Immortal is the only single-volume English-language survey of Iran's military history. CIA analyst Steven R. Ward shows that Iran's soldiers, from the famed "Immortals" of ancient Persia to today's Revolutionary Guard, have demonstrated through the centuries that they should not be underestimated. This history also provides background on the nationalist, tribal, and religious heritages of the country to help readers better understand Iran and its security outlook. Immortal begins with the founding of ancient Persia's empire under Cyrus the Great and continues through the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and up to the present. Drawing on a wide range of sources including declassified documents, the author gives primary focus to the modern era to relate the build-up of the military under the last Shah, its collapse during the Islamic revolution, its fortunes in the Iran-Iraq War, and its rise from the ashes to help Iran become once again a major regional military power. He shows that, despite command and supply problems, Iranian soldiers demonstrate high levels of bravery and perseverance and have enjoyed surprising tactical successes even when victory has been elusive. These qualities and the Iranians' ability to impose high costs on their enemies by exploiting Iran's imposing geography bear careful consideration today by potential opponents.

Fallujah, the cradle of an insurgency that plunged Iraq into years of chaos and bloodshed, conjures up images of the brutal house-to-house fighting that occurred during the 2004 U.S. invasion of the iconic city. The violence peaked again two years later when American Marines and Iraqi government forces struggled with a reinvigorated insurgency and the prospect of premature withdrawal by U.S. forces. Now in paperback, Fallujah Awakens--widely praised for presenting a balanced description of this crucial transition from both the American and the Iraqi perspectives--recounts the complex story of the remarkable turn around that began to take place in 2006-2007. As an embedded journalist, Bill Ardolino was in a unique position to observe and explain how local tribal leaders and U.S. Marines forged a surprising alliance that enabled them to secure the heavily contested battleground. Based on more than 120 interviews with Iraqis and Americans, he explores how a company of Reservists, led by a medical equipment sales manager from Michigan, succeeded where previous efforts had stalled. Circumstance combined with smart leadership enabled Marines to build relationships with members of a Sunni tribe--once written off as dangerous and intractable--who pushed al Qaeda and other insurgents from their notoriously rebellious area. Accidental killings, intertribal rivalries, insurgents, and intrigue all conspired to undo the tenuous alliance forged on Fallujah's peninsula. But the partnership was cemented after a Marine commander's risky decision to welcome nearly 100 injured civilians onto a secure American facility after a ruthless chemical attack by al Qaeda. Ardolino's exhaustive documentation will prove valuable to military students, analysts, and historians and will help policy makers better understand what is and is not possible in counterinsurgency. Photographs and maps further enhance the reader's understanding of the struggle for Fallujah, from tribal dynamics to the geography of firefights.

Waging Gendered Wars examines, through the analytical lens of feminist international relations theory, how U.S. military women have impacted and been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although women were barred from serving formally in ground combat positions within the U.S. armed forces during both wars, U.S. female soldiers are being killed in action. By examining how U.S. military women's agency as soldiers, veterans, and casualties of war affect the planning and execution of war, Eager assesses the ways in which the global world of international politics and warfare has become localized in the life and death narratives of female service personnel impacted by combat experience, homelessness, military sexual trauma, PTSD, and the deaths of fellow soldiers. Review: 'This book breaks new ground, revealing the complex issues that face women in military service, such as heroism, combat, sexual assault, PTSD, and as veterans. Through her research and interviews, the author provides us with surprising, uplifting, and sometimes alarming facts about the role of women in peacetime and war.'Margaret Gonzalez-Perez, Southeastern Louisiana University, USA

This collection of stories of American men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals their personal experiences as military combat personnel. Their stories are told through interviews, plus information from questionnaires and official military documents.

When in 1950 the United Nations called upon its members to provide aid to South Korea, more than forty nations responded. Some of these sent troops which fought under the United Nations Command, some sent commodities and medical supplies. Some nations offered moral and political support but for a variety of reasons were not able to send aid. This book looks at the nations involved, what was behind their willingness to provide troops or aid, or what prevented them from doing so. The military contribution of the nations involved is discussed. The combination of troops, and their individual needs, made the logistics of this enterprise difficult, but in the end troops from 17 nations fought together to defend the freedom of South Korea.

This book examines relations between China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s, and provides an insight into Chinese thinking about the Korean War. This volume is based on a translation of Shen Zihua's best-selling Chinese-language book, which broke the mainland Chinese taboo on publishing non-heroic accounts of the Korean War.The author combined information detailed in Soviet-era diplomatic documents (released after the collapse of the Soviet Union) with Chinese memoirs, official document collections and scholarly monographs, in order to present a non-ideological, realpolitik account of the relations, motivations and actions among three Communist actors: Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung. This new translation represents a revisionist perspective on trilateral Communist alliance relations during the Korean War, shedding new light on the origins of the Sino-Soviet split and the rather distant relations between China and North Korea. It features a critical introduction to Shen's work and the text is based on original archival research not found in earlier books in English. This book will be of much interest to students of Communist China, Stalinist Russia, the Korean War, Cold War Studies and International History in general.

The British Hurt Locker. In the Iraq War, Cpt Kevin Ivison defused bombs and IEDs left by the Taliban. Each time he took the 'longest walk' to a bomb, it could have been his last. How many times can a man stare death in the face before he breaks? Even the most skilful operators can only roll the dice so many times before they get unlucky . . . This was my bomb, my task and my fate alone. There was nothing left to do but walk. When two of his colleagues are killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, young bomb disposal officer Kevin Ivison is called in to defuse a second, even deadlier bomb just a hundred yards from the bodies of his friends. To make things worse, the entire area is under fire from snipers, and a crowd of angry Iraqis have begun to hurl petrol bombs... With little chance of living through this impossible task, Kevin leaves final messages for his loved ones and sets out alone towards the bomb that he is sure will be the last thing he sees. In this gut-wrenching and terrifying true story of heroism and survival, Kevin Ivison explains why he chose to be a bomb disposal expert in the first place, how he found the courage to face his death, and the unendurable stress that has given him nightmares ever since. An absorbing, honest, true story of life on the front lines in the Iraq War. Perfect for fans of The Hurt Locker, Sniper One and Bomb Hunters. 'The honesty with which Kevin relays his fear, his overwhelming sense that he is going to die, is impressive . . . unpretentious and accessible' Daily Telegraph 'Absorbing ... At the heart of the book is a taut, riveting account of the events of a single day - February 28, 2006 - when Ivison rushed to the scene of an IED ambush on a road known as RED ONE' - DAILY MAIL 'RED ONE is plain-spoken, heart-thumping stuff' - THE TIMES

A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR.

'A compelling, authoritative insight into possibly the most controversial death in Britain this century' Observer.

'Masterful ... This book made me proud of my trade as a journalist' Daily Mail.

'This searing excavation of the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly is investigative journalism at its best. It is brave, relentless, dazzlingly revealing' Peter Oborne.

In March 2003 British forces invaded Iraq after Tony Blair said the country could deploy weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice. A few months later, government scientist Dr David Kelly was unmasked by Blair's officials as the assumed source of a BBC news report challenging this claim. Within days, Dr Kelly was found dead in a wood near his home. Blair immediately convened the controversial Hutton Inquiry, which concluded Dr Kelly committed suicide.

Yet key questions remain: could Dr Kelly really have taken his life in the manner declared? And why did Blair's government derail the coroner's inquest into Dr Kelly's death? In this meticulous account, award-winning journalist Miles Goslett shows why we should be sceptical of the official story of what happened in that desperate summer of 2003.

Detention operations are vital to U.S. military doctrine and crucial to the success of combat and recovery missions. This book shows that the image of abuse from Abu-Ghraib were but one small, harmful element in an overwhelmingly successful detention mission in Iraq. It focuses on the subsequent developments and successes, explaining the standard rule-of-law approach taken by the U.S. military and examining the work in Iraq of such leaders as Major General John D. Gardner and Major General Douglas M. Stone. Overall, the text moves away from the Abu-Ghraib scandal to illuminate a largely unknown successful development in the U.S. detention operations. Following the Abu Ghraib scandal of 2003-2004, the U.S. Department of Defense scrambled to recover its reputation and that of its troops. As the Bush Administration sought to redefine torture, military judge advocates consistently challenged such moves, arguing in favor of the Geneva Conventions' humanitarian practices. By 2006, Department of Defense policy stipulated full respect for and use of the Geneva Conventions. This development was indeed a victory for American support for rule of law in Iraq, as well as an affirmation of standard practices in the detention command, Task Force 134. Pressures of war, however, continued to present their own challenges.

First published in 1985, this is a book written at the height of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Based on five clandestine trips into Afghanistan with the resistance, the book examines why the Soviets invaded in 1979 and what they were seeking to defend. The author analyses their deliberate policy of migratory genocide through a combination of aerial bombardments, political repression and economic blockades. The book is written by the journalist Ed Girardet, one of the world's leading authorities on the conflict, whose particular strength is his dispassionate reporting style and his firsthand proximity to the conflict. He interviewed many of the leaders of the Afghan resistance, both inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps and he explains in depth the nature of the Afghan Islamic anti-communist struggle for independence. This is a book in the finest tradition of war reporting on the front line and the reissue is essential reading for all those interested in the history of the conflict in Afghanistan.

A gripping new thriller from the bestselling author of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB "A classic murder mystery . . . one Holmes himself would have loved to solve" Independent "Fans of dark Swedish crime will love this moody thriller" The Sun "A nerve-racking political thriller with the most exciting detective duo in a long time. Bring on their next case" Romy Hausmann, author of Dear Child "A rich, engrossing novel" Literary Review "Complex and dark" Irish Independent The launch of a new series inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A murder investigation brings together two unlikely allies in a race to uncover a shadowy international conspiracy. Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of vertiginous feats of logic and observation . . . But he might just fall apart when the going gets tough, leading to substance abuse and despair. Micaela Vargas: community police officer, born to Chilean political refugees in a tough suburb, with two brothers on the shady side of the law. Vargas feels she has something to prove. She's tenacious and uncompromising, but she needs Rekke's unique mind to help her solve the case. Rekke has it all - wealth, reputation - but also a tendency to throw it all away. He needs Vargas to help him get back on an even keel so he can focus his mind on finding the killer before they're both silenced for good. Translated from the Swedish by Ian Giles

Voicing Dissent presents a unique and original series of interviews with American artists (including Guerrilla Girls on Tour, Tony Shalhoub, Shepard Fairey, Sean Astin, and many others) who have voiced their opposition to the war in Iraq. Following Pierre Bourdieu's example, these discussions are approached sociologically and provide a thorough analysis of the relationships between arts and politics as well as the limits and conditions of political speech and action. These painters and graphic artists, musicians, actors, playwrights, theatre directors and filmmakers reveal their perceptions of politics, war, security and terrorism issues, the Middle East, their experiences with activism, as well as their definition of the artist's role and their practice of citizenship. Addressing the crucial questions for contemporary democracies - such as artists' function in society, the crisis of political legitimacy and representation, the rise of new modes of contestation, and the limits to free public speech - this book will be of interest to scholars in sociology, politics, and the arts.

When Taliban forces took Kabul on 15 August 2021, it marked the end of the Western intervention that had begun nearly twenty years earlier with the US-led invasion. The fall of Afghanistan triggered a seismic shock in the West, where US President Joe Biden announced an end to America's involvement in conflicts overseas. In Afghanistan itself it produced terror for the future for those who had worked with and grown up under the coalition-supported administration. Now, with the country spiralling into economic collapse and famine, Losing Afghanistan is a plea for us to keep our gaze on the plight of the people of Afghanistan and to understand how action and inaction in the West shaped the fate of the nation. Why was Afghanistan lost? Can it be regained? And what happens next? Edited by international development expert Brian Brivati, this collection of twenty-one essays by analysts, politicians, soldiers, commentators and practitioners - interspersed with powerful eyewitness testimony from Afghan voices - explains what happened in Afghanistan and why, and what the future holds both for its people and for liberal intervention.

This volume presents the best scholarly thinking about why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, a pivotal event in modern US foreign policy and international politics. The years since the announcement of the invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush in 2003 have revealed that the WMD threat was not the urgent threat the administration declared and that Saddam Hussein was not involved with Al Qaeda or 9/11. At least in part because of these revelations a majority of Americans (not to mention a majority of people globally) now believe that invading Iraq was a mistake and that the Bush administration misled the public to build support for war. Lending credibility to public doubts is a growing number of critical scholarly analyses and in-depth journalistic investigations about the invasion, which mostly suggests that the administration was not fully candid about its reasons for wanting to move against Iraq when it did. Thus the question remains: Why did the United States invade Iraq? The central purpose of this volume is to spur and inform the debate by organizing the best recent thinking of foreign policy and international relations experts about why the U.S. invaded Iraq. Taking a broad range of arguments -- about the role of ideas, Israel, and oil, in partcular - and organizing them around a coherent structure, the book highlights current areas of agreement and disagreement, and allows scholars directly to talk to each other. The volume will be of much interest to students of the Iraq War, US foreign and security policy, strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and IR/Security Studies in general.

First published in 1985, this is a book written at the height of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Based on five clandestine trips into Afghanistan with the resistance, the book examines why the Soviets invaded in 1979 and what they were seeking to defend. The author analyses their deliberate policy of migratory genocide through a combination of aerial bombardments, political repression and economic blockades.

The book is written by the journalist Ed Girardet, one of the world's leading authorities on the conflict, whose particular strength is his dispassionate reporting style and his firsthand proximity to the conflict. He interviewed many of the leaders of the Afghan resistance, both inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps and he explains in depth the nature of the Afghan Islamic anti-communist struggle for independence.

This is a book in the finest tradition of war reporting on the front line and the reissue is essential reading for all those interested in the history of the conflict in Afghanistan.

Despite tremendous sentiment against the American-led occupations, citizens and soldiers continue to die. Award-winning journalist Jamail shows a new generation of American soldiers taking opposition into its own hands. As one of the few unembedded journalists in Iraq, he investigates the growing anti-war resistance of GIs embodied in organisations such as Iraq Veterans Against the War. Gathering stories from these courageous men and women, Jamail makes explicit the betrayal committed by politicians.

'A gorgeous achievement' Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko

'Graceful, poignant and moving' Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

In 1948 Najin and Calvin Cho, with their young daughter Miran, travel from South Korea to the United States in search of new opportunities. Wary of the challenges ahead, Najin and Calvin make the difficult decision to leave their other daughter, Inja, behind with their extended family; soon, they hope, they will return to her.

But then war breaks out in Korea, and there is no end in sight to the separation. Miran grows up in prosperous American suburbia, under the shadow of the daughter left behind, as Inja grapples in her war-torn land with ties to a family she doesn't remember. Najin and Calvin desperately seek a reunion with Inja, but are the bonds of love strong enough to reconnect their family over distance, time and war? And as deep family secrets are revealed, will everything they long for be upended?

Told through the alternating perspectives of the distanced sisters, and inspired by a true story, The Kinship of Secrets explores the cruelty of war, the power of hope, and what it means to be a sister.

Since the pioneering work of nineteenth-century nurses such as Florence Nightingale, Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton, professional nurses have been involved in caring for the sick and wounded in combat situations. This book contains the accounts of 14 nurses who served in the U.S. military nurse corps during the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars. These men and women describe how they found themselves serving during wartime, the soldiers they cared for, the professionals they worked with and the impact they made in their patients' lives. These varied accounts attest to the tremendous impact this profession has on the lives of individual soldiers and the health of armies at large.

Uncertainty in Policy Making explores how uncertainty is interpreted and used by policy makers, experts and politicians. It argues that conventional notions of rational, evidence-based policy making - hailed by governments and organisations across the world as the only way to make good policy - is an impossible aim in highly complex and uncertain environments; the blind pursuit of such a 'rational' goal is in fact irrational in a world of competing values and interests. The book centres around two high-profile and important case studies: the Iraq war and climate change policy in the US, UK and Australia. Based on three years' research, including interviews with experts such as Hans Blix, Paul Pillar, and Brian Jones, these two case studies show that the treatment of uncertainty issues in specialist advice is largely determined by how well the advice fits with or contradicts the policy goals and orientation of the policy elite. Instead of allowing the debates to be side-tracked by arguments over whose science or expert advice is 'more right', we must accept that uncertainty in complex issues is unavoidable and recognise the values and interests that lie at the heart of the issues. The book offers a 'hedging' approach which will enable policy makers to manage rather than eliminate uncertainty.

In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships-woman to woman-in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship-a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.

Voicing Dissent presents a unique and original series of interviews with American artists (including Guerrilla Girls on Tour, Tony Shalhoub, Shepard Fairey, Sean Astin, and many others) who have voiced their opposition to the war in Iraq. Following Pierre Bourdieu's example, these discussions are approached sociologically and provide a thorough analysis of the relationships between arts and politics as well as the limits and conditions of political speech and action. These painters and graphic artists, musicians, actors, playwrights, theatre directors and filmmakers reveal their perceptions of politics, war, security and terrorism issues, the Middle East, their experiences with activism, as well as their definition of the artist's role and their practice of citizenship. Addressing the crucial questions for contemporary democracies - such as artists' function in society, the crisis of political legitimacy and representation, the rise of new modes of contestation, and the limits to free public speech - this book will be of interest to scholars in sociology, politics, and the arts.

The Korean War is the most comprehensive and detailed bibliography compiled to date on the American involvement in "The Forgotten War." In this revised and expanded second edition, Keith D. McFarland's clearly written annotations provide concise descriptions of more than 2,600 of the most important books, articles, and documents written in English on the conflict in Korea. Key topics include origins of the war; the political and military roles of North and South Korea, the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and other United Nations members; campaigns and battles; weapons and uniforms; and the military and diplomatic aspects of the war. Specific subjects are easy to find using the index organized by topic and author, making The Korean War a necessity for every academic or research library.

American Soldiers in Iraq offers a unique snapshot of American soldiers in Iraq, analyzing their collective narratives in relation to the military sociology tradition.

Grounded in a century-long tradition of sociology offering a window into the world of American soldiers, this volume serves as a voice for their experience. It provides the reader with both a generalized and a deep view into a major social institution in American society and its relative constituents-the military and soldiers-during a war. In so doing, the book gives a backstage insight into the U.S. military and into the experiences and attitudes of soldiers during their most extreme undertaking-a forward deployment in Iraq while hostilities are intense.

The author triangulates qualitative and quantitative field data collected while residing with soldiers in Iraq, comparing and contrasting various groups from officers to enlisted soldiers, as well as topics such as boredom, morale, preparation for war, day-to-day life in Iraq, attitudes, women soldiers, communication with the home-front, "McDonaldization" of the force, civil-military fusion, the long-term impact of war, and, finally, the socio-demographics of fatalities. The heart of American Soldiers in Iraq captures the experiences of American soldiers deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom at the height of the conflict in a way unprecedented in the literature to date.

This book will be essential reading for students of military studies, sociology, American politics and the Iraq War, as well as being of much interest to informed general readers.

With its fleet of large transport aircraft, the United States military can put personnel and equipment anywhere on the globe within hours. In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in particular, virtually every soldier, every bullet, every pint of blood, and every bite of food have arrived in the war zone by airlift. Transport aircrews have accompanied the troops from the beginning, flying them in, supplying them, bringing them out for medical treatment or rotations home, and in the most heart-breaking missions, carrying them on their final journey back to grieving relatives.This book tells the story of one Air National Guard airlift wing as related by its members. The 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard consisted of a squadron of 12 C-130 cargo planes, their crews, and all the supporting sections - in all, more than 1,200 people. The author, a former Associated Press reporter turned aviator, flew as an active member of that unit and interviewed nearly 70 servicemen and women for this book. Their stories include C-130 aircrews who dodged heat-seeking missiles, mechanics who made combat repairs, flight nurses who treated and transported the wounded, even two motor pool truck drivers struck by a roadside bomb. The interviewees vividly describe their day-to-day work in the war zone, revealing the inner workings of a part of the military not usually well covered by the news media.

This highly illustrated title traces the development of mercenary soldiering from individuals and small units in the African wars of the 1960s-90s to today's state-employed corporate military contractors. The phenomenon of mercenary soldiering has constantly recurred in the news since the 1960s and has always attracted lively interest. The concept of 'mercenaries' began in the former Belgian Congo during the 1960s when men such as Mike Hoare and Bob Denard assembled hundreds of military veterans to 'do the fighting' for a particular leader or faction. This idea soon evolved into small teams of individuals training and leading local forces with varying success; wars in Rhodesia and on South Africa's borders attracted foreign volunteers into national armed forces, and veterans of these conflicts later sought employment elsewhere as mercenaries. The wars in the former Yugoslavia also attracted foreign fighters inspired as much by political and religious motives as by pay. This picture then evolved again, as former officers with recent experience set up sophisticated commercial companies to identify and fill the needs of governments whose own militaries were inadequate. Most recently, the aftermath of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen such contractors taking on some of the burden of long-term security off major national armies, while the subsequent rise of ISIS/Daesh has added a parallel strain of ideological volunteers. The author is well placed to describe how the face of mercenary soldiering has evolved and changed over 60 years. Using first-hand accounts, photos and detailed illustrations, this book presents a compelling snapshot of the life, campaigns and kit used by mercenary operatives engaged in fighting within both larger and more specific conflicts around the world.