| Author | : Kenneth Michael Pollack |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press, USA |
| Total Pages | : 697 |
| Release | : 2019 |
| Genre | : HISTORY |
| ISBN | : 0190906960 |
Armies of Sand asks, 'why have Arab militaries fought so poorly in the modern era?' It examines the performance of over two-dozen Arab militaries from 1948 to 2017, and compares them to a half-dozen non-Arab militaries, to conclude that politics, economics, and culture all contributed to the past weakness of Arab armies.
| Author | : Kenneth M. Pollack |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 697 |
| Release | : 2018-12-06 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0190906987 |
Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil-military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties. In Armies of Sand, Kenneth M. Pollack assesses these differing explanations and isolates the most important causes. Over the course of the book, he examines the combat performance of fifteen Arab armies and air forces in virtually every Middle Eastern war, from the Jordanians and Syrians in 1948 to Hizballah in 2006 and the Iraqis and ISIS in 2014-2017. The book ultimately concludes that reliance on Soviet doctrine was more of a help than a hindrance to the Arabs. In contrast, politicization and underdevelopment were both important factors limiting Arab military effectiveness, but patterns of behavior derived from the dominant Arab culture was the most important factor of all. Pollack closes with a discussion of the rapid changes occurring across the Arab world, and suggests that because both Arab society and warfare are changing, the problems that have bedeviled Arab armed forces in the past could dissipate or even vanish in the future, with potentially dramatic consequences for the Middle East military balance. Sweeping in its coverage, this will be the go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of warfare in the Middle East since 1945.
| Author | : Steven R. Ward |
| Publisher | : Georgetown University Press |
| Total Pages | : 401 |
| Release | : 2014-01-15 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 1626160651 |
Immortal is the only single-volume English-language survey of Iran’s military history. CIA analyst Steven R. Ward shows that Iran’s soldiers, from the famed “Immortals” of ancient Persia to today’s Revolutionary Guard, have demonstrated through the centuries that they should not be underestimated. This history also provides background on the nationalist, tribal, and religious heritages of the country to help readers better understand Iran and its security outlook. Immortal begins with the founding of ancient Persia’s empire under Cyrus the Great and continues through the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) and up to the present. Drawing on a wide range of sources including declassified documents, the author gives primary focus to the modern era to relate the build-up of the military under the last Shah, its collapse during the Islamic revolution, its fortunes in the Iran-Iraq War, and its rise from the ashes to help Iran become once again a major regional military power. He shows that, despite command and supply problems, Iranian soldiers demonstrate high levels of bravery and perseverance and have enjoyed surprising tactical successes even when victory has been elusive. These qualities and the Iranians’ ability to impose high costs on their enemies by exploiting Iran’s imposing geography bear careful consideration today by potential opponents.
| Author | : |
| Publisher | : U of Nebraska Press |
| Total Pages | : 732 |
| Release | : 2004-01-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0803287836 |
Kenneth M. Pollack, formerly a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA and Director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, describes and analyzes theømilitary history of the six key Arab states?Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria?during the post?World War II era. He shows in detail how each Arab military grew and learned from its own experiences in response to the specific objectives set for it and within often constrained political, economic, and social circumstances. This first-ever overview of the modern Arab approach to warfare provides a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the Arab militaries, some of which are the United States? most likely adversaries, and some of which are our most important allies.
| Author | : Zoltan Barany |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 369 |
| Release | : 2021 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 0190866209 |
Armies of Arabia is the first book to comprehensively analyze the armed forces of the Gulf monarchies. Zoltan Barany explains the conspicuous ineffectiveness of Gulf militaries with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Following a brief exposition on their historical evolution, he explores the region's six armies of the region comparatively, through the lenses of military politics, sociology, economics, and diplomacy. The book'sthemes come together in the last chapter that critically evaluates the Saudi and Emirati armed forces' record in the on-going war in Yemen.
| Author | : Sandra Postel |
| Publisher | : W. W. Norton & Company |
| Total Pages | : 334 |
| Release | : 1999-07-06 |
| Genre | : Nature |
| ISBN | : 9780393319378 |
"Pillar of Sand points the way toward protecting rivers and vital ecosystems even as we aim to produce enough food for a projected 8 billion people by the year 2030. Postel shows how innovative irrigation technologies and strategies can alleviate hunger and environmental stress at the same time. And she calls for a new ethic of sufficiency and sharing in response to impending water limits."--BOOK JACKET.
| Author | : Frank N. Schubert |
| Publisher | : Rowman & Littlefield |
| Total Pages | : 248 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9781442201934 |
They were U.S. Army soldiers. Just a few years earlier, some had been slaves. Several thousand African Americans served as soldiers in the Indian Wars and in the Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War in the latter part of the nineteenth century. They were known as buffalo soldiers, believed to have been named by Indians who had seen a similarity between the coarse hair and dark skin of the soldiers and the coats of the buffalo. Twenty-three of these men won the nation's highest award for personal bravery, the Medal of Honor. Black Valor brings the lives of these soldiers into sharp focus. Their remarkable stories are told in the collected biography. Derived from extensive historical research, Black Valor will enrich and inspire readers with its tales of trials and courage.
| Author | : Peter Caddick-Adams |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 413 |
| Release | : 2013-03-22 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0199974667 |
Selected as a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013 The most horrific battles of World War II ring in the popular memory: Stalingrad, the Bulge, Iwo Jima, to name a few. Monte Cassino should stand among them. Waged deep in the Italian mountains beneath a medieval monastery, it was an astonishingly brutal encounter, grinding up ten armies in conditions as bad as the Eastern Front at its worst. Now the battle has the chronicle it deserves. In Monte Cassino, military historian Peter Caddick-Adams provides a vivid account of how an array of men from across the globe fought the most lengthy and devastating engagement of the Italian campaign in an ancient monastery town. Not simply Americans, British, and Germans, but Russians, Indians, Georgians, Nepalese, Ukrainians, French, Slovaks, Armenians, New Zealanders, and Poles, among others, fought and died there. Caddick-Adams offers a panoramic view, surveying the strategic heights and peering over the shoulders of troops fruitlessly digging for cover in the stony soil. Here are incisive sketches of the theater commanders--Field Marshal "Smiling Albert" Kesselring, who outmaneuvered Rommel to command German troops in Italy, and the English aristocrat General Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, tall, upbeat, "and--crucially for Churchill--looked every inch a general." Caddick-Adams puts Cassino into the context of the Italian campaign and larger Allied war plans, and takes readers into the savage, often hand-to-hand combat in the bombed-out medieval town. He captures the brutal weather and unforgiving terrain--the rubble and rocky slopes that splintered dangerously under artillery barrages and caused shellfire to echo with such volume that men had trouble keeping their sanity due to acoustics alone. Over four months, the struggle would inflict some 200,000 casualties, and Allied planes would level the historic monastery-and eventually the entire town as well. With scholarly care, insightful analysis, and narrative verve, Caddick-Adams has crafted a monumental account of one of World War II's lesser-known but no less devastating battles.
| Author | : Elizabeth Stewart |
| Publisher | : Exisle Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 240 |
| Release | : 2011-02 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1877568880 |
The history of warfare and the history of medicine are closely intertwined. War has been an accelerator of advances in medical treatment and surgery. As modern weaponry became more destructive, medicine developed techniques and procedures to deal with the volume and nature of battlefield casualties. Preventative medicine has also increased the effectiveness of fighting forces through improvements in soldiers' health and disease resistance.This book is a collection of chapters by historians, medical practitioners and researchers, former and serving military medical officers, surgeons, nurses and veterans, who explore the impact of war, wounds and trauma through the historical record, reported narratives and personal experiences. The book includes major sections on World War One (including chapters on shell shock and plastic surgery), World War Two (including a chapter on the Nazi death camps), the Vietnam War (including chapters on Agent Orange and sexually transmitted diseases), together with chapters on the Korean War and the current conflict in Afghanistan. In addition, the book includes several personal stories in which veterans describe their experiences of injury and recovery. War Wounds is a truly unique book, which offers considerable insights into an aspect of war that is often mentioned but seldom examined as it is here. Medical professionals, military personnel and the general public will all find it a remarkably revealing read.
