Unarmed Forces

Throughout the Cold War, people worldwide feared that the U.S. and Soviet governments could not prevent a nuclear showdown. Citizens from both East-bloc and Western countries, among them prominent scientists and physicians, formed networks to promote ideas and policies that would lessen this danger. Two of their organizations—the Pugwash movement and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—won Nobel Peace Prizes. Still, many observers believe that their influence was negligible and that the Reagan administration deserves sole credit for ending the Cold War. The first book to explore the impact these activists had on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Unarmed Forces demonstrates the importance of their efforts on behalf of arms control and disarmament.Matthew Evangelista examines the work of transnational peace movements throughout the Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev eras and into the first years of Boris Yeltsin's leadership. Drawing on extensive research in Russian archives and on interviews with Russian and Western activists and policymakers, he investigates the sources of Soviet policy on nuclear testing, strategic defense, and conventional forces. Evangelista concludes that transnational actors at times played a crucial role in influencing Soviet policy—specifically in encouraging moderate as opposed to hard-line responses—for they supplied both information and ideas to that closed society. Evangelista's findings challenge widely accepted views about the peaceful resolution of the Cold War. By revealing the connection between a state's domestic structure and its susceptibility to the influence of transnational groups, Unarmed Forces will also stimulate thinking about the broader issue of how government policy is shaped.

The remarkable true story of a group of former Special Operation soldiers turned entrepreneurs on a mission to end the war in Afghanistan with business, not bullets. -Every copy purchased sends a girl in Afghanistan to school.-This limited 1st edition is available only for a very short time.

Examines techniques used by special forces around the world: the lethal strikes of the Spetsnaz, locks and constrictions used by the Egyptian special forces, U.S. Army throws and holds, and elementary methods taught to Britain's Parachute Regiment.

Duck punch, cover block and knee strike. Boxing, wrestling and Ju-Jitsu. Gameplan, lines of attack and final disengagement. If taking flight isn't an option, fighting is a necessity. Extreme Unarmed Combat is the authoritative handbook on an immense array of close combat defence techniques, from fistfights to headlocks, from tackling single unarmed opponents to armed groups, from stance to manoeuvring.Presented in a handy pocketbook format, Extreme Unarmed Combat's structure considers the different fighting and martial arts skills an individual can use before having to consider at the areas of the body to defend. It teaches how to attack without getting hurt, and how to incapacitate an opponent. With more than 120 black-&-white illustrations of combat scenarios, punches, blocks and ducks, and with expert easy-to-follow text, Extreme Unarmed Combat guides you through everything a person need to know about what to do when escaping trouble isn't an option. This book can save lives.

Stunning shifts in the worldviews of states mark the modern history of international affairs: how do societies think about—and rethink—international order and security? Japan's "opening," German conquest, American internationalism, Maoist independence, and Gorbachev's "new thinking" molded international conflict and cooperation in their eras. How do we explain such momentous changes in foreign policy—and in other cases their equally surprising absence? The nature of strategic ideas, Jeffrey W. Legro argues, played a critical and overlooked role in these transformations. Big changes in foreign policies are rare because it is difficult for individuals to overcome the inertia of entrenched national mentalities. Doing so depends on a particular nexus of policy expectations, national experience, and ready replacement ideas. In a sweeping comparative history, Legro explores the sources of strategy in the United States and Germany before and after the world wars, in Tokugawa Japan, and in the Soviet Union. He charts the likely future of American primacy and a rising China in the coming century. Rethinking the World tells us when and why we can expect changes in the way states think about the world, why some ideas win out over others, and why some leaders succeed while others fail in redirecting grand strategy.

Examines how military culture forms and changes, as well as its impact on the effectiveness of military organizations.