An acount of the war in the Persian Gulf takes readers behind the scenes at the Pentagon and the White House to provide portraits of the top military commanders and to discuss what worked and what did not

This is one of the great untold stories of our time - that of the little band of generals entrusted with a historic task: invading and liberating Nazi-occupied Europe. They were supposed to be fighting the Germans, but some of their fiercest battles were fought against each other. At the center was the Supreme Commander himself, Dwight D. Eisenhower - sincere, indecisive, desperate to hold the Alliance together. Against him was Field-Marshal Bernard Montgomery, who strove ceaselessly to gain authority. Cavilling against them both were the others - the outrageous Patton, the dogged Bradley, the bomber barons like Spaatz, Vandenberg, and Butcher Harris, and Trafford Leigh-Mallory. After the war, there was a cover-up. Not until David Irving began his research did the full truth emerge. Among his unexpected discoveries was the wickedly candid diary of the obscure general who was Eisenhower s eyes and ears . Through this and other private accounts we see the war as the generals lived it - squabbling over perks and preferences, taking their mistresses with them on to the battlefield, and there are revelations about General Patton that will amaze. There are other surprises - General de Gaulle s use of torture upon his fellow Frenchmen is one, and a clear attempt by the Allies to get rid of him is another. This book is a history of command. It shows how the ambitions and personalities of the men at the top affect the course of a war and the lives of the ordinary mortals in the field.

Known as the War to End all Wars and the Great War, World War I introduced new forms of mass destruction and modern technological warfare. When the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war in late 1917, the Germans turned their offensive efforts to the Western Front in an attempt to win the war in 1918. But as fresh American troops entered Europe, the strategic scales tipped against Germany. Much of how World War I played out turned on the plans and decisions of the senior-most German and Allied commanders. The Generals' War explores the military strategies of those generals during the last year of the Great War. These six very different men included Germany's Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff; France's Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain; Great Britain's Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig; and the United States' General John Pershing. Although history remembers none of them as great captains, these six officers determined for better or worse how World War I was fought on the battlefields of the Western Front between November 1917 and November 1918. The Generals' War is a landmark exploration of the generalship that shaped the very framework of modern warfare as we know it today and provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis on the senior commanders of the Great War.

A New York Times bestseller! An epic history of the decline of American military leadership—from the bestselling author of Fiasco and Churchill and Orwell. While history has been kind to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—it has been less kind to the generals of the wars that followed, such as Koster, Franks, Sanchez, and Petraeus. In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks sets out to explain why that is. In chronicling the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military, Ricks tells the stories of great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and generals who failed themselves and their soldiers. In Ricks’s hands, this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails.

The sixth book in W.E.B. Griffin’s sweeping military epic of the United States Army—the New York Times bestselling Brotherhood of War series. “W.E.B. Griffin is a storyteller in the grand tradition, probably the best man around for describing the military community. Brotherhood of War...is an American epic.”—Tom Clancy They were the leaders, the men who made the decisions that changed the outcome of battles...and the fate of continents. From the awesome landing at Normandy to the torturous campaigns of the South Pacific, from the frozen hills of Korea to the devastated wastes of Dien Bien Phu, they had earned their stars. Now they led America's finest against her most relentless enemy deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It was a new kind of war, but the Generals led a new kind of army, ready for battle—and for glory...

Here is a narrative account of decisive engagements that succeeded by brilliant strategy more than by direct force. The reader accompanies those who fought, from Roman legionaries and Mongol horsemen to Napoleonic soldiery, and Douglas MacArthur's Inchon invaders. Maps. Illustrations.

A leading military expert looks at America's state of perpetual war, and offers solutions such as civilian control of the military and the use of a "Global Security Index" to determine if intervention is truly necessary.