Book cover of A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
History

A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA

A Question of Standing deals with recognizable events that have shaped the history of the first 75 years of the CIA. Unsparing in its accounts of dirty tricks and their consequences, it values the agency’s intelligence and analysis work to offer balanced judgements that avoid both celebration and condemnation of the CIA. […Learn More]

Book cover of War of Supply: World War II Allied Logistics in the Mediterranean by David Dworak
Europe

War of Supply: World War II Allied Logistics in the Mediterranean

The era of modern warfare introduced in World War II presented the Allied Powers with one of the more complicated logistical challenges of the century: how to develop an extensive support network that could supply and maintain a vast military force comprised of multiple services and many different nations thousands of miles away from their home ports. […Learn More]

Book cover of On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle by Hampton Sides
Asia

On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle

From the New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and In the Kingdom of Ice, a chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism by Marines called on to do the impossible during the greatest battle of the Korean War

On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war. […Learn More]

Book cover of China as a Twenty-First-Century Naval Power: Theory Practice and Implications by Michael McDevitt
International & World Politics

China as a Twenty-First-Century Naval Power: Theory Practice and Implications

Xi Jinping has made his ambitions for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) perfectly clear, there is no mystery what he wants, first, that China should become a “great maritime power” and secondly, that the PLA “become a world-class armed force by 2050.” He wants this latter objective to be largely completed by 2035. China as a Twenty-First-Century Naval Power focuses on China’s navy and how it is being transformed to satisfy the “world class” goal. […Learn More]

Book cover of First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance by Annie Jacobsen
History

First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance

A powerful story of war in our time, of love of country, the experience of tragedy, and a platoon at the center of it all.

This is a story that starts off close and goes very big. The initial part of the story might sound familiar at first: it is about a platoon of mostly nineteen-year-old boys sent to Afghanistan, and an experience that ends abruptly in catastrophe. Their part of the story folds into the next: inexorably linked to those soldiers and never comprehensively reported before is the U.S. Department of Defense’s quest to build the world’s most powerful biometrics database, with the ability to identify, monitor, catalog, and police people all over the world. […Learn More]

Book cover of National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963 by Richard Vinen
Europe

National Service: A Generation in Uniform 1945-1963

Richard Vinen’s National Service is a serious—if often very entertaining—attempt to get to grips with the reality of that extraordinary institution, which now seems as remote as the British Empire itself. With great sympathy and curiosity, Vinen unpicks the myths of the two “gap years,” which all British men who came of age between 1945 and the early 1960s had to fill with National Service. This book is fascinating to those who endured or even enjoyed their time in uniform, but also to anyone wishing to understand the unique nature of post-war Britain. […Learn More]

Book Cover of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare by Christian Brose
Computers & Technology

The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

For generations of Americans, our country has been the world’s dominant military power. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America’s traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war. […Learn More]

History

The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder

War is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in the age of Durable Disorder—a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts and has studied and taught the history and practice of war. […Learn More]

Computers & Technology

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War

The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems–from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter–and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. […Learn More]