Shrouded in secrecy due to the covert nature of their work, the legendary Recces have fascinated South Africans for years. Now one of these elite soldiers has written a tell-all book about the extraordinary missions he embarked on and the nail-biting action he experienced in the Border War.

Shortly after passing the infamously gruelling Special Forces selection course in the early 1980s, Koos Stadler joined the so-called Small Teams group at 5 Reconnaissance Regiment. This subunit was made up of two-man teams and was responsible for numerous secret and highly dangerous missions deep behind enemy lines. With only one team member, Stadler was sent to blow up railway lines and enemy fighter jets in the south of Angola. As he crawled into and out of enemy-infested territory, he stared death in the face many times.

A gripping firsthand account that reveals the near superhuman physical and psychological powers these Special Forces operators have to display.

From a small town in Mpumalanga to dodging bullets in war-torn hellholes: Al J. Venter, the oldest war correspondent still active, bore witness to some of humanity’s biggest atrocities – and has lived to tell the tale.

In the 1960s, with little money, a sense of adventure and a healthy dollop of chutzpah, Venter set out overland from Cape Town to London. Since then, Venter has reported from 25 conflict zones.

In his memoir, Venter masterfully recounts his experiences.

Conflict is an inevitable part of life, according to this ancient Chinese classic of strategy, but everything necessary to deal with conflict wisely, honorably, victoriously, is already present within us. Compiled more than two thousand years ago by a mysterious warrior-philosopher, "The Art of War " is still perhaps the most prestigious and influential book of strategy in the world, as eagerly studied in Asia by modern politicians and executives as it has been by military leaders since ancient times. As a study of the anatomy of organizations in conflict, "The Art of War " applies to competition and conflict in general, on every level from the interpersonal to the international. Its aim is invincibility, victory without battle, and unassailable strength through understanding the physics, politics, and psychology of conflict.

The final work from foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, picking up the story in the Middle East where his internationally bestselling The Great War of Civilisation left off, starting with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2005.

From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Israel’s conflicts with Palestine and Lebanon, Fisk condemns the West’s ongoing hypocrisy and interference while revealing the horrific truth of life on the ground. Unafraid to criticise authority and unpick complex truths, hecreates a compelling narrative of passionate and engaging journalism, historical analysis and eyewitness reporting.

Night of Power delivers an essential and prophetic account of the last twenty years, which exposes the inescapable consequences of colonial oppression and violence in the Middle East.

The ethics of changemaking and peacebuilding may appear straightforward: advance dignity, promote well-being, minimize suffering. Sounds simple, right? Actually acting ethically when it really matters is rarely straightforward. If someone engaged in change-oriented work sets out to "do good," how should we prioritize and evaluate whose good counts? And, how ought we act once we have decided whose good counts? Practitioners frequently confront dilemmas where dire situations may demand some form of response, but each of the options may have undesirable consequences of one form or another. Dilemmas are not merely ordinary problems, they are wicked problems: that is to say, they are defined by circumstances that only allow for suboptimal outcomes and are based on profound and sometimes troubling trade-offs. Wicked Problems argues that the field of peacebuilding and conflict transformation needs a stronger and more practical sense of its ethical obligations. For example, it argues against posing false binaries between domestic and international issues and against viewing violence and conflict as equivalents. It holds strategic nonviolence up to critical scrutiny and shows that "do no harm" approaches may in fact do harm. The contributors include scholars, scholar practitioners in the field, and activists on the streets, and the chapters cover the role of violence in conflict; conflict and violence prevention and resolution; humanitarianism; community organizing and racial justice; social movements; human rights advocacy; transitional justice; political reconciliation; and peace education and pedagogy, among other topics. Drawing on the lived experiences and expertise of activists, educators, and researchers, Wicked Problems equips readers to ask-and answer-difficult questions about social change work.

An acclaimed international bestseller which tells the story of Europe’s most admired and feared country, from the Roman age to Charlemagne to von Bismarck to Merkel. A country both admired and feared, Germany has been the epicentre of world events time and again: the Reformation, both World Wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It did not emerge as a modern nation until 1871 – yet today, Germany is the world’s fourth-largest economy and a standard-bearer of liberal democracy. With more than 100 maps and images, this is a fresh, concise and entertaining history which since release has sold over 300 000 copies internationally.

How the most powerful country in the UK was forged by invasion and conquest, and is fractured by its north-south divide.

England – begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor – is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Romans, its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbours; and for the past millennia, it has harboured a class system like nowhere else. There has never been a better time to understand why England is the way it is – and there is no better guide. With over 100 illustrations, maps and charts. Over 150 000 sold internationally.

Journey across epic China – through millennia of early innovation to modern dominance in one riveting, fast-paced read. From ancient times to Xi Jinping, Covid-19 and the ‘wolf warriors’, here is the vast, complex history of China, distilled into just 250 pages. Jaivin dismantles the idea of a monolithic China, revealing instead a nation of startling diversity. And she gives China’s women, from ancient warriors, inventors and rebels to their 21st-century counterparts, long overdue attention.

Have humans always waged war? Is warring an ancient evolutionary adaptation or a relatively recent behavior-and what does that tell us about human nature? In War, Peace, and Human Nature, editor Douglas P. Fry brings together leading experts in evolutionary biology, archaeology, anthropology, and primatology to answer fundamental questions about peace, conflict, and human nature in an evolutionary context. The essays in this book demonstrate that humans clearly have the capacity to make war, but since war is absent in some cultures, it cannot be viewed as a human universal. And the archaeological record reveals the recent emergence of war. It does not typify the ancestral type of human society, the nomadic forager band, and contrary to widespread assumptions, there is little support for the idea that war is ancient or an evolved adaptation. This book shows that views of human nature as inherently warlike stem not from the facts but from cultural views embedded in Western ways of thinking. Drawing upon evolutionary and ecological models; the archaeological record of the origins of war; nomadic forager societies past and present; the value and limitations of primate analogies; and the evolution of agonism and restraint; the essays in this interdisciplinary volume refute many popular generalizations and effectively bring scientific objectivity to the culturally and historically controversial subjects of war, peace, and human nature. 'This encyclopedic collection of excellent, wide-ranging, and myth-busting essays by renowned scholars should be required reading for anyone interested in how we came to be who we are and the future of humankind. A much-needed paradigm shift is in the making because of the increased recognition that we are not inherently destructive and competitive beings. This remarkable book will facilitate this transition as we expand our compassion footprint and give peace the chance it deserves. Cooperation, empathy, and peace will prevail if we allow them to.' - Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, and The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons For Expanding Our Compassion Footprint

Canada's most popular military leader since the Second World War tells his own story about our soldiers at war.

In the summer of 2008, General Rick Hillier resigned his command as Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces. You could almost hear the sigh of relief in Ottawa as Canada's most popular, and most controversial, leader since the Second World War left a role in which he'd been as frank-speaking, as unpredictable, and as resolutely apolitical as any military leader this country has ever seen.

Born and raised in Newfoundland, Hillier joined the military as a young man and quickly climbed the ranks. He played a significant role in domestic challenges, such as the 1998 ice story that paralyzed much of eastern Ontario and Quebec, and he quickly became a player on the international scene, commanding an American corps in Texas and a multinational NATO task force in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But it was his role as General Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, that defined him as a Canadian public figure. In Afghanistan, Canada faced its first combat losses since the Korean War and every casualty suddenly became front-page news. A country formerly ambivalent or even angry about its role in the conflict suddenly became gripped by the drama playing out not only in the war zone of a country half-way around the world, but in the unfriendly conference rooms in the country's capital as Hillier pulled no punches, demanding more funding and more troops and more appreciation for the women and men fighting a war on foreign soil.

"A Soldier First" is a hard-hitting, frank account of Hillier's role in his own words. The man who never backed down from the Taliban or Canada's top political leaders tells all in what will be one of the most important books to come out of this country this decade.

Early work in conflict resolution and peace research focused on why wars broke out, why they persisted, and why peace agreements failed to endure. Later research has focused on what actions and circumstances have actually averted destructive escalations, stopped the perpetuation of destructive conduct, produced a relatively good conflict transformation, or resulted in an enduring and relatively equitable relationship among former adversaries. This later research, which began in the 1950s, recognizes that conflict is inevitable and is often waged in the name of rectifying injustice. Additionally, it argues that damages can be minimized and gains maximized for various stakeholders in waging and settling conflicts. This theory, which is known as the constructive conflict approach, looks at how conflicts can be waged and resolved so they are broadly beneficial rather than mutually destructive. In this book, Louis Kriesberg, one of the major figures in the school of constructive conflict, looks at every major foreign conflict episode in which the United States has been involved since the onset of the Cold War to analyze when American involvement in foreign conflicts has been relatively effective and beneficial and when it has not. In doing so he analyzes whether the US took constructive approaches to conflict and whether the approach yielded better consequences than more traditional coercive approaches. Realizing Peace helps readers interested in engaging or learning about foreign policy to better understand what has happened in past American involvement in foreign conflicts, to think freshly about better alternatives, and to act in support of more constructive strategies in the future.

Waging war has historically been an almost exclusively male endeavor. Yet, over the past several decades women have joined insurgent armies in significant and surprising numbers. Why do women become guerrilla insurgents? What experiences do they have in guerrilla armies? And what happens to these women when the fighting ends? Women in War answers these questions while providing a rare look at guerrilla life from the viewpoint of rank-and-file participants. From 230 in-depth interviews with men and women guerrillas, guerrilla supporters, and non-participants in rural El Salvador, Jocelyn Viterna investigates why some women were able to channel their wartime actions into post-war gains, and how those patterns differ from the benefits that accrued to men. By accounting for these variations, Viterna helps resolve debates about the effects of war on women, and by extension, develops our nascent understanding of the effects of women combatants on warfare, political violence, and gender systems. Women in War also develops a new model for investigating micro-level mobilization processes that has applications to many movement settings. Micro-level mobilization processes are often ignored in the social movement literature in favor of more macro- and meso-level analyses. Yet individuals who share the same macro-level context, and who are embedded in the same meso-level networks, often have strikingly different mobilization experiences. Only a portion are ever moved to activism, and those who do mobilize vary according to which paths they follow to mobilization, what skills and social ties they forge through participation, and whether they continue their political activism after the movement ends. By examining these individual variations, a micro theory of mobilization can extend the findings of macro- and meso-level analyses, and improve our understanding of how social movements begin, why they endure, and whether they change the societies they target.

Traditional analyses of global security cannot explain the degree to which there is "governance" of important security issues - from combatting piracy to curtailing nuclear proliferation to reducing the contributions of extractive industries to violence and conflict. They are even less able to explain why contemporary governance schemes involve the various actors and take the many forms they do. Juxtaposing the insights of scholars writing about new modes of governance with the logic of network theory, The New Power Politics offers a framework for understanding contemporary security governance and its variation. The framework rests on a fresh view of power and how it works in global politics. Though power is integral to governance, it is something that emerges from, and depends on, relationships. Thus, power is dynamic; it is something that governors must continually cultivate with a wide range of consequential global players, and how a governor uses power in one situation can have consequences for her future relationships, and thus, future power. Understanding this new power politics is crucial for explaining and shaping the future of global security politics. This stellar group of scholars analyzes both the networking strategies of would-be governors and their impacts on the effectiveness of governance and whether it reflects broad or narrow concerns on a wide range of contemporary governance issues.

In this first comprehensive treatment of the subject, Stephen Kohn presents an accessible, clearly written survey of draft resistance in America and its implications for constitutional democracy, domestic and foreign policy, social change, and the movement for world peace. The author explores the roots of the pacifist view and the first expressions of resistance that surfaced during the colonial period. He describes the incidence of draft resistance through the time of the Civil War and how it related to abolitionism. Following the modern conscientious objector through two world wars, Kohn comments on the view of pacifists during popular wars as little better than traitors and on their brutal treatment. Examining the growth of the movement during the Cold War, he addresses the major shift in public attitude that expanded the movement's base of popular support and swelled the ranks of resisters. Draft resistance was to have its greatest impact, however, during the Vietnam War and its aftermath, in influencing public feeling about the war, thwarting the Selective Service's induction efforts, and creating a climate of opinion that contributed to the government's decision to abandon the draft early in the 1970s.

Celebrated as a trading port, Hong Kong was also Britain's "eastern fortress." Likened by many to Gibraltar and Malta, the colony was a vital but vulnerable link in imperial strategy, exposed to a succession of enemies in a turbulent age and a troubled region. This book examines Hong Kong's developing role in the Victorian imperial defence system, the emerging challenges from Russia, France, the USA, Germany, Japan and other powers, and preparations in the years leading up to World War II. A detailed chapter offers new interpretations of the Battle of Hong Kong of 1941, when the colony succumbed to the Japanese invasion. The remaining chapters discuss Hong Kong's changing strategic role during the Cold War and the winding down of the military presence. The book focuses on policies and events, but also explores the social life of the garrison in Hong Kong, the struggles between military and civil authorities, and relations between armed forces and civilians. Drawing on original research in archives around the world, including English, Japanese, and Chinese sources, this is the first full-length study of the defence of Hong Kong from the beginning of the colonial period to the end of British military interests East of Suez in 1970. Illustrated with photographs and detailed maps, Eastern Fortress will be of interest both to students of history and to the general reader.

From the war on terror to the rise of China, this book unlocks the major strategic themes and security challenges of the early twenty-first century. Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific provides the analytical frameworks needed to make sense of this complex but exciting strategic universe. Offering a unique mix of global strategic thinking and Asia-Pacific security analysis, this book is for readers from Sydney to Seoul who want to put their own local security challenges in a wider regional and global context. It is also for North American and European readers requiring an understanding of the dynamic security developments in the Asia-Pacific region around which so much of global strategy is increasingly based. The really vital questions facing the international community are dealt with here: Why do governments and groups still use armed force? Has warfare really changed in the information age? Why should we be concerned about non-traditional security challenges such as water shortages and the spread of infectious disease? Is a great clash imminent between the United States and China? What are the prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and between India and Pakistan? Can Southeast Asia survive the challenges of transnational terrorism? What does security mean for the Pacific island countries and for Australia and New Zealand? With contributions from leading commentators and analysts, Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific offers a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the field.

Written by twelve expert historians, this well-illustrated account of the great confrontations of medieval Europe (c.700-1500) examines major developments in the methods of warfare from the time of Charlemagne through to the end of the Crusades. The result is a rich and fascinating history of a culture steeped in martial ideas, whose aristocrats were also warriors in a society organized by its desire to wage war.

Surviving Images explores the prominent role of cinema in the development of cultural memory around war and conflict in colonial and postcolonial contexts. It does so through a study of three historical eras: the colonial period, the national-independence struggle, and the postcolonial. Beginning with a study of British colonial cinema on the Sudan, then exploring anti-colonial cinema in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, followed by case studies of films emerging from postcolonial contexts in Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and Israel, this work aims to fill a gap in the critical literature on both Middle Eastern cinemas, and to contribute more broadly to scholarship on social trauma and cultural memory in colonial and postcolonial contexts. This work treats the concept of trauma critically, however, and posits that social trauma must be understood as a framework for producing social and political meaning out of these historical events. Social trauma thus sets out a productive process of historical interpretation, and cultural texts such as cinematic works both illuminate and contribute to this process. Through these discussions, Surviving Images illustrates cinema's productive role in contributing to the changing dynamics of cultural memory of war and social conflict in the modern world.

The first comprehensive examination of the relationship between war and public health, this book documents the public health consequences of war and describes what health professionals can do to minimise these consequences. It explores the effects of war on health, human rights, and the environment. The health and environmental impact of both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons) is described in chapters that cover the consequences of their production, testing, maintenance, use, and disposal. Separate chapters cover especially vulnerable populations, such as women, children, and refugees. In-depth descriptions of specific military conflicts, including the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and wars in Central America provide striking illustrations of the issues covered in other chapters. A series of chapters explores the roles of health professionals and of organisations during war, and in preventing war and its consequences. This revised second edition includes seven new chapters, including one on landmines by the Nobel Prize-winning founding director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

The fifteen new essays collected in this volume address questions concerning the ethics of self-defense, most centrally when and to what extent the use of defensive force, especially lethal force, can be justified. Scholarly interest in this topic reflects public concern stemming from controversial cases of the use of force by police, and military force exercised in the name of defending against transnational terrorism. The contributors pay special attention to determining when a threat is liable to defensive harm, though doubts about this emphasis are also raised. The legitimacy of so-called "stand your ground" policies and laws is also addressed. This volume will be of great interest to readers in moral, political, and legal philosophy.