This project advances the existing theoretical work on the CNN effect, a claim that innovations in the speed and quality of technology create conditions in which the media acts as an independent factor with significant influence. It provides a novel interpretation of the factors that drove Western policy towards military intervention in this area.

During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s the small island of Quemoy in the Taiwan Strait was the front line in the military standoff between Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China and Mao Zedong's People's Republic. Local society and culture were dramatically transformed. Michael Szonyi uses oral history, official documents, and dissident writings to convey the history of the island during this period. In so doing, he sheds light on the social and cultural impact of the Cold War on those who lived through it, as well as on the relationship between China, the United States and the USSR at this critical moment. By analysing the effects of Quemoy's distinctive geopolitical situation on the economy, gender and the family, and citizenship and religion, the book provides a new perspective on the social history of Cold War relations, showing how geopolitics can affect individual lives and communities.

Caught between the popular and passionate World War II and the divisive Vietnam War, the Korean War has been neglected by scholars and society. Yet it is one of the significant events of the 20th century, and scholarship on the war is increasing. This annotated bibliography covers the war from the early division of Korea in 1946-1948, the North Korean invasion, American and United Nations' involvement, and the Chinese entry, through the American withdrawals, the development of static lines, the armistice talks, POW exchanges, and post-armistice difficulties.

The volume opens with a brief overview of the official war and a guide to archival sources and collected documents. It then includes chapters on the causes and conflicts, histories, military operations, special topics, and response to the war, and concludes with analysis and historiography.

According to the Bush administration, the war in Iraq ended in May 2003, when the president pronounced mission accomplished from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Yet, fighting, resistance, and American casualties continue. Stephen Pelletiere argues that it is Iraqi suspicion of the Americans' motives--the belief that the United States is out to tear the state apart--that is fueling the current rebellion. Resistance in Iraq has become a national struggle, tied to the mood of Iraqis generally, as well as to anger fed by experiences of the whole people over the course of the last quarter century. Americans see Iraq as a failed state because they lack knowledge of those experiences and of Iraqi history. That is what Pelletiere has set out to remedy. Chief among his analyses is a brief history of the Iraqi army, focussing on the period of the 1980s and the Iran-Iraq War. The war transformed the army, a change which largely escaped the notice of the United States. Pelletiere also discusses American intelligence about Iraq on the eve of the war, characterizing it as delusory and showing that, even after the invasion, intelligence did not improve. This has led to the deterioration of relations with the Iraqis and precipitated the current revolt. Finally, he discusses the clash between the so-called expatriates and native Iraqis and the part the Islamic Republic is playing under the occupation. Perhaps more critically, Pelletiere relates American behavior in Iraq to the wider sphere of U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf specifically and the Middle East overall. In doing so, he positions the war as part of a larger geo-political struggle that encompasses not just the Iraqis or the Iranians, but the Israelis and all of the other client states of the United States in the Middle East.

This major comparative study examines the challenges faced by countries of postcommunist Europe in reforming and professionalizing their armed forces. It explores how the interaction of the common challenges of postcommunism and the diverse circumstances of individual countries shape professionalization processes in this changing region. The detailed country case studies in this volume, written by leading experts to a common analytical framework, compare the experiences of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, FRY, Russia, and Ukraine.

International Perspectives on the Gulf Conflict is a collection of important new work on the conflict by the leading authorities in the field. Unusually, this is an international investigation of an international conflict. The result is stimulating, capacious, original, and authoritative - the most complete and up-to-date guide to the subject yet to appear.

The Special Air Service – the SAS – are known to be the greatest elite fighting force in the world. This book focuses on the most famous operations undertaken by the SAS from its inception during the Second World War to the present day, describing in dramatic detail the unit’s most daring and memorable missions in trouble spots across the world.

Revelatory and gripping, the author weaves together the extraordinary true stories of this brave fighting force, wherever they are in action. From missions on home shores to Iraq, Sierra Leone, the Falkland Islands, Europe, Libya, Malaya, Afghanistan and more, SAS Battle Ready brings together both the history of the unit and some of its most powerful moments.

From hostage rescues to ambushes, from sabotage to jungle warfare and from pitched battles to reconnaissance, it hasn’t always gone according to plan but the courage and devotion to duty revealed within show just what it takes to be an SAS soldier.

These theoretical essays on different dimensions of war, range from strategic surprise achieved at the outbreak of war to the termination of war and the predicted depreciation of the value of using force among nations. Despite the variety of topics with which they deal, these essays share three common denominators - the impact of technology on modern warfare, the political nature of war and the limits of rational analysis in the study of war.

Karen A. Feste examines the history of superpower intervention in domestic conflicts around the world during the Cold War era. The historical significance of the role that superpower intervention has played in shaping issues and strategies for many independent nations is thoroughly explored by Feste. Her unique analysis goes beyond a reexamination of dramatic instances of American and Soviet intervention to present a combination of aggregate event data methodology and historical case studies; general patterns in the nature of superpower intervention throughout four decades are highlighted; and U.S.-Soviet behavior is carefully and consistently compared across the entire period of the Cold War.

This work will be of great interest to scholars and historians in political science, international relations, military studies, and geopolitics.

The end of the Cold War, the Revolution in Military Affairs, 9/11 and the War on Terror have radically altered the nature of conflict and security in the twenty-first century. This book considers how developments in technology could and are effecting the prosecution of war and what the changing nature of warfare means for human rights and civil society.

In this comprehensive study, Gat looks at British policy in the period leading up to the Six-Day War. Although Britain holds center stage in this account, the study discusses in some detail American policy and its effect on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It also focuses on the Middle East water dispute, its impact on future events, and eventually the outbreak of war in 1967. This is a fascinating look at the process by which the Middle East became yet another Cold War playground.

To date, most scholars on the Arab-Israeli conflict have focused on the events of the Six-Day War, rather than on the tumultuous years prior to the war. Gat is the first to examine this turbulent yet decisive chapter in the history of the Middle East within the context of the Cold War, while making extensive use of British, American, and Israeli archives.

This book describes the logistical systems and requirements of the North Korean People's Army and Chinese Communist forces during the Korean War. The author examines the performance of the Communist logistical system from June 1950 to July 1953, explaining the failure of the United Nations air interdiction campaign in terms of the constant improvement of Communist logistical capabilities. The author concludes that the United Nations air force damaged, but was unable to destroy, the Communist distribution system. The North Koreans and Chinese Communists were able to supply their front line units sufficiently to enable them to conduct a strong static defense, which prevented a United Nations victory, and in the last months of the war, to mount strong, sustained offensive actions.

Colored by the popular and official mythologies of heroism, the accepted view of mental collapse during combat is that it is a fairly rare occurrence that can be attributed to psychological weakness or simple cowardice. With the advent of each new generation of weapons, however, this view becomes less tenable. The increasingly lethal battlefields of conventional warfare have sharply escalated the numbers of psychiatric casualties, which reached staggering proportions worldwide by the early 1980s. Professor Gabriel, a leading authority on military psychiatry, provides the first systematic examination of the problem, its history and current dimension, the systems developed by the superpowers to counter it, and the far-reaching implications of our continued acceptance of warfare under radically altered conditions.

A longtime scholar of the Cold War deftly weaves together the tradition of "just war" and an examination of current events to show how the time-honored concepts of jus ad bellum (justice of war) and jus in bello (justice in war) apply to the U.S. military involvement in Iraq. This timely analysis of President George W. Bush's foreign policy deals with the cornerstone of his administrations—the "war on terror"—as implemented in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and at Abu Ghraib prison. The Choice of War: The Iraq War and the "Just War" Tradition discusses NSS 2002, the national security statement that became the blueprint for the Bush Doctrine. It explains the differences and similarities between preventive and pre-emptive war and explores the administration's justification of the necessity of the March 2003 invasion. Finally, it analyzes the conduct of the war, the occupation, and the post-occupation phases of the conflict. In evaluating the Bush Doctrine, both as declared strategy and as implemented, Albert L. Weeks asks whether going it virtually alone in the global struggle against 21st-century terrorism should be incorporated permanently into American political and military policy. Answering no, he suggests an alternative to a doctrine that has isolated the United States and left the world divided.

America has been at war for most of the 20th and 21st centuries and during that time has progressively moved towards a vicarious form of warfare, where key tasks are delegated to proxies, the military's exposure to danger is limited, and special forces and covert instruments are on the increase. Important strategic decisions are taken with minimal scrutiny or public engagement. This compelling account charts the historical emergence of this distinctive tradition of war and explains the factors driving its contemporary prominence. It contrasts the tactical advantages of vicarious warfare with its hidden costs and potential to cause significant strategic harm.

This book is a telling analysis of the pre-war media debate around the globe, which set the stage for the 2003 Iraq war. Arguably, each country's media represented its opinions for or against the war, giving the viewer insight into the nation's stance on the war and its political reasoning. By concentrating on the pre-war coverage, this group of scholars engages in a more open discussion of the issues that would take place during wartime, and uncovers the implications for each country's position on international concerns.

The 45th edition of the SIPRI Yearbook analyses developments in 2013 in Security and conflicts Military spending and armaments Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament The SIPRI Yearbook contains extensive annexes on the implementation of arms control and disarmament agreements and a chronology of events during the year in the area of security and arms control.

This is the first book-length study of U.S. naval operations in the Mediterranean from 1945 to 1947, a period that is crucial for understanding the Cold War and its origins. Edward J. Sheehy shows how America assumed the traditionally British role of providing Western naval strength in the area, detailing how an American squadron grew from skeleton size in 1945 into a powerful armada by the end of 1947. His analysis of the cautious, but effective, use of naval power to counter the Soviet Union is intended for students of military and diplomatic history. Using extensive records of the U.S. Departments of Navy and State, Dr. Sheehy examines decisions to assign naval vessels to the Mediterranean, governmental communications, the rationale for the naval presence in the area, and the working relationships between diplomatic and naval officials. The history begins with a brief summary of Western naval activity in the Mediterranean including the final months of World War II. The region witnessed a continual increase in activity from a cruiser's visit to Greece in late 1945 to developments toward a Sixth Fleet at the end of 1947. The naval build-up is thoroughly chronicled with accounts of the battleship Missouri's journey to the area, numerous destroyer and carrier cruises, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal's September 1946 announcement affirming America's permanent presence in the Mediterranean, and President Harry S. Truman's August 1947 directive regarding visits to Greece.

Bimberg provides a military history of the Moroccan Goums, the knife-wielding irregular troops who distinguished themselves, fighting under French command in Tunisia, Italy, France and Germany during World War II. Recruited from the hill tribes of Morocco's Atlas Mountains, the Goums were garbed throughout the war in the traditional djellaba of their homeland and were armed with long sharp knives, in addition to rifles, machine-guns and mortars. They terrified the enemy not only by their ferocity, but by their odd appearance. Their particular skill in mountain warfare prompted General Patton to request their participation in his Sicilian campaign, and they fought brilliantly in this and many other key campaigns.

This account follows these forces from their native North African mountains across the battlefields of World War II to their final triumph in the Austrian Alps. It recounts their tactics and their strange traditions, as remarkable Beau Geste type French officers led them into battle. In Italy, 12,000 strong, they swarmed over the forbidding Aurunci range, which no one thought could possibly be penetrated by any sizable force under combat conditions, to spearhead the French forces in turning the German flank in Operation Diadem, the final drive on Rome. Their later exploits in the capture of Marseilles, in the Vosges Mountains, and on the drive to the Rhine were equally sensational.

This book includes a selection of articles from The 2018 Multidisciplinary International Conference of Research Applied to Defense and Security (MICRADS'18), held in Salinas, Peninsula de Santa Elena, Ecuador, from April 18 to 20, 2018. MICRADS is an international forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, results, experiences and concerns in the various areas of defense and security, together with their technological development and applications. The main topics covered are: Information and Communication Technology in Education; Computer Vision in Military Applications; Engineering Analysis and Signal Processing; Cybersecurity and Cyberdefense; Maritime Security and Safety; Strategy, Geopolitics and Oceanopolitics; Defense planning; Leadership (e-leadership); Defense Economics; Defense Logistics; Health Informatics in Military Applications; Simulation in Military Applications; Computer Networks, Mobility and Pervasive Systems; Military Marketing; Military Physical Training; Assistive Devices and Wearable Technology; Naval and Military Engineering; Weapons and Combat Systems; Operational Oceanography. The book is aimed at all those dealing with defense and security issues, including practitioners, researchers and teachers as well as undergraduate, graduate, master's and doctorate students.

How do small groups of combat soldiers maintain their cohesion under fire? This question has long intrigued social scientists, military historians, and philosophers. Based on extensive research and drawing on graphic analysis of close quarter combat from the Somme to Sangin, the book puts forward a novel and challenging answer to this question. Against the common presumption of the virtues of the citizen soldier, this book claims that, in fact, the infantry platoon of the mass twentieth century army typically performed poorly and demonstrated low levels of cohesion in combat. With inadequate time and resources to train their troops for the industrial battlefield, citizen armies typically relied on appeals to masculinity, nationalism and ethnicity to unite their troops and to encourage them to fight. By contrast, cohesion among today's professional soldiers is generated and sustained quite differently. While concepts of masculinity and patriotism are not wholly irrelevant, the combat performance of professional soldiers is based primarily on drills which are inculcated through intense training regimes. Consequently, the infantry platoon has become a highly skilled team capable of collective virtuosity in combat. The increasing importance of training, competence and drills to the professional infantry soldier has not only changed the character of cohesion in the twenty-first century platoon but it has also allowed for a wider social membership of this group. Soldiers are no longer included or excluded into the platoon on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity, social background, sexuality or even sex (women are increasingly being included in the infantry) but their professional competence alone: can they do the job? In this way, the book traces a profound transformation in the western way of warfare to shed light on wider processes of transformation in civilian society. This book is a project of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War.

The author develops the concept that logistics constitute a bridge between the national economy and the combat forces. He explains the role of the civilian as well as of the professional, and discusses the differences in their modes of thought and methods of operation.

This updated edition of Professor Paul Moorcraft s timely and controversial book examines the international and domestic threats to the West from Jihadism. It joins the dots in the Middle East, Asia and Africa and explains what it means for the home front, mainly Britain but also continental Europe and the USA. More Brits are trying to join the Islamic State than the reserve forces. Why? It puts the whole complex jigsaw together without pulling any punches. After briefly tracing the origins of Jihadism from the time of the Prophet, The Jihadist Threat analyses the fall-out from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and how far these fuelled the rise of the self-styled Islamic State and other terror groups and the extent these pose to European society. Finally, the Author offers suggestions for defeating this existential threat to the Western way of life. This well-illustrated book is written from the inside. Professor Moorcraft, currently the Director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis, London, has long worked at the heart of the British security establishment and has operated as a war correspondent in over thirty conflict zones since Afghanistan in the 1980s, often alongside frontline Jihadists. Arguably no-one is better qualified to write on this subject and his knowledge coupled with forthright views cannot be ignored. This claim is borne out by his predictions in the original edition which have proved prescient. This is an important work that fully deserves the acclaim it has attracted.