In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm – Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon – a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for.

As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior – he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning.

For most prisoners of war in the Second World War, life behind bars was nothing like the films. The tales of brave escape attempts told in accounts such as the iconic film The Great Escape are exciting enough, but how much of the detail is true? In Great Escapes ex-RAF officer and researcher for the RAF Escaping Society Terry Treadwell tells the incredible tales of some of the lesser known attempts to escape POW camps. All the amazing details are from real-life escape attempts, but as this book reveals, fact is often more extraordinary than fiction. Using personal accounts, authentic reports from German guards and debrief documents in the National Archives, Terry Treadwell traces the astounding stories of these heroic escapees. Some were successful, others not, but in each case the inspired methods devised and executed by the prisoners show bravery and ingenuity on a greater scale than any film. With incredible stories such as the Wooden Horse, the French Tunnel and the Colditz Ghost, this ground-breaking new book tells the stories of some of the bravest, and most reckless, men in history.

First time in paperbackA nonfiction thriller that combines the manhunt for a friend's killer in Afghanistan with a riveting investigation into how warfare has changed since IraqCastner's work as a journalist has extended his following. He is a contributing writer to VICE, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post , the Atlantic , Wired, Foreign Policy, Outside, Buzzfeed, Boston Globe, Time, The Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and on National Public Radio.Brian Castner's newest book, Disappointment River, will be published by Doubleday in spring 2018 (month TK).

"A must read for all Damien Lewis fans" Compass --------------------------------------------------------- The most explosive true war story of the 21st Century It is the winter of 2001. A terror ship is bound for Britain carrying a horrifying weapon. The British military sends a crack unit of SAS and SBS to assault the vessel before she reaches London. So begins a true story of explosive action as this band of elite warriors pursues the merchants of death from the high seas to the harsh wildlands of Afghanistan. The hunt culminates in the single greatest battle of the Afghan war, the brutal and bloody siege of an ancient mud-walled fortress crammed full of hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Fighting against impossible odds and bitter betrayal, our handful of crack fighters battle to rescue their fellow soldiers trapped by a murderous, fanatical enemy. --------------------------------------------------------- "The most dramatic story of a secret wartime mission you will ever read" News of the World "The author has been given unprecedented access" Zoo "Gripping" Eye Spy

In early 2002 Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq, prepare the battlefield and facilitate the entry of follow-on conventional military forces numbering in excess of 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam's army in the north as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground inside Iraq within weeks and that the entire campaign would likely be over by summer. Over the next year virtually every aspect of that plan for the conduct of the war in Northern Iraq fell apart. The 4th Infantry Division never arrived nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number. The Turks not only did not provide support, they worked overtime to prevent the U.S. from achieving success. An Arab army that was to assist U.S. forces fell apart before it ever made it to the field. Alone, hopelessly outnumbered, short on supplies and threatened by Iraqi assassination teams and Islamic extremists Faddis' team, working with Kurdish peshmerga, nonetheless paved the way for a brilliant and largely bloodless victory in the north and the fall of Saddam's Iraq. That victory, handed over to Washington and the Department of Defense on a silver platter, was then squandered. The surrender of Iraqi forces in the north was spurned. All existing governmental institutions were, in the name of de-Baathification, dismantled. All input from Faddis' team, which had been in country for almost a full year, was ignored. The consequences of these actions were and continue to be catastrophic. This is the story of an incredibly brave and effective team of men and women who overcame massive odds and helped end the nightmare of Saddam's rule in Iraq. It is also the story of how incompetence, bureaucracy and ignorance threw that success away and condemned Iraq and the surrounding region to chaos.

This book presents oral histories from the last surviving UK veterans of the Korean War. With the help of the UK National Army Museum and the British Korean Society, this book collects nearly twenty testimonials of UK veterans of the Korean War. Many only teenagers when mobilized, these veterans attempt to put words to the violence and trauma they experienced. They recall the landscape and people of Korea, the political backdrop, and touching moments in unlikely situations. Like other oral histories of war, their stories recount friendship, hardship, the loss of innocence, and the perseverance of humanity in the face of cruelty. The testimonies were taken by academics and students from the University of Roehampton, and supported by the National Army Museum and the British Korean Society. Through their memories we learn a great deal about the conflict in macro and micro scales.

A former senior mujahidin figure and an ex-counter-terrorism analyst cooperating to write a book on the history and legacy of Arab-Afghan fighters in Afghanistan is a remarkable and improbable undertaking. Yet this is what Mustafa Hamid, aka Abu Walid al-Masri, and Leah Farrall have achieved with the publication of their ground-breaking work. The result of thousands of hours of discussions over several years, The Arabs at War in Afghanistan offers significant new insights into the history of many of today's militant Salafi groups and movements. By revealing the real origins of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the jostling among the various jihadi groups, this account not only challenges conventional wisdom, but also raises uncomfortable questions as to how events from this important period have been so badly misconstrued.

How presidents spark and sustain support for wars remains an enduring and significant problem. Korea was the first limited war the U.S. experienced in the contemporary period - the first recent war fought for something less than total victory. In Selling the Korean War, Steven Casey explores how President Truman and then Eisenhower tried to sell it to the American public.
Based on a massive array of primary sources, Casey subtly explores the government's selling activities from all angles. He looks at the halting and sometimes chaotic efforts of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles. He examines the relationships that they and their subordinates developed with a host of other institutions, from Congress and the press to Hollywood and labor. And he assesses the complex and fraught interactions between the military and war correspondents in the battlefield theater itself.
From high politics to bitter media spats, Casey guides the reader through the domestic debates of this messy, costly war. He highlights the actions and calculations of colorful figures, including Senators Robert Taft and JHoseph McCarthy, and General Douglas MacArthur. He details how the culture and work routines of Congress and the media influenced political tactics and daily news stories. And he explores how different phases of the war threw up different problems - from the initial disasters in the summer of 1950 to the giddy prospects of victory in October 1950, from the massive defeats in the wake of China's massive intervention to the lengthy period of stalemate fighting in 1952 and 1953.

When Canada committed forces to the military mission in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, little did Canadians foresee that they would be involved in a war-riven country for over a decade. The Politics of War explores how and why Canada's Afghanistan mission became so politicized. Through analysis of the public record and interviews with officials, Boucher and Nossal show how the Canadian government sought to frame the engagement in Afghanistan as a "mission" rather than what it was - a war. This book analyzes the impact of political elites, Parliament, and public opinion on the conflict and demonstrates how much of Canada's involvement was shaped by the vagaries of domestic politics.

No foreign policy decision in recent history has had greater repercussions than President George W. Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq. It launched a new doctrine of preemptive war, mired the American military in an intractable armed conflict, disrupted world petroleum supplies, cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, and damaged or ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Its impact on international politics and America's standing in the world remains incalculable.
The Iraq Papers offers a compelling documentary narrative and interpretation of this momentous conflict. With keen editing and incisive commentary, the book weaves together original documents that range from presidential addresses to redacted memos, carrying us from the ideology behind the invasion to negotiations for withdrawal. These papers trace the rise of the neoconservatives and reveal the role of strategic thinking about oil supplies. In moving to the planning for the war itself, the authors not only provide Congressional resolutions and speeches by President Bush, but internal security papers, Pentagon planning documents, the report of the Future of Iraq Project, and eloquent opposition statements by Senator Robert Byrd, other world governments, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the World Council of Churches. This collection addresses every aspect of the conflict, from the military's evolving counterinsurgency strategy to declarations by Iraqi resisters and political figures-from Coalition Provisional Authority orders to Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of the insurgents as "dead-enders" and Iraqi discussions of state- and nationbuilding under the shadow of occupation. The economics of petroleum, the legal and ethical questions surrounding terrorism and torture, international agreements, the theory of the "unitary presidency," and the Bush administration's use of presidential signing statements all receive in-depth coverage.
The Iraq War has reshaped the domestic and international landscape. The Iraq Papers offers the authoritative one-volume source for understanding the conflict and its many repercussions.

Ever since its foundation in 2002, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility has become the symbol for many people around the world of all that is wrong with the 'war on terror'. Secretive, inhumane, and illegal by most international standards, it has been seen by many as a testament to American hubris in the post-9/11 era. Yet until now no one has written about the most revealing part of the story - the prison's first 100 days. It was during this time that a group of career military men and women tried to uphold the traditional military codes of honour and justice that informed their training in the face of a far more ruthless, less rule-bound, civilian leadership in the Pentagon. They were defeated. This book tells their story for the first time. It is a tale of how individual officers on the ground at Guantanamo, along with their direct superiors, struggled with their assignment from Washington, only to be unwittingly co-opted into the Pentagon's plan to turn the prison into an interrogation facility operating at the margins of the law and beyond.

When the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment (known as "2/3") arrived in Iraq five years to the day after 9/11, they were sent to a little-known swath of sparsely-populated desert called the Haditha Triad in Anbar province. It was the center of the most intense terrorist activity in Iraq-and it was being carried out by the well-organised and fearsome Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Into this cauldron 2/3 was thrown and given a nearly impossible double-sided mission: eradicate the enemy and build trust with the local population. After six months of gruelling and exhausting battle-and the loss of twenty-four brave, dedicated fighters-the warriors of 2/3 had utterly crushed the enemy and brought stability and hope to the region. In vivid, you-are-there style, The Warriors of Anbar takes readers onto the front lines of one of the most incredible stories to come out of America's war in Iraq- the story of how one Marine battalion decisively wielded the final, enduring death strike to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Despite its historical importance, the full story of 2/3 in Iraq has remained untold-until now.

The Iraq War is a visual record of the American-led Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003, which resulted in the dramatic overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. In a striking sequence of photographs Anthony Tucker-Jones shows how this was achieved by the American and British armed forces in a lightning campaign of just two weeks. But the photographs also show the disastrous aftermath when the swift victory was undermined by the outbreak of the Iraqi insurgency - in the Shia south, in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, and in Fallujah where two ferocious battles were fought. The author, who is an expert on the Iraqi armed forces and has written extensively on the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War, gives a fascinating insight into the Iraqi army and air force and into the multitude of weapons systems Saddam purchased from around the world. He also looks at the failures on the American and British side - the flaws in the tactics that were used, the poor performance of some of the armoured fighting vehicles - and at the reformed Iraqi armed forces who have now taken responsibility for security in the country. The Iraq War is a vivid photographic introduction to a conflict that has only just passed into history.

A marine's diary of the Korean War and the battle of Chosin Reservoir. A story of courage, strong faith, and determination by a young marine to lead others against incredible odds to become one of the "Chosin Few." A religious picture of the Boy Jesus was found amidst rubble and destruction became a relic that Richard Janca carried with him for life. This is a story of heroism of a young marine who earned the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Women presented the first effective challenge to the Islamic regime and the clerical authority in post-revolutionary Iran. Women's activism in support of their legal rights and personal freedom, however, did not develop into a strong movement against the rising fundamentalism. The Iranian socialists did not support women's autonomous organizations. The convergence of the Left's populism with Islamic populism, and the influence of the Iranian/Shiite political culture that promotes male authority and female submission, could not reconcile with women's claims to individual rights, choice, and personal freedom and their struggle for autonomy and self-determination in private or public life.

'Combines elements of In Cold Blood and Black Hawk Down with Apocalypse Now as it builds towards its terrible climax...Extraordinary' New York Times Iraq's 'Triangle of Death', 2005. A platoon of young soldiers from a U.S. regiment known as 'the Black Heart Brigade' is deployed to a lawless and hyperviolent area just south of Baghdad. Almost immediately, the attacks begin: every day another roadside bomb, another colleague blown to pieces. As the daily violence chips away, and chips away at their sanity, the thirty-five young men of 1st Platoon, Bravo Company descend into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality -- with tragic results. Black Hearts is a timeless true story of how modern warfare can make or break a man's character. Told with severe compassion, balanced judgement and the magnetic pace of a thriller, it looks set to become one of the defining books about the Iraq War. 'Black Hearts is the obverse of Band of Brothers, a story not of combat unity but of disharmony and disarray' Chicago Sun-Times 'A riveting picture of life outside the wire in Iraq, where "you tell a guy to go across a bridge, and within five minutes he's dead."' Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Dr. Williams identifies the roots of organized crime in post-Ba'athist Iraq in an authoritarian and corrupt state dominated by Saddam Hussein and subject to international sanctions. He also explains the rise of organized crime after the U.S. invasion in terms of two distinct waves: the first wave followed the collapse of the state and was accompanied by the breakdown of social control mechanisms and the development of anomie; the second wave was driven by anarchy, insecurity, political ambition, and the imperatives of resource generation for militias, insurgents, and other groups. This monograph looks in detail at major criminal activities, including the theft, diversion, and smuggling of oil, the kidnapping of both Iraqis and foreigners, extortion, car theft, and the theft and smuggling of antiquities. The author also considers the critical role played by corruption in facilitating and strengthening organized crime. He shows how al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jaish-al-Mahdi, and the Sunni tribes used criminal activities to fund their campaigns of political violence. Dr. Williams also identifies necessary responses to organized crime and corruption in Iraq, including efforts to reduce criminal opportunities, change incentive structures, and more directly target criminal organizations and activities.