The story of a modern centurion: Tom Cobley's excellent and comprehensive account of his 40 years of service has much to tell the reader. His service took him from Australia and the Pacific Islands, to Britain and Northern Ireland, to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, and places in between. In different regiments of two armies, often alongside men from other armies, he served on operations in many theatres. He tells of service life, the training, comradeship and preparation for operations; his insights show what it is really like. He tells of command and staff work on operations. And above all we learn of Tom Cobley, the centurion himself. General Sir Rupert Smith KCB, DSO*, OBE, QGM (DSACEUR 1998-2001) Although I have served with the Parachute Regiment for close to 40 years, I only got to know Colonel Tom Cobley later in his career. When he was in Afghanistan I was the UK Chief of Joint Operations (CJO), with operational responsibility for our forces there. Subsequently I saw him in Iraq, first as CJO and later as the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), when visiting the NATO training mission. Finally, he worked in my EU strategic level Headquarters at Mons, whilst I had command of the EU operation in Bosnia. It is my experience that you find the best soldiers wherever there is an operation; the same faces always turn up where the action is. Tom is no exception and his account of his fascinating and varied career is well worth reading. General Sir John Reith KCB, CBE (DSACEUR 2004-2007)

When China and Russia established a "strategic partnership" in 1996, both nations declared that they would further develop military cooperation in various fields. Tsai examines the course of this military cooperation to reveal the nature of the military ties with the hopes of determining whether these two traditional adversaries have put aside historical legacies and mutual mistrust to create a full-fledged military partnership. After analyzing the motives and concerns of both powers, Tsai concludes that, while progress has been made in reducing military tensions in border regions, the level of trust has not increased substantially. The nature of these ties remains extremely fragile. Among Western analysts, there has been concern that a closer partnership might adversely affect U.S. interests in the region. China and Russia have developed cooperation in certain areas, such as arms transfers and military-technical cooperation, and these achievements have successfully reduced political tension. However, reciprocal threats against each other's territories and China's increasing ambitions and capacity to act as a great military power in the region could eventually become a major source of friction. Based on research in both Chinese and Russian, this study offers a comprehensive analysis on the development of and limits to this military cooperation.

An eye-opening account of a world order shaped by spacepower and the threat of space warfare. Space technology was developed to enhance the killing power of the state. The Moon landings and the launch of the Space Shuttle were mere sideshows, drawing public attention away from the real goal: military and economic control of space as a source of power on Earth. Today, as Bleddyn E. Bowen vividly recounts, thousands of satellites work silently in the background to provide essential military, intelligence and economic capabilities. No major power can do without them. Beyond Washington, Moscow and Beijing, truly global technologies have evolved, from the ground floor of the nuclear missile revolution to today's orbital battlefield, shaping the wars to come. World powers including India, Japan and Europe are fully realising the strategic benefits of commanding Earth's 'cosmic coastline', as a stage for war, development and prestige. Yet, as new contenders spend more and more on outer space, there is scope for cautious optimism about the future of the Space Age-if we can recognise, rather than hide, its original sin.

The first comprehensive account in English of how the Portuguese Armed Forces prepared for and conducted a distant counterinsurgency campaign in its African possessions with very limited resources, choosing to stay and fight despite the small odds for success. The Portuguese military crafted its doctrine and implemented it to match the guerrilla strategy of protracted war, and in doing so, followed the lessons gleaned from the British and French experiences in small wars. The Portuguese approach to the conflict was distinct in that it sought to combine the two-pronged national strategy of containing the cost of the war and of spreading the burden to the colonies with the solution on the battlefield. It describes how Portugal defined and analyzed its insurgency problem in light of the available knowledge on counterinsurgency, how it developed its military policies and doctrines in this context, and how it applied them in the African colonial environment. The uniqueness of its approach is highlighted through a thematic military analysis of the Portuguese effort and a comparison with the experiences of other governments fighting similar contemporaneous wars.

This book demonstrates that the disciplinary boundaries present within international relations approaches to security studies are redundant when examining social media, and inter- and multi-disciplinary analysis is key. A key result of the analysis undertaken is that when examining the social media sphere security scholars need to "expect the unexpected". This is because social media enables users to subvert, contest and create security narratives with symbols and idioms of their choice which can take into account "traditional" security themes, but also unexpected and under explored themes such as narratives from the local context of the users' towns and cities, and the symbolism of football clubs. The book also explores the complex topography of social media when considering constructions of security. The highly dynamic topography of social media is neither elite dominated and hierarchical as the Copenhagen School conceptualises security speak. However, neither is it completely flat and egalitarian as suggested by the vernacular security studies' non-elite approach. Rather, social media's topography is shifting and dynamic, with individuals gaining influence in security debates in unpredictable ways. In examining social media this book engages with the emancipatory burden of critical security studies. This book argues that it remains unfulfilled on social media and rather presents a "thin" notion of discursive emancipation where social media does provide the ability for previously excluded voices to participate in security debates, even if this does not result in their direct emancipation from power hierarchies and structures offline.

Ten days before the D-day landings at Normandy, Lt. Henry Woodrum woke early to fl y a combat mission that culminated in being shot down over the northern suburbs of Paris. Expected to be captured as he hung suspended in his parachute over Nazi-occupied France, Lt. Woodrum never lost hope-even as he realized the Germans were trying to kill him before he hit the ground.

Lt. Woodrum's thirty-fifth combat mission flying the Martin Maruder B-26 was supposed to last just a few hours, but it ended up continuing three months as he struggled to survive in war-torn France. In his fascinating war memoir, Woodrum shares his true account of how he managed to evade capture while being aided by the French Underground-some of whom paid the ultimate price for their loyalty to the downed American pilot.

"Walkout" not only relays the incredible story of a young American behind enemy lines during pivotal months of World War II but also illustrates the quiet heroism displayed by American airmen and the French Resistance during an unforgettable time in history.

"A true story of a B-26 pilot's escape from the Nazis after bailing out over Paris. A must read " -Col. William F. Nicol, USAFR, MC (Ret)

In volume, an emerging generation of African scholars examines specific states in Africa where instability is the order of the day. Considerations of African instability are highly relevant in today's world, where one examines the types of regimes that were put in place after the Cold War and their effects on Africa. Multiparty systems introduced in Africa, rather than bringing about inclusive governance, allowed for the emergence of religious strife, ethnic conflict, and cronyism inscribed in the continent's "politicalscapes." The economics of exclusivity fueled by globalization have decisively contributed to the emergence of non-state actors claiming sovereignty in sovereign states. From Libya's implosion to the low-key war in Mozambique to the crisis of climate change, there are many variables that make stability a mirage on the continent. Widespread terrorism implies that for the foreseeable future, the continent may be a theater of crises. Regime change, as seen in Libya, Ivory Coast, and Liberia, not only increases instability in the states concerned, but has and will have spill over effects in adjacent states. Boko Haram's activities in Nigeria, which ought to be an internal matter of the Abuja government, for instance, are having negative effects in Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. The effect on food production, disputed access to farmland, and daily challenges faced by food producers are instances of underdevelopment perpetuated by climate change and other challenges considered in this timely book.

The media served a highly partisan and propagandistic role in NATO's Kosovo war, uncritically reproducing official spin in a way that was incompatible with their proclaimed democratic role as objective purveyors of information. This book integrates a critical interpretation of Western policy towards the former Yugoslavia with analysis of media coverage of the Kosovo crisis and war. The first part of the book deals with the war itself and the build-up to it, placing this in the context of earlier Western intervention in Yugoslavia. Part two discusses key issues raised by the media coverage, including the demonisation of the enemy, and the role of CNN. In the final section, contributors analyse how the war was reported in different countries around the world, including the United States, Britain, Germany, India, Greece, Russia, and France. The book offers a corrective to the hysteria and misinformation that permeated media coverage. Subjects covered include the role of the Internet, the changing media-military relationship, the depiction and definition of "war crimes", and how Yugoslav television was presented as a legitimate military target. Contributors include John

Being transformed from a civilian life to that of a 'uniform' one never came easy; and when the transformation was in an officer-training institution, only the strongest and the best survived. For a First Term Officer Cadet in the Nigerian Defence Academy during my time, that experience was more like the 'survival of the fittest'.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Mel Amler was a sociable and motivated dental student completing his first semester at New York University. The following spring, the US Army commissioned him and thousands of his classmates nationwide in the Medical Administrative Corps (MAe Reserve. Their coursework was accelerated to supply the armed forces with critically needed dental officers. Upon graduation, the newly minted dentists were whisked off to basic training and to combat zones worldwide. Armed with a .45 automatic and carbine, his newly gained profession, and a commission as a First Lieutenant, Mel found himself deep in the jungles of Mindanao, The Philippines. Standing watch duty in the pitch-black rain-flooded midnight, he wondered how this city boy who loved science and music had come to this.

This book-a Leonaur original-contains three rare works by members of Wellington's green sharpshooters. The first was written by Rifleman Knight-a personality who rarely appears in histories of the regiment-but who fought at Waterloo and took part in the pursuit of the French Army to Paris. He subsequently went to Portugal to fight as a mercenary and his account of his adventures on campaign and on the battlefield make riveting reading. Henry Curling wielded the pen that brought to the public the well known memoirs of Rifleman Benjamin Harris. This book contains more military anecdotes recorded by Curling from reports of other British soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars including several more by Harris himself. The final piece is a short history of the Rifles by Jonathan Leach who was an officer of the regiment and his history directly recounts events in which he was a personal and active participant.

This account of the amphibious operations carried out in Iraq (then called Mesopotamia) against the Turks in the Great War is replete with names all too familiar to us today: Basra, Nasiriya, Baghdad. For then, as now, British sailors and soldiers were fighting a neglected, thankless campaign in a tough environment where, according to the author who commanded it: 'there was too much water for the soldiers and not enough for the sailors'. Vice-Admiral Nunn, in his elegant sloop of a gunboat Espiegle, commanded a mixed force that, along with irregulars he calls 'our Arab allies' fought their way up the great twin TIgris and Euphrates rivers against stubborn and determined Turkish resistance. Despite disappointments, such as the failure to re-take the town of Kut al Amara, lost with all its garrison early in the war, the campaign was eventually crowned with success with the capture of Baghdad in 1917. This is a book that will interest all Great War buffs, as well as those studying amphibious operations and anyone serving in Iraq today.

At about 11:30 on a Sunday morning in 1815, a few shots rang out as the curtain-raiser to one of Europe's most titanic military clashes. By late afternoon, at the close of the Battle of Waterloo, nearly 40,000 men lay dead or wounded. Until that day, the army of Napoleon Bonaparte seemed almost invincible. Indeed, by mid-afternoon, victory for the French seemed a distinct possibility. But the Allied army, led by the Duke of Wellington and ably assisted by Marshal Blucher, finally delivered a fatal blow that not only defeated the French forces but destroyed for ever Napoleon's dreams of conquest and glory, in which he would stand astride Europe like a colossus. Events that day confirmed the Duke of Wellington as a military genius and Blucher as an eccentric but loyal ally. For the British, the Battle of Waterloo was one of our greatest ever victories and the story of that extraordinary day,.

Napoleon's lightning conquest of Prussia, accomplished within a month in the autumn of 1806, was perhaps his most spectacularly successful campaign. The twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt, won on the same day, October 14th, by Napoleon himself and his most able Marshal, Davout, annihilated the Prussian army and on 25th October, exactly a month after invading Prussia, Napoleon entered Berlin and enforced a humiliating peace on his beaten enemy. In his classic account of the campaign, published exactly 100 years ago, F. Loraine Petre explains how Prussia's once vaunted military might ossified in the twenty years after Frederick the Great's death, leading to timidity and political paralysis. What Field-Marshal Roberts in his foreword calls 'a selfish and suicidal policy' of ignoring France as she picked off neighbouring Austria led to defeat and occupation, but ultimately to much needed reform and the re-birth of the Prussian army with its ultimate revenge on Napoleon at Leipzig and Waterloo.

Organized around single country studies embedded in key historical moments, this book introduces students to the shifting and varied guerrilla history of Latin America from the late 1950s to the present. It brings together academics and those directly involved in aspects of the guerrilla movement, to understand each country's experience with guerrilla warfare and revolutionary activism. The book is divided in four thematic parts after two opening chapters that analyze the tradition of military involvement in Latin American politics and the parallel tradition of insurgency and coup effort against dictatorship. The first two parts examine active guerrilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s with case studies including Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Part 3 is dedicated to the Central American Civil Wars of the 1980s and 1990s in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Part 4 examines specific guerrilla movements which require special attention. Chapters include Colombia's complicated guerrilla scenery; the rivalling Shining Path and Tupac Amaru guerrillas in Peru; small guerrilla movements in Mexico which were never completely documented; and transnational guerrilla operations in the Southern Cone. The concluding chapter presents a balance of the entire Latin American guerrilla at present. Superbly accessible, while retaining the complexity of Latin American politics, Latin American Guerrilla Movements represents the best historical account of revolutionary movements in the region, which students will find of great use owing to its coverage and insights.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.