Almost every country in the world has its elite units. These are the men and women who perform operations no regular soldiers will touch, who go deep into enemy territory to sabotage, attack, rescue, and observe. Take a look at life in five of the most prestigious military units—U.S. Airborne Forces, the Israeli Parachute Corps, Russian Spetsnaz forces, the British SAS, and the Australian SAS. Explore each force's history to understand why these units are respected and feared by their enemies. Discover: • How some elite units existed even in ancient times. • What recruiters look for in special forces. • How U.S Airborne troops parachuted into the jungles of Vietnam. • How Russian Spetsnaz sabotaged German trains during World War II. • How some U.S. amphibious ships can carry 1,700 troops.

Almost every country in the world has its elite units. These are the men and women who perform operations no regular soldiers will touch, who go deep into enemy territory to sabotage, attack, rescue, and observe. Take a look at life in five of the most prestigious military units—U.S. Airborne Forces, the Israeli Parachute Corps, Russian Spetsnaz forces, the British SAS, and the Australian SAS. Explore each force's history to understand why these units are respected and feared by their enemies. Discover: • How some elite units existed even in ancient times. • What recruiters look for in special forces. • How U.S Airborne troops parachuted into the jungles of Vietnam. • How Russian Spetsnaz sabotaged German trains during World War II. • How some U.S. amphibious ships can carry 1,700 troops.

“A must-read book that explores a vital pre-war effort [with] deep research and gripping writing.” —Washington Times In The rise of the G.I. Army, 1940–1941, Paul Dickson tells the dramatic story of how the American Army was mobilized from scattered outposts two years before Pearl Harbor into the disciplined and mobile fighting force that helped win World War II. In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, America had strong isolationist leanings. The US Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men—unprepared to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army led the Allied invasion of North Africa, beginning the campaign that would defeat Germany, and the Navy and Marines were fully engaged with Japan in the Pacific. Dickson chronicles this transformation from Franklin Roosevelt’s selection of George C. Marshall to be Army Chief of Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and unprecedented mock battles in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas by which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, and Clark emerged. The narrative unfolds against a backdrop of political and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the increasingly perceived threat of attack from both Germany and Japan.

"Adams challenges various stereotypes to present a view of World War II that avoids the simplistic extremes of both glorification and vilification. The Best War Ever charts the complex diplomatic problems of the 1930s and reveals the realities of ground combat. Adams exposes the myth that the home front was fully united behind the war effort, demonstrating how class, race, gender, and age divisions split Americans."--Page [4] of cover.

How do you convince men to charge across heavily mined beaches into deadly machine-gun fire? Do you appeal to their bonds with their fellow soldiers, their patriotism, their desire to end tyranny and mass murder? Certainly—but if you’re the US Army in 1944, you also try another tack: you dangle the lure of beautiful French women, waiting just on the other side of the wire, ready to reward their liberators in oh so many ways. That’s not the picture of the Greatest Generation that we’ve been given, but it’s the one Mary Louise Roberts paints to devastating effect in What Soldiers Do. Drawing on an incredible range of sources, including news reports, propaganda and training materials, official planning documents, wartime diaries, and memoirs, Roberts tells the fascinating and troubling story of how the US military command systematically spread—and then exploited—the myth of French women as sexually experienced and available. The resulting chaos—ranging from flagrant public sex with prostitutes to outright rape and rampant venereal disease—horrified the war-weary and demoralized French population. The sexual predation, and the blithe response of the American military leadership, also caused serious friction between the two nations just as they were attempting to settle questions of long-term control over the liberated territories and the restoration of French sovereignty. While never denying the achievement of D-Day, or the bravery of the soldiers who took part, What Soldiers Do reminds us that history is always more useful—and more interesting—when it is most honest, and when it goes beyond the burnished beauty of nostalgia to grapple with the real lives and real mistakes of the people who lived it.

Published each year since 1959, The Military Balance is an indispensable reference to the capabilities of armed forces across the globe. It is used by academia, the media, armed forces, the private sector and government. It is an open-source assessment of the military forces and equipment inventories of 171 countries, with accompanying defence economics and procurement data. Alongside detailed country data, The Military Balance assesses important defence issues, by region, as well as key global trends, such as in defence technology and equipment modernisation. This analysis is accompanied by full-colour graphics, including maps and illustrations. With extensive explanatory notes and reference information, The Military Balance is as straightforward to use as it is extensive. The 2022 edition is accompanied by a fullcolour wall chart illustrating security dynamics in the Arctic.

Barkawi re-imagines the study of war with imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia in the Second World War.