Rolling Thunder In A Gentle Land

Fifteen renowned authors from widely varied backgrounds examine the Vietnam War, providing a fresh insight into this controversial conflict, even for those who have 'read it all before'. “This is a superb and compelling reexamination of the major historical, political, and ethical issues that continue to smoulder many decades after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, I highly recommend Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land. It is among the best books of its kind that I've encountered over the last dozen years.” - Tom O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried First-hand accounts, maps and contemporary photographs, analysis from the soldiers involved and new perspectives from combatants on both sides provide an incisive investigation into a fascinating and terrible war.

"Fifteen renowned authors from widely varied backgrounds examine the Vietnam War, providing a fresh insight into this controversial conflict, even for those who have 'read it all before'. First-hand accounts, maps and contemporary photographs, analysis from the soldiers involved and new perspectives from combatants on both sides provide an incisive investigation into a fascinating and terrible war."This is a superb and compelling reexamination of the major historical, political, and ethical issues that continue to smoulder many decades after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, I highly recommend Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land. It is among the best books of its kind that I've encountered over the last dozen years. Tom O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Fifteen renowned authors from widely varied backgrounds examine the Vietnam War, providing a fresh insight into this controversial conflict, even for those who have 'read it all before'. First-hand accounts, maps and contemporary photographs, analysis from the soldiers involved and new perspectives from combatants on both sides provide an incisive investigation into a fascinating and terrible war.“This is a superb and compelling reexamination of the major historical, political, and ethical issues that continue to smoulder many decades after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, I highly recommend Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land. It is among the best books of its kind that I've encountered over the last dozen years.” Tom O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried

"Three days before Easter last spring, the North Vietnamese struck South Vietnam with a fury unknown to the Vietnam war since the Tet offensive four years earlier. They poured south across the DMZ, smashed into the central highland from Laos, crossed the border from Cambodia and, with an army of 36,000 men and 100 Russian-made tanks, raced toward Saigon, boasting that they'd be in the city by May 19, Ho Chi Minh's birthday. From one end of the country to the other, bases and villages fell before the savagery of their onslaught. By April 5, all that blocked them from Saigon was a ragtag band of 6,800 South Vietnamese regulars and militiamen and a handful of American advisors holed up in An Loc, a once-prosperous rubber-plantation town of 15,000 astride Highway 13, which led to the capital, 60 miles to the south ... In Thi's opinion, reporting the victory of An Loc would contradict the U.S. media's basic premise that the war could not be won because ARVN was a corrupt and ineffective force. Subsequent published studies of the conflict provide a wealth of details about the use of U.S. airpower and the role of the U.S. advisors, but they fail to provide equal coverage to the activities and performance of ARVN units participating in the siege. Thi believes that it is time to set the record straight. Without denying the tremendous contribution of the U.S. advisors and pilots to the success of An Loc, this book is written primarily to tell the South Vietnamese side of the story and, more importantly, to render justice to the South Vietnamese soldier who withstood ninety-four days of horror and prevailed"--Publisher's website.

Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts - incorrectly - categorised these conflicts as unique. Great powers throughout history have confronted opponents who used a combination of regular and irregular forces to negate the advantage of the great powers' superior conventional military strength. As this study shows, hybrid wars are labour-intensive and long-term affairs; they are difficult struggles that defy the domestic logic of opinion polls and election cycles. Hybrid wars are also the most likely conflicts of the twenty-first century, as competitors use hybrid forces to wear down America's military capabilities in extended campaigns of exhaustion. Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare, from ancient Rome to the modern world, provide readers with context by clarifying the various aspects of conflicts and examining how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

A fascinating discussion of the development of counterinsurgency by experts in the field. Throughout history armies of occupation and civil power have been faced with the challenges of insurgency. British and American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has highlighted this form of conflict in the modern world. Armies have had to adopt new doctrines and tactics to deal with the problems of insurgency and diverse counterinsurgency strategies have been developed. Here, fourteen authors examine the development of counterinsurgency from the early 20th century to the present. Including information on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Afghanistan and Iraq this book is a timely and accessible survey of a critical facet of modern warfare. This new paperback edition features a revised introduction, updated chapters on Iraq and Afghanistan and a completely new chapter on Columbia by expert Thomas Marks.

What does it mean for human beings to exist in an era of dronified state violence? How can we understand the rise of robotic systems of power and domination? Focusing on U.S. drone warfare and its broader implications as no other book has to date, Predator Empire argues that we are witnessing a transition from a labor-intensive “American empire” to a machine-intensive “Predator Empire.” Moving from the Vietnam War to the War on Terror and beyond, Ian G. R. Shaw reveals how changes in military strategy, domestic policing, and state surveillance have come together to enclose our planet in a robotic system of control. The rise of drones presents a series of “existential crises,” he suggests, that are reengineering not only spaces of violence but also the character of the modern state. Positioning drone warfare as part of a much longer project to watch and enclose the human species, he shows that for decades—centuries even—human existence has slowly but surely been brought within the artificial worlds of “technological civilization.” Instead of incarcerating us in prisons or colonizing territory directly, the Predator Empire locks us inside a worldwide system of electromagnetic enclosure—in which democratic ideals give way to a system of totalitarian control, a machinic “rule by Nobody.” As accessibly written as it is theoretically ambitious, Predator Empire provides up-to-date information about U.S. drone warfare, as well as an in-depth history of the rise of drones.

 The signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 signified the end of the Vietnam War. American personnel returned home and the 591 American prisoners held captive in North Vietnam were released. Still, 2,646 individuals did not come home. Thirty-seven of those missing in action were from Wisconsin. Their names appear on the largest object—a motorcycle (now part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection)—ever left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Using the recollections of the soldiers’ families, friends and fellow servicemen, the author tells the story of each man’s life.