The 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.

In ""The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning"", one of our most distinguished military historians argued that the conflict on the Korean peninsula in the middle of the twentieth century was first and foremost a war between Koreans that began in 1948. In the second volume of a monumental trilogy, Allan R. Millett now shifts his focus to the twelve-month period from North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, through the end of June 1951 - the most active phase of the internationalized 'Korean War'. Moving deftly between the battlefield and the halls of power, Millett weaves together military operations and tactics without losing sight of Cold War geopolitics, strategy, and civil-military relations. Filled with new insights on the conflict, his book is the first to give combined arms its due, looking at the contributions and challenges of integrating naval and air power with the ground forces of United Nations Command and showing the importance of Korean support services. He also provides the most complete, and sympathetic, account of the role of South Korea's armed forces, drawing heavily on ROK and Korea Military Advisory Group sources. Millett integrates non-American perspectives into the narrative - especially those of Mao Zedong, Chinese military commander Peng Dehuai, Josef Stalin, Kim Il-sung, and Syngman Rhee. And he portrays Walton Walker and Matthew Ridgway as the heroes of Korea, both of whom had a more profound understanding of the situation than Douglas MacArthur, whose greatest flaw was not his politics but his strategic and operational incompetence. Researched in South Korean, Chinese, and Soviet as well as American and UN sources, Millett has exploited previously ignored or neglected oral history collections - including interviews with American and South Korean officers - and has made extensive use of reports based on interrogations of North Korean and Chinese POWs. The end result is masterful work that provides both a gripping narrative and a greater understanding of this key conflict in international and American history.

Martin Bowman's revealing narrative of the aerial conflict in South-East Asia, 1965-1972, which had its beginnings in 1 November 1955, engulfed Vi tnam, Laos, and Cambodia and only ended with the fall of S ig n on 30 April 1975 has resulted from decades of painstaking fact-finding as well as detailed correspondence with surviving aircrew incorporating a wealth of first-hand accounts, some never told before, supported by dozens of rare and unusual photographs. Together they describe in adrenalin-pumping accuracy the furious aerial battles of a long suffering and bitter war in South-East Asia and in particular the frontline action in the skies over Vietnam that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. They too will find a new and useful perspective on a conflict that cost the Americans 58,022 dead and brought the USA worldwide condemnation for its role in Southeast Asia. Nearly 2,500 Americans remained missing'. This work serves as a tribute to the courageous pilots who flew the F-104 Starfighter in the Widowmakers' war and B-52 bomber crews on Arc Light' Linebacker II' strikes and the eleven days of Christmas which ultimately ended the aerial campaign against North Vi tnam. And as well, strike aircraft such as the USAF F-4 Phantom and the F-105 Thud' and the US Navy carrier-borne jet and propeller-driven strike aircraft and the Americans' sworn enemy, the North Vi?tnamese MiG fighters, feature large, from Rolling Thunder' onwards. Equally, the Hueys and Chinooks and other notable work horses that participated on combat assaults or Ash & Trash missions and transports like the C-130 Herky-Bird', C-123 Provider, Caribou and Vi tnamese C-47 - the Haulers On Call' - that performed sterling service during the gruelling air campaign are not forgotten either. Here, at first hand, are their stories which also include some of the less publicised American forces like the pilots and crewmen who flew the Bird Dogs and all manner of helicopters as well as the largely forgotten Australian and New Zealand Air Force units and the Anzac Battalions whose valuable contributions are too often overlooked. So too is the cost in human misery, death and destruction.

Featured in Stylist's guide to 2019's best non-fiction books The true story of the fierce band of women who battled Washington - and Hanoi - to bring their husbands home from the jungles of Vietnam. On 12 February, 1973, one hundred and sixteen men who, just six years earlier, had been high flying Navy and Air Force pilots, shuffled, limped, or were carried off a huge military transport plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. These American servicemen had endured years of brutal torture, kept shackled and starving in solitary confinement, in rat-infested, mosquito-laden prisons, the worst of which was The Hanoi Hilton. Months later, the first Vietnam POWs to return home would learn that their rescuers were their wives, a group of women that included Jane Denton, Sybil Stockdale, Louise Mulligan, Andrea Rander, Phyllis Galanti, and Helene Knapp. These women, who formed The National League of Families, would never have called themselves 'feminists', but they had become the POW and MIAs most fervent advocates, going to extraordinary lengths to facilitate their husbands' freedom - and to account for missing military men - by relentlessly lobbying government leaders, conducting a savvy media campaign, conducting covert meetings with antiwar activists, and most astonishingly, helping to code secret letters to their imprisoned husbands. In a page-turning work of narrative non-fiction, Heath Hardage Lee tells the story of these remarkable women for the first time. The League of Wives is certain to be on everyone's must-read list.

Fusing perspectives from politics, media studies and cultural studies, and focusing on Iraq, this title offers detailed insights into the impact of different media forms. Fusing perspectives from politics, media studies and cultural studies, "Sousveillance, Media and Strategic Political Communication" offers insights into impacts on strategic political communication of the emergence of web-based participatory media ('Web 2.0') across the first decade of the 21st century. Countering the control engendered in strategic political communication, Steve Mann's concepts of hierarchical sousveillance (politically motivated watching of the institutional watchers) and personal sousveillance (apolitical, human-centred life-sharing) is applied to web 2.0. Focusing on interplays of user-generated and mainstream media about, and from, Iraq, detailed case studies explore different levels of control over strategic political communication during key moments, including the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, and Saddam Hussein's execution in 2006. These are contextualized by overviews of political and media environments from 2001-09. Dr Bakir outlines broader implications of sousveillant web-based participatory media for strategic political communication, exploring issues of agenda-building, control, and the cycle of emergence, resistance and reincorporation of web 2.0. Sousveillance cultures are explored, delineating issues of anonymity, semi-permanence, instanteneity resistance and social change.

'An Intimate War' tells the story of the last thirty-four years of conflict in Helmand Province, Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of the Helmandis. In the West, this period is often defined through different lenses -- the Soviet intervention, the civil war, the Taliban, and the post-2001 nation-building era. Yet, as experienced by local inhabitants, the Helmand conflict is a perennial one, involving the same individuals, families and groups, and driven by the same arguments over land, water and power. This book -- based on both military and research experience in Helmand and 150 interviews in Pashto -- offers a very different view of Helmand from those in the media. It demonstrates how outsiders have most often misunderstood the ongoing struggle in Helmand and how, in doing so, they have exacerbated the conflict, perpetuated it and made it more violent -- precisely the opposite of what was intended when their interventions were launched. Mike Martin's oral history of Helmand underscores the absolute imperative of understanding the highly local, personal, and non-ideological nature of internal conflict in much of the 'third' world.

OFFICIAL TIE-IN TO THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE 12 STRONG, STARRING CHRIS HEMSWORTH On September 11th, 2001 the world watched in terror. On September 12th, 2001 they volunteered to fight. Twelve soldiers gave us a reason to hope. THE DECLASSIFIED TRUE STORY OF THE HORSE SOLDIERS. This is the dramatic account of a small band of Special Forces soldiers who entered Afghanistan immediately following September 11, 2001 and, riding to war on horses, defeated the Taliban. Outnumbered 40 to 1, they capture the strategic Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, and thereby effectively defeat the Taliban throughout the rest of the country. They are welcomed as liberators as they ride on horses into the city, the streets thronged with Afghans overjoyed that the Taliban have been kicked out. The soldiers rest easy, as they feel they have accomplished their mission. And then, the action takes a wholly unexpected turn. During a surrender of Taliban troops, the Horse Soldiers are ambushed by the would-be P.O.W.s and, still dangerously outnumbered, they must fight for their lives in the city's ancient fortress known as Qala-I Janghi, or the House of War . . . Praise for Doug Stanton:- 'A thrilling action ride of a book.' New York Times 'As gripping as the most intricately-plotted thriller.' Vince Flynn 'A riveting story of the brave and resourceful American warriors who rode into Afghanistan after 9/11 and waged war against Al Qaeda.' Tom Brokaw 'This reads like a cross between an old-fashioned Western and a modern spy thriller.' Parade Magazine 'Spellbinding...action-packed prose. The book reads more like a novel.' USA Today

Ideal for general readers as well as professionals conducting extensive research, this informative book offers a collection of documents on the origins and conduct of the Iraq War. The Iraq War: A Documentary and Reference Guide gives readers the opportunity to investigate this costly and controversial conflict as professional researchers do-by looking closely at key samples of historical evidence. As readers will see, that evidence proves to be extraordinarily revealing about the drive to war, the course of the initial invasion, the counterinsurgency, the "surge," and the continuing difficulties in unifying and stabilizing the country. From relevant exchanges in the 2000 Bush/Gore debates to interviews with Saddam Hussein to the latest reorganization of the Coalition Provisional Authority, The Iraq War gives readers an insider's view of the conflict's key decisions and events. Each chapter brings together primary and secondary sources on an important phase of the war, with the author providing context, analysis, and insight from a historian's perspective. The book also provides a solid framework for working with the documentary record-a particularly difficult task in this case, as so many vital sources will remain classified and inaccessible for years to come. More than 100 excerpts of government documents, military briefings, Congressional reports, media articles, and more, all related to specific phases of the Iraq War An introductory chapter on the processes and challenges of researching the historic record Commentary in each chapter showing what can be interpreted from the collected sources Sidebars offering biographical notes on key figures; explanations of key terms and concepts; accounts of international treaties, laws, and agreements, and background notes on historical events

"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.

In this fully illustrated introduction, leading Vietnam War historian Dr Andrew Wiest provides a concise overview of America's most divisive war. America entered the Vietnam War certain of its Cold War doctrines and convinced of its moral mission to save the world from the advance of communism. However, the war was not at all what the United States expected. Dr Andrew Wiest examines how, outnumbered and outgunned, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces resorted to a guerrilla war based on the theories of Mao Zedong of China, while the US responded with firepower and overwhelming force. Drawing on the latest research for this new edition, Wiest examines the brutal and prolonged resultant conflict, and how its consequences would change America forever, leaving the country battered and unsure as it sought to face the challenges of the final acts of the Cold War. As for Vietnam, the conflict would continue long after the US had exited its military adventure in Southeast Asia. Updated and revised, with full-colour maps and new images throughout, this is an accessible introduction to the most important event of the "American Century."

Historians have suggested many reasons for America's defeat in Vietnam. The premise of this book is that disunity on the home front was the most significant and influential factor leading to our downfall in Vietnam. The disunity in America was incited and fueled by the antiwar movement. This movement, collectively consisting of the antiwar factions, the media, academia and congressional doves, gave rise to the "second front" which became a major weapon in Hanoi's arsenal. This second front was ever present in the minds of North Vietnam's leaders. It played a major role in Hanoi's strategy and was valued as the equivalent of several army divisions. The disunity fostered by the antiwar movement gave our enemies confidence and encouraged them to hold out in the face of battlefield defeats. Divided We Fall reveals the full impact of the second front, how it influenced the conduct of the war and most importantly, its effect on the outcome of the war. It is a testament on how the most powerful nation in the world can go down in defeat when its people are divided. The most important lesson of the Vietnam War is that disunity on the home front leads to defeat abroad. The divisions we have seen over the war in Iraq are a strong indication that we have not yet learned this lesson. The thesis of this book was recently validated by a well known American statesman, Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, National Security Adviser to presidents Nixon and Ford and US negotiator at the Paris peace talks to end the war in Vietnam. During the Lou Dobbs Tonight show on August 25, 2005, he made this statement of historical significance: "In Vietnam we defeated ourselves with domestic divisions."

This book assesses the emergence and transformation of global protest movements during the Vietnam War era. It explores the relationship between protest focused on the war and other emancipatory and revolutionary struggles, moving beyond existing scholarship to examine the myriad interlinked protest issues and mobilisations around the globe during the Indochina Wars. Bringing together scholars working from a range of geographical, historiographical and methodological perspectives, the volume offers a new framework for understanding the history of wartime protest. The chapters are organised around the social movements from the three main geopolitical regions of the world during the 1960s and early 1970s: the core capitalist countries of the so-called first world, the socialist bloc and the Global South. The final section of the book then focuses on international organisations that explicitly sought to bridge and unite solidarity and protest around the world. In an era of persistent military conflict, the book provides timely contributions to the question of what war does to protest movements and what protest movements do to war.

The Vietnam War's influence on politics, foreign policy, and subsequent military campaigns is the center of much debate and analysis. But the impact on veterans across the globe, as well as the war's effects on individual lives and communities, is a largely neglected issue. As a consequence of cultural and legal barriers, the oral histories of the Vietnam War currently available in English are predictably one-sided, providing limited insight into the inner workings of the Communist nations that participated in the war. Furthermore, many of these accounts focus on combat experiences rather than the backgrounds, belief systems, and social experiences of interviewees, resulting in an incomplete historiography of the war. Chinese native Xiaobing Li corrects this oversight in Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans. Li spent seven years gathering hundreds of personal accounts from survivors of the war, accounts that span continents, nationalities, and political affiliations. The twenty-two intimate stories in the book feature the experiences of American, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and North and South Vietnamese veterans, representing the views of both anti-Communist and Communist participants, including Chinese officers of the PLA, a Russian missile-training instructor, and a KGB spy. These narratives humanize and contextualize the war's events while shedding light on aspects of the war previously unknown to Western scholars. Providing fresh perspectives on a long-discussed topic, Voices from the Vietnam War offers a thorough and unique understanding of America's longest war.

Reverberations of the Vietnam War can still be felt in American culture. The post-9/11 United States forays into the Middle East, the invasion and occupation of Iraq especially, have evoked comparisons to the nearly two decades of American presence in Viet Nam (1954-1973). That evocation has renewed interest in the Vietnam War, resulting in the re-printing of older War narratives and the publication of new ones. This volume tracks those echoes as they appear in American, Vietnamese American, and Vietnamese war literature, much of which has joined the American literary canon. Using a wide range of theoretical approaches, these essays analyze works by Michael Herr, Bao Ninh, Duong Thu Huong, Bobbie Ann Mason, le thi diem thuy, Tim O'Brien, Larry Heinemann, and newcomers Denis Johnson, Karl Marlantes, and Tatjana Solis. Including an historical timeline of the conflict and annotated guides to further reading, this is an essential guide for students and readers of contemporary American fiction

The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese "culture," as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. -- .

Southeast Asian Affairs, of which there are now thirty-one in the series, is an annual review of significant developments and trends in the region. Though the emphasis is on ASEAN countries, developments in the broader Asia-Pacific region are not ignored. Readable and easily understood analyses are offered of major political, economic, social, and strategic developments within Southeast Asia. The contributions can be divided into two broad categories. There are those which provide an analysis of major developments during 2004 in individual Southeast Asian countries and in the region generally. Then there are the theme articles of a more specialized nature which deal with topical problems of concern. The volume contains twenty-one articles dealing with such major themes as international conflict and cooperation, political stability, and economic growth and development.

Zhang Shenfu, a founder of the Chinese Communist party, participated in all the major political events in China for four decades following the Revolution of 1919. Yet Zhang had become a forgotten figure in China and the West--a victim of Mao's determined efforts to place himself at the center of China's revolution--until Vera Schwarcz began to meet with him in his home on Wang Fu Cang Lane in Beijing. Now Schwarcz brings Zhang to life through her poignant account of five years of conversations with him, a narrative that is interwoven with translations of his writings and testimony of his friends. Moving circuitously, Schwarcz reveals fragments of the often contradictory layers of Zhang's character: at once a champion of feminism and an ardent womanizer, a follower of Bertrand Russell who also admired Confucius, and a philosophically inclined political pragmatist. Schwarcz also meditates on the tension between historical events and personal memory, on the public amnesia enforced by governments and the "forgetfulness" of those who find rememberance too painful. Her book is not only a portrait of a remarkable personality but a corrective to received accounts and to the silences that abound in the official annals of the Chinese revolution.

This book examines the critical role of desertion in the international Vietnam War debate. Paul Benedikt Glatz traces American deserters' odyssey of exile and activism in Europe, Japan, and North America to demonstrate how unprecedented levels of desertion in the US military changed the traditional image of the deserter.