survive, however, these dissenters had to hide their resentment under the guise of complete submission. Thanks to their extensive and painful experiences under the Communists, ex-Nationalists acquired the essential Communist techniques: relentless indoctrination with mandatory participation and performance and iron discipline reinforced by mutual surveillance. 3Desperados and Volunteers chapter abstractThe Chinese People's Volunteer Army (CPV) was a misnomer artfully chosen to camouflage China's strategic intentions and lure the Americans into underestimating China's commitment and strength in Korea. It was made up of PLA units with the same designation; more than 60 to 70 percent of its troops consisted of former Nationalists. New recruits were also added. While some were drafted by local government using hoaxes, others volunteered for the army in a desperate move to escape local persecution during the "Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries"—the "bloody honeymoon" in the first year of the People's Republic. Going to war in Korea gave those disaffected young men their final opportunity to escape Communist China. 4Chiang, MacArthur, Truman, and NSC-81/1 chapter abstractThis chapter first shifts the focus to Taiwan, where Chiang Kai-shek fled and made his final stand, fearing an imminent Communist invasion in spring 1950. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Washington reversed its hands-off policy and committed to deny Taiwan to the Communists. General MacArthur's visit to Taiwan from July 31 to August 1, 1950, gave Chiang's regime a morale boost and opened the door to future intelligence collaboration. President Truman and General MacArthur met on Wake Island on October 15. Crossing the 38th parallel had been a foregone conclusion, as Truman had signed NSC-81/1 four days before the Inchon landing, authorizing a rollback in North Korea. Contrary to the popular belief that they focused on China's possible intervention, their main discussion item was the postwar rehabilitation of the entire Korean peninsula, including the reorientation or reindoctrination of POWs—another mandate of NSC-81/1. 5Defectors and Prisoners in the First Three Chinese Offensives chapter abstractThis chapter covers the first three Chinese offensives from late October 1950 to early January 1951, during which the CPV achieved near complete surprise and decisively defeated the UN Command (UNC) troops in a series of epic battles, including the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Despite the UNC's utter defeat and hasty retreat, 1,245 Chinese prisoners were captured by the end of December 1950. This chapter sketches the experiences of several defectors, who risked their lives to cross the lines to surrender and provided valuable intelligence that might have saved American lives. Some of them later became anti-Communist prisoner leaders in POW camps. 6Ridgway's Turnaround, MacArthur's Exit, and Taiwan's Entry chapter abstractThis chapter studies the critical period from January to April 1951, when General Matthew Ridgway, the new Eighth Army commander, successfully turned around the war in Korea. The UNC repelled the Chinese Fourth Offensive and launched a counteroffensive. During the intense fighting, more Chinese prisoners were captured. Taking great risks, defectors escaped and surrendered to the UNC, including some of the future anti-Communist POW leaders. Even though MacArthur was dismissed by President Truman in April, he left a little-known but highly consequential legacy: the hiring of more than seventy interpreters from Taiwan, some of whom would play an instrumental role in the rise of anti-Communist POWs. In addition, Washington authorized the expansion of the prisoner indoctrination program to include Chinese POWs. 7The Fifth Offensive Debacle chapter abstractThis chapter dissects the Chinese Fifth Offensive (Spring Offensive) debacle, especially the destruction of the CPV 180th Division—one of the most humiliating defeats in Chinese Communist military history. Over three months, 15,510 CPV soldiers were captured—more than 70 percent of the 21,074 Chinese prisoners captured in the entire war. Drawing on both Chinese and American military sources, this chapter reconstructs the Chinese offensive and UNC counteroffensive and siege. It shows Chinese military leadership at all levels—from General Peng Dehuai's general headquarters, to the III Army Group, and to the 60th Army and the 180th Division—was arbitrary, careless, and disorderly. In the final stage of its siege, the 180th Division's commanders made the decision to "disperse and escape"—a code word for abandoning their troops. Using oral history and prisoner interrogation reports, this chapter also traces CPV soldiers' battle experiences and defectors' escapes in intimate detail. 8Civil War in the POW Camps chapter abstractThis chapter investigates the rise of Chinese anti-Communist prisoners in UNC prison camps in Pusan and on Koje Island, where more than 150,000 Chinese and North Korean POWs were held. Unlike the North Korean prisoners, whose military organization remained largely intact, the Chinese Communist officers sought to hide their identities to avoid interrogation by G-2 and persecution by the US Army. Chinese defectors served as trusties, cooperating with G-2 to identify Communist officers for interrogation and helping prison authorities arrest Communist "troublemakers." As mandated by Washington, the Civil Information and Education program began its reindoctrination project in August 1952, relying on educated anti-Communist prisoners as instructors. Chinese anti-Communist POWs combined Communist methods of thought control and mandatory participation with Nationalist methods of physical punishment. They established control over the two largest Chinese compounds, 72 and 86, with a combined population of more than sixteen thousand. 9The Debate over Prisoner Repatriation in Washington, Panmunjom, and Taipei chapter abstractChapter 9 delineates the origin and evolution of Washington's policy on prisoner repatriation, which unexpectedly became the main stumbling block in armistice negotiations in Panmunjom. While Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai took the negotiations extremely seriously and assembled China's first team of negotiators, President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson paid scant attention, leaving the talks in the hands of military officers without assistance from diplomats and China experts. Voluntary repatriation was first introduced as a bargaining position; but once it was publicized, the United States found it impossible to retreat from this moralistic position. As top officials withheld unsavory facts and vexing complexities, Truman made the final decision to uphold voluntary repatriation. "The Chinese have influenced the course of events in Koje-do and at Panmunjom," lamented the US ambassador. 10Screening: "Voluntary Repatriation" Turns Violent chapter abstractIn early April 1952, Communist negotiators acquiesced to the UNC's proposal to screen prisoners in order to determine a "round number" of prisoners wishing to return. While the screening process itself was free, horrific violence had occurred on the eve of the screening. This chapter documents the widespread torture and several cases of murder of pro-Communist prisoners by anti-Communist trusties, who succeeded in intimating fellow prisoners from choosing repatriation. In anti-Communist-controlled Compounds 72 and 86, more than 85 percent of the sixteen thousand prisoners refused repatriation. Just as the armistice line of 1953 changed little from the battle line of summer 1951, it is no exaggeration to say that the final breakdown of repatriation choices had been determined in the months leading up to April 1952. 11General Dodd's Kidnapping and General Boatner's Crackdown chapter abstractThis chapter narrates Koje prison commandant General Francis Dodd's kidnapping by North Korean prisoners and his successor Haydon Boatner's crackdown on North Korean and Chinese Communist prisoners, who had been separated from the anti-Communists. With methodical planning and a firm hand, "Old China Hand" Boatner tamed the newly formed Chinese Communist Compound 602. He also broke up North Korean Compound 76, whose prisoners had kidnapped Dodd, and restored order on Koje Island. But his success was short-lived, as he was soon promoted and headed stateside. 12China Hands on Koje and Cheju chapter abstractThis chapter examines the roles played by several low-ranking "Old China Hands" on Koje and Cheju island. Philip Manhard, a junior Foreign Service officer who began learning Chinese in 1948, was posted on Koje per Acheson's instructions. He authored several reports highly critical of the UNC prison authorities and anti-Communist trusties. The openly anti-Communist Catholic Chaplain Thomas O'Sullivan also served as an interpreter and became involved in the death of a Communist prisoner. MP Captain Joseph Brooks, who claimed that his Chinese wife and child had been killed by the Communists, became increasingly hostile toward Chinese Communist prisoners. Trouble was brewing on Cheju Island. 13October 1 Massacre on Cheju chapter abstractChapter 13 investigates the deadly incident on October 1, 1952, that resulted in the deaths of fifty-six Chinese pro-Communist prisoners. US internal investigation reports and interviews with several Chinese witnesses and an American soldier who fired into the crowd debunk the US official claim of a mass prison break. In the lead-up to the incident, there had been a period of high-octane confrontation and mutual insults. The prison authorities had ordered guards to "shoot to kill" prisoners for any and all aggressive actions. The military police unit was led by the openly hostile Captain Brooks; Communist prisoners were commanded by equally bellicose leaders, who secretly ordered the assassination of Brooks. A clash was all but inevitable. 14Exchanges and "Explanation" chapter abstractChapter 14 examines the repatriation of pro-Communist prisoners in August and September 1953 and the subsequent 90-day "Explanation" for the anti-Communists and their eventual release to Taiwan in January 1954. This chapter also turns to the story of the twelve Chinese and seventy-six Korean prisoners who chose neutral nations and went to India. It highlights the roles played by the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC) and the Custodial Forces of India, which administered the anti-Communist prisoners at Panmunjom. The prisoners' experiences are told through oral histories, including those of China- and Taiwan-bound prisoners, and two neutral-nation-bound prisoners, a Chinese and a North Korean, who chose neutral nations and are now living in Argentina. 15Prisoner-Agents of Unit 8240 chapter abstractChapter 15 uncovers the hitherto unknown history of prisoner-turned-agents. Between late 1951 and early 1954, several hundred Chinese prisoners disappeared from prison camps and were declared to have "escaped." They were drafted by a US military intelligence unit—the Far East Command Liaison Detachment (Korea), the 8240th Army Unit. After some crude training, they infiltrated into North Korea by air, by sea, or by land, and had to return to the UNC side on foot. More than half of these prisoner-agents—probably more than two hundred—were killed or captured during missions, and some of the captured were executed by the PRC. The program practically destroyed the best educated and most committed Chinese anti-Communist prisoners. This chapter draws on interviews with several of the seventy survivors who went to Taiwan, detailing their narrow escape from death and the loss of their comrades. 16Aftermath chapter abstractThis chapter sketches prisoners' postwar lives in Taiwan, the PRC, and India, and subsequently Latin America. None of the 7,110 POWs who were repatriated to China between April 1953 and January 1954 went home directly, as they were subjected to a yearlong investigation that resulted in the expulsion of 91.8 percent of the 2,900 Communist members from the CCP, dishonorable discharge of 4,600 repatriates from the PLA counting from the date of their capture, the expulsion of some 700 men from the PLA, and the arrest of a small number of traitors and spy suspects. No one was allowed to rejoin the PLA. What followed was lifetime stigma and persecution. In contrast, few of the 14,000 Taiwan-bound prisoners were allowed to quit the military, where they were closely monitored. While some prisoners became victims of the White Terror, others found opportunities in Taiwan's increasingly free and prosperous society. Conclusion chapter abstractVoluntary repatriation and prisoner reindoctrination, the twin US policies in the second half of the Korean War—the war over the prisoners—were major failures, as they achieved none of their original objectives and denied the rights of the majority of prisoners while protecting only a minority. No one had anticipated the price for paying lip service to fighting the Chinese Communists—with propaganda and psychological warfare—could be so dear. The United States had paid a punishing price for its arrogance toward the Chinese and its ignorance about the Chinese Communists in the Korean War, but few understand why the war was fought for three years instead of one. It is a lesson that remains to be learned.

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Book SynopsisDespite its pervasive reputation as a place of religious extremes and war, Afghanistan has a complex and varied religious landscape where elements from a broad spectrum of religious belief vie for a place in society. It is also one of the birthplaces of a widely practiced variant of Islam: Sufism. Contemporary analysts suggest that Sufism is on the decline due to war and the ideological hardening that results from societies in conflict. However, in Sufi Civilities, Annika Schmeding argues that this is far from a truthful depiction. Members of Sufi communities have worked as resistance fighters, aid workers, business people, actors, professors, and daily workers in creative and ingenious ways to keep and renew their networks of community support. Based on long-term ethnographic field research among multiple Sufi communities in different urban areas of Afghanistan, the book examines navigational strategies employed by Sufi leaders over the past four decades to weather periods of instability and persecution, showing how they adapted to changing conditions in novel ways that crafted Sufism as a force in the civil sphere. This book offers a rare on-the-ground view into how Sufi leaders react to moments of transition within a highly insecure environment, and how humanity shines through the darkness during times of turmoil.Trade Review"An engaging, compelling, and beautifully-written ethnography that traverses the heterogeneous Sufi sociosphere of contemporary Afghanistan. Schmeding documents, in arresting detail and acute sensitivity, the dexterity of Sufi adepts in creating and maintaining civil communities amidst violence and ruptures. At once profound, riveting, and timely, the book is a vital contribution to the study of religion and civil society."—Ismail Fajrie Alatas, New York University"Sufi Civilities opens the door to a marvelous world of faith that lies hidden in plain sight. Schmeding's path breaking ethnographic account of diverse Sufi communities in contemporary Afghanistan is both new and exciting. Over the past half century they have outlasted every radical political regime that failed to appreciate just how deeply Sufism is embedded in Afghanistan's Islamic culture."—Thomas Barfield, Boston University"Afghan Sufis have been hidden from view by attention to mujahidin, Taliban, and al-Qaida. Through astute anthropological observation, Annika Schmeding shows how Sufis became important players in the contests for religious authority that emerged from the cultural whirligig of a NATO-supported Islamic Republic. This is a major contribution to the study of modern Afghanistan."—Nile Green, University of California, Los Angeles

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Book Synopsis Many have questioned the wisdom of the international intervention in Afghanistan in light of the escalation of violence and instability in the country in the past few years. Particularly uncertain are Canadians, who have been inundated with media coverage of an increasingly dirty war in southern Afghanistan, one in which Canadians are at the frontline and suffering heavy casualties. However, the conflict is only one aspect of Afghanistan's complicated, and incomplete, political, economic, and security transition. In Afghanistan: Transition under Threat, leading Afghanistan scholars and practitioners paint a full picture of the situation in Afghanistan and the impact of international and particularly Canadian assistance. They review the achievements of the reconstruction process and outline future challenges, focusing on key issues like the narcotics trade, the Pakistan - Afghanistan bilateral relationship, the Taliban-led insurgency, and continuing endemic poverty. This collection provides new insight into the nature and state of Afghanistan's post-conflict transition and illustrates the consequences of failure. Co-published with the Centre for International Governance Innovation Trade Review``Though originating in the context of Canadian political debates, the volume's center of gravity is not Canada in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan itself, objectively considered, as a genuine national policy dilemma. For that reason, it is of immediate relevance to decision-making processes presently confronting the United States and those nations whose soldiers and national coffers will provide the means for proceeding in this key theater of 'The Long War.'... Development studies, area studies, South Asian history, international relations, national security studies, post-conflict peace studies, are the principal academic audiences for this text. Many others employed in government, international organizations, NGO's, and the relevant private sector, are also likely beneficiaries. It is important for academics outside of Canada to learn how Canadians, who GDP and armed forces are a small fraction of America's, view the magnitude of the challenges, sacrifices, and dilemmas facing Afghanistan c. 2006. Jargon-free in general, well-edited, with a very satisfactory index, the volume is suitable as a supplemental text for advanced undergraduates and above.'' -- Paul Kamolnick, East Tennessee State University -- Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, 200912``Straddling the fraught international crossroad of terrorism and drugs, Afghanistan has succeeded in puncturing the hubris of liberal interventionism. It poses a new question to policy-makers: How do you defeat an insurgency in a fragile state? In this comprehensive collection, Hayes and Sedra succeed in bringing together an impressive range of opinion and expertise that adds to our understanding of contemporary Afghanistan and its international significance. This excellent book examines the political, economic, and security considerations underpinning the current search for peace, stability, and nationhood. It provides a sober, penetrating, and, in places, controversial analysis of the missed opportunities, problems, and, indeed, successes of this encounter.'' -- Mark Duffield, Professor of Development Politics, Bristol University -- 200810``Hayes, Sedra, and their colleagues provide the most comprehensive and balanced assessment to date of the international effort in Afghanistan.'' -- Barnett R. Rubin, Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center on International Cooperation, New York University -- 200810Table of Contents Afghanistan: Transition under Threat, edited by Geoffrey Hayes and Mark Sedra Foreword Christopher Alexander Introduction Mark Sedra and Geoffrey Hayes Section I: The Political Transition Looking Back at the Bonn Process William Maley Afghanistan: The Challenge of State Building Ali A. Jalali Poppy, Politics, and State Building Jonathan Goodhand Section II: The Economic Transition Responding to Afghanistan's Development Challenge: An Assessment of Experience and Priorities for the Future William A. Byrd Laying Economic Foundations for a New Afghanistan Seema Patel Section III: The Security Transition The Neo-Taliban Insurgency: From Village Islam to International Jihad Antonio Giustozzi Security Sector Reform and State Building in Afghanistan Mark Sedra Insecurity along the Durand Line Husain Haqqani Section IV: The Canadian Case Peace Building and Development in the Fragile State of Afghanistan: A Practitioner's Perspective Nipa Banerjee Establishing Security in Afghanistan: Strategic and Operational Perspectives M.D. Capstick Canada in Afghanistan: Assessing the Numbers Geoffrey Hayes Contributors Index Contributors' Bios Nipa Banerjee worked for thirty-three years for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), serving both at the headquarters level and in the field. She represented CIDA in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Afghanistan. Her most recent posting, in Kabul (2003-2006), was as CIDA's head of aid for Afghanistan. In July 2008, she joined the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, where she lectures on international development. Her research interests include development in post-conflict countries and aid coordination and aid effectiveness, with a focus on Afghanistan. William A. Byrd is currently serving in the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC, as adviser in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit of the South Asia Region. Until recently he was the bank's senior economic adviser in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he helped to develop the World Bank's strategy for Afghanistan's reconstruction effort. He led the team that produced the first World Bank economic report on Afghanistan in a quarter-century. He has been with the World Bank for more than twenty years, during which time he has worked on China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. His publications include six books on China and numerous articles, including several on Afghanistan. He has been responsible for reports on Afghanistan's public finance management, economic co-operation in the wider Central Asia region, and Afghanistan's drug industry. Most recently he co-authored a joint report of the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development titled Afghanistan: Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production. Colonel Mike Capstick retired from the Canadian Armed Forces (Regular) in late 2006 after thirty-two years of service. His final appointment was as Commander of the first deployment of the CF Strategic Advisory Team Afghanistan from August 2005 until August 2006. This unique unit, a mixed military civilian team, provided strategic planning advice and capacity building to development-related agencies of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his leadership of this team and is currently an associate at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary. Antonio Giustozzi is a research fellow at the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics, where he runs a research project on contemporary Afghanistan. He is the author of War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan, 1978-1992 (2000) and Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (2007) as well as several papers and articles on Afghanistan. Jonathan Goodhand teaches in the development studies department of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. His involvement with Afghanistan dates back to the late 1980s, when he was an aid worker based in Peshawar, Pakistan. Since then he has conducted research and published widely on issues related to civil wars, war economies, international aid, and post-conflict peacebuilding. His most recent publication is Aiding Peace? The Role of NGOs in Armed Conflict (2006). Husain Haqqani is Pakistan's ambassador to the United States. Prior to taking this post he was the Director of Boston University's Center for International Relations and co-chair of the Islam and Democracy Project at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as an adviser to Pakistani prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and as Pakistan's ambassador to Sri Lanka. His most recent book is Pakistan between Mosque and Military (2005). Geoffrey Hayes is an associate professor in the department of history at the University of Waterloo and is the associate director of the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, both of which are based in Waterloo, Canada. His work on contemporary defence issues has appeared in such journals as War and Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal and Behind the Headlines. Most recently he co-edited, with Mike Bechthold and Andrew Iarocci, Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007). Ali A. Jalali was the interior minister of Afghanistan from January 2003 to September 2005. He is currently serving as both a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and a researcher at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, both of which are based at the National Defence University in Washington, DC. His areas of interest include reconstruction, stabilization, and peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and regional issues affecting Afghanistan, Central Asia, and South Asia. He has published widely on Afghanistan. William Maley is a professor and the director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University. He has served as a visiting professor at the Russian Diplomatic Academy, a visiting fellow at the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, and a visiting research fellow in the refugee-studies program at Oxford University. A regular visitor to Afghanistan, he is the author of numerous books on Afghanistan, including Rescuing Afghanistan (2006) and The Afghanistan Wars (2002). Seema Patel is an independent consultant whose focus is on market-led economic development in fragile environments. She is currently a consultant to the AfghanAmerican chamber of commerce and the Global Development Alliance at USAID. She recently left the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she served as a business development advisor for the project. From 2006 to 2007 she led a comprehensive CSIS field-based study on reconstruction in Afghanistan. The final report for the project was titled Breaking Point: Measuring Progress in Afghanistan. Mark Sedra is a research assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, both of which are based in Waterloo, Canada. He currently leads CIGI's research program on global and human security. He has regularly served as a consultant to governments, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs on security issues in Afghanistan and has published widely on the country. His most recent publications are: The Search for Security in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (2007), co-authored with Cyrus Hodes, and Afghanistan, Arms, and Conflict Armed Groups, Disarmament and Security in a Post-War Society (2008), co-authored with Michael Vinay Bhatia.

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Book SynopsisThis work is a cultural history of the Vietnam War and its continuing impact upon contemporary American society. The author presents an investigation of how myths about the war evolved and why people depend on them to answer the confusing questions that have become the legacy of the war. Memories change and reconstruct the past, and in this text, the author argues that the American memory of Vietnam has left fact and experience behind so that what remains is myth and denial.Trade ReviewAn all inclusive cultural history of the Vietnam War and its continuing impact upon contemporary American society. - Library Journal ""Coming to terms with the Vietnam War - the war that America lost - has been a long, grueling struggle, mired by historical denial and distortion and, as Franklin so formidably reveals, myths that have become entrapped in American culture. He presents a scholarly, yet personal and lucid investigation of how these myths evolved and why people depend upon them to answer the confusing questions that have become the legacy of the war."" - ForeWord ""Franklin has written on other subjects over the years, but Vietnam has inspired some of his most probing work.... Cogent cultural criticism."" - Booklist ""Memories change and reconstruct the past, and in this provocative study, Rutgers cultural historian Franklin argues that the American memory of Vietnam has left fact and experience behind so that what remains is myth and denial."" - Publishers Weekly memory of the Vietnam War, this book is indispensable,"" - Richard Falk, Princeton University ""What marks this provocative and engaging book is H. Bruce Franklin's steadfast resistance to a society that takes 'plausible deniability' as its first principle. The range of subjects considered, Franklin's clear-headed analysis, and his impressive knowledge all make this an important contribution."" - Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990

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Book SynopsisThis is a wide-ranging critical assessment of the cultural impact of America's longest war.The lingering aftereffects of the Vietnam War resonate to this day throughout American society: in foreign policy, in attitudes about the military and war generally, and in the contemporary lives of members of the so-called baby boom generation who came of age during the 1960s and early 1970s. While the best-known personal accounts of the war tend to center on the experience of combat, Maureen Ryan's ""The Other Side of Grief"" examines the often overlooked narratives - novels, short stories, memoirs, and films - that document the war's impact on the home front.In analyzing the accounts of Vietnam veterans, women as well as men, Ryan focuses on the process of readjustment, on how the war continued to insinuate itself into their lives, their families, and their communities long after they returned home. She looks at the writings of women whose husbands, lovers, brothers, and sons served in Vietnam and whose own lives were transformed as a result. She also appraises the experiences of the POWs who came to be embraced as the war's only heroes; the ordeal of Vietnamese refugees who fled their 'American War' to new lives in the United States; and the influential movement created by those who committed themselves to protesting the war.The end result of Ryan's investigations is a cogent synthesis of the vast narrative literature generated by the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Together those stories powerfully demonstrate how deeply the legacies of the war penetrated American culture and continue to reverberate still.Trade ReviewWhat I especially like about The Other Side of Grief is the way it enlarges what most readers think of as 'Vietnam War literature.' By juxtaposing the canonical veteran novels and memoirs with those of women, former POWs, antiwar activists, and Vietnamese refugees, we gain a much richer and broader understanding of the impact of the war on the entire society. - Christian G. Appy, author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides ""This is a book that needed to be written. Maureen Ryan has done it, and she has done it professionally, thoroughly, and completely."" - Philip D. Beidler, author of Re-writing America: Vietnam Authors in Their Generation

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Book SynopsisIn 1968 James T. Gillam was a poorly focused college student at Ohio University who was dismissed and then drafted into the Army. Unlike most African-Americans who entered the Army then, he became a Sergeant and an instructor at the Fort McClellan Alabama School of Infantry. In September 1968 he joined the First Battalion, 22nd Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. Within a month he transformed from an uncertain sergeant—who tried to avoid combat—to an aggressive soldier, killing his first enemy and planning and executing successful ambushes in the jungle. Gillam was a regular point man and occasional tunnel rat who fought below ground, an arena that few people knew about until after the war ended. By January 1970 he had earned a Combat Infantry Badge and been promoted to Staff Sergeant. Then Washington’s politics and military strategy took his battalion to the border of Cambodia. Search-and-destroy missions became longer and deadlier. From January to May his unit hunted and killed the enemy in a series of intense firefights, some of them in close combat. In those months Gillam was shot twice and struck by shrapnel twice. He became a savage, strangling a soldier in hand-to-hand combat inside a lightless tunnel. As his mid-summer date to return home approached, Gillam became fiercely determined to come home alive. The ultimate test of that determination came during the Cambodian invasion. On his last night in Cambodia, the enemy got inside the wire of the firebase, and the killing became close range and brutal. Gillam left the Army in June 1970, and within two weeks of his last encounter with death, he was once again a college student and destined to become a university professor. The nightmares and guilt about killing are gone, and so is the callous on his soul. Life and Death in the Central Highlands is a gripping, personal account of one soldier’s war in the Vietnam War.

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Book SynopsisIn Beyond the Quagmire, thirteen scholars from across disciplines provide a series of provocative, important, and timely essays on the politics, combatants, and memory of the Vietnam War. The essays pose new questions, offer new answers, and establish important lines of debate regarding social, political, military, and memory studies. Part 1 contains four chapters by scholars who explore the politics of war in the Vietnam era. In Part 2, five contributors offer chapters on Vietnam combatants with analyses of race, gender, environment, and Chinese intervention. Part 3 provides four innovative and timely essays on Vietnam in history and memory.Trade ReviewThis will be a valuable and significant addition to the historiography of the war."" - James Willbanks, author of Abandoning Vietnam and The Tet Offensive

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Book SynopsisPhantom in the Sky is the story of a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat of the supersonic Phantom jet during the Vietnam War—a unique, tactical perspective of the ""guy in back,"" or GIB, absent from other published aviation accounts. During the time of Terry L. Thorsen's service from 1966 to 1970, the RIO played an integral part in enemy aircraft interception and ordnance delivery. In Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom jets, the RIO was a second pair of eyes for the pilot, in charge of communications and navigation, and great to have during emergencies. Thorsen endured the tough Platoon Leaders Course at Quantico and barely earned a commission. He underwent aviation and intercept training while suffering airsickness issues—and still earned his wings. Thorsen joined the oldest and most decorated squadron in the Marine Corps, the VMFA-232 Red Devils in southern California, as it prepared for deployment to Vietnam. In combat, Thorsen felt angst when he saw the sky darken around him from anti-aircraft artillery explosions high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On his first close air support mission in support of ground troops (the majority of his Marine aviation missions), he witnessed tracers whiz by his canopy. On one harrowing sortie, he and his pilot purposely became the target to save an Army unit battling an enemy just a hundred feet away. On secret missions with secret weapons, they dove at anti-aircraft artillery muzzle flashes and flew as a low as fifty feet off the deck during close air support sorties, ""scraping"" the napalm off their plane. For one mission a friend survived a crash landing, but a training instructor vanished without a trace.

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Book SynopsisMuch of the history written about the Vietnam War overlooks the U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons. These CAPs lived in the Vietnamese villages, with the difficult and dangerous mission of defending the villages from both the National Liberation Front guerrillas and the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. The CAPs also worked to improve living conditions by helping the people with projects, such as building schools, bridges, and irrigation systems for their fields. In War in the Villages, Ted Easterling examines how well the CAPs performed as a counterinsurgency method, how the Marines adjusted to life in the Vietnamese villages, and how they worked to accomplish their mission. The CAPs generally performed their counterinsurgency role well, but they were hampered by factors beyond their control. Most important was the conflict between the Army and the Marine Corps over an appropriate strategy for the Vietnam War, along with weakness of the government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the strategic and the tactical ability of the North Vietnamese Army.War in the Villages helps to explain how and why this potential was realized and squandered. Marines who served in the CAPs served honorably in difficult circumstances. Most of these Marines believed they were helping the people of South Vietnam, and they served superbly. The failure to end the war more favorably was no fault of theirs.

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Book SynopsisDespite all that has been written about Vietnam, the story of the 1-A-O conscientious objector, who agreed to put on a uni-form and serve in the field without weapons rather than accept alternative service outside the military, has received scarce atten-tion. This joint memoir by two 1-A-O combat medics, James C. Kearney and William H. Clamurro, represents a unique approach to the subject. It is a blend of their personal narratives—with select Vietnam poems by Clamurro—to illustrate noncombatant objection as a unique and relatively unknown form of Vietnam War protest. Both men initially met during training and then served as frontline medics in separate units “outside the wire” in Vietnam. Clamurro was assigned to a tank company in Tay Ninh province next to the Cambodian border, before reassignment to an aid station with the 1st Air Cavalry. Kearney served first as a medic with an artillery battery in the 1st Infantry Division, then as a convoy medic during the Cambodian invasion with the 25th Infantry Division, and finally as a Medevac medic with the 1st Air Cavalry. In this capacity Kearney was seriously wounded during a “hot hoist” in February 1971 and ended up being treated by his friend Clamurro back at base. Because of their status as “a new breed of conscientious objector”—i.e., more political than religious in their convictions—the authors’ experience of the Vietnam War differed fundamentally from that of their fellow draftees and contrasted even with the great majority of their fellow 1-A-O medics, whose conscientious objector status was largely or entirely faith-based.

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Book SynopsisIn my year in Vietnam, I walked the booby-trapped rice paddies of the Delta, searching for the elusive Viet Cong, and later macheted my way through the triple-canopy jungle, fighting the North Vietnamese Regulars...I sweated, thirsted, hunted, killed. Somewhere in all my experiences, I overlapped the situations of nearly every infantryman and many others who served. Michael Lee Lanning's journal of his first tour of duty in Vietnam provides an unvarnished daily account of life in the field - the blood, fear, camaraderie, and tedium of combat and maneuver. Fleshed out with narrative and detail years later, the pages of this memorable book, first published in 1987, show an eager young recruit growing before the reader's eyes into a proud but bloodied combat veteran. Subsequent volumes in his ""Vietnam Trilogy"" will detail Lanning's tour as a company commander and his postwar investigation into the mind of the enemy. Through his eyes, readers see the reality of a war that did not always receive glory but was, in his words, ""the only war we had.

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Book SynopsisHow American soldiers opposed and resisted the war in Vietnam While mainstream narratives of the Vietnam War all but marginalize anti-war activity of soldiers, opposition and resistance from within the three branches of the military made a real difference to the course of America’s engagement in Vietnam. By 1968, every major peace march in the United States was led by active duty GIs and Vietnam War veterans. By 1970, thousands of active duty soldiers and marines were marching in protest in US cities. Hundreds of soldiers and marines in Vietnam were refusing to fight; tens of thousands were deserting to Canada, France and Sweden. Eventually the US Armed Forces were no longer able to sustain large-scale offensive operations and ceased to be effective. Yet this history is largely unknown and has been glossed over in much of the written and visual remembrances produced in recent years. Waging Peace in Vietnam shows how the GI movement unfolded, from the numerous anti-war coffee houses springing up outside military bases, to the hundreds of GI newspapers giving an independent voice to active soldiers, to the stockade revolts and the strikes and near-mutinies on naval vessels and in the air force. The book presents first-hand accounts, oral histories, and a wealth of underground newspapers, posters, flyers, and photographs documenting the actions of GIs and veterans who took part in the resistance. In addition, the book features fourteen original essays by leading scholars and activists. Notable contributors include Vietnam War scholar and author, Christian Appy, and Mme Nguyen Thi Binh, who played a major role in the Paris Peace Accord. The book originates from the exhibition Waging Peace, which has been shown in Vietnam and the University of Notre Dame, and will be touring the eastern United States in conjunction with book launches in Boston, Amherst, and New York.Trade Review"The popular protest and resistance to the US war in Vietnam that developed, most dramatically and effectively, among the soldiers who refused to take part in a criminal war, played a leading role in revealing its horrors. This powerful record of their struggles and achievements is a most welcome contribution, with critical lessons for the future." -- Noam Chomsky"No one did more to bring an end to America's cruel and unjust war in Vietnam than the patriotic GIs and veterans who turned against it. This extraordinary history of their struggle should inspire all of us who seek to end the ongoing and interrelated threats of war, nuclear doomsday, and environmental catastrophe." -- Daniel Ellsberg * Pentagon Papers *"An extraordinary collection of first-hand accounts and unforgettable photos from the rank-and-file soldiers and GI organizers who spearheaded one of the most important yet often overlooked peace movements in U.S. history. Finally, the amazing story is told of how resistance to the Vietnam War from inside the military helped force an end to that tragic imperial conflict." -- Juan González, Richard D. Heffner Professor of Communications and Public Policy, Rutgers University, and co-host * Democracy Now *"Waging Peace is an essential reminder of the collaboration between US soldiers and civilians to oppose the Vietnam War. The essays highlight the diversity of the anti-war movement and the war’s far-reaching impact on American and Vietnamese lives. It is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of what it means to be patriotic in a time of war." -- Heather Marie Stur, author, Beyond Combat: Women and Gender in the Vietnam War Era"This collection of first-person accounts and essays on the GI peace movement is long over-due and much-needed. Active duty military men and women, as well as vets from all branches of the armed forces, marched against the War, reported war crimes or refused deployment to Vietnam, risking court martial and sometimes their lives. 'For decades after the war, a sort of conspiracy of silence or forgetfulness seemed to erase the significance of these events in helping to end the war,' Ron Carver writes. Yet the GI movement was crucial to bringing peace to Vietnam, as this book convincingly shows." -- Sophie Quinn-Judge, author * Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years *"Waging Peace offers a full and extraordinarily powerful picture of the way that soldiers and veterans provided a much-overlooked but immense contribution to forcing an end to the United States invasion of Vietnam." * The Progressive *"This is a valuable reference book and should be a part of every Vietnam War section in college and public libraries." * The VVA Veteran *

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Book SynopsisIn February 1971, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) launched an incursion into Laos in an attempt to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and destroy North Vietnamese Army (NVA) base areas along the border. This movement would be the first real test of Vietnamization, Pres. Richard Nixon’s program to turn the fighting over to South Vietnamese forces as US combat troops were withdrawn. US ground forces would support the operation from within South Vietnam and would pave the way to the border for ARVN troops, and US air support would cover the South Vietnamese forces once they entered Laos, but the South Vietnamese forces would attack on the ground alone. The operation, dubbed Lam Son 719, went very well for the first few days, but as movement became bogged down the NVA rushed reinforcements to the battle and the ARVN forces found themselves under heavy attack. US airpower wreaked havoc on the North Vietnamese troops, but the South Vietnamese never regained momentum and ultimately began to withdraw back into their own country under heavy enemy pressure. In this first in-depth study of this operation, military historian and Vietnam veteran James H. Willbanks traces the details of battle, analyzes what went wrong, and suggests insights into the difficulties currently being incurred with the training of indigenous forces.

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Book SynopsisIn his televised and widely watched speech to the nation on November 3, 1969, Pres. Richard M. Nixon introduced a phrase—“silent majority”—and a policy—Vietnamization of the war effort—that echo down to the present day. Nixon’s appearance on this night framed the terms in which much of the subsequent civil conflict and military strategy would be understood.Rhetorical scholar Karlyn Kohrs Campbell analyzes this critically important speech in light of the historical context and its centrality to three other speeches–two earlier and one the following spring, when the announcement of the US invasion of Cambodia brought a far different response. She also sheds light on a discourse that generated much heat in a nation already seriously divided in its support of the war in Vietnam.The first single volume dedicated to this speech, this addition to the distinguished Library of Presidential Rhetoric provides the speech text, a summary of its context, its rhetorical elements, and the disciplinary analyses that have developed.

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Book SynopsisFrom its inception, graduates of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now Texas A&M University, have marched off to fight in every conflict in which the United States has been involved. Th e Vietnam War was no different. Th e Corps of Cadets produced more officers for the conflict in Southeast Asia than any institution other than the US service academies. Michael Lee Lanning, Texas A&M University class of 1968, has now gathered over three dozen recollections from those who served.As Lanning points out, “anytime Aggie Vietnam veterans get together—whether it is two or two hundred of them—war stories begin.” Th e tales they relate about the paddies, the jungles, the highlands, the waterways, and the airways provide these veterans with an even greater understanding of the war they survived. They also allow glimpses into the frequent dangers of fi refights, the camaraderie of patrol, and oft en humorous responses to inexplicable situations.These revelations provide insight not only into the realities of war but also speak to the character of the graduates of Texas A&M University. As Lanning concludes, “these war stories are as much a part of service as is that old green duffle bag, a few rows of colorful ribbons, and a pride that does not diminish. In reality, there is only one story about the Vietnam War. We all just tell it differently.”

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Book SynopsisCombat Talons in Vietnam is a personal account of the first use of C-130s in the Vietnam War. It provides an insider’s view of crew training and classified missions for this technologically advanced aircraft. Many covert missions over North Vietnam were sucessful, but one night, John Gargus, a mission planner, oversaw an operation in which the aircraft—carrying eleven crewmembers—failed to return from a nighttime mission. For thirty years, a search for the missing aircraft remained in progress. In the late 1990s, the Combat Talon veteran community at Hurlburt Field in Florida, still uncertain of the full story, decided to dedicate a memorial to the lost crew. When wartime mission records were declassified, Gargus embarked on a long journey of inquiry, research, and puzzle-solving to reconstruct the events of that mission and the fate of its crew. He discovered that the wreckage of the plane had been found in 1992 and that the remains of the crew were being held in Hawaii. Through numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, interviews, and site visits, Gargus sought to answer the question of why it took so long to find the wreckage and, more importantly, why the special operations command units and crewmember families were left uninformed. By 2000, the remains were relocated to a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery at last providing a measure of closure to family, friends, and comrades.

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Book SynopsisSince the end of the draft in the United States, the nation's wars have been fought by all-volunteer forces, creating an enormous divide between the civilian public and its military. Recent wars have taken place during the information age, allowing cable news and the ""new media"" of the internet to change, sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis, the way wars are understood. As a result, a multitude of competing and often flawed narratives have emerged that, ultimately, merely explain events in terms of self-serving political and cultural perspectives. Author Caleb S. Cage, a veteran of the war in Iraq, brings a unique perspective to the understanding of how we talk about war. Why does the American public believe that those who served are somehow both heroes and victims, while the typical service member rarely embraces either identity? How does what happens on the front line get communicated to those back home, and what happens to that information as it travels? Is it possible that works of fiction are telling the most ""real"" versions of what is happening ""over there""?War Narratives is a tightly packed and provocative book containing a series of connected essays on the many competing narratives—both fiction and nonfiction—that are used to explain recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how those narratives are perceived through preexisting social, political, and literary lenses, and how they often fall short. As Cage points out, narratives are not merely the stories shared or even how they are told; these expressions reflect choices.

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Book SynopsisFrom the defeat of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam at Ap Bac to the battles of the Ia Drang Valley, Khe Sanh, and more, Storms over the Mekong offers a reassessment of key turning points in the Vietnam War. Award-winning historian William P. Head not only reexamines these pivotal battles but also provides a new interpretation on the course of the war in Southeast Asia. In considering Operation Rolling Thunder, for example-which Head dubs as "too much rolling and not enough thunder"-readers will grasp the full scope of the campaign, from specifically targeted bridges in North Vietnam to the challenges of measuring success or failure, the domestic political situation, and how over time, Head argues, "slowly, but surely, Rolling Thunder dug itself into a hole." Likewise, Head shows how the battles for Saigon and Hue during the Tet Offensive of 1968 were tactical defeats for the Communist forces with as many as 40,000 killed and no real gains. At the same time, however, Tet made it clear to many in Washington that victory in Vietnam would require a still greater commitment of men and resources, far more than the American people were willing to invest.Storms over the Mekong is a blow-by-blow account of the key military events, to be sure. But beyond that, it is also a measured reconsideration of the battles and moments that Americans thought they already knew, adding up to a new history of the Vietnam War.

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Book SynopsisIn the vast literature on the Vietnam War, much has been written about the antiwar movement and its influence on U.S. policy and politics. In this book, Sandra Scanlon shifts attention to those Americans who supported the war and explores the war s impact on the burgeoning conservative political movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Believing the Vietnam War to be a just and necessary cause, the pro-war movement pushed for more direct American military intervention in Southeast Asia throughout the Kennedy administration, lobbied for intensified bombing during the Johnson years, and offered coherent, if divided, endorsements of Nixon s policies of phased withdrawal. Although its political wing was dominated by individuals and organisations associated with Barry Goldwater s presidential bids, the movement incorporated a broad range of interests and groups united by a shared antipathy to the New Deal order and liberal Cold War ideology. Appealing to patriotism, conservative leaders initially rallied popular support in favour of total victory and later endorsed Nixon s call for peace with honour. Yet as the war dragged on with no clear end in sight, internal divisions eroded the confidence of pro-war conservatives in achieving their aims and forced them to reevaluate the political viability of their hardline Cold War rhetoric. Conservatives still managed to make use of grassroots patriotic campaigns to marshal support for the war, particularly among white ethnic workers opposed to the antiwar movement. Yet in so doing, Scanlon concludes, they altered the nature and direction of the conservative agenda in both foreign and domestic policy for years to come.

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Book SynopsisFor a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam's Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra's ""These Boots Are Made for Walkin'."" For a ""tunnel rat"" who blew smoke into the Viet Cong's underground tunnels, it was Jimi Hendrix's ""Purple Haze."" For a black marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., it was Aretha Franklin's ""Chain of Fools."" And for countless other Vietnam vets, it was ""I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die,"" ""Who'll Stop the Rain,"" or the song that gives this book its title.In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans -- black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and ""grunts"" -- whose personal reflections drive the book's narrative. Many of the voices are those of ordinary soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines. But there are also ""solo"" pieces by veterans whose writings have shaped our understanding of the war -- Karl Marlantes, Alfredo Vea, Yusef Komunyakaa, Bill Ehrhart, Arthur Flowers -- as well as songwriters and performers whose music influenced soldiers' lives, including Eric Burdon, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Country Joe McDonald, and John Fogerty. Together their testimony taps into memories -- individual and cultural -- that capture a central if often overlooked component of the American war in Vietnam.Trade Review"Intimate and deeply informative, with a scope that encompasses both the war itself and the way that music has helped raise awareness of veterans' issues long after its end."—Rolling Stone

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Book SynopsisWhen African American servicemen went to fight in the Vietnam War, discrimination and prejudice followed them. Even in a faraway country, their military experiences were shaped by the racial environment of the home front. War is often viewed as a crucible that can transform society, but American race relations proved remarkably durable.In Race in the Crucible of War, Gerald F. Goodwin examines how Black servicemen experienced and interpreted racial issues during their time in Vietnam. Drawing on more than fifty new oral interviews and significant archival research, as well as newspapers, periodicals, memoirs, and documentaries, Goodwin reveals that for many African Americans the front line and the home front were two sides of the same coin. Serving during the same period as the civil rights movement and the race riots in Chicago, Detroit, and dozens of other American cities, these men increasingly connected the racism that they encountered in the barracks and on the battlefields with the tensions and violence that were simmering back home.Trade Review“Goodwin utilizes a wealth of previously unexamined sources to paint a complex and nuanced picture of the experiences of African American servicemen in Vietnam. That alone will ensure this book a spot on many shelves, specialist and non-specialist alike.”—Geoffrey W. Jensen, coeditor of Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War“Race in the Crucible of War expands, refines, and complicates our understanding of the African American military experience in Vietnam and how race and racism structured the U.S. military during a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. It is a towering achievement.”—Robert F. Jefferson, author of Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93rd Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America “Goodwin utilizes a wealth of previously unexamined sources to paint a complex and nuanced picture of the experiences of African American servicemen in Vietnam. That alone will ensure this book a spot on many shelves, specialist and non-specialist alike.”—Geoffrey W. Jensen, coeditor of Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War“Race in the Crucible of War expands, refines, and complicates our understanding of the African American military experience in Vietnam and how race and racism structured the U.S. military during a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. It is a towering achievement.”—Robert F. Jefferson, author of Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93rd Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America “Goodwin utilizes a wealth of previously unexamined sources to paint a complex and nuanced picture of the experiences of African American servicemen in Vietnam. That alone will ensure this book a spot on many shelves, specialist and non-specialist alike.”—Geoffrey W. Jensen, coeditor of Beyond the Quagmire: New Interpretations of the Vietnam War“Race in the Crucible of War expands, refines, and complicates our understanding of the African American military experience in Vietnam and how race and racism structured the U.S. military during a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. It is a towering achievement.”—Robert F. Jefferson, author of Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93rd Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar AmericaTable of Contents Acknowledgments Author’s Note Introduction CHAPTER 1 “We Was Just Us”De-Racialization on the Front Lines of the Vietnam War CHAPTER 2 “Brothers as Many Brothers as They Can Find”: Prejudice, Discrimination, and Death in Vietnam CHAPTER 3 "Tearing the Services Apart”: Racial Violence and the Other War in Vietnam CHAPTER 4 “I Thought of My Own People Back Home”: African American Servicemen and Vietnamese Civilians CHAPTER 5 "You and Me—Same Same” and “They Called Me ‘Monkey’”: Conflicting African American Views of Vietnamese Civilians CHAPTER 6 “We Won’t Shoot You, but We’ll Shoot the White Guy”: African American Views of Vietnamese Communist Forces CHAPTER 7 “I Had Left One War and Come Back to Another”: African Americans Return Home Conclusion Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe United States has both the largest, most expensive, and most powerful military and the largest, most expensive, and most punitive carceral system in the history of the world. Since the American War in Vietnam, the number of veterans who have been incarcerated after their military service has steadily increased, with over 100,000 veterans in prison today. Identifying the previously unrecognized connections between American wars and mass incarceration, Prisoners after War reaches across lines of race, class, and gender to record the untold history of incarcerated veterans over the past six decades. Having conducted dozens of oral history interviews, Jason A. Higgins traces the lifelong effects of war, inequality, disability, and mental illness, and explores why hundreds of thousands of veterans, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, were caught up in the carceral system. This original study tells an intergenerational history of state-sanctioned violence, punishment, and inequality, but its pages also resonate with stories of survival and redemption, revealing future possibilities for reform and reparative justice.Trade ReviewPrisoners after War is on the cutting edge. It will appeal to a wide array of readers, including scholars of carceral and military history, social scientists interested in the intersections of veterans’ service and reentry, and crucially, general audiences curious about the lived experiences of criminalization and incarceration." - Melanie D. Newport, author of This is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise and Mass Incarceration

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Book SynopsisOn November 18, 1965, U.S. Navy pilot Willie Sharp ejected from his F-8 fighter after being hit while positioned over a target in North Vietnam. With a cloud layer beneath him, he did not know if he was over land—where he would most certainly be captured or killed by the North Vietnamese—or over the Gulf of Tonkin. As he ejected, both navy and air force aircraft were already heading toward him to help. What followed was a dramatic rescue made by pilots and other airmen with little or no training or experience in combat search-and-rescue. Told by former military flight test engineer Eileen A. Bjorkman, this story includes nail-biting descriptions of air combat, flight, and rescue. Bjorkman places Sharp’s story in the larger context of the U.S. military’s development of its “leave no man behind” ethic, and calls attention to the more than eighty thousand Americans still missing from conflicts since World War I. She also explores the devastating aftershocks of the Vietnam War as Sharp struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. Woven into this gripping tale is the fascinating history of combat search-and-rescue missions that officially began in World War II. Combining the cockiness and camaraderie of Top Gun with the heroics of Sully, Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin is a riveting tale of combat rescue and an unforgettable story about the U.S. military’s commitment to leave no man behind.Trade Review"Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin is a worthwhile addition to the Vietnam-era rescue literature, and documents a memorable story that deserved to be preserved."—John J. Deeney IV, Journal of Military History"Bjorkman's Air Force career as a flight test engineer and flight instructor lends authenticity and color to her descriptions of aviation history."—Military Officer"Eileen A. Bjorkman’s Unforgotten in the Gulf: A Story of the U.S. Military’s Commitment to Leave No One Behind . . . is a well-written, meticulously researched and annotated story of the history and development of air rescue and retrieval from World War I to the present day."—VVA Veteran"Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin: A Story of the U.S. Military's Commitment to Leave No One Behind is full of vignettes of fascinating stories from the birth of combat aviation to the rise of combat search and rescue. It weaves together a tapestry of short stories that all add up to display the most awe-inspiring aspect of military life—that no matter what happens, the U.S. military will come back for its own."—Blake Stilwell, military.com“Bjorkman has written not only a superb account of one navy pilot’s rescue during the Vietnam War but also the histories of the F-8 Crusader, naval air training, air/sea rescue, aircraft carrier operations, the psychological aftereffects of combat, and the American ethos of making sure everyone leaves a combat area. Bjorkman deftly weaves these diverse topics into one cohesive story centered on Willie Sharp’s ejection and rescue on November 18, 1965. A gripping tale and marvelous history.”—Col. Scott A. Willey, USAF (Ret.), book review editor for Air Power History“Eileen Bjorkman masterfully blends the saga of the daring, heroic rescue of a downed fighter pilot in the Vietnam War with a history of the military air rescue mission whose brave men and women selflessly fulfilled its motto ‘That Others May Live.’ . . . A fascinating read.”—Gen. John Michael Loh, USAF (Ret.), former commander of Air Combat Command and fighter pilot in the Vietnam War“Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin is a tale well told, a true page-turner. Much as writers like Walter Isaacson and David McCullough make history come alive, Eileen Bjorkman’s narrative grips the reader and causes him or her to yearn to know what happens next. Put this book on your short list—you won’t be disappointed.”—Capt. George Galdorisi, U.S. Navy (Ret.), author of Leave No Man Behind: The Saga of Combat Search and RescueTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Hit 2. Leave No Man Behind 3. Willie 4. The Crusader 5. Bonnie Dick 6. The Mission 7. Recovery 8. Never Forget Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWith words and photographs, Rain in Our Hearts takes readers into Alpha Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th LIB, Americal Division in 1969–1970. Jim Logue, a professional photographer, was drafted and served as an infantryman; he also carried a camera. "In order to take my mind off the war," he would say, "I took pictures." Logue's photos showcase the daily lives of infantrymen: setting up a night laager, chatting with local children, making supply drops, and "humping" rucksacks miles each day in search of the enemy. His camera records the individual experiences and daily lives of the men who fought the war. Accompanying Logue's over 100 photographs is the narrative written by Gary D. Ford. Wanting to reconstruct the story of Alpha Company during the time in which Logue served, Ford and Logue trekked across America to meet with and interview every surviving member whom they could locate and contact. Each chapter of Rain in Our Hearts focuses on the viewpoint and life of one member of Alpha Company, including aspects of life before and after Vietnam. The story of the Company's movements and missions over the year unfold as readers are introduced to one soldier at a time. Taken together, Rain in Our Hearts offers readers a window into the words and sights of Alpha Company's Vietnam War.

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Book SynopsisThe Air War in Vietnam is a deep dive into the effectiveness of air power during the Vietnam War, offering particular evaluation of the extent to which air operations fulfilled national policy objectives. Built from exhaustive research into previously classified and little-known archival sources, Michael Weaver insightfully blends new sources with material from the State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States Series. While Air Force sources from the lion's share of the documentary evidence, Weaver also makes heavy use of Navy and Marine materials.Breaking air power into six different mission sets--air superiority, aerial refueling, airlift, close air support, reconnaissance, and coercion & interdiction--Weaver assesses the effectiveness of each of these endeavors from the tactical level of war and adherence to US policy goals. Critically, The Air War in Vietnam perceives of the air campaign as a siege of North Vietnam.While American air forces completed most of their air campaigns successfully on the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, what resulted was not a failure in air power, but a failure in the waging of war as a whole. The Air War in Vietnam tackles controversies and unearths new evidence, rendering verdicts both critical and positive, arguing that war, however it is waged, is ultimately effective only when it achieves a country's policy objectives.Trade ReviewMichael E. Weaver offers a detailed, comprehensive and meticulous re-examination of air power effectiveness during the Vietnam War. His fresh approach, shrewd analysis, and insightful research, including newly declassified evidence, demystifies air power's contribution to statecraft in a war that defied traditional metrics for measuring success and failure. This book is a work of significance and highly recommended." —Colonel John Andreas Olsen, author of A History of Air Warfare

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Book SynopsisOn the evening of July 11, 1967, a Navy surveillance aircraft spotted a suspicious trawler in international waters heading toward the Quang Ngai coast of South Vietnam. While the ship tried to appear innocuous on its deck, Saigon quickly identified it as an enemy gunrunner, codenamed Skunk Alpha. A four-seaborne intercept task force was established and formed a barrier inside South Vietnam’s twelve-mile territorial boundary. As the enemy ship ignored all orders to surrender and neared the Sa Ky River at the tip of the Batangan Peninsula, Swift Boat PCF-79 was ordered to take the trawler under fire. What followed was ship-to-ship combat action not seen since World War II. Capturing Skunk Alpha relates that breathtaking military encounter to readers for the first time. But Capturing Skunk Alpha is also the tale of one sailor’s journey to the deck of PCF-79. Two years earlier, Raúl Herrera was growing up on the west side of San Antonio, Texas, when he answered the call to duty and joined the US Navy. Raúl was assigned to PCF Crew Training and joined a ragtag six-man Swift Boat crew with a mission to prevent the infiltration of resupply ships from North Vietnam. The brave sailors who steered into harm’s way in war-torn Vietnam would keep more than ninety tons of ammunition and supplies from the Viet Cong and NVA forces. The Viet Cong would post a bounty on PCF-79; Premier Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Chief of State Nguyễn Văn Thiệu would congratulate and decorate them for their heroism. Capturing Skunk Alpha provides an eyewitness account of a pivotal moment in Navy operations while also chronicling one sailor’s unlikely journey from barrio adolescence to perilous combat action on the high seas. Trade ReviewThis is a true story of what Swift Boats and their gallant crews accomplished during that underappreciated war in South Vietnam. Capturing Skunk Alpha will secure our honorable place in US military history." —Captain Edward J. Bergin (USNR, Ret.)"Capturing Skunk Alpha is quite significant in that it tells of the courage, enthusiasm, and professionalism of those fortunate enough to be known as SWIFT Boat sailors, and the very important role they played in successful operations by the Navy’s Brown Water forces during the Vietnam War." —William L. Schachte Jr. (Rear Admiral, JAGC, USN Ret.)

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Book SynopsisThis is the first such study of Operation Banner, the British Army’s campaign in Northern Ireland. Drawing upon extensive interviews with former soldiers, primary archival sources including unpublished diaries and unit log-books, this book closely examines soldiers’ behaviour at the small infantry-unit level (Battalion downwards), including the leadership, cohesion and training that sustained, restrained and occasionally misdirected soldiers during the most violent period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It contends that there are aspects of wider scholarly literatures – including from sociology, anthropology, criminology, and psychology - that can throw new light on our understanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland. It also offers fresh insights and analysis of incidents involving the British Army during the early years of Operation Banner, including the 1972 ‘Pitchfork murders’ of Michael Naan and Andrew Murray in County Fermanagh, and that of Warrenpoint hotel owner Edmund Woolsey in South Armagh. The central argument of this book is that British Army small infantry units enjoyed considerable autonomy during the early years of Operation Banner and could behave in a vengeful, highly aggressive or benign and conciliatory way as their local commanders saw fit. The strain of civil-military relations at a senior level was replicated operationally as soldiers came to resent the limitations of waging war in the UK. The unwillingness of the Army’s senior leadership to thoroughly investigate and punish serious transgressions of standard operating procedures in Northern Ireland created uncertainty among soldiers over expected behaviour and desired outcomes. Overly aggressive groups of soldiers could also be mistaken for high-functioning units – with negative consequences for the Army’s overall strategy in Northern Ireland.Trade Review'An excellent, engaging and provocative study that addresses a crucial period during 'the Troubles' and examines patterns of behaviour within the British army as well as wider issues within Northern Ireland during this time.' Dr David Murphy, Maynooth University'Based on rich and original research, this is a well-researched and sophisticated study on the British Army in Northern Ireland.'Professor Richard English, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation and Engagement, Queen's University Belfast'An Army of Tribes is a rigorous work of painstaking scholarship that places the security dimension of the Northern Irish Troubles in much greater tactical and operational context than ever before.' Aaron Edwards, War on the Rocks'As a critical examination of the role of the 'green army', the ordinary uniformed soldiers in Northern Ireland, this is a work that will be hard to surpass.' Tom Griffin, Spinwatch'In addition to being high-quality academic history for the connoisseur, this [final] chapter is a beautiful piece of writing that evokes the intimacy and tragedy of the Northern Ireland conflict. It draws the book [...] together excellently.'Thomas Tormey, 20th Century British HistoryReviews ‘In An Army of Tribes, Burke has produced a piece of work on the Northern Ireland conflict unlike any other. The range of face to face interviews with those actively engaged on both sides of the Troubles in Belfast and South Armagh during the height of the conflict provides real depth to the analysis, while simultaneously adding value to our understanding of small unit leadership and cohesion.’ Christian Tripodi, RUSI Journal

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Book SynopsisThis is a wide-ranging analysis of the internal dynamics of Irish republicanism between the outbreak of ‘the Troubles’ in 1969 and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Engaging a vast array of hitherto unused primary sources alongside original and re-used oral history interviews, ‘The Age-Old Struggle’ draws upon the words and writings of more than 250 Irish republicans. This book scrutinises the movement's historical and contemporary complexity, the variety of influences within Irish republicanism, and divergent republican responses at pivotal moments in the conflict. Yet it also assesses the centripetal forces which connected republican organisations through decades of struggle.Across five thematic chapters, ‘The Age-Old Struggle’ offers new insights into republicanism’s multi-layered interactions with the global ’68, tactical and strategic change, revolutionary socialism, feminism, and religion. Drawing on political periodicals, ephemera, and interviews with activists throughout the ranks of several republican groups, the book roots its analysis in republicanism’s temporal and spatial complexity. It contends that the cultural significance of place, interactions with class and revolutionary politics, and shifting intra-movement networks are essential to understanding the movement’s dynamics since 1969.Trade Review'Jack Hepworth has produced one of the great books on Provisional Irish republicanism. Forensically researched, it provides unique and fresh insights into how rank-and-file volunteers responded to seismic events in local, national and international politics from the start of the Troubles to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.'Dr Paddy Hoey, Edge Hill University'This book is a fresh and significant addition to the literature on modern Irish republicanism. Hepworth illustrates the diversity of ideas within the republican movement by discussing the influence of feminism, socialism and religion, while also noting the impact of global events on activists. An important and nuanced book.'Dr Brian Hanley, Trinity College DublinTable of Contents‘The Age-Old Struggle’: Introduction1. The Global ’68 and its Afterlives2. Shifting Strategies3. ‘We Believed We Were on the Verge of World Revolution’: Irish Republicanism and the Revolutionary Left4. Feminism and Women’s Activism5. Catholicism‘The Age-Old Struggle’: Conclusion

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Book SynopsisA fresh analysis of the post-colonial war in Mozambique that contributes to debates about conflict, peacebuilding, development and nationalism and offers insights into the nature of contemporary politics and the current conflict. The 1976-1992 civil war which opposed the Government of Frelimo and the Renamo guerrillas (among other actors) is a central event in the history of Mozambique. Aiming to open up a new era of studies of the war, this book re-evaluates this period from a number of different local perspectives in an attempt to better understand the history, complexity and multiple dynamics of the armed conflict. Focusing at local level on either a province or a single village, the authors analyse the conflict as a "total social phenomena" involving all elements of society and impacting on every aspect of life across the country. The chapters examine Frelimo and Renamo as well as private, popular and state militias, the Catholic Church, NGOs and traders. Drawing on previously unexamined sources such as local and provincial state archives, religious archives, the guerrilla's own documentation and interviews, the authors uncoveralternative dimensions of the civil war. The book thus enables a deeper understanding of the conflict and its actors as well as offering an explanatory framework for understanding peacemaking, the nature of contemporary politics,and the current conflict in the country. Eric Morier-Genoud is a Lecturer in African history at Queen's University Belfast; Domingos Manuel do Rosário is Lecturer in electoral sociology and electoral governance at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique; Michel Cahen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at Bordeaux Political Studies Institute and at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid.Trade ReviewThe book provides a much-needed overview of the existing literature and new case studies drawing on longterm work and original materials. The analysis of Renamo documents, accounts of surviving villagers, interviews with militiamen, and religious archives, shines light on the spatial and temporal variations of the conflict, restores the agency of actors that had often been ignored or depicted as passive victims, and rehabilitates non-military dimensions of the war. This turns The War Within into the most complete yet synthetic account of the civil war and a necessary read. * AFRICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY *The War Within is a very well-researched, thought-provoking, well-written, and extremely engaging addition to the body of scholarship on Mozambique's civil war. * THE ROUND TABLE *The editors have done an excellent job of making the text open to general readers, while also engaging with the primary intended audience: scholars working on Mozambique. * JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN STUDIES *[...] outstanding contribution. * AFRICAN AFFAIRS *[...] this volume offers a welcome call for a new way of writing the history of Mozambique's civil war. * Canadian Journal of African Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Civil War in Mozambique - A history still to be written - Eric Morier-Genoud and Domingos Manuel do Rosário and Michel Cahen PART 1: IN THE NORTHERN HEART OF THE CIVIL WAR The Anti-Frelimo Movements and the War in Zambezia - Sérgio Inácio Chichava War to enforce a political project? Renamo in Nampula Province, 1983-1992 - Domingos Manuel do Rosário Spiritual power and the dynamics of war in the Provinces of Nampula and Zambézia - Corinna Jentzsch The War as seen by Renamo: Guerrilla politics and the "move to the North" at the time of the Nkomati Accord (1983-1985) - Michel Cahen PART II: IN THE SOUTH - ANOTHER KIND OF WAR? War in Inhambane: Re-shaping State, Society and Economy - Eric Morier-Genoud War Accounts from Ilha Josina Machel, Maputo Province - Lily Bunker Part III: INSIDE OUT: NEW PERSPECTIVES AND THE WORLD-SYSTEM Mozambique in the 1980s: Periphery goes Postmodern - Georgi Derluguian Conclusion: New perspectives on the civil war in Mozambique - Eric Morier-Genoud and Michel Cahen and Domingos Manuel do Rosário Towards a bibliography of the Mozambican Civil War - Eric Morier-Genoud and Michel Cahen and Domingos Manuel do Rosário

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Book SynopsisSometime in the late fall/early winter of 1962, a document began circulating among members of the Communist Party USA based in the Chicago area, titled "Whither the Party of Lenin." It was signed "The Ad Hoc Committee for Scientific Socialist Line." This was not the work of factionally inclined CP comrades, but rather something springing from the counter-intelligence imagination of the FBI. A Threat of the First Magnitude tells the story of the FBI's fake Maoist organization and the informants they used to penetrate the highest levels of the Communist Party USA, the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Union and other groups labelled threats to the internal security of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. As once again the FBI is thrust into the spotlight of US politics, A Threat of a First Magnitude offers a view of the historic inner-workings of the Bureau's counterintelligence operations - from generating "fake news" and the utilization of "sensitive intelligence methods" to the handling of "reliable sources" - that matches or exceeds the sophistication of any contenders.

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Book SynopsisIn this vibrant and dynamic book-length study drawing on a broad tapestry of research, Terence McSweeney offers an exploration of The Hurt Locker (2009), its stylistic and narrative devices, its cultural impact, its reception, and its relationship to the genre of the war film. McSweeney places the film in a richly textured historical, political, and industrial context, arguing that The Hurt Locker is part of a long tradition of films about American wars that play a considerable role in how audiences come to understand the conflicts that they depict. Thus, films about a nation’s wars are never “only a movie” but rather should be considered a cultural battleground themselves on which a war of representation is waged.

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Book SynopsisIntervention Narratives examines the contradictory cultural representations of the US intervention in Afghanistan that help to justify an imperial foreign policy. These narratives involve projecting Afghans as brave anti-communist warriors who suffered the consequences of American disengagement with the region following the end of the Cold War, as victimized women who can be empowered through enterprise, as innocent dogs who need to be saved by US soldiers, and as terrorists who deserve punishment for 9/11. Given that much of public political life now involves affect rather than knowledge, feelings rather than facts, familiar recurring tropes of heroism, terrorism, entrepreneurship, and canine love make the war easier to comprehend and elicit sympathy for US military forces. An indictment of US policy, Bose demonstrates that contemporary imperialism operates on an ideologically diverse cultural terrain to enlist support for the war across the political spectrum. Trade Review"At a time when US hegemony is being challenged and redefined, narratives about Afghanistan - combining the threats of terrorism with the attractions of the region's economic resources - are being used to underscore American exceptionalism and perceptions of national identity. Bose's astute book reveals the underbelly of these 'mock narratives' for what they are: stories that the US tells about itself, both internally and externally, to substitute affective relations for political analysis in the narrative that has become 'Afghanistan.'" -- Susan Jeffords * author of Hard Bodies *"Intervention Narratives is like a bright light switched on suddenly in the mind of those uneasy about temporizing in a world of perpetual war. Instead of probing stories about empire, Bose dismantles empire’s own – the narrative “soft weapons” concocted by strategists of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. In this beautifully factual, honest, and theoretically astute book – roving from canine rescue tales to premature withdrawal fantasies – she upends the usual meaning of posthumanism, affect, and post-truth by inserting them into the dark arenas of contemporary geopolitics." -- Timothy Brennan * author of Borrowed Light *"Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 99: Purnima Bose's "Intervention Narratives" https://americareads.blogspot.com/2020/01/pg-99-purnima-boses-intervention.html * Campaign for the American Reader *"The Page 99 Test: Purnima Bose's "Intervention Narratives" https://page99test.blogspot.com/2020/01/purnima-boses-intervention-narratives.html * The Page 99 Test *"Intervention Narratives provides theoretical underpinning to explicate the narratives Bose analyzes, and Bose also offers a comprehensive thesis about what makes them persuasive, compulsively repeated, and ultimately harmful." * Time Now *"Bose’s book marks one of the first that actually breaks down the assumptions of the abundance of war literature that has been written about Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. In effect, Bose takes on the knowledge–industrial complex that exists around Afghanistan, showing us, sometimes line by line, where the discursive violence lies, and how it sets the stage for actual violence." -- Helena Zeweri * Interentions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies *Table of ContentsContentsAcronyms ixIntroduction:Intervention Narratives and Geopolitical Fetishism1 The Premature-Withdrawal NarrativeHegemonic Masculinities and the Liberal Humanist Subject2 The Capitalist-Rescue NarrativeAfghan Women and Micro-Entrepreneurship3 The Canine-Rescue Narrativeand Post-Humanist Humanitarianism4 The Retributive-Justice NarrativeOsama bin Laden as SimulacraPostscript: Three Presidents, One PolicyAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThe tale of how individual officers on the ground at Guantanamo Bay, along with their direct superiors, were unwittingly co-opted into the Pentagon's plan to turn the prison into an interrogation facility operating at the margins of the law and beyond.Trade ReviewGreenberg is a great storyteller. * Sunday Times *Read this book for an understanding of the fearsome banality of the workings of arbitrary power. * Frank Furedi, Times Higher Education *Greenberg tells an excellent human story, efficiently piecing together the accounts of the guards, inmates and lawyers. * Stephen Robinson, The Guardian *If you thought Guantanamo held no more surprises, this remarkable and timely book will change your mind. Karen Greenberg has unearthed a history we did not know we had, somehow persuading scores of military and intelligence officers-and their former captives-to break a seven-year silence. Packed with revelations, this vivid story shows exactly how nods and winks from Washington led to lawless abuse. Just at the moment we need it most, with a new president vowing to find a way out, Greenberg gives the best account yet of where and how and why the troubles began. * Advance praise from Barton Gellman, author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency *Greenberg tells a gripping and vivid story of the first days of the Guantanamo detainee debacle. In a fast paced and well researched narrative, her characters come alive on this dusty island base as they struggle with the moral and professional dilemmas that are a microcosm of a bigger drama being played out in Washington. Policy was formulated by a small cabal of Pentagon and White House zealots who did not understand the fundamental nature of counterterrorism-and forced their ill-conceived policies on a reluctant but ultimately compliant military, judicial and diplomatic corps. * Advance praise from Michael Sheehan, author of Crush the Cell *The consequences of Guantanamo on America's standing in the world have been well chronicled, but here, in heartbreaking detail, we learn the story of how it might have been different. Karen Greenberg's surprising and provocative history of the first hundred days of Guantanamo provides an invaluable comment on how the war on terror turned into a moral assault on our on values and institutions. * Advance praise from Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower *Karen Greenberg's deeply researched account of the early days of Guantanamo shows the legal, political and moral questions that plagued the prison camp from the outset: its dubious legal authority, the uncertain status of the prisoners, and the doubts of key officials who tried to uphold American and international law. The Least Worst Place, which is so well written that it reads in places like a prose poem, is going to be essential reading for anyone who is trying to understand the legal morass surrounding Guantanamo and detainee policy in the 'war on terror.' * Advance praie from Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I Know *Table of ContentsPART I: DECEMBER. PARADISE LOST; PART II: JANUARY. THE NEW WORLD ORDER; PART III: FEBRUARY. SHADOW COMMAND; PART IV: MARCH. FAILURE

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