The inside story of today's Dambusters, 617 Squadron RAF, at war in Afghanistan. In May 1943, 617 Squadron RAF executed one of the most daring operations in military history as bombers mounted a raid against hydro-electric dams in Germany. 617 Squadron became a Second World War legend. Nearly 70 years later, in April 2011, a new generation of elite flyers, now flying supersonic Tornado GR4 bombers, was deployed to Afghanistan - their mission: to provide close air support to troops on the ground. Tim Bouquet was given unprecedented access to 617's pre-deployment training and blistering tour in Afghanistan. From dramatic air strikes to the life-and-death search for IEDs and low-flying shows of force designed to drive insurgents from civilian cover, he tracked every mission - and the skill, resilience, banter and exceptional airmanship that saw 617 through.

The wars since 9/11, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, have generated frustration and an increasing sense of failure in the West. Much of the blame has been attributed to poor strategy. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, public enquiries and defence think tanks have detected a lack of consistent direction, of effective communication, and of governmental coordination. In this important book, Sir Hew Strachan, one of the world's leading military historians, reveals how these failures resulted from a fundamental misreading and misapplication of strategy itself. He argues that the wars since 2001 have not in reality been as 'new' as has been widely assumed and that we need to adopt a more historical approach to contemporary strategy in order to identify what is really changing in how we wage war. If war is to fulfil the aims of policy, then we need first to understand war.

"We must remember that in the brutality of battle another such apocalypse is always just around the corner." -Sebastiao Salgado In January and February 1991, as the United States-led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's troops retaliated with an inferno. At some 700 oil wells and an unspecified number of oil-filled low-lying areas they ignited vast, raging fires, creating one of the worst environmental disasters in living memory. As the desperate efforts to contain and extinguish the conflagration progressed, Sebastiao Salgado traveled to Kuwait to witness the crisis firsthand. The conditions were excruciating. The heat was so vicious that Salgado's smallest lens warped. A journalist and another photographer were killed when a slick ignited as they crossed it. Sticking close to the firefighters, and with characteristic sensitivity to both human and environmental impact, Salgado captured the terrifying scale of this "huge theater the size of the planet": the ravaged landscape; the sweltering temperatures; the air choking on charred sand and soot; the blistered remains of camels; the sand still littered with cluster bombs; and the flames and smoke soaring to the skies, blocking out the sunlight, dwarfing the oil-coated firefighters. Salgado's epic pictures first appeared in the New York Times Magazine in June 1991 and were subsequently awarded the Oskar Barnack Award, recognizing outstanding images on the relationship between man and the environment. Kuwait: A Desert on Fire is the first monograph of this astonishing series. Like Genesis, Exodus, and The Children, it is as much a major document of modern history as an extraordinary body of photographic work.

The almost universally accepted explanation for the Iraq War is very clear and consistent - the US decision to attack Saddam Hussein's regime on March 19, 2003 was a product of the ideological agenda, misguided priorities, intentional deceptions and grand strategies of President George W. Bush and prominent 'neoconservatives' and 'unilateralists' on his national security team. Despite the widespread appeal of this version of history, Frank P. Harvey argues that it remains an unsubstantiated assertion and an underdeveloped argument without a logical foundation. His book aims to provide a historically grounded account of the events and strategies which pushed the US-UK coalition towards war. The analysis is based on both factual and counterfactual evidence, combines causal mechanisms derived from multiple levels of analysis and ultimately confirms the role of path dependence and momentum as a much stronger explanation for the sequence of decisions that led to war.

Wars have played an interregnal part in American history. Some of these are well remembered, some are not. Among the more significant wars that have been largely ignored is the Korean War (1950-1953) fought less than five years after the end of World War II. Much of the history of this watershed event has been lost or misinterpreted, primarily because the undefined goals of the conflict, the inability of the home front to properly engage, and the failure to achieve complete victory has tarnished it. Resulting from the intense propaganda issued and the vastly limited press coverage, much of what is known is the result of battlefield stories that are basically true but which miss much of the more significant information. These myths appear in the American memory and are told over and over again. In taking a closer look at these myths, such as 'Who started the war' and 'Did the Marines win the Korean War?' a clearer and somewhat unique understanding of the war is presented.

Elie Paul Cohen, a Franco-British civilian emergency doctor, was in his youth an anti-militarist who evaded conscription. But decades later, his military record comes back to haunt him when it turns up in his professional dossier. In a surreal coincidence, the French, British, and Israeli secret services suddenly become interested in recruiting him, and Cohen accepts the deal the French Army offers: he can settle his accounts by serving as a liaison emergency doctor in Afghanistan. After a year and a half of training, Cohen is in 2011 deployed at Camp Bastion, the largest British Military base since World War II. His mission is twofold: First, to study Damage Control Resuscitation, a new treatment for polytraumatized soldiers that was developed by British doctors in Afghanistan. Second, to share these advanced protocols with the French Military Health Service. Combining elements of spy thriller and adventure story with reflections on the costs of war, Cohen's memoir offers a unique perspective on the conflict in Afghanistan, and on the medical challenges presented by the expansion of terrorism into Europe and America.

In this vivid account of the U.S. Army's legendary 10th Mountain Division's heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan, Captain Sean Parnell shares an action-packed and highly emotional true story of triumph, tragedy, and the extraordinary bonds forged in battle. At twenty-four years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon-a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws-and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush. Barely surviving the attack, Parnell's men now realized that they faced the most professional and seasoned force of light infantry the U.S. Army had encountered since the end of World War II. What followed was sixteen months of close combat, over the course of which the platoon became Parnell's family. But the cost of battle was high for these men: over 80 percent were wounded in action, putting their casualty rate among the highest since Gettysburg, and not all of them made it home. A searing and unforgettable story of friendship in battle, "Outlaw Platoon" brings to life the intensity and raw emotion of those sixteen months, showing how the fight reshaped the lives of Parnell and his men and how the love and faith they found in one another ultimately kept them alive.

Tomas Young's War is the tragic yet life-affirming story of a paralysed Iraq War veteran who spent his last 10 years battling heroically with his injuries, while courageously speaking against America's wars before his death in 2014. Based on hours of interviews with Young and those closest to him, this emotional and powerful book sheds light on many crucial but often overlooked issues such as veterans' care, public attitudes toward the disabled, medical marijuana and the terminally ill.

Following the Inchon landings and the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, UN forces crossed the North Korean border on 9 October and moved on the capital Pyongyang. Many in America believed the war would be over by Christmas, but some Washington diplomatic, military, and intelligence experts continued to raise dire warnings that the People's Republic of China might intervene. Nevertheless, General MacArthur decided to push on to the Chinese/North Korean border, the Yalu River. On 25 October, Communist Chinese Forces unexpectedly attacked Republic of Korea forces near Unsan. Then, on 25 November, the day after MacArthur announced a 'final offensive to end the war', the Chinese 13th Army Group struck in mass against the Eighth Army in the north-west corner of North Korea, overrunning the US 2nd and 25th Infantry Divisions.

The Chinese attacks quickly shattered Truman's dream of a unified Korea. American, UN, and ROK forces could not hold a successful defensive line against the combined CCF and NKPA attacks. At the Chosin Reservoir, US Marine Corps and Army units retreated south whilst MacArthur's forces withdrew from Pyongyang and X Corps later pulled out of Hungnam.

Using expert research, bird's-eye views, and full-colour maps, this study tells the fascinating history of the critical Yalu campaign, including the famous retreat past the 38th Parallel.

After leaving the US Navy SEAL Teams in Spring of 2017, Ephraim Mattos, age 24, flew to Iraq to join a small group of volunteer humanitarians known as the Free Burma Rangers, who were working on the frontlines of the war on ISIS. Until being shot by ISIS on a suicidal rescue mission, Mattos witnessed unexplainable acts of courage and sacrifice by the Free Burma Rangers who, while under heavy machine gun and mortar fire, assaulted across ISIS minefields, used themselves as human shields, and sprinted down ISIS infested streets-all to retrieve wounded civilians. In City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors In the Battle of Mosul, Mattos recounts in vivid detail what he saw and felt while he and the other Free Burma Rangers evacuated the wounded, conducted rescue missions, and at times fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iraqi Army against ISIS. Filled with raw and emotional detail of what it's like to come face-to-face with death, this is the harrowing and uplifting true story of a small group of men who laid down their lives to save the lives of the Iraqi people and who chose to live or die by the words, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." As the co-Author of the #1 New York Times bestselling American Sniper, Scott McEwen has teamed up with Mattos to help create an unforgettable true story of an American warrior turned humanitarian forced to fight his way into and out of a Hell on Earth created by ISIS

B-1-5 was a unique company in the Korean War. The Baker Bandits fought at Inchon, Naktong, Chosin Reservoir, Guerrilla Hunts and the many numbered hills. Theyinspired one B Company Commander, Gen. Charlie Cooper to the extent that when he became Commanding General of the Marines First Division in 1977, his time with B-1-5 inspired his "Band Of Brothers Leadership Principles" used widely in the Corps for many years. Emmett Shelton was a 19-year-old Marine Reservist in 1950. He was called to duty after graduating Austin High School and, within six months, he was a rifleman in Korea. The Korean winter of 1950 was brutal and Emmett was evacuated shortly after Chosin due to frostbite. After the war, Emmett got on with life, then in the 1980s he attended a Chosin Few Reunion. He was overwhelmed by a need to reconnect with his old Company, his Baker Bandits. Emmett tracked down B Company members one-by-one and started a newsletter, The Guidon, to share stories and reconnect. For 20 years Emmett published The Guidon, monthly. The contributing readership grew to a high of 300, including a number of young B Company Marines fighting in Afghanistan. Chosin Brothers brings together first-hand accounts from The Guidon, written by the men of B-1-5 about their time in Korea: their battles, their fallen commanders, deathin the foxhole, lost platoons, injuries and what happened to them after the war.

This book delivers on two analytical levels. First, it is a broad study of Sweden as an international actor, an actor that at least for a brief period tried to play a different international role than that to which it was accustomed. Second, the book problematizes the role of international military missions as drivers for change in the security and defence field. Several perspectives and levels of analysis are covered, from the macro level of strategic discourse to the micro level of the experiences of individual commanders. The book focuses upon Sweden and its participation in the international military mission in Afghanistan during 2002-2012 and also contributes to the growing literature evaluating the mission in Afghanistan, the security practice which has dominated the security and defence discourse of Western Europe for the last decade.

This volume examines the role played by notions of transcendence in the formation of social and political systems. A primary goal of the work to expand transcendence beyond its religious definition and to promote it as a means of referring to social and political discourses and practices that rely on constructions of the ideal or unattainable."

This book examines the decisions by Tony Blair and John Howard to take their nations into the 2003 Iraq War, and the questions these decisions raise about democratic governance. It also explores the significance of the US alliance in UK and Australian decision-making, and the process for taking a nation to war. Relying on primary government documents and interviews, and bringing together various strands of literature that have so far been discussed in isolation (including historical accounts, party politics, prime ministerial leadership and intelligence studies), the authors provide a comprehensive and original view on the various post-war inquiries conducted in the UK, Australia.

Many saw the United States' decisive victory in Desert Storm (1991) as not only vindication of American defense policy since Vietnam but also confirmation of a revolution in military affairs (RMA). Just as information-age technologies were revolutionizing civilian life, the Gulf War appeared to reflect similarly profound changes in warfare. A debate has raged ever since about a contemporary RMA and its implications for American defense policy. Addressing these issues, The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution is a comprehensive study of the Iraq Wars in the context of the RMA debate. Focusing on the creation of a reconnaissance-strike complex and conceptions of parallel or nonlinear warfare, Keith L. Shimko finds a persuasive case for a contemporary RMA while recognizing its limitations as well as promise.

Featuring the testimony of close to seventy Iraqis from all walks of life, "Voices from Iraq" builds a riveting chronological history unmatched for its insight and revelations. Here is a history of the war in Iraq as told entirely by Iraqis living through the U.S. invasion and occupation.

Beginning in 2003, this intimate narrative includes the experiential accounts of civilians, politicians, former dissidents, insurgents, and militiamen. Iraqis offering firsthand stories range from onetime Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to resistance fighters speaking on the condition of anonymity. Divided into five parts, these interviews recount the 2003 invasion; Iraq's gradual slide into chaos from 2004 to 2005; the start of a new order in 2006; the rise of open sectarian violence over the next two years; and the effort since 2008 to reconstruct a society from relative calm. Each section includes interviews grouped into themes, with brief epilogues for the participants. Not since Studs Terkel's "The Good War" has a book captured so acutely the human consequences of a conflict we are still struggling to understand. "Voices from Iraq" makes utterly vivid the meaning and legacy of America's campaign in Iraq.

Through their dramatic stories, Gopal shows that the Afghan war, so often regarded as a hopeless quagmire, could in fact have gone very differently. Top Taliban leaders actually tried to surrender within months of the US invasion, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist - yet the Americans were unwilling to accept such a turnaround. Instead, driven by false intelligence from their allies and an unyielding mandate to fight terrorism, American forces continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day. With its intimate accounts of life in war-torn Afghanistan, Gopal's thoroughly original reporting lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony.

In Helmand province in July 2006, Major Adam Jowett was given command of Easy Company, a hastily assembled and under-strength unit of Paras and Royal Irish rangers. Their mission was to hold the District Centre of Musa Qala at any cost. Easy Company found themselves in a ramshackle compound, cut off and heavily outnumbered by the Taliban in the town.

In No Way Out, Adam evokes the heat and chaos of battle as the Taliban hit Easy Company with wave after wave of brutal attack. He describes what it was like to have responsibility for the lives of his men as they fought back heroically over twenty-one days and nights of relentless, nerve-shredding combat. Finally, as they came down to their last rounds and death stared Easy Company in the face, the siege took an extraordinary turn . . .

Powerful, highly-charged and moving, No Way Out is Adam’s tribute to the men of Easy Company who paid a heavy price for serving their country.

Music was one of the first casualties of the Iranian Revolution. It was banned in 1979, but it quickly crept back into Iranian culture and politics. The state made use of music for its propaganda during the Iran-Iraq war. Over time music provided an important political space where artists and audiences could engage in social and political debate. Now, more than thirty-five years on, both the children of the revolution and their music have come of age. Soundtrack of the Revolution offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change to provide an alternative history of the Islamic Republic. Drawing on over five years of research in Iran, including during the 2009 protests, Nahid Siamdoust introduces a full cast of characters, from musicians and audience members to state officials, and takes readers into concert halls and underground performances, as well as the state licensing and censorship offices. She closely follows the work of four musicians-a giant of Persian classical music, a government-supported pop star, a rebel rock-and-roller, and an underground rapper-each with markedly different political views and relations with the Iranian government. Taken together, these examinations of musicians and their music shed light on issues at the heart of debates in Iran-about its future and identity, changing notions of religious belief, and the quest for political freedom. Siamdoust shows that even as state authorities resolve, for now, to allow greater freedoms to Iran's majority young population, they retain control and can punish those who stray too far. But music will continue to offer an opening for debate and defiance. As the 2009 Green Uprising and the 1979 Revolution before it have proven, the invocation of a potent melody or musical verse can unite strangers into a powerful public.

Quicksilver War is a panoramic political history of the wars that coursed through Syria and Iraq in the wake of the 'Arab Spring' and eventually merged to become a regional catastrophe: a kaleidoscopic and constantly shifting conflict involving many different parties and phases. William Harris distils the highly complex dynamics behind the conflict, starting with the brutalising Baathist regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. He charts the malignant consequences of incompetent US occupation of Iraq and Bashar al-Assad's self-righteous mismanagement of Syria, through the implosion of Syria, and the emergence of eastern and western theatres of war focused respectively on future control of Syria and the challenge of ISIS. Beyond the immediate arena of conflict, geopolitical riptides have also been set in motion, including Turkey's embroilment in the war and the shifting circumstances of the Kurds. This sweeping history addresses urgent questions for our time. Will the world rubber-stamp and bankroll the Russian-led 'solution' in Syria, backed by Turkey and Iran? Is the 'Quicksilver War' about to reach an explosive finale? Or will ongoing political manoeuvring mutate into years of further violence?

Winner, 2020 Peter C Rollins Prize, given by the Northeast Popular & American Culture Association Enables a reckoning with the legacy of the Forgotten War through literary and cinematic works of cultural memory Though often considered "the forgotten war," lost between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, the Korean War was, as Daniel Y. Kim argues, a watershed event that fundamentally reshaped both domestic conceptions of race and the interracial dimensions of the global empire that the United States would go on to establish. He uncovers a trail of cultural artefacts that speaks to the trauma experienced by civilians during the conflict but also evokes an expansive web of complicity in the suffering that they endured. Taking up a range of American popular media from the 1950s, Kim offers a portrait of the Korean War as it looked to Americans while they were experiencing it in real time. Kim expands this archive to read a robust host of fiction from US writers like Susan Choi, Rolando Hinojosa, Toni Morrison, and Chang-rae Lee, and the Korean author Hwang Sok-yong. The multiple and ongoing historical trajectories presented in these works testify to the resurgent afterlife of this event in US cultural memory, and of its lasting impact on multiple racialized populations, both within the US and in Korea. The Intimacies of Conflict offers a robust, multifaceted, and multidisciplinary analysis of the pivotal-but often unacknowledged-consequences of the Korean War in both domestic and transnational histories of race.

Why has the Taliban been so much more effective in presenting messages that resonate with the Afghan population than the United States, the Afghan Government and their allies? This book, based on years of field research and the assessment of hundreds of original source materials, examines the information operations and related narratives of Afghan insurgents, especially the Afghan Taliban, and investigates how the Taliban has won the information war. Taliban messaging, wrapped in the narrative of jihad, is both to the point and in tune with the target audiences it wishes to influence. On the other hand, the United States and its Kabul allies committed a basic messaging blunder, failing to present narratives that spoke to or, often, were even understood by their target audiences. Thomas Johnson systematically explains why the United States lost this "battle of the story" in Afghanistan, and argues that this defeat may have lost the U.S. the entire war, despite its conventional and technological superiority.

** Includes a New Postcript 'The Chilcot Report-Early Thoughts on Military Matters'** From 2001 Britain supported the United States in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'Victory' in such conflicts is always hard to gauge and domestic political backing for them was never robust. For this, the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were held responsible, and paid the price, but the role played by the High Command in the Ministry of Defence also bears examination. Critics have noted that the armed services were riven by internal rivalry and their leadership was dysfunctional, but the truth is more complicated. In his book Elliott explores the circumstances that led to these wars and how the Ministry of Defence coped with the challenges presented. He reveals how the Service Chiefs were set at odds by the system, almost as rivals in the making, with responsibility diffuse and authority ambiguous. The MoD concentrated on making things work, rather than questioning whether what they were being asked to do was practicable.