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The Proton Launcher: History and Developments
By Stefan Barensky, Christian Lardier. 2018
The Soviet / Russian space program was in the hands of three industrial empires: those of Serguei Korolev, the Soviet…
von Braun who launched Sputnik-1 and Yuri Gagarin, Vladimir Tchelomei, his main competitor, and Mikhail Yangel, Many launchers and satellites in Ukraine.In 2011, we published a first book on the history of the Soyuz launcher that was developed by Korolev and launched more than 1,800 copies. This time, we tell the story of the Proton, the main competitor of the European launcher Ariane, which was developed by Chelomei and launched more than 400 copies. Finally, the last book of the trilogy will deal with the many developments of Yangel. In the three books, the first part deals with the history of rockets in the USSR / Russia (East) and the second part on the history of their commercialization in the West.The Statebuilder's Dilemma: On the Limits of Foreign Intervention
By David A. Lake. 2006
The central task of all statebuilding is to create a state that is regarded as legitimate by the people over…
whom it exercises authority. This is a necessary condition for stable, effective governance. States sufficiently motivated to bear the costs of building a state in some distant land are likely to have interests in the future policies of that country, and will therefore seek to promote loyal leaders who are sympathetic to their interests and willing to implement their preferred policies. In The Statebuilder's Dilemma, David A. Lake addresses the key tradeoff between legitimacy and loyalty common to all international statebuilding attempts. Except in rare cases where the policy preferences of the statebuilder and the population of the country whose state is to be built coincide, as in the famous success cases of West Germany and Japan after 1945, promoting a leader who will remain loyal to the statebuilder undermines that leader's legitimacy at home. In Iraq, thrust into a statebuilding role it neither anticipated nor wanted, the United States eventually backed Nouri al-Malaki as the most favorable of a bad lot of alternative leaders. Malaki then used the support of the Bush administration to govern as a Shiite partisan, undermining the statebuilding effort and ultimately leading to the second failure of the Iraqi state in 2014. Ethiopia faced the same tradeoff in Somalia after the rise of a promising but irredentist government in 2006, invading to put its own puppet in power in Mogadishu. But the resulting government has not been able to build significant local support and legitimacy. Lake uses these cases to demonstrate that the greater the interests of the statebuilder in the target country, the more difficult it is to build a legitimate state that can survive on its own.The Essence of War: Leadership and Strategy from the Chinese Military Classics
By Ralph D. Sawyer. 2004
From antiquity, the history of China has been marked by invading tribes, warring states, and popular uprisings. This heritage of…
conflict produced a body of martial literature exploring the fundamental principles of warfare and their methods of employment. Fully aware of the tragic consequences of battle, the authors of these texts emphasized that bloodshed and war should be avoided whenever possible. But, they argued, this is possible only when the principles of leadership and strategy have been mastered and the dynamics of conflict thoroughly analyzed. Over the centuries, these texts have been studied throughout Asia, not only by generals on the battlefield but by leaders of all kinds concerned with the management of human conflict in all its forms. The Essence of War presents eight of these classics (written from 500 B. C. E. to 700 C. E. ), including Sun-tzu's Art of War and Sun Pin's Military Methods. The book introduces the core principles of Chinese military science, grouping selected passages and key quotations into five thematic sections encompassing forty-one topical chapters: Fundamentals, Tao of Warfare, Tao of Command, Tactical Essentials, and Tactical Specifics. Translator Ralph D. Sawyer provides here a concise introduction to Chinese military thought and influential materials not only of traditional import, but also for contemporary study and enduring value in both business and military circles throughout the world.Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World
By Nir Rosen. 2010
Dangerous Ground
By Scott Ritter. 2010
Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War
By Edwin G. Burrows. 2008
Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown. Just over 6,800 of those men…
died in battle. About 25,000 became prisoners of war, most of them confined in New York City under conditions so atrocious that they perished by the thousands. Evidence suggests that at least 17,500 Americans may have died in these prisons--more than twice the number to die on the battlefield. It was in New York, not Boston or Philadelphia, where most Americans gave their lives for the cause of independence. New York City became the jailhouse of the American Revolution because it was the principal base of the Crown’s military operations. Beginning with the bumper crop of American captives taken during the 1776 invasion of New York, captured Americans were stuffed into a hastily assembled collection of public buildings, sugar houses, and prison ships. The prisoners were shockingly overcrowded and chronically underfed--those who escaped alive told of comrades so hungry they ate their own clothes and shoes. Despite the extraordinary number of lives lost, Forgotten Patriots is the first-ever account of what took place in these hell-holes. The result is a unique perspective on the Revolutionary War as well as a sobering commentary on how Americans have remembered our struggle for independence--and how much we have forgotten.Greetings From Afghanistan, Send More Ammo
By Benjamin Tupper. 2010
"Raw, direct, and powerful. . . This work is vitally important. " -Ken Stern, former CEO of National Public Radio…
Captain Benjamin Tupper spent a year in Afghanistan in an Embedded Training Team, tasked with training, leading in combat, and mentoring the Afghan Army to victory against the brutal Taliban. Writing and recording from a remote outpost, Tupper's dispatches were posted on the blog The Sandbox and broadcast on NPR, bringing vivid snapshots of America's longest ongoing war to a wide audience back home. Here, he takes us inside the intricacies of the war, opening up a unique and multifaceted view of both Afghan culture and the daily life of an American soldier. From the rush of gunfire to surreal, euphoric moments of cross-cultural understanding, this emotional and thought- provoking narrative is rich with humor, eloquence and contradiction. Deeply personal and darkly funny, Tupper illuminates the challenges of the war, vividly bringing to life both the mundane and the extraordinary and seeking a way forward.Wounded Warriors: Those For Whom The War Never Ends
By Mike Sager. 2008
Lt. Col. Tim Maxwell prided himself on being a hard-core Marinea patriotic Devil Dog on his third tour of Iraq.…
Then his brain was shredded with mortar shrapnel. Today, Maxwell has a large angry scar on the left side of his head. He forgets words, his wife has to read to him, and he drags one foot when he walks. Yet he works twelve-hour days as commander of the Wounded Warrior Barracks at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. For these warriors, Iraq and Afghanistan will never quite be in the past. And the struggle never ends. Other stories in Wounded Warriors depict life inside an L. A. crack gang, ex-pat Vietnam War veterans in Thailand, and five days in Las Vegas with basketball anti-hero Kobe Bryantall of it captured stylishly by the writer who has been called the beat poet of American journalism. ”Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq
By Linda Robinson. 2008
After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David…
Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key U. S. and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president when he or she takes office in January 2009.The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I
By Thomas Fleming. 2003
In this sweeping historical canvas, Thomas Fleming undertakes nothing less than a drastic revision of our experience in World War…
I. He reveals how the British and French duped Wilson into thinking the war was as good as won, and there would be no need to send an army overseas. He describes a harried president making speech after speech proclaiming America's ideals while supporting espionage and sedition acts that sent critics to federal prisons. And he gives a harrowing account of how the Allies did their utmost to turn the American Expeditionary Force into cannon fodder on the Western Front. Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, The Illusion of Victory offers compelling testimony to the power of a president's visionary ideals-as well as a starkly cautionary tale about the dangers of applying them in a war-maddened world.The Cat From Hue: A Vietnam War Story
By John Laurence. 2002
An evocative, vividly detailed memoir of the madness and miracles of the Vietnam War by an award-winning reporter whose experiences…
in combat?and whose relationship with a Vietnamese cat named Meo?have haunted and inspired him for more than twenty-five yearsUnderstanding Modern Warfare
By David Jordan, Jordan, David and Kiras, James D. and Lonsdale, David J. and Speller, Ian and Tuck, Christopher and Walton, C. Dale, James D. Kiras, David J. Lonsdale, Ian Speller, Christopher Tuck, C. Dale Walton. 2016
Understanding Modern Warfare has established itself as the leading introduction to the issues, ideas, concepts and context necessary to understand…
the theory and conduct of warfare in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is an invaluable text for military professionals and students of military history. Key features include: incisive coverage of the debates surrounding contemporary and future warfare; accessible, yet sophisticated, discussion across the land, sea, and air environments; and coverage of contemporary topics such as drones, cyber warfare, and hybrid warfare. The book makes extensive use of text boxes to explain key concepts and to reference extended examples; annotated guides to further reading; and key questions to promote the reader's further thinking. This second edition has been fully revised and updated to take into account new debates and recent events in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, and also restructured to further improve its usefulness as a teaching tool.The Essential Art of War
By Ralph D. Sawyer. 2005
Ralph D. Sawyer is the preeminent scholar and translator on Sun-tzu's masterful work. More than 200,000 copies of his Sun-tzu…
Art of War and more than 55,000 copies of The Complete Art of War have been sold. The Art of War is the most famous study of strategy ever written and has had an extraordinary influence on the history of warfare. The Essential Art of War brings Sun-tzu's classic work to a new, uninitiated readership. This clear and compact volume presumes no prior knowledge of the subject and presents only the material that is essential to understanding this text. Using his best-selling Art of War translation as the centerpiece, Sawyer has re-approached every chapter to include an introduction and closing commentary that deliver the key concepts. An introduction to the volume on the relevance of Sun-tzu's teachings, a chronology, historical background on the translation itself, and a bibliographic essay are also included. The Essential Art of War is presented in an attractive 208-page hardcover volume with foiled jacket, stamped case, and ribbon marker, in a convenient gift size.The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran
By Yossi Melman, Meir Javedanfar. 2008
As President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accelerated his country’s nuclear research; called for the elimination of Israel; and failed the Iranian…
people, who elected him on a domestic platform that has since been neglected. This probing exposé gives unprecedented insight into his hold on power-his rural roots, the vituperative populism that catapulted him from relative obscurity to national leadership, and the shadowy forces that hold him there.The Tao of Deception: Unorthodox Warfare in Historic and Modern China
By Ralph D. Sawyer. 2007
The history of China is a history of warfare. Wars have caused dynasties to collapse, fractured the thin façade of…
national unity, and brought decades of alien occupation. But throughout Chinese history, its warfare has been guided by principles different from those that governed Europe. Chinese strategists followed the concept, first articulated by Sun-tzu in The Art of War, of qi (ch'i), or unorthodox, warfare. The concept of qi involves creating tactical imbalances in order to achieve victory against even vastly superior forces. Ralph D. Sawyer, translator of The Art of War and one of America's preeminent experts on Chinese military tactics, here offers a comprehensive guide to the ancient practice of unorthodox warfare. He describes, among many other tactics, how Chinese generals have used false rumors to exploit opposing generals' distrust of their subordinates; dressed thousands of women as soldiers to create the illusion of an elite attack force; and sent word of a false surrender to lure enemy troops away from a vital escape route. The Tao of Deception is the book that military tacticians and military historians will turn to as the definitive guide to a new, yet ancient, way of thinking about strategy.No Ordinary Determination: Percy Black and Harry Murray of the First AIF
By Jeff Hatwell. 2005
An epic tale of two ordinary individuals thrown into theextraordinary and surreal world of the Gallipoli campaignas soldiers of the…
First AIF in WWI.Percy Black and Harry Murray were plain hard-workingAustralians whose paths crossed in Western Australiawhen they enlisted in support of country and empire. Thepowerful narrative paints a complex and thorough pictureof the heroism, loyalty, inventiveness, mateship, stoicismand strength of the many individuals, on all sides, caughtup in the horror of the ‘war to end all wars’.On Their Own: Women Journalists and the American Experience in Vietnam
By Joyce Hoffman. 2008
Over three hundred women, both print and broadcast journalists, were accredited to chronicle America’s activities in Vietnam. Many of those…
women won esteemed prizes for their reporting, including the Pulitzer, the Overseas Press Club Award, the George Polk Award, the National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize for History. Tragically, several lost their lives covering the war, while others were wounded or taken prisoner. In this gripping narrative, veteran journalist Joyce Hoffmann tells the important yet largely unknown story of a central group of these female journalists, including Dickey Chapelle, Gloria Emerson, Kate Webb, and others. Each has a unique and deeply compelling tale to tell, and vivid portraits of their personal lives and professional triumphs are woven into the controversial details of America’s twenty-year entanglement in Southeast Asia.Chronicling the spectacular rise to power of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, this is an intimate profile of the one of…
the most powerful warlords to have dominated Afghanistan in the years since the Soviet withdrawal in the late 1980s. His rise from simple peasant villager to warrior against the repressive policies of the Taliban and Al Qaeda is told by one of the few outsiders to be accepted into Dostum's stronghold in the northern deserts of Afghanistan. Thanks to this unprecedented access, author Brian Glyn Williams was able to conduct lengthy interviews with Dostum and his family, as well as his subcommanders, local chieftains, mullahs, Taliban enemies, prisoners of war, and women's rights activists. What emerges is an intensely personal account of the Mongol warlord, detailing his childhood, motivations, hopes for his country, and conviction that it is time for a new generation of Western-trained technocrats to shape his country's destiny. With the drawing down of U.S. troops in 2014 and Dostum poised to reenter the world stage to fight a resurgent Taliban, this timely analysis provides important historical context to the controversy swirling around Afghanistan's warlord culture and is an essential contribution to the debate on Afghanistan's future.Reporting Under Fire: 16 Daring Women War Correspondents and Photojournalists
By Kerrie Hollihan. 2014
The tremendous struggles women have faced as war correspondents and photojournalists A profile of 16 courageous women, Reporting Under Fire…
tells the story of journalists who risked their lives to bring back scoops from the front lines. Each woman--including Sigrid Schultz, who broadcast news via radio from Berlin on the eve of the Second World War; Margaret Bourke-White, who rode with General George Patton's Third Army and brought back the first horrific photos of the Buchenwald concentration camp; and Marguerite Higgins, who typed stories while riding in the front seat of an American jeep that was fleeing the North Korean Army--experiences her own journey, both personally and professionally, and each draws her own conclusions. Yet without exception, these war correspondents share a singular ambition: to answer an inner call driving them to witness war firsthand, and to share what they learn via words or images.Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent
By Kathryn Atwood, Pearl Witherington Cornioley. 2015
Pearl Witherington Cornioley, one of the most celebrated female World War II resistance fighters, shares her remarkable story in this…
firsthand account of her experience as a special agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Told through a series of reminiscences--from a difficult childhood spent in the shadow of World War I and her family's harrowing escape from France as the Germans approached in 1940 to her recruitment and training as a special agent and the logistics of parachuting into a remote rural area of occupied France and hiding in a wheat field from enemy fire--each chapter also includes helpful opening remarks to provide context and background on the SOE and the French Resistance. With an annotated list of key figures, an appendix of original unedited interview extracts--including Pearl's fiancé Henri's story--and fascinating photographs and documents from Pearl's personal collection, this memoir will captivate World War II buffs of any age.