Russian military aviation has undergone several upheavals in the post-Soviet era. There have been two driving forces behind these changes. First, the Russian experience of air power in conflicts has led to an increasing integration of the various branches of the armed forces. Today's VKS was created as a result of the absorption of the Air Defence Troops (VPVO) by the Air Force (VVS) in 1998, and then a merger of the Air Force with the Aerospace Defence Troops (VVKO) in 2015.

This is the inside story of how Trieste found itself poised on a knife edge at the end of World War II. Situated near the boundaries of Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia, this pivotal port city was caught in May 1945 between advancing Allied, Russian, and Yugoslav armies on the strategically vital front lines of the nascent Cold War. Germany lay defeated, and now there were new enemies - Russia and Communism. Told through the stories of twelve men and women from seven different countries, Flashpoint Trieste chronicles, on a human scale, the beginning of the Cold War. A British colonel from the Special Operations Executive, a Maori officer from a New Zealand infantry battalion and a young Yugoslav partisan captain race for the city on May 1, 1945, with the Allies determined to beat Tito's forces and the Russians to the vital port. An American infantry general, decorated in combat in Italy, then holds the line as Trieste is divided between the American and British armies, and the Yugoslav Communist partisans of Marshal Josip Broz Tito. An American intelligence officer tracks wanted Nazis. An Italian woman Communist walks back to her native city from Auschwitz. An Austrian SS chief goes on the run to escape justice for the atrocities he committed in the city. Having survived the war, everyone is now desperate to make it through the liberation. American investigators hunt for priceless artifacts looted by the Germans. British intelligence will stop at nothing to hold the line against encroaching Communism, and Italian partisans hunt down fascist collaborators. Life is fast and violent, as former warring parties make common cause against the Russians. As the postwar world order unfolds, the borders of the new Europe are being hammered out.

Offering a terrifying, but very possible scenario of a world on the edge of disaster, this work suggests that World War III has become a real threat. Germany and Japan have gathered military strength; the US has retrenched to make way for economic globalization; the UN is widely discredited and NATO has lost its way. In their place, the bodies controlling the global economic order hold a growing authority in an increasingly unstable world. In this book, the author sets out to demonstrate that World Wars I and II were both preceded by trade disputes, minor conflicts in peripheral zones and vain attempts to reconcile competing interests peacefully. He argues that history is repeating itself, and that the changing balance between the Great Powers, after the collapse of the USSR, have set the conditions for new conflict. He maintains that there is a very real risk that the next flashpoint will ignite to create World War III.

"Twenty-two geopolitical analysts provide an alternative vision to the fraudulent Western narrative on events in Ukraine and alert the world to the danger of a much wider war."--Page 4 of cover.

A major new book by New York Times bestselling author and geopolitical forecaster George Friedman (The Next 100 Years), with a bold thesis about coming events in Europe. This provocative work examines “flashpoints,” unique geopolitical hot spots where tensions have erupted throughout history, and where conflict is due to emerge again. “There is a temptation, when you are around George Friedman, to treat him like a Magic 8 Ball.” —The New York Times Magazine With remarkable accuracy, George Friedman has forecasted coming trends in global politics, technology, population, and culture. In Flashpoints, Friedman focuses on Europe—the world’s cultural and power nexus for the past five hundred years . . . until now. Analyzing the most unstable, unexpected, and fascinating borderlands of Europe and Russia—and the fault lines that have existed for centuries and have been ground zero for multiple catastrophic wars—Friedman highlights, in an unprecedentedly personal way, the flashpoints that are smoldering once again. The modern-day European Union was crafted in large part to minimize built-in geopolitical tensions that historically have torn it apart. As Friedman demonstrates, with a mix of rich history and cultural analysis, that design is failing. Flashpoints narrates a living history of Europe and explains, with great clarity, its most volatile regions: the turbulent and ever-shifting land dividing the West from Russia (a vast area that currently includes Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania); the ancient borderland between France and Germany; and the Mediterranean, which gave rise to Judaism and Christianity and became a center of Islamic life. Through Friedman’s seamless narrative of townspeople and rivers and villages, a clear picture of regions and countries and history begins to emerge. Flashpoints is an engrossing analysis of modern-day Europe, its remarkable past, and the simmering fault lines that have awakened and will be pivotal in the near future. This is George Friedman’s most timely and, ultimately, riveting book.

"Flashpoint in Ukraine provides insight into today's gravest geopolitical crisis since WW II. Possible global war looms. Per the Western mainstream media, the crisis arose due to pro-democracy activists overturning a brutal dictatorship, which led swiftly to Russian incursion into Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Per the 20 highly-credentialed analysts who have contributed to this anthology, it's an entirely different story. Obama's pivot is global, in pursuit of unchallenged worldwide dominance, leading to multiple direct and proxy wars. Neocon-dominated Washington seeks to marginalize its Russian and Chinese rivals, surrounding both countries with US bases. Ukraine is in the eye of the storm, the crown jewel of NATO eastward expansion, the last step in Washington's drive to incorporate all former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries into NATO and install missile defense sites on Russia's very border. To that end, the US has poured some $5 billion into 'pro-democracy' NGOs which, counter to intention or not, were soon swept aside by neo-Nazi groups, and leading to the installation as President of former central banker, Arseniy Yatseniuk, advance leaked as the unelected pick of Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Russia did not invade Crimea and in fact has taken an extremely measured response with primary emphasis on diplomacy and ending the crisis, while NATO, European and US spokespersons and media are seeking to dramatize and indeed resurrect a 'Russian threat.' Eastern resistance forestalls Obama's imperial project. The West appears willing to pursue it, at the risk not just of Ukrainian civil war and potential East/West confrontation but of global nuclear war. The flashpoint in Ukraine risks the unthinkable"--

Flashpoint Poland details Poland’s situation during the 70s. The title examines how wartime and postwar events have contributed to the formation of the Poland’s attitudes and to the situation during Edward Gierek’s time. The text chronicles the various events during the 70s contemporary Poland, along the various diplomatic, social, and economic concerns. The book will be of great interest to political scientists, sociologists, economists, and historians.