The dramatic story of Hitler and Stalin's marriage of convenience has been recounted frequently over the past 60 years, but with remarkably little consensus. As the first English-language study to analyze the development, extent, and importance of the Nazi-Soviet economic relationship from Hitler's ascension to power to the launching of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, this book highlights the crucial role that Soviet economic aid played in Germany's early successes in World War II. When Hitler's rearmament efforts left Germany dangerously short of raw materials in 1939, Stalin was able to offer valuable supplies of oil, manganese, grain, and rubber. In exchange, the Soviet Union would gain territory and obtain the technology and equipment necessary for its own rearmament efforts.

However, by the summer of 1941, Stalin's well-calculated plan had gone awry. Germany's continuing reliance on Soviet raw materials would, Stalin hoped, convince Hitler that he could not afford to invade the USSR. As a result, the Soviets continued to supply the Reich with the resources that would later carry the Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow and nearly cost the Soviets the war. The extensive use in this study of neglected source material in the German archives helps resolve the long-standing debate over whether Stalin's foreign policy was one of expansionism or appeasement.

Why do the combat capabilities of individual soldiers vary so much? This book seeks to provide an answer to this and other questions about variability in combat performance. Some soldiers flee quickly from the battlefield, while others endure all hardships until the bitter end. Some combat units can perform numerous types of missions, while others cannot keep themselves organized during peacetime. Some militaries armed with obsolete weapons have out fought enemies with the latest weapons, just as some massively outnumbered armies have beaten back much larger opponents. In this first social scientific study of the effectiveness of combat troops, Newsome evaluates competing explanations for the varying combat capabilities and performances. There are four main explanations, each emphasizing the influence of a single factor. The first focuses on material endowments. How well funded are the troops? Do they have the latest protective gear and the most advanced weaponry? Second, some analysts claim that democracies produce better commanders, superior strategies, more motivated personnel, or better-managed personnel; others, however, associated those characteristics with more authoritarian forms of government. Third is the idea that giving more power to the troops on the ground in individual combat units empowers them with decision-making capability and adaptability to fast-changing situations and circumstances. Newsome presents evidence that decentralized personnel management does correlate with superior combat performance. Fourth, soldier capabilities and performance often are assumed to reflect intrinsic attributes, such as prior civilian values. Newsome argues that the capabilities ofcombat soldiers are acquired through military training and other forms of conditioning, but he does not entirely discount the role of a soldier's individual character. In the age-old nature vs. nurture argument, he finds that intrinsic qualities do count, but that extrinsic factors, such as training and environment, matter even more.

National intelligence agencies have long adjusted to the opportunities and threats from new technologies. From spy planes and satellites to the internet, they have created structures, concepts, and practices to best apply these new capabilities. But recent technological developments are different in kind. Increasingly affordable to non-governmental actors, they are powerful enough to overwhelm and marginalize much of what agencies do. So far, the large intelligence agencies have been too slow to recognize the need for transformation. They believe they can work emerging technologies into the current paradigm just as they have with other advances. This book argues that only with a new paradigm can they take up this fundamentally new technological challenge. The book explores this fast-developing world for intelligence agencies and offers a path for maintaining their effectiveness and centrality. Along the way it analyzes the emerging technologies and explains how these will likely affect intelligence work. The Future of National Intelligence: How Emerging Technologies Reshape Intelligence Communities draws on a broad review of the academic literature, a deep familiarity with the relevant technologies, and extensive interviews and surveys with both intelligence practitioners and technology entrepreneurs. It lays out the principles for agency leaders to consider as they work on this essential transformation.

Analyzing the origins of conflicts and wars in the Persian Gulf, this study assesses the conflicts' shared trajectories and fallouts. Although the origins of conflicts are varied (sectarian, religious, ethnic, and tribal, over territory and over resources), as conflicts evolve, the quest for "revenge" and the desire to settle old scores is only one, apparent fuel, which belies a more essential one. The evolution of most conflicts can, over time, be traced to a single source--the struggle for power and control over resources. Hossein Askari argues that reconciliation will require the simultaneous adoption of foundational political, social, and economic reforms by the countries in the region, as well as the cooperation of the global powers, especially the United States, to end support of dictators and reduce the human costs of aggression. The creation of a just society with freedom and equal opportunities for all is a necessary precondition if peace and prosperity are to flourish.

This 12-volume set of previously out-of-print tiles examines many aspects of conflict and security in the Middle East. Works on the first Gulf War (including one on its environmental impact) sit alongside books about the superpowers, nuclear rivalry and attempts at peacemaking.

Since the end of bipolarism, the concept of asymmetric warfare, and of asymmetric conflict in general, has been increasingly applied with regard to armed forces activities and tasks. This book presents the findings of comparative empirical research conducted in selected military units by a group of distinguished experts on military organization, who hail from the eight participating countries: Bulgaria, Cameroon, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, the Philippines and Spain. It discusses remarks made by military leaders with extensive experience in the field regarding current doctrines on military leadership and their applicability in the field, as well as proposals and suggestions for new directions. "It is a complex relation, always based on respect and politeness, but often with mismatched interests." (Army Colonel). "It makes you realize that there is a cultural gap. You must firstly understand who you are going to relate to, and the culture of these people, and then try to establish a certain kind of relationship. Often the platoon commander states his objective and must try to establish a relationship, contact with the village chief." (Army Lieutenant, Platoon Commander). "[In Afghanistan] We had meals with the locals, sometimes the food didn't taste good, but you had to eat it if you wanted to be welcomed back again" (Army Captain, Company Commander). These are just some of the many voices stemming from the ground in diverse international asymmetric conflict theatres (in Iraq, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan...), comments by military officers, commanders at different hierarchical levels, asked to reflect on their experiences as military leaders in crisis response operations. Military professionals, and military leaders in particular, perceive themselves as facing ambiguous situations that require an update in their professional training, and new skills to confront unexpected and unpredictable factors. Drawing on lived experiences, the book offers insights into what a new kind of leadership means when leaders have to cope with diverse and unclear missions. It also addresses leadership styles and behaviours, as well as individual adaptive behaviours on the part of military leaders, with special reference to middle and middle-high level ranks, such as captains, majors and colonels. Given its scope, the book will appeal not only to military professionals and military affairs scholars and experts, but also to readers interested in gaining a better understanding of the challenges that international expeditionary units are facing in crisis areas around the globe.

Exploring the experiences of children encountering war and armed conflict, this book draws upon history, ethnography, sociology, literature, media studies, psychology, public policy, and other disciplines to address children as soldiers, refugees, and peace-builders within their social, cultural, and political contexts.

Master Sergeant Gordon L. Ewell is a combat engineer and expert in the tactics and techniques the enemy used in Iraq to assemble, disguise, and detonate deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs). He became part of the first special two-solider team whose mission was to find and render safe the IEDs, before they could unleash their deadly force upon other soldiers, convoys, civilians, and local civilian commuters during the War in Iraq. He performed fifty-nine dangerous missions, coauthored a first-of-its-kind manual used for the training of special teams that would have the mission of finding IEDs, was "blown-up" six different times, and saved countless lives. He received the Bronze Star Medal for "demonstrating personal courage and conviction on multiple occasions by continually performing his duties while under enemy attack," and the Purple Heart Medal for "wounds received while engaged in combat" during the war. Though permanently disabled, he continues to fight. A Lifetime at War is more than just an incredible and inspiring personal account of his road to recovery. Once again Ewell is using his expertise and experience-this time to help wounded warriors navigate the hell of recovery. He helps us all to understand that while the War in Iraq may have ended on December 15, 2011, for the thousands of soldiers severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, their war will never end.

"The greatest threat to the U.S.'s homeland security is not a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb; it is an unexpected nuclear Pearl Harbor." - Author "Taiwan's democratic achievement and vision of the future . . . are consistent with the American experience. Will Beijing eventually follow such a course? Decisions are still to be made, and there are limits to how effectively the U.S. can influence these decisions. But we can and we must continue to support Taiwan. Its security is ultimately our security. Of that we can be sure." - the late Congressman Gerald B. H. Solomon Li explains how America's security hinges on Taiwan's survival as an independent democracy.

In Shaping U.S. Military Forces, D. Robert Worley assesses military force changes that have been made since the Cold War, explains the many changes that have not been made, and recommends changes that must be made—as well as exploring the ways in which political and military forces line up to resist them. For over forty years there was consensus about maintaining large U.S. military forces. Today, as evidenced by the steady decline in defense spending since 1985, that consensus has evaporated, and a new equilibrium is being sought. Yet evidence of transformation is modest. By outward appearances, today's military is principally a smaller version of our Cold War forces, despite the fact that threat, missions, and strategies have changed. There has been no lack of reform effort at the highest levels of the defense bureaucracy. Under the leadership of General Colin Powell, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reexamined the roles and missions of the services. Recommendations followed. But, according to observers, change occurred only at the margins. Worley argues that the highly institutionalized cultures of the uniformed services offer the best explanation for why the American military is not a different force well over a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Significant historical events, primarily from World War II forward, are used to explain belief systems within the individual services and sometimes within specific branches within a single service. Force planners commonly measure military end strength in terms of divisions, wings, and battle groups. Therefore, Worley examines the most important organizational structures—armored and infantry divisions, fighter and bomber wings, and carrier battle groups—and does so in the context of conflicts, including Vietnam, the Gulf War, Panama, Kosovo, and Somalia, and of course the unfinished conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. He highlights problems associated with the clash of service conceptions of war and the requirements of real conflict to examine the shape U.S. military forces have—and the shape they should assume.

Can NATO survive? The stimulating and highly original essays contained in this volume provide important new insights into why the treaty organization was formed, how it developed, and what it has contributed both to the security and to the integration of Europe. The authors examine NATO as a strong and intricate webbing holding together the nations of Europe as well as binding them to the United States as guarantor of free world stability. This book is essential to the re-examination now under way of NATO's role in the radically different post-Cold War world.

The war on drugs has failed, but consensus in the international drug policy debate on the way forward is missing. Amidst this moment of uncertainty, militarised lenses on the global illicit drug problem continue to neglect the complexity of the causes and consequences that this war is intended to defend or defeat. Challenging conventional thinking in defence and security sectors, Transforming the War on Drugs constitutes the first comprehensive and systematic effort to theoretically, conceptually, and empirically investigate the impacts of the war on drugs. The contributors trace the consequences of the war on drugs across vulnerable regions, including South America and Central America, West Africa, the Middle East and the Golden Crescent, the Golden Triangle, and Russia. It demonstrates that these consequences are 'glocal'. The war's local impacts on human rights, security, development, and public health are interdependent with transnational illicit flows. The book further reveals how these impacts have influenced the positions of governments across these regions, with significant ramifications for the international drug control regime. Crucially, it shows that, at a time when global order is in flux, critically evaluating the regime's securitisation through the war on drugs provides key insights into other global governance realms.

This book charts the history of armoured warfare from the first use of the tank in 1916 right through to the 21st century, adopting military, political and global perspectives. Alaric Searle explores the origins of the tank, the part it played in the First World War and its contribution to the outcome of the war. He considers its role as a tool of propaganda, the military controversies of the interwar period and the employment of armoured forces in all the major theatres in the Second World War. Since the First World War, major and medium-sized powers have invested heavily in armoured forces. Searle looks at the conduct of mechanised warfare in Korea, Indo-China and Vietnam, and during conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli Wars and the Gulf Wars. Armoured Warfare adopts a global perspective, providing the most comprehensive survey of the history of the subject currently available. With a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources, it is an ideal companion for those studying armoured warfare, modern military history and war studies.

A discussion of the radical alteration of the character of American society caused by World War II. The war redefined the relationship of government to the individual and of individuals to each other, and it posed questions about the relationship between civilians and the military, between liberty and security, between special interests and national purpose.

Although numerous biographies have been written about Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, none has offered a careful examination of his three-year command of the allied occupation army in France between 1815 and 1818. In this work, Thomas Dwight Veve fully details Wellington's last active military posting, exploring the major role he played not only as an officer but also as a statesman. In doing so, he demonstrates that Wellington's command was not simply the final chapter in a successful military career, but rather an important transition to his future political endeavors. Veve describes the complete history of the allied occupation, from the peace negotiations and establishment of an occupying force, to the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle and the departure of the allies. The full range of Wellington's duties and accomplishments are examined, including his inspection of the crucial Dutch barrier fortress renovation program and his decisions regarding troop reductions and the final termination of occupation. Also cited is Wellington's extraordinary management of what was the first multinational peacekeeping operation, his ability to maintain neutrality for the army, and the many years of stability and peace that followed his assignment. This book will be an essential reference work for students and scholars of military history, British history, and political science, as well as for college, university, and public libraries.