After a million deaths and twice that number injured, after the destruction of much of the infrastructure of Iran and Iraq, disruption of trade throughout the Gulf and the involvement of the USA and USSR, was the Gulf War a pointless exercise, a futile conflict which achieved nothing and left the combatants at the end of it all back in exactly the same position from which they started in 1980? In this book, first published in 1989, the authors argue that the lack of territorial gain was irrelevant: the real advantages won by each side were far more important, intangible though they were. For Iran, the channelling of the energies of her people away from domestic concerns meant the continuation of the Islamic revolution and ensured the stability of the mullahs. In Iraq, the war propped up the increasingly shaky regime of Saddam Hussein. The outside world, especially the superpowers, was terrified of the spread of Muslim fundamentalism, so made no effort to prevent Iraq from trying to halt this spread. But Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the oil states also had vested interests in promoting the continuation of the war.

Wanted: Volunteers for Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal. A body bag. Or both. When Charlie Beckwith issued this call to arms in Vietnam in 1965, he revolutionized American armed combat. This is the story of what would eventually come to be known as Delta Force, as only its maverick creator could tell it - from the bloody baptism of Vietnam to the top-secret training grounds of North Carolina to political battles in the upper levels of the Pentagon itself. This is the heart-pounding, first-person, insider's view of the missions that made Delta Force legendary. Through it all, the reader will become much better acquainted with America's deadliest weapon.

Japan's legal and political system is completely alien to its history and culture, imposed on the Japanese people without their involvement after the Second World War. A lifeless and little-understood document based on a foreign value system, it has been open to dangerous misinterpretation and abuse.;Peter Herzog examines the effects of this disastrous turn of events in his carefully-researched and fascinating book, detailing instances where this abuse has taken horrifying proportions in key areas of Japanese public life. Indefensible decisions made by the courts on issues such as the electroal system, education, freedom of workers, have resulted in Japan being a democracy in name only.;Scandals involving collusion between politicians and big business which have rocked the country, lavish overspending by local authorities on prestige projects rather than desparately-needed public housing, and key decision-making being in the hands of the non-accountable bureacracy rather than politicians are just some of the results of this state of affairs. The author's approach makes this book a useful record and source of reference.

The Gulf War inflicted dramatic environmental damage upon the fragile desert and shore environments of Kuwait and north eastern Saudi Arabia. Marine environments experienced oil spills; inland, oil lakes and burning oil wells caused widespread pollution. This book, first published in 1994, presents an in-depth analysis of these environmental disasters, their long-term consequences, and potential ways to repair the damage.

The crisis in the Gulf of 1990-1 affected more than just the regional powers in the area. Rippling outward, its military, economic and political effects were felt throughout the international political system, testing US steadfastness in the face of Saddam Hussein's political survival, European ability to form a united front on foreign policy issues and the effectiveness of the UN in confronting international aggression. The rationale behind this book, first published in 1993, is to investigate and analyse the various aspects of the crisis, especially in regard to the interactions between internal and international prospects for a new order in the Middle East. It also examines the wider effects of the war, and includes analysis of Europe, America and the Soviet Union. Each one of the essays chosen for this volume has been written by an expert in their field. This collaboration between historians, regional specialists and political scientists, integrating a variety of research methods in the framework of one book, will be useful to a wide range of readers.

Why has the US so dramatically failed in Afghanistan since 2001? Dominant explanations have ignored the bureaucratic divisions and personality conflicts inside the US state. This book rectifies this weakness in commentary on Afghanistan by exploring the significant role of these divisions in the US's difficulties in the country that meant the battle was virtually lost before it even began. The main objective of the book is to deepen readers understanding of the impact of bureaucratic politics on nation-building in Afghanistan, focusing primarily on the Bush Administration. It rejects the 'rational actor' model, according to which the US functions as a coherent, monolithic agent. Instead, internal divisions within the foreign policy bureaucracy are explored, to build up a picture of the internal tensions and contradictions that bedevilled US nation-building efforts. The book also contributes to the vexed issue of whether or not the US should engage in nation-building at all, and if so under what conditions.

Postwar Journeys: American and Vietnamese Transnational Peace Efforts since 1975 tells the story of the dynamic roles played by ordinary American and Vietnamese citizens in their postwar quest for peace-an effort to transform their lives and their societies. Hang Thi Thu Le-Tormala deepens our understanding of the Vietnam War and its aftermath by taking a closer look at postwar Vietnam and offering a fresh analysis of the effects of the war and what postwar reconstruction meant for ordinary citizens. This thoughtful exploration of US-Vietnam postwar relations through the work of US and Vietnamese civilians expands diplomatic history beyond its rigid conventional emphasis on national interests and political calculations as well as highlights the possibilities of transforming traumatic experiences or hostile attitudes into positive social change. Le-Tormala's research reveals a wealth of boundary-crossing interactions between US and Vietnamese citizens, even during the times of extremely restricted diplomatic relations between the two nation-states. She brings to center stage citizens' efforts to solve postwar individual and social problems and bridges a gap in the scholarship on the US-Vietnam relations. Peace efforts are defined in their broadest sense, ranging from searching for missing family members or friends, helping people overcome the ordeals resulting from the war, and meeting or working with former opponents for the betterment of their societies. Le-Tormala's research reveals how ordinary US and Vietnamese citizens were active historical actors who vigorously developed cultural ties and promoted mutual understanding in imaginative ways, even and especially during periods of governmental hostility. Through nonprofit organizations as well as cultural and academic exchange programs, trailblazers from diverse backgrounds promoted mutual understanding and acted as catalytic forces between the two governments. Postwar Journeys presents the powerful stories of love and compassion among former adversaries; their shared experiences of a brutal war and desire for peace connected strangers, even opponents, of two different worlds, laying the groundwork for US-Vietnam diplomatic normalization.

"The day of the first moonwalk, my father's college literature professor told his class, 'Someday they'll send a poet, and we'll find out what it's really like.' Turner has sent back a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon--the war in Iraq--and deserves our thanks."--The New York Times Book Review, on Here, Bullet

In the aftermath of best-selling Here, Bullet, Brian Turner deftly illuminates existence as both easily extinguishable and ultimately enduring. These prophetic, osmotic poems wage a daily battle for normalcy, seeking structure in the quotidian while grappling with the absence of forgetting.

From "Discotheque":

Late at night, Jackowski and I taped the flex-chargeto the gate. I unspooled the shock tube, removed the safety.Hathaway radioed the countdown--and at zero--

I pulled the pin. It was me, Sgt. Turner, who cracked the night open with explosivesand wrote it all down, word by word.

Brian Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon before serving with the US Army as an infantry team leader in Iraq. He has been featured on National Public Radio, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and the BBC. He has received an NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, and a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation.

This book explores the international leadership of the AFL-CIO, the UAW and UAW Local 600, the world's largest union local, and reveals that overall, working-class response to the Vietnam War mirrored that of the American society as a whole.

On 11th September 2006 - exactly five years after the attacks on the Twin Towers - a modern day Rorke's Drift was played out in the town of Garmsir, known as the Taliban gateway to Helmand Province. 40-year-old Capt. Doug Beattie of the 1stBattalion Royal Irish Regiment was charged with the mission to help retake Garmsir from the Taliban. His commanders said it would take two days; it actually took two weeks of exhausting, bloody conflict in which at times he would be one of only a small unit up against a ferocious enemy in impossible conditions.For his repeated bravery Doug Beattie was decorated with the Military Cross. AN ORDINARY SOLDIER offers an extraordinary insight into the mission in Afghanistan and, crucially, the relationship between British troops and the Afghans they serve alongside. Above all, it's Beattie's personal story of being what he modestly calls 'an ordinary soldier' - someone who balances being a loving father and husband with that of fighting in the world's most hostile place. It demands to be read.

Last Stand at Khe Sanh is a vivid, fast-paced account of the dramatic 1968 confrontation, when 6,000 US Marines held off 30,000 North Vietnamese Army regulars at a remote mountain stronghold. Based on extensive archival research and more than 100 interviews with participants, author Gregg Jones captures the courage and camaraderie of the defenders and delivers the fullest account yet of this epic battle.

With an introduction by Kevin Powers. A groundbreaking piece of journalism which inspired Stanley Kubrick's classic Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket. We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop. Michael Herr went to Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire. He returned to tell the real story in all its hallucinatory madness and brutality, cutting to the quick of the conflict and its seductive, devastating impact on a generation of young men. His unflinching account is haunting in its violence, but even more so in its honesty. First published in 1977, Dispatches was a revolutionary piece of new journalism that evoked the experiences of soldiers in Vietnam and has forever shaped our understanding of the conflict. It is now a seminal classic of war reportage.

Why did the US make a commitment to an independent South Vietnam? Could a major war have been averted? Fredrik Logevall provides a concise, comprehensive and accessible introduction to the origins of the Vietnam War from the end of the Indochina War in 1954 to the eruption of full-scale war in 1965, and places events against their full international background.

In 1964 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, activated a joint unconventional task force known as the Studies and Observation Group--MACV-SOG. As a cover its mission was to conduct analysis of lessons learned in combat involved all branches of service. SOG's real mission was to conduct covert strategic reconnaissance missions into Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam as well as sabotage and 'Black' psychological operations. Ground, air, and naval assets were employed to insert, collect, extract, and otherwise support these operations. Drawing on detailed, first-hand accounts of the experiences of the service, including action on operations, this book will shed light on one of the most crucial units of the Vietnam War.

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.

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.

In late January 1968, some 84,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops launched a country-wide general offensive in South Vietnam, mounting simultaneous assaults on 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and five of the six autonomous cities (including the capital city of Saigon). The longest and bloodiest battle occurred in Hue, the most venerated place in Vietnam. The bitter fighting that raged there for more than three weeks drew the attention of the world. Hue was the ancient capital of Vietnam, and as such, had been previously avoided by both sides; it had not seen any serious fighting prior to 1968. All that changed on the night of January 31 that year when four North Vietnamese battalions and supporting Viet Cong units simultaneously attacked and occupied both parts of the city straddling the Perfume River. The Communist forces dug in and prepared to defend their hold on the city. US Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers were ordered to clear the city, supported by US Army artillery and troops. A brutal urban battle ensued as combat raged from house to house and door to door. It was a bloody fight and resulted in large-scale destruction of Hue. Eventually, the Marines and the South Vietnamese forces retook Hue, but it turned out to be one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Tet Offensive, and led to a sea change in US policy in Vietnam.

The Mysteries of Haditha is a war story unlike any other. This riveting and hilarious memoir of M. C. Armstrong's journey into the Iraq War as an embedded journalist pulls no punches and lifts the veil on the lies we tell each other-and the ones we tell ourselves. This is a story about both the strong women in Armstrong's life and his road to true manhood. Armstrong's family was nearly ripped at the seams as he struggled to secure his embed with Navy SEALs in the Al Anbar Province in 2008. Armstrong's searingly honest narrative about his relationship with his father, his fiance, and his friend in the SEAL team takes the reader on a nosedive ride from a historically black college in the American South straight into Baghdad, the burn pits, and the desert beyond the mysterious Haditha dam. Honest and vulnerable, tender but fearless, The Mysteries of Haditha is an incredible coming-of-age story and a unique glimpse into the world of the war on terror.

Music was one of the first casualties of the Iranian Revolution. It was banned in 1979, but it quickly crept back into Iranian culture and politics. The state made use of music for its propaganda during the Iran-Iraq war. Over time music provided an important political space where artists and audiences could engage in social and political debate. Now, more than thirty-five years on, both the children of the revolution and their music have come of age. Soundtrack of the Revolution offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change to provide an alternative history of the Islamic Republic. Drawing on over five years of research in Iran, including during the 2009 protests, Nahid Siamdoust introduces a full cast of characters, from musicians and audience members to state officials, and takes readers into concert halls and underground performances, as well as the state licensing and censorship offices. She closely follows the work of four musicians-a giant of Persian classical music, a government-supported pop star, a rebel rock-and-roller, and an underground rapper-each with markedly different political views and relations with the Iranian government. Taken together, these examinations of musicians and their music shed light on issues at the heart of debates in Iran-about its future and identity, changing notions of religious belief, and the quest for political freedom. Siamdoust shows that even as state authorities resolve, for now, to allow greater freedoms to Iran's majority young population, they retain control and can punish those who stray too far. But music will continue to offer an opening for debate and defiance. As the 2009 Green Uprising and the 1979 Revolution before it have proven, the invocation of a potent melody or musical verse can unite strangers into a powerful public.

First published in 1978. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1915, Towards International Government considers the consequences of war for global diplomacy and the alliance system. Hobson argues that, to reduce armaments and the possibility of another world war, an organisational structure of international government must be put into place. An extension of the League of Nations, Hobson proposes that this council would need to hold legislative powers enabling it to impose economic sanctions and, if necessary, the ability to deploy an international force. This is a fascinating and exceptionally forward-thinking work, of great importance to economic and political historians of the twentieth century.

This book critiques the conceptualization of security found in mainstream and critical theoretical debates, and applies this to the empirical case of the 2003 Iraq War. The Iraq War represents one of the most puzzling, complex, and controversial events in the post-Cold War era. The manner in which the Bush administration finally decided to hold Saddam Hussein accountable through military intervention provoked a worldwide outcry due to the narratives they constructed to justify the "pre-emptive use of force" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." Responding to constructivist and post-structuralist scholars' calls for a turn to discourse, and aligning its argument with critical security studies, particularly the Copenhagen School (CS), this book conceptualizes language as a pivotal mechanism of power. Adopting a Wittgensteinian approach, it moves away from thinking about the nexus between security and language from a single action, or speech act, to a series of actions or interactions. To illustrate this new approach, the author examines two cases in particular: the UN inspectors' finding that there was no credible evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in early 2003 and the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004. Both events show that the boundaries and relations between securitized rules and environments are not pre-given but produced in a particular language game. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, US foreign policy, and IR in general.

Claro Solis wanted to win a gold star for his mother. He succeeded - as did seven other sons of 'Little Mexico.'Second Street in Silvis, Illinois, was a poor neighborhood during the Great Depression that had become home to Mexicans fleeing revolution in their homeland. In 1971 it was officially renamed 'Hero Street' to commemorate its claim to the highest per-capita casualty rate from any neighborhood during World War II. Marc Wilson now tells the story of this community and the young men it sent to fight for their adopted country. Hero Street, U.S.A. is the first book to recount a saga too long overlooked in histories and television documentaries. Interweaving family memories, soldiers' letters, historical photographs, interviews with relatives, and firsthand combat accounts, Wilson tells the compelling stories of nearly eighty men from three dozen Second Street homes who volunteered to fight for their country in World War II and Korea - and of the eight, including Claro Solis, who never came back. As debate swirls around the place of Mexican immigrants in contemporary American society, this book shows the price of citizenship willingly paid by the sons of earlier refugees. With Hero Street, U.S.A., Marc Wilson not only makes an important contribution to military and social history but also acknowledges the efforts of the heroes of Second Street to realize the American dream.