Author and illustrator of How to Be Interesting, Jessica Hagy is a cutting-edge thinker whose language - comprising circles, arrows, and lines and the well-chosen word or ?two - makes her an ideal philosopher for our ever-more-visual culture. Her charts and diagrams are deceptively simple, often funny, and always thought-provoking. She knows how to communicate not only ideas but the complex process of thinking itself, complete with its twists and surprises. ?For The Art of War Visualized, she presents her vision in evocative ink-brush art and bold typography. The result is page after page in which each passage of the complete canonical text (in its best-known Lionel Giles translation) is visually interpreted in a singular diagram, chart, or other illustration - transforming, reenergizing, and making the classic dazzlingly accessible for a new generation of readers.

EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT WAR IS WRONG. We are living in an age of conflict: Russia's resurgence and China's rise, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change and dwindling natural resources. But while the West has been playing the same old war games, the enemy has a new strategy. The rules have changed, and we are dangerously unprepared. Former paratrooper Sean McFate has been on the front lines of conflict, and seen first-hand the horrors of battle. As a Professor of Strategy, he understands the complexity of the current military situation. In this new age of war: * Plausible deniability is more potent than firepower * Russia has become a disinformation superpower, twisting the West's perception of reality * Sanctions are blunt instruments that starve only the masses, not the elite * Victory will belong to the cunning, not the strong * New types of world powers will rule Learn how to triumph in the coming age of conflict in ten new rules. Adapt and we can prevail. Fail, and size and strength won't protect us. This is The Art of War for the 21st century. __________ 'Some of what he says makes more sense than much of what comes out of the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Thought-provoking' Johnathon Evans, Former Head of MI5 'Fascinating and disturbing' Economist

"The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog's disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with." With these words, Robert Taber began a revolution in conventional military thought that has dramatically impacted the way armed conflicts have been fought since the book's initial publication in 1965. Whether ideological, nationalistic, or religious, all guerrilla insurgencies use similar tactics to advance their cause. "War of the Flea's" timeless analysis of the guerrilla fighter's means and methods provides a fundamental resource for any reader seeking to understand this distinct form of warfare and the challenge it continues to present to today's armed forces in the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere.

The nation's first photo reconnaissance satellite system, operating from August 1960 until May 1972. The program was declassified in February 1995. Since the CORONA satellite made its first successful flight in August 1960, the Intelligence Community's overhead reconnaissance programs have been among the nation's most closely guarded secrets. The end of the Cold War, however, has at last made it possible to declassify both information and imagery from the first American satellite systems of the 1960s. To do this, President William Clinton in February of this year ordered the declassification within 18 months of historical intelligence imagery from the early satellite systems known as the CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD. Because the President's Executive Order 1295 1 envisions scientific and environmental uses for this satellite imagery, the declassified photographs will be transferred to the National Archives with a copy sent to the US Geological Survey. Vice President Albert Gore, who first urged the Intelligence Community to open up its early imagery for environmental studies, unveiled the first CORONA sateIlite photographs for the American press and public at CIA Headquarters on 24 February 1995. To mark this new initiative, CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University are cosponsoring a conference, "Piercing the Curtain: CORONA and the Revolution in Intelligence," in Washington on 23-24 May 1995. On the occasion of this conference, the CIA History Staff is publishing this collection of newly declassified documents and imagery from the CORONA program. This is the fourth volume in the CIA Cold War Records Series, which began in1992 when Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates launched CIA's Openness Policy and reorganized the Center for the Study of Intelligence to include both the History Staff and a new Historical Review Group to declassify historically important CIA records. The editor of this new volume, Dr. Kevin C. Ruffner, has an A.B. from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. in history from the University of Virginia. He joined the CIA History Staff in 199 1, soon after he received his Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University. The documents and imagery in this volume were reviewed and declassified with unusual dispatch by a special working group of declassification officers from the National Reconnaissance Office, the Central Imagery Office, CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, and its National Photographic Interpretation Center. The group's prompt work is especially notable since many documents required consultation with the US Air Force, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Department of State, and CIA's Collection Requirements and Evaluation Staff. This volume's appearance just three months after President Clinton's declassification order is yet another tribute to the skill and speed that the History Staff of the Center for the Study of Intelligence has come to expect from the Design Center and Publications Center in the Directorate of Intelligence, and fromthe Directorate of Administration's Printing and Photography Group.

This book is part of the unique Book of Samurai series that comprises the works of 17th-century samurai tactician Natori Sanjuro Masazumi, retainer and advisor to the lords of Kishu domain. It offers an unparalleled insight into the weaponry and armour of the samurai era, as well as tactical advice for use on the battlefield and off - wisdom that can be applied to many scenarios today.Heieki Yoho, the first scroll translated in this book, offers advice for every possible situation, from moving troops to besieging a castle to fighting on the open battlefield. From turning thieves or cowards to good service, to practising "external listening" in order to obtain information from as many sources as possible, to penetrating the deeper motives of those who slander (or praise) others, the advice here is thought provoking and paints a vivid picture of samurai Japan at war.Heigu Yoho, the second scroll, gives us a rare and precious glimpse into samurai arms and armour, including their construction, status regulations and connected ceremonies, mythology and Buddhist doctrine: a helmet's ventilation hole, for example, allows access to the 98,000 gods of war. There is an accessible introduction and a glossary, as well as 130 line drawings that include illustrations of arms and armour, strategic diagrams and beautiful examples of Japanese calligraphy.

This is a carefully researched and illuminating study of siege warfare in the twelfth century. The siege was an integral part of medieval military experience, and was particularly significant in the Mediterranean region. Dr Rogers explores siege warfare and the role it played in the First Crusade and the establishment of the Crusader States, in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and in the seaborne expeditions of the Italian maritime states. Dr Rogers sets out to discover how it was that crusading forces handicapped by rudimentary organisation and logistical support were able to conduct some of the most dramatic siege operations of the pre-gunpowder period. He traces the development and diffusion of techniques; and analyses the experience of siege warfare in every aspect, from the question of supplies of component parts for siege engines to the often complex political situations of besieger and besieged. This is a book which contributes not only to the military history of the twelfth century but also to its political and cultural history. `excellent work, written by a scholar who has a thorough grasp of the subject and who presents it in a lucid manner.' Speculum `an excellent work ... a fine study, full of intriguing ideas for readers interested in crusading, municipalities, and the role of warfare.' The Historian `Rogers's book is an excellent look at the medieval world's most bellicose century.' American Historical Review

This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.

As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.

Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.

If you loved American Sniper you will love Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. Award-winning journalist Sean Naylor, an eyewitness to the action, vividly portrays the fight for Afghanistan's most hostile battleground. At dawn on March 2, 2002, the first major battle of the 21st Century began. Over 200 soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions flew into Afghanistan's Shahikot valley - and into the mouth of a buzz-saw. They were about to pay a bloody price for strategic, higher-level miscalculations that underestimated the enemy's strength and willingness to fight. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Coalition forces quickly toppled the Taliban regime from the seat of government. But, believing the war to be all but over, the Pentagon and US Central Command refused to commit the forces required to achieve total victory in Afghanistan. Instead, they delegated responsibility for fighting the war's biggest battle to a tangle of untested units thrown together at the last moment. Then the world watched as Anaconda seemed to unravel. Denied the extra infantry, artillery and close air support with which they trained to go to war, the soldiers of this airborne assault fought for survival in brutal high-altitude combat. Backed up by a small, but crucial, team of special forces, they were all that stood between the Coalition and a military disaster. Perfect for fans of Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark Thirty, Chris Ryan, and Andy McNab. About the author: Sean Naylor is a senior writer for the Army Times. He has covered the Afghan mujahideen's war against the Soviets, and American military operations in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Named one of the 22 "unsung" influential print reporters in Washington by American Journalism Review in May 2002, he earned the White House Correspondents' Association's prestigious Edgar A. Poe Award for his coverage of Operation Anaconda.

Sieges played a key role in the crusades, but they tend to be overshadowed by the famous battles fought between the Franks and the Muslims, and no detailed study of the subject has been published in recent times. So Michael Fulton's graphic, wide-ranging and thought-provoking book is a landmark in the field. He considers the history of siege warfare in the Holy Land from every angle - the tactics and technology, the fortifications, the composition of the opposing armies, and the ways in which sieges shaped Frankish and Muslim strategy at each stage of the conflict. The differences and similarities between the Eastern and Western traditions are explored, as is the impact of the shifting balance of power in the region. The conclusions may surprise some readers. Neither the Muslims nor the Franks possessed a marked advantage in siege technology or tactics, their fortifications reflected different purposes and an evolving political environment and, although there were improvements in technologies and fortifications, the essence of siege warfare remained relatively consistent. Michael Fulton's book is a fascinating all-round reassessment of an aspect of the crusades that had a decisive impact on the outcome of the struggle. It will be essential reading for medieval and military historians.

My Way of strategy is the sure method to win when fighting for your life one man against five or ten. There is nothing wrong with the principle "one man can beat ten, so a thousand men can beat ten thousand." You must research this. Of course you cannot assemble a thousand or ten thousand men for everyday training. But you can become a master of strategy by training alone with a sword, so that you can understand the enemy's stratagems, his strength and resources, and come to appreciate how to apply strategy to beat ten thousand enemies.

This is the first book ever to present the authentic ninja techniques in a highly accessible, illustrated 'how to' format. The shadowy figure of the ninja – expert commando, secret agent, maverick who operates outside social norms – continues to exert fascination in the West, yet much of what is presented as ninja fact today is distorted or wrong. Drawing on the scrolls created by historical Japanese ninjas (or shinobi, as they were then known), this book offers the real ninja teachings in 150 easy-to-follow, illustrated lessons designed to draw contemporary students of ninja straight into the world of these skilled spy-commandos. The truth about the ninja is so much more complex and intriguing than the Hollywood clichés we know today. We may think, for example, of a ninja as being always garbed in black and fighting with 'throwing stars' but in fact, a ninja had clothes in different colours to serve as disguises for different times of day, and their arsenal of weaponry could include anything from poison, poison gas, pepper spray and fire-creating tools to swords, spears and knives (but no throwing stars). The 150 lessons in this book cover all the basics of ninja warcraft, including clever ideas for infiltrating an enemy compound (from wearing 'silent sandals' to faking passes and passwords), tactics for hiding and retreat (in the racoon dog retreat, a ninja will crouch low and halt, allowing the pursuer to collide with him at speed, whereupon the agent kills his enemy), and ways of crossing marshes and water (for example, with special shoes made of boards, or using a foldaway floating seat). The description is made all the more vivid by step-by-step photographs of the fighting techniques, diagrams outlining military tactics and beautiful samples of Japanese calligraphy.

One of the great spectacles of modern naval history is the Imperial Japanese Navy's instrumental role in Japan's rise from an isolationist feudal kingdom to a potent military empire stridently confronting, in 1941, the world's most powerful nation. Years of painstaking research and analysis of previously untapped Japanese-language resources have produced this remarkable study of the navy's dizzying development, tactical triumphs, and humiliating defeat. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and attention to detail, this important new history explores the foreign and indigenous influences on the navy's thinking about naval warfare and how to plan for it. Focusing primarily on the much-neglected period between the world wars, two widely esteemed historians persuasively explain how the Japanese failed to prepare properly for the war in the Pacific despite an arguable advantage in capability. Maintaining the highest literary standards and supplemented by a dazzling array of charts, diagrams, drawings, and photographs, this landmark work provides much important information not available in any other English-language source. Consciously avoiding the Eurocentric bias of conventional military scholarship, David Evans and Mark Peattie make a unique contribution to naval historiography that will be prized by serious historians and casual readers alike and that promises to spark debate within the academic community.

Summer's inspired analysis of America's war in Vietnam answers the most pressing questions remaining from that terrible conflict more than a decade before Robert McNamara's painful admissions.

"Steel Wind" is a piece of historical detective work that explains how Colonel Georg Bruchmuller, an obscure German artillery officer recalled from retirement, played a pivotal role in the revolution of offensive tactics that took place in 1917-18. Ironically, the methods developed by Bruchmuller ultimately were rejected by the German Army of World War II, but they were taken up and applied with a vengeance by the emerging Red Army. The Soviets further developed Bruchmuller's principles and incorporated them into their doctrine, where they remain to this day. Through Soviet doctrine, they have become fundamental to the practice of many other armies. Bruchmuller's influence in shaping the former Soviet Army has also been mirrored in the shape of those armies designed to oppose it.

As infantry units advanced across Europe the only support they could rely on from day to day was that provided by the heavy weapons of their own units. While thundering tanks struck fear into the hearts of their enemies it was the machine guns, mortars and light cannon that proved to be most important, causing the majority of casualties suffered during World War II. Common principles were shared across units but the wide variety of weapons available to the different armies altered the way they were used in battle. Focusing on the US, British, German and Soviet troops, this title offers a comprehensive guide to infantry fire support tactics used through World War II. Combat reports are complemented by specially commissioned artwork to show the way in which tactics varied, and highlight how developments obliged opposing armies to review their own methods.

In Strategy and Command, David Horner provides an important insight into the strategic decisions and military commanders who shaped Australia's army history from the Boer War to the evolution of the command structure for the Australian Defence Force in the 2000s. He examines strategic decisions such as whether to go to war, the nature of the forces to be committed to the war, where the forces should be deployed and when to reduce the Australian commitment. The book also recounts decisions made by commanders at the highest level, which are passed on to those at the operational level, who are then required to produce their own plans to achieve the government's aims through military operations. Strategy and Command is a compilation of research and writing on military history by one of Australia's pre-eminent military historians. It is a crucial read for anyone interested in Australia's involvement in 20th-century wars.

Between the late 8th and late 11th century Viking warriors had a massive impact not just in northern Europe, but across a huge arc from the western Mediterranean round through northern Europe and the Baltic to the Middle East and Central Asia. Their success depended in part on their skills in battle, their unique sense of strategic mobility, and on the quality of their weapons and equipment. Written by an expert on early medieval weaponry, this book examines the weapons of the typical Viking warrior, dispels some of the myths of the popular image, such as double-headed axes, and considers the range of weapons that actually underpinned the Vikings' success including bows and arrows.

Drawing upon contemporary literary and historical accounts from the North Atlantic to the Arab world, surviving examples of weapons and armour, and practical experimentation and reconstructions by modern weapon-smiths and re-enactors, this study casts new light on how Viking weapons were made and used in battle.

WAR MAKES MONSTERS OF EVERYONE. Foolish Cur, once named Wen Alder, finds that his allies in the rebellion might cross any line if it means freedom from the Empire. But he can't overcome a foe as strong as Emperor Tenet alone. REBELLION HAS UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES. Koro Ha, Foolish Cur's former tutor, discovers the Empire is not so forgiving of those who raise a traitor. And their suspicion may cost him and his people more than he can imagine. THE GODS ARE LURKING IN THE SHADOWS. As war against the Empire rages, Foolish Cur knows there is a greater threat. The emperor plans his own coup against the gods, and they will wreak destruction if he tries. To stop him, Foolish Cur might have to risk everything - and resort to ancient magics that could tear the world apart. This is perfect for fans of Robin Hobb and Shelley Parker-Chan.

In the late summer of 1944, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Wilhelm 'Willi' Bittrich found himself in the Netherlands surveying his II SS Panzer Corps, which was in a poor state having narrowly escaped the defeat in Normandy. He was completely unaware that his command lay directly in the path of a major Allied thrust: the 17 September 1944 launch of the largest airborne and glider operation in the history of warfare. Codenamed Operation Market Garden, it was intended to outflank the German West Wall and 'bounce' the Rhine at Arnhem, from where the Allies could strike into the Ruhr, Nazi Germany's industrial heartland. Such a move could have ended the war. However, Market Garden and the battle for Arnhem were a disaster for the Allies. Put together in little over a week and lacking in flexibility, the operation became an all-or-nothing race against time. The plan to link the airborne divisions by pushing an armoured division up a sixty-five-mile corridor was optimistic at best, and the British drop zones were not only too far from Arnhem Bridge, but also directly above two recuperating SS Panzer divisions. This new book explores the operation from the perspective of the Germans as renowned historian Anthony Tucker-Jones examines how they were able to mobilise so swiftly and effectively in spite of depleted troops and limited intelligence.

From 1966 to 1971 the First Australian Task Force was part of the counterinsurgency campaign in South Vietnam. Though considered a small component of the Free World effort in the war, these troops from Australia and New Zealand were in fact the best trained and prepared for counterinsurgency warfare. However, until now, their achievements have been largely overlooked by military historians. The Search for Tactical Success in Vietnam sheds new light on this campaign by examining the thousands of small-scale battles that the First Australian Task Force was engaged in. The book draws on statistical, spatial and temporal analysis, as well as primary data, to present a unique study of the tactics and achievements of the First Australian Task Force in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. Further, original maps throughout the text help to illustrate how the Task Force's tactics were employed.

This is the go-to volume on bushido ("the way of the warrior"), drawing on a wide range of historical sources to paint a vivid picture of the samurai in action and separating the truth from the myth of samurai chivalry. It offers a long-overdue update to the attractive but inaccurate portrait of the samurai painted in Bushido: The Soul of Japan, which has been a bestseller ever since its publication in 1905, and the equally idealistic Hagakure (c.1716). In The Book of Bushido, Antony explores the reality of warrior behaviour versus the idealistic depiction created for an Edwardian audience by the author of Bushido: The Soul of Japan. He reveals the truth of how the samurai really behaved and of what they considered to be a warrior ethos. He replaces the image of the perfect eastern warrior with the much more interesting reality of hardened, bloodstained military leaders with human failings and a complex set of ideas about the world, who engage in ritual, magic and ceremony, who lead their followers in war and peace and who, above all, are fighting a battle between addiction to power and morality. This is the story of bushido - the way of the samurai.

The incredible details of the bold, near-disastrous first Allied airborne commando raid. Audacious to the extreme, Operation Colossus was a raid in the early, dark days of the Second World War, when Britain stood seemingly alone. After the country's defeats in western Europe in 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted on an aggressive raiding campaign. Conducted on February 10, 1941, Operation Colossus was one such raid, meant to steal back the initiative and create as much chaos for the Axis powers as possible. However, bad luck stalked the mission, as one mishap after another seemed to foredoom the operation. In the aftermath, there were recriminations as well as accolades. Few military operations have proven as controversial.

The conflict in Iraq is characterized by three faces of war: interstate conflict, civil war, and insurgency. The Coalition’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003 began as an interstate war. No sooner had Saddam Hussein been successfully deposed, however, than U.S.-led forces faced a lethal insurgency. After Sunni al Qaeda in Iraq bombed the Shia al-Askari Shrine in 2006, the burgeoning conflict took on the additional element of civil war with sectarian violence between the Sunni and the Shia. The most effective strategies in a war as complicated as the three-level conflict in Iraq are intertwined and complementary, according to the editors of this volume. For example, the “surge” in U.S. troops in 2007 went beyond an increase in manpower; the mission had changed, giving priority to public security. This new direction also simultaneously addressed the insurgency as well as the civil war by forging new, trusting relationships between Americans and Iraqis and between Sunni and Shia. This book has broad implications for future decisions about war and peace in the twenty-first century.