The United States has struggled to define its approach to what has been called the "information battlefield" since the information era began. Yet with the outbreak of the war on terror, the United States has been violently challenged to take a position and react to the militants' use of emerging information technology. Ideological demigods operating against the United States now have unprecedented channels by which to disseminate their message to those targets who are uncertain, sympathetic, or actively supportive of their philosophy. From the caves of southeastern Afghanistan to the streets of Baghdad, "the message" has dominated the thinking of those who perpetrate horrific acts of violence, whether in the name of ideology, ethnic and sectarian partisanship, or religion. This anthology is divided into four sections: geopolitical, strategic, operational, and tactical. The geopolitical perspective covers world politics, diplomacy, and the elements of national power, excluding military force. The strategic view examines where the violence has begun and the military element of power. The operational perspective handles the campaigns to accomplish a specific purpose on the world stage--for example, as in the Iraq campaign. The tactical level takes the individual's role into account. Because the nexus of information conflict is most easily seen in the world's contemporary violent confrontations, this anthology reflects the experience and lessons learned by military personnel who have managed these difficult issues. With a foreword by Colonel H. R. McMaster, U.S. Army, the author of Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.

Explores something of the background of the contemporary air weapon. Attempts to distill from past experience in the development of air material those lessons which might be of help in formulating policies for exploiting the air weapons more successfully in the future. Originally published by Yale University Press in 1953. Air Force ISBN 0-912799-11-0. L.C. card 83-18967. Remains one of the finest texts ever written on the history of warfare and weapons acquisition. from the foreword by Richard P. Hallion

Because the nexus of information conflict is most easily viewed in the world's contemporary violent confrontations, this anthology is heavily weighted toward military personnel who have managed these difficult issues."--BOOK JACKET.

Given the enormous destructive capacity of precision weapons in the modern era and the inherent vulnerabilities of modern society to high technology attack, this book is more relevant today than when it was first written in the midst of the nuclear age, in 1953. Remaining one of the finest texts ever written on the history of warfare and weapons acquisition, this is a thorough and reliable work that should be a standard reference for acquisition managers and decision-makers, providing a guide to informed decision-making that reflects the experience and lessons of the past. Bibliographical notes. Index.

Only weeks after the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, a surprising cargo—crates of books—joined the flood of troop reinforcements, weapons and ammunition, food, and medicine onto Normandy beaches. The books were destined for French bookshops, to be followed by millions more American books (in translation but also in English) ultimately distributed throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The British were doing similar work, which was uneasily coordinated with that of the Americans within the Psychological Warfare Division of General Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, under General Eisenhower's command. Books As Weapons tells the little-known story of the vital partnership between American book publishers and the U.S. government to put carefully selected recent books highlighting American history and values into the hands of civilians liberated from Axis forces. The government desired to use books to help "disintoxicate" the minds of these people from the Nazi and Japanese propaganda and censorship machines and to win their friendship. This objective dovetailed perfectly with U.S. publishers' ambitions to find new profits in international markets, which had been dominated by Britain, France, and Germany before their book trades were devastated by the war. Key figures on both the trade and government sides of the program considered books "the most enduring propaganda of all" and thus effective "weapons in the war of ideas," both during the war and afterward, when the Soviet Union flexed its military might and demonstrated its propaganda savvy. Seldom have books been charged with greater responsibility or imbued with more significance. John B. Hench leavens this fully international account of the programs with fascinating vignettes set in the war rooms of Washington and London, publishers' offices throughout the world, and the jeeps in which information officers drove over bomb-rutted roads to bring the books to people who were hungering for them. Books as Weapons provides context for continuing debates about the relationship between government and private enterprise and the image of the United States abroad. To see an interview with John Hench conducted by C-SPAN at the 2010 annual conference of the Organization of American Historians, visit: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/222522.