It is September 1987. The Angolan Army – with the support of Cuban troops and Soviet advisors – has built up a massive force on the Lomba River near Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola. Their goal? To capture Jamba, the headquarters of the rebel group Unita, supported by the South African Defence Force (SADF) in the so-called Border War.

In the battles that followed, and shortly thereafter centred around the small town of Cuito Cuanavale, 3 000 SADF soldiers and 8 000 Unita fighters were up against a much bigger Angolan and Cuban force of over 50 000 men.

Thousands of soldiers died in the vicious fighting that is described in vivid detail in this book. Bridgland pieced together this account through scores of interviews with SADF men who were on the front line. This dramatic retelling takes the reader to the heart of the action.

It was in 1972 when the seemingly ordinary Craig Williamson registered at Wits University and joined the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Williamson was elected NUSAS’s vice president and in January 1977, when his career in student politics came to an abrupt end, he fled the country and from Europe continued his anti-apartheid ‘work’. But Williamson was not the activist his friends and comrades thought he was. In January 1980, Captain Williamson was unmasked as a South African spy.

Williamson returned to South Africa and during the turbulent 1980s worked for the foreign section of the South African Police’s notorious Security Branch and South Africa’s ‘super-spy’ transformed into a parcel-bomb assassin.

Through a series of interviews with the many people Williamson interacted with while he was undercover and after his secret identity was eventually exposed, Jonathan Ancer details Williamson’s double life, the stories of a generation of courageous activists, and the book eventually culminates with Ancer interviewing South Africa’s ‘super-spy’ face-to-face. It deals with crucial issues of justice, reconciliation, forgiveness, betrayal and the consequences of apartheid that South Africans are still grappling with.

The first definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF’s targeted killing programs, hailed by The New York Times as “an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject.”

The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes preemptively.

In this page-turning, eye-opening book, journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman—praised by David Remnick as “arguably [Israel’s] best investigative reporter”—offers a riveting inside account of the targeted killing programs: their successes, their failures, and the moral and political price exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions.

Bergman has gained the exceedingly rare cooperation of many current and former members of the Israeli government, including Prime Ministers Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as high-level figures in the country’s military and intelligence services: the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the Mossad (the world’s most feared intelligence agency), Caesarea (a “Mossad within the Mossad” that carries out attacks on the highest-value targets), and the Shin Bet (an internal security service that implemented the largest targeted assassination campaign ever, in order to stop what had once appeared to be unstoppable: suicide terrorism).

Including never-before-reported, behind-the-curtain accounts of key operations, and based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews and thousands of files to which Bergman has gotten exclusive access over his decades of reporting, Rise and Kill First brings us deep into the heart of Israel’s most secret activities. Bergman traces, from statehood to the present, the gripping events and thorny ethical questions underlying Israel’s targeted killing campaign, which has shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the entire world.

In the world of espionage, truth is the first victim and nothing is as it seems. Here, for the first time, South Africa’s most notorious apartheid spy, Olivia Forsyth, lays bare the story of her remarkable life. With remarkable courage and brutal honesty she attempts to set the record straight.

Olivia Forsyth was a romantic young woman in search of adventure when she joined the Security Police with visions of international derring-do. But Craig Williamson, her unit head, had other ideas. Olivia was trained to spy on students before being dispatched to Rhodes University, a supposed ‘hotbed’ of anti-apartheid radicalism. It wasn’t long before Olivia had infiltrated various student organisations, feeding vital information back to her handler.

She came to hold prominent positions on campus and, as reward, was promoted to Lieutenant. Having reached the end of her studies, Olivia set her sights on a much more ambitious – and dangerous – target: the ANC in exile. But what should have been her greatest triumph as a spy turned into disaster when the ANC threw her into Quatro, the notorious internment camp in Angola. This is a riveting story set in the final years of apartheid.

In War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, Alan Dershowitz—#1 New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—explains why the horrific attack of Oct 7 and Israel’s just response changes everything.

Inlcuding:

• It has changed the relationship between Israel and the United States, especially with regard to the possibility of direct American intervention.
• It has required Israel to consider its nuclear option as a last resort to assure its survival.
• It has revealed dangerous attitudes among America’s future leaders on today’s college campuses toward Israel’s possible destruction.
• It has exposed media biases that have been exacerbated with Israel’s vulnerabilities.
• It has united Israelis and Jews around the world as never before, despite the deep divisions among them politically, religiously, and ideologically. Nothing will ever be the same.
• It has clouded the future of peace between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors and has diminished the proposals for a peaceful resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
• It has made predictions about the future of the region nearly impossible, except that imposing instability is inevitable.

In this book, Dershowitz analyzes these transforming events and suggests how to move forward.

If this book saves just one person’s life, Leo Prinsloo will be happy.

Leo became an internet sensation after footage of his reaction to an attempted high-value goods-in-transit heist went viral. Stunned by his cool attitude and focused action in a crisis situation, South Africans had an example of what can happen when good people take a stand. With decades of experience in security – first as a policeman, then in the South African Police Service’s Special Task Force, and now providing arms handling and security training in the private sector – Leo has a wealth of knowledge on how to manage life-threatening incidents.

Driven by a desire to empower South Africans and help them claim back their sense of safety, he offers advice for dealing with every risky situation, from how to handle hijackings and road rage, to how to keep your children safe, to the best way to secure your home and business. He also provides comprehensive information about handling firearms and basic first aid.

Leo’s Guide to Not Becoming a Statistic is a guide to living your safest life in South Africa – something which has become increasingly important as our crime statistics continue to rise. Straight-talking and honest – much like Leo himself – it is an easy to use manual that makes keeping safe accessible, with relatable information and easy to implement tips.

Leo says that taking the first step towards securing your safety is the most important, and his book will help you take that step.

The 45th edition of the SIPRI Yearbook analyses developments in 2013 in Security and conflicts Military spending and armaments Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament The SIPRI Yearbook contains extensive annexes on the implementation of arms control and disarmament agreements and a chronology of events during the year in the area of security and arms control.

When is it right to go to war? The most persuasive answer to this question has always been 'in self-defense'. In a penetrating new analysis, bringing together moral philosophy, political science, and law, David Rodin shows what's wrong with this answer. He proposes a comprehensive new theory of the right of self-defense which resolves many of the perplexing questions that have dogged both jurists and philosophers.

Leifer's assessment posts a warning sign for those who see no reason to worry about the stability of East Asia. He warns that "the ARF is embryonic, one-dimensional approach" to the major changes taking place in the security environment of the vital East Asian region.

Special Forces are a key component of every modern army, capable of carrying out clandestine operations, reconnaissance, and incisive attacks behind enemy lines. Units such as the British SAS, US Navy SEALs, the US Army’s Delta Force, Polish GROM and the France’s National Gendarmerie Intervention Group are famous for their bravery and formidable record. Aircraft are a key element of their functionality, without which Special Forces would not be able to move quickly to the combat zone. Arranged into chapters divided by transports, gunships, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles, the book includes the AC-130H gunship, which can be armed with weapons such as the M61 Vulcan rotary cannon and can destroy ground targets from a range of 2,000 metres; the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, which can land large numbers of men and material in tight spaces because of its STOL capabilities; the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin II, used by the British Joint Special Forces Aviation Wing (JSFAW) for the insertion of small units behind enemy lines; and the Mil Mi- 171Sh Storm rotorcraft, used by the Russian Spetsnaz commandos for operations in difficult terrain. Illustrated with 140 photographs and artworks, Aircraft of the Special Forces is a dynamic guide to the specialist aircraft and UAVs deployed by Special Forces throughout the world today.

Over the last 20 years, the role of unmanned aircraft systems in modern warfare has grown at an unprecedented rate. No longer simply used for intelligence, data collection or reconnaissance, drones are routinely used for target acquisition and to strike enemy targets with missiles and bombs. Organized by nationality, Military Drones offers a compact guide to the main unmanned aerial vehicles being flown in combat zones today. These include classics, such as the MQ-1 Predator, primarily used for intelligence gathering; the Black Hornet Nano, a micro UAV that is so small it can fit in the palm of your hand and is used by ground troops for local situational awareness; the Chinese tri-copter Scorpion, which is ideal for the stationary observation and strike role in a built-up area; and the French EADS Talarion, a twinjet long-endurance UAV designed for high-altitude surveillance. Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and artworks, Military Drones provides a detailed insight into the specialist military unmanned aerial vehicles that play a key role in the modern battle space.

Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and events on the Eastern Front that same year were pivotal to the history of World War II. It was during this year that the radicalization of Nazi policy -- through both an all-encompassing approach to warfare and the application of genocidal practices -- became most obvious. Germany's military aggression and overtly ideological conduct, culminating in genocide against Soviet Jewry and the decimation of the Soviet population through planned starvation and brutal antipartisan policies, distinguished Operation Barbarossa-the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union-from all previous military campaigns in modern European history. This collection of essays, written by young scholars of seven different nationalities, provides readers with the most current interpretations of Germany's military, economic, racial, and diplomatic policies in 1941. With its breadth and its thematic focus on total war, genocide, and radicalization, this volume fills a considerable gap in English-language literature on Germany's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union and the radicalization of World War II during this critical year. Alex J. Kay is the author of Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940-1941 and is an independent contractor for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences. Jeff Rutherford is assistant professor of history at Wheeling Jesuit University, where he teaches modern European history. David Stahel is the author of Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East and Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.`Opportunities multiply as they are seized.'Written in the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that is still revered today as the ultimate commentary on war and military strategy. Focussing on the principle that one can outsmart your foe mentally by thinking very carefully about strategy before resorting to physical battle, this philosophy continues to be applied to the corporate and business world.Sun Tzu's timeless appraisal of the different aspects of warfare are laid out in 13 chapters, including sections on `Laying Plans', `Waging War' and `Terrain'. Words that are as resonant today in every aspect of our lives as they were when he wrote them.

This comprehensive Research Handbook examines the key drivers of the arms trade, mapping the main trends in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. It also explores the principal defence markets internationally, including the US, China, India, Russia and the UK in greater detail. Across twenty-six chapters, international experts assess the central drivers of the arms trade, such as the insecurities of small states in an increasingly realist world of power politics, the continued presence of conflict, technological change and the presence of corruption. Analysing critical issues from the future of air and naval power and their implications for the trade to the impact of emerging technology and the prospects for arms control, the chapters raise a number of central issues as to the challenges and future direction of the arms trade. The Research Handbook concludes that defence spending and procurement have remained paramount and on a general upward trend since the Cold War, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. This Research Handbook will be a valuable resource for academics and students of international relations, security studies and political science. Its global approach will also be beneficial for arms policy analysts and defence professionals.

From bestselling author Robert Greene comes a brilliant distillation of the strategies of war that can help us gain mastery in the modern world. Spanning world civilisations, and synthesising dozens of political, philosophical, and religious texts, The 33 Strategies of War is a comprehensive guide to the subtle social game of everyday life. Based on profound, timeless lessons, it is abundantly illustrated with examples of the genius and folly of everyone from Napoleon to Margaret Thatcher and Hannibal to Ulysses S. Grant, as well as diplomats, captains of industry and Samurai swordsmen.

If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win numerous battles without a single loss. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War Written in the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is still used as a book of military strategy today. Napoleon, Mae Zedong and Douglas MacArthur all claimed to have drawn inspiration from it. And beyond the world of war, modern-era business and management gurus have also applied Sun Tzu’s ideas to politics and corporate strategy. This pocket illustrated dual-language edition not only presents the original Chinese characters with James Trapp’s translation on the facing page, it also tests Sun Tzu’s ideas against history. Each of the 13 chapters includes a new commentary giving examples of how Sun Tzu’s wisdom has been borne out on the world’s battlefields. When, for example, has information provided by spies changed the course of a battle? How has history shown Sun Tzu’s ideas on the importance of terrain in conflict to be true? And where can we best find examples of strategic warfare being waged? From the ancient world to the 20th century, the battles featured will be illustrated with colour battle maps, paintings and artworks. Of immense influence to leaders across millennia, The Art of War Illustrated is a classic text richly deserving this illustrated and expanded dual-language edition.

The first political history of the Second World War, of building the Grand Alliance to defeat Hitler, by the Sunday Times-bestselling author of Appeasing Hitler.

After the fall of France in June 1940, only Britain stood between Hitler and total victory. Desperate for allies, Winston Churchill did everything he could to bring the United States into the conflict, drive the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany apart and persuade neutral countries to resist German domination.

By 1942, after the German invasion of Russia and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the British-Soviet-American alliance was in place. Yet it was an improbable and incongruous coalition, divided by ideology and politics and riven with mistrust and deceit. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were partners in the fight to defeat Hitler, yet they were also rivals who disagreed on strategy, imperialism and the future of liberated Europe. Only by looking at their points of conflict, as well as of co-operation, are we able to understand the course of the war and world that developed in its aftermath.

Allies at War is a fast-paced, narrative history, based on material drawn from over a hundred archives. Using vivid, first-hand accounts and unpublished diaries, we enter the rooms where the critical decisions were made while going beyond the confines of the Grand Alliance to examine, among other themes, the doomed Anglo-French alliance, fractious relations with General de Gaulle and the Free French, and interactions with Poland, Greece and Nationalist China.

Ambitious and compelling, revealing the political drama behind the military events, Allies at War offers a fresh perspective on the Second World War and the origins of the Cold War.

BRISTOL 1943 and life for the Tobacco Girls isn't getting any easier...Bridget Milligan has donned a uniform and joined the nursing services where she becomes intrigued with the miracles of modern medicine. She's also torn between family loyalty, her new career and Lyndon O'Neill, the love of her life. Is it too impossible to hope that everything will come out right in the end? Phyllis Harvey is still serving in Malta where she sees the casualties of war first hand. Finally it seems like Phyllis is blessed with true in love, but fate can sometimes be a rocky road and nothing is that certain. Maisie Miles is left holding the home front at the tobacco factory but with the sudden death of her grandmother finds herself once more alone in the world. However, thanks to a substantial inheritance, she is able to extend a helping hand to a friend in desperate need. There are tears and laughter, goodbyes and new arrivals along with the hope that new beginnings are not far over the horizon. Praise for Lizzie Lane: 'A gripping saga and a storyline that will keep you hooked' Rosie Goodwin 'The Tobacco Girls is another heartwarming tale of love and friendship and a must-read for all saga fans.' Jean Fullerton 'Lizzie Lane opens the door to a past of factory girls, redolent with life-affirming friendship, drama, and choices that are as relevant today as they were then.' Catrin Collier 'If you want an exciting, authentic historical saga then look no further than Lizzie Lane.' Fenella J Miller

Based on previously unused French and German sources, this challenging and controversial new analysis of the war on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 reveals how and why the Germans won the major battles with one-half to one-third fewer casualties than the Allies, and how American troops in 1918 saved the Allies from defeat and a negotiated peace with the Germans.