On October 6, 1973--Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar--the Arab world launched a bold and ingeniously conceived surprise attack against Israel. After three days of intense, bloody combat, an unprepared Israel was fighting for survival, while the Arabs, with massive forces closing in on the Jewish heartland, were poised to redeem the honor lost in three previous wars.

Based on declassified Israeli government documents and revealing interviews with soldiers, generals, and intelligence operatives on both sides of the conflict, The Eve of Destruction weaves a...

In the summer of 1754, deep in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania, a very young George Washington suffered his first military defeat, and a centuries-old feud between Great Britain and France was rekindled. The war that followed would be fought across virgin territories, from Nova Scotia to the forks of the Ohio River, and it would ultimately decide the fate of the entire North American continent--not just for Great Britain and France but also for the Spanish and Native American populations.

Noted historian Walter R. Borneman brings to life an epic struggle for a continent--what...

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan

To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising thread of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll recounts the history of the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks. Based on scrupulous research and firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military...

This book is a major reinterpretation of the Iran-Iraq War and is a source for reexamining the U.S. involvement in the Gulf. Pelletiere demonstrates that the war was not a standoff in which Iraq finally won a grinding war of attrition through luck, persistence, and the use of poison gas. Instead, Iraq planned the last campaign almost two years prior to its unfolding. The Iraqis] trained extensively and expended enormous sums of money to make their effort succeed. What won for them was their superior fignting prowess and greater commitment. Gas--if it was used at all--played only a minor...

The most complete memoir or primary account in English of two of the most important phases of the Thirty Years' War, Monro's Expedition is a regimental history, a guide to would-be mercenary officers, a social history, and a window into an earlier era. Although the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) ended three and a half centuries ago, it continues to intrigue readers as one of the most devastating wars in modern European history. Initially a religious/political confrontation, the conflict soon expanded into a continent-wide series of wars. Monro's account of his experiences is one of...

An analysis of the Anglo-Irish War of 1916-1921 using the framework of a people's war, this study explains how one of the smallest nations on earth emerged victorious against one of the world's most powerful empires. Of the many accounts of the Irish War of Independence, none adequately explains the Irish victory over a force that was superior in technology, industry, military force, and population. While the theorists associated today with the strategies characteristic of a people's war were either not yet born or were unknown to those in the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein, the war...

Using recently released French official documents and a variety of other sources, this study explains how the French Army, so recently defeated by the Viet Minh insurgents in Indochina, was able to successfully defeat the Algerian nationalist rebels on the battlefield, while nevertheless losing the war at the conference table. This French success, between 1954 and 1962, was due in large part to the superior logistical system of the French Army and the use of the helicopter to enhance French operational mobility. French counter-mobility measures, particularly the construction of heavily...

In spite of the outcome of the Cold War, English argues persuasively here that the nuclear defensive posture adopted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was inherently flawed. Victory in the Cold War, moreover, seems to have increased the attractiveness of this potentially dangerous model. In fact, NATO's attempts to replace conventional armies with nuclear technology represented a misreading of history inasmuch as war has always been more of a social than technological phenomenon. From his succinct survey of the growth and operations of field armies from medieval times to the...

Why has the military not intervened in the post-communist political arena since the advent of democracy in Russia? Do lowered levels of professionalism actually lead to higher levels of intervention? Through a systematic exploration of professionalism within the Russian military, this study addresses these important questions. Moran suggests that by examining the notion of subjective fragmentation, both Gorbachev and Yeltsin utilized a highly effective, yet potentially troublesome, form of civil-military control. Findings that overall levels of praetorian behavior on the part of the...

No critical analysis has ever examined the specific reasons for the Ottoman defeat. Erickson's study fills this gap by studying the operations of the Ottoman Army from October 1912 through July 1913, and by providing a comprehensive explanation of its doctrines and planning procedures. This book is written at an operational level that details every campaign at the level of the army corps. More than 30 maps, numerous orders of battle, and actual Ottoman Army operations orders illustrate how the Turks planned and fought their battles. Of particular note is the inclusion of the only detailed...