Military Intelligence Blunders and Coverups

Military Intelligence Blunders and Coverups Review

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Military Intelligence Blunders and Coverups Feature

The events of 9/11 and the war on terrorism and the daily crises in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—behind them lie some of the most shocking failures and misuse of military intelligence in history. In this updated edition of Colonel Hughes-Wilson's controversial book, the long-serving professional military intelligence officer explores and exposes the often disastrous misunderstanding and mishandling of crucial intelligence by politicians and seasoned generals in recent times. Modern military history records major catastrophes in the air, at sea, and on the battlefield that originate in lapses of military judgment—from the crushing defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo to Stalin's Operation Barbarossa to Yom Kippur. The reason frequently lies in the failure of the decision makers in power to understand and appreciate fully intelligence information. So it was that American bureaucratic bungling and interservice rivalries collaborated with the Japanese in their devastating attack on Pearl Harbor—despite the fact that the U.S. was monitoring Japan's top-secret radio traffic. So, too, the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive of 1968 took the world's most technologically advanced army completely by surprise. This book discloses the lapses, errors, miscalculations, and underestimations of military intelligence that have shaped our wars and defined our times.

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Military Intelligence Blunders

Military Intelligence Blunders Review

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Military Intelligence Blunders Feature

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Military Reform: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues)

Military Reform: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues) Review

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Military Reform: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues) Feature

This volume will help the reader understand fundamental strengths and weaknesses in America's military forces, thereby leading to a comprehension of what genuine military reform is, and is not, and what remains to be done. Ideas will be presented to compare genuine reform to cosmetic dabbling, which fundamentally improves nothing and which sometimes arrives as ill-conceived fads that promise only to burden US combat forces to the point of mental and physical immobility. The work will trace the history of various attempts to impose military reform on American armed forces, especially from Congress, starting during the American Revolution and Continental Congress up through the present day. Particular focus will be placed on the effort of a small group in Congress and the Pentagon in the 1980s (who coined the term military reform in the modern context). Emphasis will be on the reforms these actors advocated, variously successful and unsuccessful, to fundamentally alter how the Department of Defense designs and buys hardware and how our armed forces fight. The book will use Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom (and the subsequent insurgency in Iraq) to demonstrate what has been reformed in US armed forces and the Department of Defense, and what has not.

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Military Reform: An Uneven History and an Uncertain Future (Stanford Security Studies)

Military Reform: An Uneven History and an Uncertain Future (Stanford Security Studies) Review

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Military Reform: An Uneven History and an Uncertain Future (Stanford Security Studies) Feature

By reference to the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of America's armed forces, Wheeler and Korb establish a definition of what genuine military reform is and is not, and identify what really needs to be done to transform our military. They compare genuine reform with "cosmetic dabbling"—that improves nothing and often burdens US combat forces to the point of mental and physical immobility.

They focus particularly on the reforms advocated by a small group in Congress and the Pentagon in the 1980s, revealing how these reforms have fundamentally altered the ways in which the Department of Defense designs and buys hardware, and how our armed forces fight. The book uses Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom—and the subsequent insurgency in Iraq—to demonstrate what has been reformed in the US armed forces and the Department of Defense, and what has not.

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Military Culture and Education

Military Culture and Education Review

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Military Culture and Education Feature

While studies of American military culture have proliferated in recent years, and the culture of academic institutions has been a subject of perennial interest, comparatively little has been written on the multiple ways the military and academe intersect. Focusing on this subject offers an opportunity to explore how teachers and researchers straddle the two quite different cultures. The contributors to this volume both embody and articulate how the two cultures co-exist and cooperate, however unevenly at time. Essays offer both ground-level perspectives of the classroom and campus as well as well-considered articulations of the tensions and opportunities involved in teaching and training civic-minded soldiers on issues especially important in the post-9/11 world.

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Military Helicopter Doctrines of the Major Powers, 1945-1992: Making Decisions about Air-Land Warfare (Contributions in Military Studies)

Military Helicopter Doctrines of the Major Powers, 1945-1992: Making Decisions about Air-Land Warfare (Contributions in Military Studies) Review

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Military Helicopter Doctrines of the Major Powers, 1945-1992: Making Decisions about Air-Land Warfare (Contributions in Military Studies) Feature

This comparative history of the military helicopter doctrines of the major powers since World War II focuses on the last twenty years. This unusual analysis of the decision-making process associated with the use of helicopters in conventional air-land warfare should provoke interest and controversy among students and experts concerned with military strategy. This substantial research study is intended for academics, professionals, policy makers, and all interested in the development of helicopters over the last fifty years. Matthew Allen examines military helicopter doctrines in the United States, former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. He describes changes and innovations in the use of helicopters in air-land battle. He also assesses how decisions are made and innovations develop. An appendix summarizes the technical characteristics of helicopters and photographs bring them to life. A bibliography points out the most significant sources for further research; figures clarify the complex decision-making process, and tables provide additional data. A full index makes this rare history accessible.

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The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It (Contributions in Military Studies)

The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It (Contributions in Military Studies) Review

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The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam: They Did Everything but Learn from It (Contributions in Military Studies) Feature

Toczek provides the first description of the entire battle of Ap Bac and places it in the larger context of the Vietnam War. The study thoroughly examines the January 1963 battle, complete with detailed supporting maps. Ironically, Ap Bac's great importance lies in American policymakers' perception of the battle as unimportant; for all their intelligence and drive, senior American government officials missed the early warning signs of a flawed policy in Southeast Asia by ignoring the lessons of the defeat of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) on 2 January 1963. The outcome of Ap Bac was a direct reflection of how the U.S. Army organized, equipped, and trained the ARVN. With all the ARVN officer corps's shortcomings, the South Vietnamese Army could not successfully conduct an American combined arms operations against a smaller, less well-equipped enemy. American leadership, both military and civilian, failed to draw any connection between ARVN's dismal performance and American policies toward South Vietnam. Although certain tactical changes resulted from the battle, the larger issue of American policy remained unchanged, including the structure of the advisory system.

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Vietnam the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict

Vietnam the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict Review

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Vietnam the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict Feature

One of America's leading intellectuals presents a startling and controversial thesis: that Vietnam was the right war at the right time, with the wrong military strategy. He also argues that the Cold War was the Third World War, with Korea, Indochina and Afghanistan among its major campaigns.

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How to Lose a War: More Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders

How to Lose a War: More Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders Review

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How to Lose a War: More Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders Feature

From the Crusades to the modern age of chemical warfare and smart bombs, history is littered with truly disastrous military campaigns. How to Lose a War chronicles some of the most remarkable strategic catastrophes and doomed military adventures of overreaching invaders and clueless defenders—whether the failure was a result of poor planning, miscalculations, monumental ego, or failed intelligence . . . or just a really stupid idea to begin with.

• Alexander invades India—and ends up in deep vindaloo.
• Sacre bleu! The French are humiliated by Prussia in 1870.
• spain's "invincible navy" breaks up off the coast of britain while attempting an invasion.
• the mau mau rebellion against the british in kenya shows us how not to run an insurgency.
• Chiang Kai-Shek's pathetic army fails to keep Mao's Communists from grabbing China.

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Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Routledge Series: Military History and Policy)

Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Routledge Series: Military History and Policy) Review

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Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-46 (Routledge Series: Military History and Policy) Feature

This book is a study of the circumstances leading to British intervention in Vietnam in 1945, and the course and consequences of this intervention.

The first part of the work links French colonialism with the native communist insurgency, while examining British and Foreign Office attitudes towards French Indochina. The study then looks at the key Anglo-American wartime relationship concerning Indochina and its impact. The second half of the book focuses on the local problems faced by the British in Southern Indochina, and whether commanding general Douglas Gracey was guilty (as critics have suggested) of collusion with French colonialism. It also examines the wider problems linked to available military resources, and the controversial issues of the role of the OSS and the use of Japanese troops to preserve law and order. Finally, the book makes a groundbreaking link between British intervention and the outbreak of the French-Vietminh war in 1946.

Britain in Vietnam will be of interest to students of British foreign policy, military history and South-East Asian history in general.

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