Few historians have looked beyond the veil of the Teapot Dome scandal and examined the naval policies of President Warren Harding and his secretary of navy, Edwin Denby. Historians have also periodically overlooked the personal papers and archives of the Harding administration as it bears on U.S. naval policy. However, Professor Manley R. Irwin brings forth an innovative approach to researching these policies, papers, and archives in Silent Strategists. The book boldly brings forth the argument that Harding and Denby exercised unusual foresight in preparing the navy for a war against Japan. Both individuals promulgated structural changes in the department and adopted a set of management tools that would redound to the navy in its prosecution of its Pacific offensive, World War II. The administrative legacy of the Harding administration remains as vital today as it did eight decades ago, and Professor Irwin's thorough investigation provides invaluable new details and insights.

Based on recently declassified documents, this book provides the first examination of the Truman Administration's decision to employ covert operations in the Cold War.

Although covert operations were an integral part of America's arsenal during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the majority of these operations were ill conceived, unrealistic and ultimately doomed to failure. In this volume, the author looks at three central questions: Why were these types of operations adopted? Why were they conducted in such a haphazard manner? And, why, once it became clear that they were not working, did the administration fail to abandon them?

The book argues that the Truman Administration was unable to reconcile policy, strategy and operations successfully, and to agree on a consistent course of action for waging the Cold War. This ensured that they wasted time and effort, money and manpower on covert operations designed to challenge Soviet hegemony, which had little or no real chance of success.

US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy will be of great interest to students of US foreign policy, Cold War history, intelligence and international history in general.

After the Vietnam War the US Army had to rebuild itself while the US government had to reconsider its military intervention strategy. This book examines how it was done and how this has affected US intervention policy, from the victory of the Gulf War to the failure of Somalia, before examining the Bosnian and Kosovo interventions.
This volume sets out to analyze the changes in US military intervention strategy by examining two separate issues: the nature of the US Army as it rebuilt itself after the Vietnam War, and the attempts by the US to establish criteria for future military interventions. Richard Lock-Pullan first argues that US strategy traditionally relied upon national mobilization to co-ordinate political aims and military means; he subsequently analyses how this changed to a formula of establishing militarily achievable political objectives prior to the use of force. Drawing on a vast body of strategic culture and military innovation literature, the author demonstrates that the strategic lessons were a product of the rebuilding of the Army's identity as it became a professional all-volunteer force and that the Army's new doctrine developed a new 'way of war' for the nation, embodied in the Air Land Battle doctrine, which changed the approach to strategy.
The book finally gives a practical analysis of how the interventions in Panama and the Gulf War vindicated this approach and brought a revived confidence in the use of force while more recent campaigns in Somalia, Kosovo and Bosnia exposed its weaknesses and the limiting nature of the Army's thinking.
This book will be of interest to students of strategic studies, international relations and American politics aswell as to military professionals.

In the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001, and during the ensuing invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, much has been heard of the concept of 'asymmetric warfare'. Broadly speaking, this describes a means of fighting through which a weaker power can offset or neutralize the strengths of a more powerful opponent by applying its own strengths to its opponent's weaknesses. Frequently, it is used to describe situations in which formal state power is confronted by non-state or guerrilla activity. Afghanistan features as the focus of this book's investigation since the country has recently been at the hub of confrontations which have borne immediately on current international concerns. It has also, for more than a century and a half, been the arena for a series of conflicts between imperial powers on the one hand and state and non-state power structures on the other. Afghans, moreover, have not changed their spots: they remain basically the same, in terms of personality and society, as they were when they were first described by a British envoy, Mountstewart Elphinstone, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since that time, the confrontations with which Afghanistan was involved have not only brought repeated misery upon its people, but have had ramifications of an international character. This book deals with each of the five conflicts in which Afghanistan has been embroiled during this time span, namely the First, Second and Third Anglo-Afghan Wars, the Soviet invasion and the most recent American-led operations.

Recent bestsellers by Niall Ferguson and John Keegan have created tremendous popular interest in World War I. In America's Great War prominent historian Robert H. Zieger examines the causes, prosecution, and legacy of this bloody conflict from a frequently overlooked perspective, that of American involvement. This is the first book to illuminate both America's dramatic influence on the war and the war's considerable impact upon our nation. Zieger's engaging narrative provides vivid descriptions of the famous battles and diplomatic maneuvering, while also chronicling America's rise to prominence within the postwar world. On the domestic front, Zieger details how the war forever altered American politics and society by creating the National Security State, generating powerful new instruments of social control, bringing about innovative labor and social welfare programs, and redefining civil liberties and race relations. America's Great War promises to become the definitive history of America and World War I.

In Russia and Armed Persuasion, Stephen J. Cimbala argues that Russia's war planners and political leaders must make painful adjustments in their thinking about the relationship between military art and policy in the twenty-first century. Russia must master the use of force for persuasion, not just destruction. As the author shows, military persuasion requires that Russian leaders master the politico-military complexity of crisis management, deterrence and arms control, and the limitation of ends and means in war. Russia now has scarce resources to devote to defense and can no longer afford the stick-only diplomacy and strategy that have characterized some of its recent past. Russian and Soviet military thinking historically emphasized the blunderbuss and total war: overwhelming mass, firepower, and conflicts of annihilation or prolonged attrition. However, historical experience also forced Russia and the Soviet Union to come to grips with crisis management and with limited aims and means in the conduct of war. On the one hand, Russia failed the test of military persuasion in its management of the July 1914 crisis that plunged Europe into World War I. On the other hand, the Soviet Union did adjust to the requirements of the nuclear age for crisis management, deterrence, and limited war. Using this mixed record of Russian and Soviet success and failure in twentieth century experience, Cimbala argues that Russia can, and must, improve in the twenty-first century. According to the author, the first decades of this century will pose at least three immediate challenges to Russia's military persuasion. Russia must continue to pursue strategic nuclear arms control and arms reductions, with the United States and avoid re-starting the Cold War by means of an ill-considered race in missile defenses. Second, Russia must maintain a surer grip on the military information revolution, especially as it pertains to the management of Russia's nuclear deterrent. Third, Russia must develop forces that are more flexible in small wars and peace operations: its recent experiences in Chechnya show that it has a long way to go in using economy of force as a military persuader. Cimbala's original analysis demonstrates the similar features in apparently dissimilar, or even opposite, events and processes. For example, he shows how the problem of military persuasion applies equally to the challenge of managing a nuclear crisis and the problem of low-intensity war. In each case, the dilemma is calibrating the military means to the political ends. Controversially, the author argues against both military and academic traditionalists, contending that the complexity of the force-policy relationship in the next century will reward the subtle users of military power and that others will be subject to a 'Gulliver effect' of diminishing returns.

In 1978, faced with the pressure to modernize and a declining budget, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) reluctantly agreed to join China's economic reform drive, expanding its internal economy to market-oriented civilian production. This work examines PLA's role in the economy up to 1998.

A comprehensive examination of the transformation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army into one of the most important actors in the Chinese economy -- an amalgam of military and commercial interests controlling a multi-billion dollar international business empire. The author provides the first documentary analysis of decision-making surrounding the origins of this post-1978 military- business complex. He offers a detailed picture of the system's wide-ranging structure and sectoral interests, and links this military commercialism to the rise of corruption in the ranks.

Building on a strong foundation of primary sources, this unique study traces the role of East Germany's military (NVA) in the country's unification with West Germany. Utilizing interviews with and questionnaires from NVA officers, Herspring unravels the puzzle of the NVA's decision against using force to save the political system it was sworn to serve. The author also examines the integration of a select minority of officers and NCOs into the Bundeswehr. Illuminating the problems encountered by the Bundeswehr as it incorporated these individuals, Herspring constructs an ideal type of officer in one of the most politicized and tightly controlled of all communist militaries. His findings will be invaluable for all military-political specialists and for anyone interested in the process of transition from authoritarian/totalitarian to democratic systems.

This collection of writings covers the war on the Western Front. Whereas, traditionally, attention has been given to strategic or political matters, these essays highlight tactical issues. They show that the British high command could boast more achievements in tactics than is usually assumed.

This collection of writings covers the war on the Western Front. Whereas, traditionally, attention has been given to strategic or political matters, these essays highlight tactical issues. They show that the British high command could boast more achievements in tactics than is usually assumed.

Modern armies are planned and structured to fight massive World War II-type operations involving the large-scale movements of tanks and machinery across continents. In fact they are rarely called upon to participate in such conflicts. It is far more common for them to find themselves involved in lower-level, ill-defined, politically charged, messy situations known collectively as unconventional warfare, typified by the 1990s conflicts in Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

This analysis of close air support in world War II focuses on the use of tactical air power by British and American forces during the campaigns in Italy and North-west Europe from 1943-45. Gooderson asks whether the employment of air resources in the close support role provided sufficient advantage at the battlefront to justify the effort and the risk to aircraft and pilots. Or was the use of aircraft behind the battlefront to attack communications, transport and supplies a more effective and cost-efficient strategy?

Rear Admiral Raja Menon contends that nations embroiled in Continental wars have historically had poor maritime strategies. After an analysis of existing literature on this subject and a discussion of case studies, he develops the argument that those navies that have been involved in such wars have made poor contributions to the overall politial objectives. Government neglect, inadequate funding and structures that are more appropriate to purely maritime wars are symptomatic of a universal strategic dilemma that arises from inadequate strategic theory.

This analysis of close air support in world War II focuses on the use of tactical air power by British and American forces during the campaigns in Italy and North-west Europe from 1943-45. Gooderson asks whether the employment of air resources in the close support role provided sufficient advantage at the battlefront to justify the effort and the risk to aircraft and pilots. Or was the use of aircraft behind the battlefront to attack communications, transport and supplies a more effective and cost-efficient strategy?

Throughout the world, countries are obliged to make great sacrifices in order to raise the vast sums of money needed to secure their defence. But both the sacrifice and the money will be wasted unless properly prepared and qualified commanders are available to direct military operations in the event of war breaking out.

Many books have been written which attempt to deduce the qualities required of contemporary generals by studying the performance of the great captains of history. By contrast, in "Directing Operations," first published in 1989, Kitson works out the qualities needed by studying the tasks that would be likely to confront commanders of the day. He goes on to discuss how traditional methods of producing senior officers, which may have been suited to the needs of the massed armies of the first half of the twentieth century, should be adapted to fit the demands of the modern world.

Kitson's writings continue to be widely read and provoke strong opinions, and the ideas contained in "Directing Operations" remain highly relevant to the armies of all developed countries.

Many of war's lethal failures are attributable to ignorance caused by a dearth of contemporary, accessible theory to inform warfighting, strategy, and policy. To remedy this problem, Colonel Geoffrey F. Weiss offers an ambitious new survey of war's nature, character, and future in the tradition of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. He begins by melding philosophical and military concepts to reveal war's origins and to analyze war theory's foundational ideas. Then, leveraging science, philosophy, and the wisdom of war's master theorists, Colonel Weiss presents a genuinely original framework and lexicon that characterizes and clarifies the relationships between humanity, politics, strategy, and combat; explains how and why war changes form; offers a methodology for forecasting future war; and ponders the permanence of war as a human activity. The New Art of War is an indispensable guide for understanding human conflict that will change how we think and communicate about war.

This is a comprehensive study of the major changes in infantry tacticts from the time of Frederick the Great to the beginning of what many see as the era of modern war, in the 1860s. Ross lays social and political change side by side with technical change. He argues that the French revolution, due to the fervour and loyalty it inspired in its participants, led to huge citizen armies of devolved command which were able to make use of new tactics that swept the poorly paid and poorly treated professional armies of their enemies from the field. Shortly after the Napoleonic wars other European countries experienced similar social change and by the middle of the Nineteenth Century these massive conscript armies were equipped with breech-loading rifles and more powerful artillery. The battlefield of the late 1860's had become a place where close infantry formations could not survive for long in the linear formations of the past.

Statistical analysis in the 1970s by Colonel Trevor Dupuy of battles in the First World War demonstrated that the German Army enjoyed a consistent 20 per cent superiority in combat effectiveness over the British Army during that war, a superiority that had been asserted in the 1930s by Captain Graeme Wynne. In attempting to explain that advantage, this book follows the theory that such combat superiority can be understood best by means of a comparative study of the armies concerned, proposing that the German Army's superiority was due as much to poor performance by the British Army as to its own high performance. The book also suggests that the key difference between the two armies at this time was one of philosophy. The German Army saw combat as inherently chaotic: to achieve high combat effectiveness it was necessary to decentralise command, ensure a high standard of individual combat skill and adopt flexible tactical systems. The British Army, however, believed combat to be inherently structured: combat effectiveness was deemed to lie in the maintenance of order and symmetry, through centralised decision-making, training focused on developing unthinking obedience and the use of rigid tactics. An examination of the General Staff systems, the development of minor tactics and the evolution of defensive doctrines in both armies tests these hypotheses, while case studies of the battles of Thiepval and St Quentin reveal that both forces contained elements that supported the contrary philosophy to the majority. In the German Army, there was continual rear-guard action against flexibility, with the General Staff itself becoming increasingly narrow in outlook. In the British Army, severalattempts were made to adopt German practices, but misunderstanding and opposition distorted these, as when the system of directive control itself was converted into that of umpiring.

Starting in the early part of the nineteenth century, American administrations expressed a desire to own Cuba. A rationale for adding Cuba to the territory of the United States could be built on Cuba's sugar and tobacco industries, as well as Cuba's mineral deposits. But economics was not the primary motivation. American presidents knew that in the event of war, any nation occupying Cuba would have an advantage over the US military strategies; this fear, coupled with the economic benefit, explains a century of policy decisions. As Frank R. Villafana shows, Cubans were not sitting idle, waiting for outsiders to liberate them from Spanish oppression. A major part of this research is devoted to studying Cuban efforts to liberate their island from prolonged Spanish domination. Cuba had been struggling for independence from Spain since the 1830s, followed by the Ten Year War. During the 1895-1898 War of Independence, Cuba came close to defeating Spain, but a merciless Spanish military effort converted Cuba into a series of concentration camps. Spain surrendered after its naval defeats by the US at Manila Bay and Santiago de Cuba, following a failed ground campaign in eastern Cuba. After the US occupied Cuba militarily, American political leaders realized only a small minority of Cubans supported annexation, and the Platt Amendment was developed as a substitute. Today, most Cubans agree that independence, even constrained by the United States, was better than enslavement by the Castro brothers. However, as Villafana emphasizes, Cubans living in Cuba as well as abroad still seek a land free and independent of foreign threat and domestic tyrants.

Scotland has had a uniquely important military history over the last five centuries. Conflict with England in the 16th century, Jacobite rebellions in the 18th century, 20th-century defences and the two world wars, as well as the Cold War, all resulted in significant cartographic activity. In this book two map experts explore the extraordinarily rich legacy of Scottish military mapping, including fortification plans, reconnaissance mapping, battle plans, plans of military roads and routeways, tactical maps, plans of mines, enemy maps showing targets, as well as plans showing the construction of defences. In addition to plans, elevations and views, they also discuss unrealised proposals and projected schemes. Most of the maps - some of them reproduced in book form for the first time - are visually striking and attractive, and all have been selected for the particular stories they tell about both attacking and defending the country.

How the Nazis lost the war1944 was a year of trial for the German Army. While the Allies were preparing to invade the Third Reich from the west, Stalin was set on a massive offensive to liberate the last remaining areas of Soviet territory still held by the Germans. Hitler was determined to hold fast. His muddled strategic thinking nullified the undoubted operational ability of his generals, and disaster was the inevitable result. This book is a gripping analysis of the Soviet campaign to capture Byelorussia, the German attempts to counter it, and the final, terrible collapse of Army Group Centre, inflicting even greater losses on the Germans than their earlier defeat at Stalingrad. It was a catastrophe of unbelievable proportions: 28 of 34 divisions, over 300,000 men, were lost. Hitler's war effort was doomed and broken. An unputdownable history perfect for readers of Antony Beevor or James Holland.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Last Hope is the story of the often heroic by governments to provide their aerial warriors with the tools to evade capture when forced down in enemy controlled territory, as told by the most visible and visually stunning artifact of this effort, the Blood Chit. Illustrated with the most comprehensive collection of color photographs of Blood Chits and related evasion aids ever assembled, it provides readers an unparalleled opportunity to discover the beauty and variety of these lifesaving artifacts of war. In addition to Blood Chits, a number of the beautiful theater-made souvenir patches in the form of Blood Chits are also illustrated. This definitive history of Blood Chits from their infancy at the dawn of the air age through their maturity at the close of World War II was compiled from accounts provided by more than fifty veteran airmen and intelligence officers from around the world, and from more than seventy formerly classified government documents. Last Hope is a thoroughly annotated and fully illustrated journey into the secretive world of air crew evasion and escape aides for the casual reader and serious researcher alike, and is a valuable resource for the military and aviation enthusiast, collector, researcher, and museum curator.