In his new book, Tony Le Tissier provides the first detailed account of the Soviet-German conflict east of Berlin, culminating in 1945 with the last major land battle in Europe that proved decisive for the fate of Berlin. When the first Red Army soldier reached the Oder on the 31st of January, everyone at the Soviet Headquarters expected Marshall ZhukoV's troops to bring a quick end to the war. However, despite desperate fighting by both sides, a stalemate persisted for two months, at the end of which the Soviet bridgeheads north and south of Kustrin were united and the fortress finally fell. By drawing not only on official sources, but also on the accounts of individuals involved, Le Tissier meticulously reconstructs the difficult breakthrough achieved on the Oder: the establishment of bridgeheads, the battle for the fortress of Kustrin, the bloody fight for Seelow Heights. Numerous maps and step by step illustrations show the operations of both contestants in detail and reveal a most interesting episode in the history of the Second World War in Europe.

In his new book, Tony Le Tissier provides the first detailed account of the Soviet-German conflict east of Berlin, culminating in 1945 with the last major land battle in Europe that proved decisive for the fate of Berlin. When the first Red Army soldier reached the Oder on the 31st of January, everyone at the Soviet Headquarters expected Marshall ZhukoV's troops to bring a quick end to the war. However, despite desperate fighting by both sides, a stalemate persisted for two months, at the end of which the Soviet bridgeheads north and south of Kustrin were united, and the fortress finally fell.

By drawing not only on official sources, but also on the accounts of individuals involved, Le Tissier meticulously reconstructs the difficult breakthrough achieved on the Oder: the establishment of bridgeheads, the battle for the fortress of Kustrin, and the bloody fight for Seelow Heights. Numerous maps and step by step illustrations show the operations of both contestants in detail and reveal a most interesting episode in the history of the Second World War in Europe.

Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company's 1st Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, found itself in Fallujah, embroiled in some of the most intense house-to-house, hand-to-hand urban combat since World War II. In the city's bloody streets, they came face-to-face with the enemy-radical insurgents high on adrenaline, fighting to a martyr's death, and suicide bombers approaching from every corner. award-winning author and historian Patrick O'Donnell stood shoulder to shoulder with this modern band of brothers as they marched and fought through the streets of Fallujah, and he stayed with them as the casualties mounted.

Making use of newly-researched archival materials, this collection of original essays on wartime and post-war US foreign policy re-evaluates well-known crises and documents many less familiar aspects of the nation's mid-twentieth century conflicts. Leading diplomatic historians address familiar subjects from new angles. They offer new evidence about the risks run and the costs incurred in the prosecution of the Cold War, from Korea to the Caribbean. And they provide an up-to-date accounting of mid-twentieth century American diplomacy's global purposes and consequences.

In this book Robert E. Harkavy analyses the modern status and the associated diplomacy of basing access, against the background of past political, military, and technological relationships. He provides a comprehensive description of the major powers' global basing networks, including their types, their locations, and the politics and economics of their acquisition. Professor Harkavy also gives details of the facilities the bases make available - naval, air, ground, missile, intelligence, communications, research and testing, environmental monitoring, and space-related - and provides a wealth of tables and maps depicting US and Soviet global networks. He analyses the roles of these bases for the USA, the USSR and other major powers, and discusses emerging political and technological developments which may alter basing diplomacy: the diffusion of power away from the superpowers, the increasing leverage of the smaller countries that host bases, the strengthened role of satellites in comparison with facilities on land and the possible impact of space defences on basing requirements. The crucial link between arms transfers and the politics of basing is emphasized, and the final section is devoted to the politics and economics of foreign military presence.

By examining Mauritius and the Indian Ocean, this synthesis of imperial and naval/military history reveals the depths of colonial involvement in the Second World War and the role of colonies in British strategic planning from the 18th century. In the century of total war, the British Empire was fully mobilized. The author looks at how the Mauritian home front became regimented, troops were recruited for service overseas, the Eastern fleet guarded the Indian Ocean, and Mauritius became a base for SOE operations and intelligence-gathering for Bletchley.

The Challenges of High Command explores British ideas of command and control of military operations and looks at the practicalities of British experience in World War I and II. The contributors cast new light on themes as diverse as the trench warfare of World War I, the conduct of the Gallipoli and Norway campaigns, and the command performance of Bomber Harris and Bill Slim. The book concludes with a major review of how military operations should be conducted in the new political and technological conditions of today and includes an informal and frank commentary by General Sir Mike Jackson on his experience in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The advent of the twenty-first century was marked by a succession of conflicts and catastrophes that demanded unrestrained journalism. Yet, the principle mass news medium of television has become torn between strategies of containment and the amplification of security threats. Hoskins and O'Loughlin demonstrate that television, tarnished by its economy of liveness and its default impositions of immediacy, brevity and simultaneity, fails to deliver a critical and consistent exposition adequate to our conflicting times.

This book examines the contribution of the military to the exploration, settlement, development, and defense of Alaska. The work covers the period of time from its purchase from Russia in 1867 to the present. During that time Alaska emerged from an obscure colonial dependency to a resource-rich state. This same period confirmed its strategic significance in hemispheric and continental defense, first during the second world war, when Japanese forces occupied the Aleutian Islands, and then during the cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. While in some ways analagous to the western experience generally, the duties of the military on the Alaska frontier were unique. Geography, climate, and unprecendented responsibilities of governance and law enforcement imposed many new challenges. In recent years Alaska and the Arctic have acquired military significance for both the United States and Russia. This fascinating study is in inquiry into the historical evidence and the major themes, events, and personalities that have shaped the development of our forty-ninth state. It offers original research in archival and manuscript sources, and provides a useful synthesis of the published documentary record, and brings together in a comprehensive bibliography resources that are available for those who wish to pursue specific areas of interest. The broad scope, both interpretive and narrative, of this important work will make it an indispensable aid to students and scholars of the western historical experience, American military history, and world history.

This book uses history in two ways: as the source of ideas about strategy and as examples to illustrate the elements by showing their application to specific campaigns and their utility in understanding the role of strategy in military operations. The focus is on American military campaigns from the American Indian Wars to the War in the Gulf. Those case studies are used to illustrate the strategy behind land, sea, and air campaigns. Over a fifth of the book examines the U.S. war against Japan because it furnishes such fine examples of independent and interdependent operations on land, on the sea, and in the air. The cases studied are not only intended to illustrate strategic ideas but also to show the utility of the author's distinctive approach to organizing military strategy. The book will appeal to military professionals, students of military science, and enthusiasts.

Since the Revolutionary War, American military men have published troop newspapers to provide amusement, to keep themselves informed, to aid in maintaining morale, and to encourage those engaged in boring or dangerous pursuits. Beginning as informal ventures, these papers received official sanction as high command began to realize their morale benefits and eventually became an accepted adjunct to the waging of war. Based on a close reading of many soldiers' newspapers, this volume is the first book to provide a historical survey of the U.S. military press from the Revolutionary War to the present. Drawing on the rich detail in the troop newspapers, the book also provides a social record of the attitudes, aspirations, and life of those engaged in war, and considers the increasingly controversial issue of freedom of the press in war time.

Taking a chronological approach, the study opens with a consideration of the Revolutionary War and turns to a consideration of the Mexican War of 1846-1848 in chapter 2. The Civil War papers are covered in chapter 3. Chapter 4 discusses the period from 1865 to 1917, when the military press matured. The next two chapters cover the ground forces papers and the air service papers of World War I. Chapters 7 and 8 are devoted to World War II, and the final chapter covers the period since World War II. This volume should become a standard in journalism history.

A study of Rommel's generalship in the context of the fateful Tunisian campaign, this book explores Rommel's generalship through the influential variables of battle, including logistics difficulties, weapons technology, and his relations with Hitler. The legend of the Desert Fox colors most battle accounts of North Africa in World War II, but this is the story of Rommel's performance in the face of defeat. After a detailed discussion of the Alamein battles, July through November 1942, and Rommel's retreat to Tunisia, ending in January 1943, Watson recounts the British and American invasion of North Africa and the confused web of Axis command that spawned the debacle at Medenine. The final three chapters cover selected variables of battle and of command to reveal the man behind the legend.

After his dramatic successes in North Africa, the Desert Fox would face a new challenge, the arrival of the Americans. Faced with a lack of logistical support and a steady erosion of weapons quality, a de-modernization of the front, Rommel planned to attack American bases in central Tunisia by advancing through Kasserine Pass. Unfortunately, a last minute alteration of the plan by the Italian high command would disperse his troops along three fronts. The attacks failed, and Rommel discovered that the relative independence he had enjoyed during earlier phases of the desert war no longer existed.

Naval forces have not yet received the attention they are due for their role in Operation Desert Shield. This chronological account offers a unique, and as yet, unseen level of detail regarding the Navy's contribution throughout the operation. Relying on primary sources whenever possible, this book discusses naval decisions in terms of information available to decision-makers at the time and presents the pros and cons for alternative courses of action, as argued at the time of the original decision. It details the Navy's role in planning for successful operations, its constant vigil against surprise attack, and its daily contribution to the maritime interception effort to enforce U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq.

Naval forces upheld the sanctions at sea in such a way as to avoid disabling a civilian ship and provided the glue that helped create and maintain the multi-national coalition. The complexity of the situation required the naval forces to adapt their command and control to a highly centralized operation which placed unprecedented demands on the Navy's communications systems. This study provides an insider view of the various plans, even those that were not carried out, and valuable insights into the personalities of the leading officials. Sources include first-hand observations of the events at ComUSNavCent, where the author had access to nearly all events and decisions; hundreds of thousands of messages and other briefing materials; the post-war analysis done by the Center for Naval Analyses; and interviews with almost all of the key players.

Having evolved over the past two and a quarter centuries to become the premier military force in the world, the U.S. Army has a heritage rich in history and tradition. This historical dictionary provides short, clear, authoritative entries on a broad cross section of military terms, concepts, arms and equipment, units and organizations, campaigns and battles, and people who have had a significant impact on Army. It includes over 900 entries written by some 100 scholars, providing a valuable resource for the interested reader, student, and researcher.

For those interested in pursuing specific subjects further, the book provides sources at the end of each entry as well as a general bibliography. Appendixes provide a useful list of abbreviations and acronyms and a listing of ranks and grades in the U.S. Army.

Using previously unpublished diaries, letters, and photographs—plus the writings of war correspondent John T. McCutcheon—Feuer offers a vivid account of America's war in the Philippine Islands during the early part of the 20th century. This story highlights the experiences of the American soldiers, sailors, and marines who participated in the major battles. Not only did they fight a determined enemy, they also battled the weather, the jungle, and the diseases that threatened to take their lives. Their writings, including a section of poems and songs of the era, reveal the thoughts and anxieties of the American fighting man, serving his country nearly 8,000 miles from home. In 1895 Emilio Aguinaldo became the leader of Katipunan, a revolutionary society that sought complete independence from Spain. A year later, his ragtag band of soldiers defeated a Spanish regiment, a victory that incited the Filipino people to rise up against their oppressors. While the Spanish ultimately paid Aguinaldo to enter voluntary exile, in 1898, after the sinking of the ^IMaine^R, the United States would promise independence for the islands in exchange for Aguinaldo's return to lead an uprising against Spain. The U.S. State Department would later repudiate this promise, a move that would embroil United States troops in a bloody struggle to subdue the islands. This is their story.

Every American should read this book in order to gain a clear insight about military combat and war. From the foreword by Ross Perot Recommended for readers who enjoy suspenseful accounts of close combat. Publishers Weekly Most Americans remember...the two troubling televised images that follwed [the operation]....But there is more about that day that is told in this book and that should be known by Americans. The Wall Street Journal Among America's clearest memories of ongoing conflict in Somalia will certainly be the swollen, bloodied face of helicopter pilot Michael Durant, displayed on the international television news reports after his capture in Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. While the failed mission leading to Durant's imprisonment captured the rage and anguish of the world, few Americans truly understood how many U.S. Army Ranger compatriots shared Durant's fortitude and courage there. Indeed, Durant was only one member of the elite Task Force Ranger Regiment deployed to apprehend Mohammed Farrah Aidid, Somailia's most powerful warlord on the fateful October day. Here is the little-known story of the 15 fierce, deadly hours of fighting that followed the Americans tightly calibrated attempt to target Aidid. Moment by moment, Mogahishu! recounts how this mission, intended to deflate the heart of Somali resistance, became instead a tragic showcase for the heroism and breathtaking self-sacrifice of the American servicement--and the catalyst of U.S. withdrawal of peacekeeping troops. Mogadishu! reveals while the operation produced on the most decorated military units in American history, it cost 18 of America's best-trained servicemen their lives. Using rare testimony from other military personnel, Kent DeLong offers the first complete account of how these Americans died, not for glory but for each other, far from their loved ones in a God-forsaken place called Mogadishu.

Border Fury provides a fascinating account of the period of Anglo-Scottish Border conflict from the Edwardian invasions of 1296 until the Union of the Crowns under James VI of Scotland, James I of England in 1603.

It looks at developments in the art of war during the period, the key transition from medieval to renaissance warfare, the development of tactics, arms, armour and military logistics during the period. All the key personalities involved are profiled and the typology of each battle site is examined in detail with the author providing several new interpretations that differ radically from those that have previously been understood.

The history of United Nations peacekeeping is largely one of failure. This book puts a case for augmenting "ad hoc" peacekeepers with competent contract labour; and within the constraints of a new legal regime, supporting future operations with well-trained contractors who might subdue by force those who inflict gross human rights abuses on others.

This book analyzes the strategic implications of the shift in focus for the US Armed Forces from regular to irregular war.
Lawrence Freedman closely examines the difficulty the US Armed Forces face in shifting their focus from preparing for regular wars, in which combat is separated from civil society, to irregular wars, in which combat is integrated with civil society. He argues that the political context of contemporary irregular wars requires that the purpose and practice of western forces be governed by liberal values, showing that this is also the case with regular wars, to the extent they occur, but it is the integration with civil society that makes the application of liberal values so challenging.
"The Transformation of Strategic Affairs" suggests that this challenge becomes easier to meet when military operations are understood to contribute to the development of a compelling narrative about the likely course and consequence of a conflict, in which these values are shown to be respected. At the same time, however, while it is vital that the employment of armed force remains sensitive at all times to the underlying political context, and sensitive to the role of narratives in shaping this context, the book shows that a key test of success will always be the defeat of the opposing forces. The "war on terror" has highlighted these issues, and this "Adelphi Paper" concludes with much-needed suggestions for a strategic response.
This book will be of great interest to students of the US Armed Forces, politics, strategic studies and military history.

In this collection scholars, policymakers, and military officials explore the conditions that gave rise to the Balkan wars in the 1990s, the application of international law to the wars, the conduct of the wars, and post-war issues. The essays are based on presentations given at the International Conference on the Balkans held at Florida Atlantic University in February 2002. The contributors come from varied backgrounds, including international law, genocide studies, peacekeeping, European politics, communications, history, and military studies.

The second of a series, this study analyzes the historical relationships between the provision of military assistance and success in achieving Soviet aims during the Cold War. Mott looks at Soviet donor-recipient relationships across seventeen case studies to identify the generalities or regularities that relate the classical wartime relationship to achievement of donor Cold War aims. He refines the four critical features of the wartime donor-recipient relationship--convergence of donor and recipient aims, donor control, commitment of donor military forces, and coherence of donor policies and strategies--to reflect the unique political economic constraints of the Cold War. Findings challenge orthodox separation of politics, history, military science, and economics, and refute the common wisdom that economic aid is a more effective policy instrument than military assistance.

Mott contends that both successes and failures of Cold War Soviet military assistance were predictable, explicit consequences of donor policies and strategies and of convergence of donor and recipient aims. This book presents a pattern for both policy development and theoretical analysis in which military assistance is a viable, robust policy option and bilateral relationship with a clear set of requirements, features, processes, and predictable results. Its primary methodology is the search for uniformities across historical observations through low-level, ordinary, multivariate regressions. Each chapter focuses on Soviet military assistance in a region and refines the relevant features of the observed relationships into a tentative pattern for comparison with other regions.

Does history provide lessons for foreign policy makers today? Macdonald combines cognitive psychology theories about analogical reasoning, international relations theories about military intervention, and original archival research to analyze the role of historical information in foreign policy decision making. He looks at the role of historical analogies in Anglo-American decision making during foreign policy crises involving the possible use of force in regional contingencies during a crucial period in the 1950s when the West faced an emerging Soviet threat. This study analyzes the influence of situational and individual variables in a comparison of more than ten leaders from two nations facing four different crises. Rolling the Iron Dice describes the often significant effect of historical analogies on perceptions of the adversary and of allies, time constraints, policy options and risks, as well as the justification of policy in four crises: the 1950 Korean invasion; the 1951-53 Iranian oil nationalization incident; the 1956 Suez crisis; and the 1958 crisis in Lebanon and Jordan. Contrary to both the slippery slope and the escalation models of military intervention, Macdonald argues that leaders decide extremely early in a crisis, often on the basis of an historical analogy, but also based on perceptions of the rationality of an adversary, whether to use military force. Their decision does not change unless the adversary capitulates to every demand.

Some of the key aspects of doctrinal, manpower, and technical modernization of China's armed forces are the subject of this unique collection of essays. The volume goes beyond a limited assessment of China's military modernization, to stress the implications of modernization with respect to regional Asian security and the broader international scene. Varying perspectives on China's military modernization are presented against a framework that considers U.S. national security policy, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and strategic trade with China, in addition to China's own nuclear deterrent and its military posture vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, Japan, and Southeast Asia. The critical issue of China's defense modernization is presented in light of practical, domestic, political, and economic constraints on defense modernization facing the Beijing government.

After an introduction showing three examples of military disintegration, the author examines six historical occurrences in depth: The India Mutiny of 1857; the 1917 French Army mutinies; the depredations following the British siege of San Sebastian, 1813; the surrender of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division in 1944; the Sand Creek Indian Massacre, 1864; and the My Lai massacre in 1968. The final chapter begins with a recapitulation of the four processes shown to be the foundations of disintegration--leadership failure, collapse of the units' internal primary groups, alienation, and desperation among the troops--and continues with an analysis of the crowd behaviors to which these processes give rise. The book ends with a brief discussion of the moral dilemma that disintegration imposes on military institutions.

The Gulf War of 1991 heralded a new type of warfare - one dominated by speed and high technology, that yielded a remarkably low level of casualties among the Allied forces. Just under a million Allied troops were deployed to the Gulf region, where they faced not only the extreme heat, but also biological, chemical and suspected nuclear threats. This book assesses both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, examining each forces strategies, and the political and military figures who were involved on both sides. The operational side of Desert Shield is also detailed in full.