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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945 > General
This book was originally published in 1954, the year following the
close of the Korean War. The accounts of small-unit actions were
written primarily for junior officers, noncommissioned officers,
and privates of the United States Army who had not yet been in
battle. The object was to acquaint them with the recent combat
experiences of others and thus better prepare them for the
realities of their own fields. Since the Korean War, some of the
tools and procedures of battle have changed, but the basic
conditions of combat have not. Indeed, the surprises, confusion,
and problems faced on one battlefield generally resemble the
difficulties met on another. Accounts of battle experience at other
times in other places, then, continue to have instructive value.
In December 2011, the last U.S. combat troops were withdrawn from
Iraq after an almost 9-year presence in that country. This day was
welcomed by the U.S. public after years of sacrifice and struggle
to build a new Iraq. Yet, the Iraq that U.S. troops have left at
the insistence of its government remains a deeply troubled nation.
Often Iraqi leaders view political issues in sharply sectarian
terms, and national unity is elusive. The Iraqi political system
was organized by both the United States and Iraq, although over
time, U.S. influence diminished and Iraqi influence increased. In
this monograph, Dr. W. Andrew Terrill examines the policies of
de-Ba'athification as initiated by the U.S.- led Coalition
Provision Authority (CPA) under Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and as
practiced by various Iraqi political commissions and entities
created under the CPA order. He also considers the ways in which
the Iraqi de-Ba'athification program has evolved and remained an
important but divisive institution over time. Dr. Terrill suggests
that many U.S. officials in Iraq saw problems with
de-Ba'athification, but they had difficulties softening or
correcting the process once it had become firmly established in
Iraqi hands. Other U.S. policymakers were slower in recognizing the
politicized nature of de-Ba'athification and its devolution into a
process in which both its Iraqi supporters and opponents viewed it
as an instrument of Shi'ite revenge and political domination of
Sunni Arabs. Dr. Terrill's monograph considers both the future of
Iraq and the differences and similarities between events in Iraq
and the Arab Spring states. He has examined both Ba'athism as a
concept and the ways in which it was practiced in Saddam Hussein's
Iraq. He notes that the initial principles of Ba'athism were
sufficiently broad as to allow their acquisition by a tyrant
seeking ideological justification for a merciless regime. His
comprehensive analysis of Iraqi Ba'athism ensures that he does not
overgeneralize when drawing potential parallels to events in the
Arab Spring countries. Dr. Terrill considers the nature of Iraqi
de-Ba'athification in considerable depth and carefully evaluates
the rationales and results of actions taken by both Americans and
Iraqis involved in the process. While there are many differences
between the formation of Iraq's post-Saddam Hussein government and
the current efforts of some Arab Spring governing bodies to
restructure their political institutions, it is possible to
identify parallels between Iraq and Arab Spring countries. Some
insights for emerging governments may, correspondingly, be guided
by a comprehensive understanding of these parallels. The Arab
Spring revolutions that have overthrown the governments of Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya, and Yemen at the time of this writing are a regional
process of stunning importance. While these revolutions began with
a tremendous degree of hope, great difficulties loom in the future.
New governments will have to apportion power, build or reform key
institutions, establish political legitimacy for those
institutions, and accommodate the enhanced expectations of their
publics in a post-revolutionary environment. A great deal can go
wrong in these circumstances, and it is important to consider ways
in which these new governing structures can be supported, so long
as they remain inclusive and democratic. Any lessons that can be
gleaned from earlier conflicts will be of considerable value to the
nations facing these problems as well as to their regional and
extra-regional allies seeking to help them.
A very Australian story of heroism and healing. In 2004 Garth
Callender, a junior cavalry officer, was deployed to Iraq. He
quickly found his feet leading convoys of armoured vehicles through
the streets of Baghdad and into the desert beyond. But one morning
his crew was targeted in a roadside bomb attack. Garth became
Australia's first serious casualty in the war. After recovering
from his injuries, Garth returned to Iraq in 2006 as
second-in-command of the Australian Army's security detachment in
Baghdad. He found a city in the grip of a rising insurgency. His
unit had to contend with missile attacks, suicide bombers and the
death by misadventure of one of their own, Private Jake Kovco.
Determined to prevent the kinds of bomb attacks that left him
scarred, Garth volunteered once more in 2009 - to lead a weapons
intelligence team in Afghanistan. He was helicoptered to blast
zones in the aftermath of attacks, and worked to identify the
insurgent bomb-makers responsible. Revealing, moving, funny and
full of drama, Garth Callender's story is one of a kind.
Veterans in rural communities face unique challenges, who will step
up to help?
Beginning with a brief scenario of a more gentle view of rural
life, the book moves through learned information about families,
children, and our returning National Guard and Reserve civilian
military members. Return experiences will necessarily be different
in rural and frontier settings than they are in suburban and urban
environments. Our rural and frontier areas, especially in Western
states with more isolated communities, less developed communication
and limited access to medical, psychological and social services
remain an important concern. This book helps provide some informed
direction in working toward improving these as a general guide for
mental health professionals working with Guard and Reserve members
and families in rural/frontier settings. An appendix provides an
in-depth list of online references for Traumatic Brain Injury
(TBI).
Specific areas of concern include: Morale, deployment abroad, and
stress factors Effects of terrorism on children and families at
home Understanding survivor guilt Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) and suicide Preventing secondary traumatization Resiliency
among refugee populations and military families Adjustment and
re-integration following the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Vicarious
trauma and its effects on children and adults How rural and remote
communities differ from more urban ones following war experiences
in readjusting military members Characteristics important in
therapists/counselors working with returning military
Doherty's second volume in this new series "Crisis in the American
Heartland" explores these and many other issues. Each volume
available in trade paper, hardcover, and eBook formats.
Learn more at www.RMRInstitute.org
PSY022040 Psychology: Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder
SOC040000 Social Science: Disasters & Disaster Relief
HIS027170 Military - Iraq War (2003-)
This monograph is an account of the role of communications within
the I Marine Expeditionary Force and the Marine Forces Afloat
during the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War. It is one of a series
covering the operations of the I Marine Expeditionary Force; the
1st Marine Division; the 2d Marine Division; the 3d marine Aircraft
Wing; Marine Combat Service Support; Marine Forces Afloat; and
Marines in Operation Provide Comfort.
Significant changes lie ahead for U.S. security strategy in the
Persian Gulf after almost a decade of stasis. In the decade between
the Gulf War and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, the strategy of dual containment of Iraq and Iran
was a key driver of American military planning and force posture
for the region. During these years, the overriding U.S. concern was
preserving access to Gulf oil at reasonable prices; both Iran and
Iraq possessed only a limited ability to project power and
influence beyond their borders; the Persian Gulf states acquiesced
to a significant U.S. military presence on their soil despite the
domestic costs; and the United States was reasonably successful, at
least until the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, in
insulating its relationships with key Gulf states from the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the end of the Clinton
administration, it seemed safe to assume that the regional security
environment would continue to evolve more or less on its present
trajectory and that the challenge confronting the United States was
how to manage U.S. forward presence for the long haul under
increasingly stressful conditions. This premise is no longer valid.
The strategy of dual containment, which is just barely alive, will
expire in one way or another in all likelihood because the United
States decides to end Saddam Husayn's rule. American success in
engineering a regime change in Baghdad will require a substantial
increase in U.S. forward deployed forces followed by a
multinational occupation of Iraq that is likely to include a
significant U.S. military component. At the same time, even if
regime change does not occur in Iraq, other factors are likely to
put pressure on the United States over the next decade to alter the
shape of its military posture toward the region. The purpose of
this study is to evaluate the implications of these political,
strategic, security, and military factors for U.S. military
presence and force posture, defense and security relationships, and
force planning for the region. Specifically, the chapters that
follow seek to frame the issues, options, and tradeoffs facing U.S.
defense planners by focusing on the following questions: To what
extent does the emerging security environment-that is, the changing
nature of U.S. interests and threats to those interests- require
changes in the size and composition of forward deployed forces,
peacetime engagement activities, military operations, and force
protection? Does the United States need to reconfigure its security
and military relationships with regional friends and allies to take
account of their changing security perceptions and policies? Are
there trends in the strategic environment that are likely to
generate new demands and requirements for the Armed Forces? How can
the United States reconcile the call in the Quadrennial Defense
Review 2001 for greater flexibility in the global allocation of
U.S. defense capabilities with the harsh reality that, for the
foreseeable future, forward defense of the Persian Gulf will remain
dependent on substantial reinforcements from the United States? The
main conclusion of this study is that, with or without regime
change in Iraq, the United States will need to make significant
adjustments in its military posture toward the region.
Recent proliferation surprises in the Middle East-the failure to
find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, Libya's decision to
eliminate its WMD, and evidence of significant progress by Iran
toward a nuclear weapons capability-underscore the need for the
nonproliferation community to reassess some of its key assumptions
about WMD proliferation and the nature of the evolving
international landscape. Such a reassessment must be highly
speculative. Much about Iraq's WMD programs is likely to remain a
mystery due to the destruction of records and the looting of
facilities following the fall of Baghdad, as well as the continuing
silence of many Iraqi weapons scientists and former government
officials.1 Likewise, the calculations driving key
proliferation-related decisions by Libya and Iran remain murky.
This lack of knowledge, however, should not inhibit attempts to
grasp the implications of these developments for U.S.
nonproliferation and counterproliferation policy. Although this
paper focuses primarily on Iraq, it also seeks to draw lessons from
recent experiences in Libya and Iran to understand better how
proliferators think about WMD; the challenges in assessing the
status and sophistication of developing world WMD programs; the
contours of the emerging international proliferation landscape; and
the efficacy of various policy instruments available to the United
States for dealing with these so-called ultimate weapons.
The focus of air planners was to envision the use of air power in
achieving coalition objectives and military strategy. This report
begins with the genesis of that plan with some background to place
it within an historical perspective and traces in development
through what existed on 16 January 1991.
This report brings together analyses of three crucial determinants
of an armed force's overall capability: - weapons-the tools used by
the soldier, sailor, and airman. - tactics-the way in which the
tools are used to produce desired effects. - training-the way in
which the individual soldier, sailor, and airman acquires the
skills required to combine weapons and tactics into the operation
art of warfare.
"Surprise" is a familiar term in military writings: the achievement
of tactical surprise has such obvious benefits that it is enshrined
in the military doctrine of most nations. Surprises that emerge in
tactics, however, can also operate at the strategic and operational
levels. These surprises are particularly dangerous, because they
can test the relevance and adaptability of military forces and the
"institutional" defense establishments that create, develop, and
sustain them. A military establishment that is too slow to
recognize and respond to such surprises places its nation's
interests at grave risk. In the bipolar strategic environment of
the Cold War, deep knowledge of a known adversary reduced the
likelihood of such surprises. The same is not true now. This
monograph thus comes at an important time, as Western nations
contemplate major reductions in defense spending with consequent
limitations on force structure. The range of enemy capabilities
that a force will be able to match, qualitatively and
quantitatively, will become smaller; hence the potential for
operational and strategic surprise will increase. In this
monograph, Brigadier Andrew Smith uses the improvised explosive
device threat as it manifested itself in Iraq between 2003 and 2009
as a case study of such a surprise and how defense establishments
responded to it. He argues that, although tactical in itself, this
threat posed an operational and strategic threat in a modern "war
of discretion" that demanded institutional responses from both the
U.S. and Australian institutional militaries, including major
equipment, training, and budgetary changes within iv time frames
that circumvented the normal peacetime force development cycles of
those countries. There are disappointments in the way both
countries met this challenge. A key conclusion from this analysis
is the critical role of strategic leadership in recognizing the
scale of surprise and in forcing the necessary institutional
response. At a time when budgets will not allow surprise to be
addressed by maintaining large and technically diverse forces at
high readiness, the ability to recognize and respond adroitly to
operational and strategic surprise may be a critical requirement
for a modern defense establishment.
The United States' (US) invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the
subsequent removal of the Taliban regime are considered monumental
successes. In the wake of this success remained the challenge of
developing an Afghan National Army (ANA) in order to defend the
democratically elected Government of the Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan (GIRoA). This monograph proposes that international
assistance, the development of internal Afghan industrial capacity
and improved strategic level mentorship are the critical components
in forming a self-sustaining ANA. The approach to analyzing ANA
development centered on four areas within this research. ANA
logistics culture was studied by reviewing the current, past and a
desired logistics system to determine its potential for
self-sufficiency. Regional neighbors were analyzed to identify
their relationships with Afghanistan that could enhance partnered
efforts in order to improve internal capacity. The analysis then
explored the role of US advisors in Afghanistan as they seek to
train and mentor Afghan leaders for the purpose of planning and
executing strategic level logistics operations. Finally, the US
success in developing a self-sustaining Greek National Army (GNA)
following World War II offered some lessons learned that could be
applied to the ongoing advisory effort in Afghanistan.
For three years, beginning in June 1950, air and ground crews of
the United States Air Force (USAF) conducted bombing operations
with Boeing B-29 Superfortresses in support of the United Nations
(U.N.) forces engaged on the peninsula of Korea. Powered by four
large radial piston engines, the propeller- driven Superfortress
had been the most advanced very long-range heavy bomber developed
during the Second World War. But such had been the pace of
aeronautical development since the Second World War that it was
now, at the time of Korea, considered but a medium bomber, and one
outclassed by early jet aircraft at that. Manned principally by
officers and men from the Strategic Air Command (SAC), the B-29
units carried out missions very different from the task for which
SAC was trained. Instead of striking at the homeland of a major
industrial power with ATOMIC weapons, the crews at- tacked targets
of many types, showing the variety of functions that air power
could perform. The bombers carried out battlefield support,
interdiction, and air superiority (counter airfield) missions. They
hit industrial targets of the type normally classified as strategic
and also took part in an effort to utilize air power to pressure
the enemy to agree to a cease-fire. This study traces the war
fought by Far East Air Forces (FEAF) Bomber Command (Provisional),
the B-29 force created to attack targets in Korea from bases in
Okinawa and Japan. Consisting of units belonging to FEAF and others
from SAC assigned on temporary duty, Bomber Command cooperated with
other USAF organizations to support operations in the Korean
peninsula. The B-29 crews earned credit in all ten of the
recognized campaigns of the Korean War. Politically, the war had
three phases. From June 25, 1950, when North Koreans attacked South
Korea, until November 2, 1950, U.N. forces defended the south and
defeated the invaders. From November 1950 until July 1951, the U.N.
had to deal with the intervention of Communist China and the most
desperate fighting of the war. Beginning on July 10, 1951, fighting
continued even as negotiations for a cease-fire between the
opposing military commands were under way. This third phase, and
the war, ended when the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. As
for actual combat operations, however, Bomber Command experienced
the war in terms of the opposition it encountered. Following a
brief but intensive air superiority war in the summer of 1950,
North Korea posed negligible air opposition, but when the Chinese
entered the war in November, assisted by Soviet fighter pilots
flying MiG-15 jet fighters, the limitations of the obsolescent
B-29s became apparent. Communist air resistance was so heavy that
by the end of October 1951 the B-29s had switched to a remarkable
night campaign that continued for more than a year and a half. By
1953, SAC was well on the way to removing the B-29s from its
inventory. Thus, for one last time, the B-29, a workhorse of the
air campaign in the Pacific in World War II, flew into combat.
Often called a "police action," or the "Korean conflict," the
fighting in Korea was undertaken under the leadership of the United
States on the authority of the U.N., to defend the Republic of
Korea against the Communist North Koreans and Chinese and their
Soviet supporters. Thus, it differed significantly from previous
conflicts, which had been typified by formal declarations of war by
the Congress. This semantic uncertainty well reflects the
unprecedented situation that American fighting men faced in the Far
East. For Bomber Command, the contrast between what a strategic
bomber like the B-29 had been designed for and what it actually did
clearly illustrates the anomalies.
Before the Korean War, the primary mission of Lt. Gen. George E.
Stratemeyer's Far East Air Forces was air defense of the Japanese
homeland. Most of the aircraft constituting Stratemeyer's inventory
were interceptors, not designed for the type of combat that would
be required now that the United States was joining in the UN effort
to end the war in Korea. The Joint Army/USAAF doctrine of 1946,
known as Field Manual 31-35, Air Ground Operations, was also
considered outdated in the present circumstance. A new approach to
warfighting had to be developed in response to the strong influence
of General Douglas MacArthur and other of his air officers in the
Army-dominated General Headquarters Far East Command. Close air
support of the ground forces as provided by Fifth Air Force came at
some cost, and tempers flared in the process, but the air
commanders in Korea never deprived the ground commanders of close
air support if it was needed. Indeed, without the close air support
provided to the airmen, the ground campaign would have been a much
more bloody and difficult affair than it was.
Remarkably ambitious in its audacity and scope, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization's (NATO) irregular warfare and
"nation-building" mission in Afghanistan has struggled to meet its
nonmilitary objectives by most tangible measures. Put directly, the
alliance and its partners have fallen short of achieving the
results needed to create a stable, secure, democratic, and
self-sustaining Afghan nation, a particularly daunting proposition
given Afghanistan's history and culture, the region's contemporary
circumstances, and the fact that no such country has existed there
before. Furthermore, given the central nature of U.S. contributions
to this NATO mission, these shortfalls also serve as an indicator
of a serious American problem as well. Specifically,
inconsistencies and a lack of coherence in U.S. Government
strategic planning processes and products, as well as fundamental
flaws in U.S. Government structures and systems for coordinating
and integrating the efforts of its various agencies, are largely
responsible for this adverse and dangerous situation. As a
rationally ordered expression of the ways and means to be applied
in the protection of vital national security interests, strategy is
supposed to represent a careful analysis and prioritization of the
particular interests at stake. In turn, these interests are linked
to feasible methods and the resources that are available for their
protection, all placed within the context of competing global
security demands and a serious consideration of risk. In the case
of Afghanistan, however, U.S. Government strategic guidance has
been disjointed-- or inconsistent and lacking coherence--while
interagency efforts have been "disunified," with agency outputs too
often fragmented, inadequate, or internally at odds with one
another. As a result, U.S. strategic supervision of the Afghan
operation has been muddled and shifting at best, even as our
government's interagency processes and available agency
capabilities have fallen far short of what is needed to carry out
the complex and broad requirements of irregular warfare and
"nation-building." Given the breadth, length, and expense of the
U.S. commitment in Afghanistan, these strategic and operational
shortfalls also carry with them potentially dire consequences for
U.S. national security interests around the globe, considering
potential first- and second-order effects and other associated
risks. U.S. Government disjointed ways, coupled with a
corresponding disunity of means, represent the proximate cause of
our struggles in Afghanistan, and these deficiencies must be
addressed if this mission and other similar future endeavors are to
succeed.
The Combat Studies Institute provides a wide range of military,
historical, and educational support to the Combined Arms Center,
Training and Doctrine Command, and the United States Army. The
Combat Studies Institute researches, writes, and publishes original
interpretive works on issues of relevance to the US Army. The
Combat Studies Institute (CSI) publication collection contains
reports and books pertaining to American history, military
guidelines, foreign affairs, and more. Titles featured in this
collection include: Art of War Papers: Protecting, Isolating, and
Controlling Behavior, Law of War: Can 20th Century Standards Apply
to the Global War on Terrorism? and Traditions, Changes, and
Challenges: Military Operations and the Middle Eastern City. This
title is one of many in the Combat Studies Institute collection.
From the award-winning co-author of I Am Malala, this book asks
just how the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on
the ground, failed to defeat a group of religious students and
farmers? How did it go so wrong? Twenty-seven years ago, Christina
Lamb left Britain to become a journalist in Pakistan. She crossed
the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the
Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country of
pomegranates and war, a relationship which has dominated her adult
life. Since 2001, Lamb has watched with incredulity as the West
fought a war with its hands tied, committed too little too late,
failed to understand local dynamics and turned a blind eye as their
Taliban enemy was helped by their ally Pakistan. Farewell Kabul
tells how success was turned into defeat in the longest war fought
by the United States in its history and by Britain since the
Hundred Years War. It has been a fiasco which has left Afghanistan
still one of the poorest nations on earth, the Taliban undefeated,
and nuclear armed Pakistan perhaps the most dangerous place on
earth. With unparalleled access to all key decision-makers in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, London and Washington, from heads of state
and generals as well as soldiers on the ground, Farewell Kabul
tells how this happened. In Afghanistan, Lamb has travelled far
beyond Helmand - from the caves of Tora Bora in the south to the
mountainous bad lands of Kunar in the east; from Herat, city of
poets and minarets in the west, to the very poorest province of
Samangan in the north. She went to Guantanamo, met Taliban in
Quetta, visited jihadi camps in Pakistan and saw bin Laden's house
just after he was killed. Saddest of all, she met women who had
been made role models by the West and had then been shot, raped or
forced to flee the country. This deeply personal book not only
shows the human cost of political failure but explains how
short-sighted encouragement of jihadis to fight the Russians,
followed by prosecution of ill-thoughtout wars, has resulted in the
spread of terrorism throughout the Islamic world.
This report discusses logistics in the Persian Gulf war as it
applies to all military operations and in particular to air
operations. Simply put, how did the United States equip its forces
for Desert Shield and Desert Storm? Logistics also includes
fictions for maintaining an air base and support services. These
aspects of logistics will be covered in the two parts of this
volume.
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