Armed Forces


Book Description




The Bomb


Book Description

This tightly argued and profoundly thought provoking book tackles a huge subject: the coming of the nuclear age with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the ways in which it has changed our lives since. Dr Heuser sets these events in their historical context and tackles key issues about the effect of nuclear weapons on modern attitudes to conflict, and on the ethics of warfare. Ducking nothing, she demystifies the subject, seeing `the bomb' not as something unique and paralysing, but as an integral part of the strategic and moral context of our time. For a wide multidisciplinary and general readership.




Reader's Guide to Military History


Book Description

This book contains some 600 entries on a range of topics from ancient Chinese warfare to late 20th-century intervention operations. Designed for a wide variety of users, it encompasses general reviews of aspects of military organization and science, as well as specific wars and conflicts. The book examines naval and air warfare, as well as significant individuals, including commanders, theorists, and war leaders. Each entry includes a listing of additional publications on the topic, accompanied by an article discussing these publications with reference to their particular emphases, strengths, and limitations.




The Future of Air Power


Book Description

Air power has been one of the key elements in modern warfare. This book, first published in 1986, analyses the likely changes to this key role as military technology and strategic thinking evolve. It begins with the history and present status of air power and assesses technical developments, and then discusses the character of future warfare, and its implications for planes and helicopters in land and sea campaigns. It also analyses issues like tactical air mobility, the vulnerability of airfields, aerial mass destruction, electronic warfare, and developments in NATO and Warsaw Pact. It concludes with an overview of the likely role of airpower in future warfare.




Air Power in Modern Warfare


Book Description




Dimensions of Western Military Intervention


Book Description

Military intervention to protect civilians in danger has emerged as a key challenge for the West. This book explores the West's reaction to these challenges and some of the limits on its actions.




The Rhodesian Air Force in Zimbabwe's War of Liberation, 1966-1980


Book Description

This book evaluates the development of the Rhodesian Air Force during the Second Chimurenga or Bush War (1966-1980). Airpower in irregular conflict is effective at the tactical level because guerrilla warfare is not a purely military conflict. The Rhodesian Air Force was deployed in a war-winning versus a supporting role as a result of the shortage of manpower to deal with insurgency, and almost all units of the Rhodesian Security Forces depended on its tactical effectiveness. Technical challenges faced by the Air Force, combined with the rate of guerrilla infiltration and the misuse of airpower to bomb guerrilla bases in neighboring countries largely negated the success of airpower.




Battlefield Air Interdiction In The 1973 Middle East War And Its Significance To NATO Air Operations


Book Description

This study is a historical analysis of battlefield air interdiction during the 1973 Middle East War. Its purpose is to draw conclusions, based on the historical findings, about the best way to employ BAI in the air land battle. Although the conclusions come from a Middle East War over ten years ago, they are examined in terms of the NATO environment. The tactical and technological developments of both Arab and Israeli air forces during the years 1967-1973 are examined in order to explain how both sides arrived at the doctrine they employed in the 1973 War. The Arabs established an intensive air defense network to deny the Israelis their strongest and most flexible weapons system. The Israelis believed that their Air Force would destroy Arab ground forces as it did in 1967. The confrontation of both doctrines had significant implications for the ground forces particularly the relative value assigned close air support and battlefield air interdiction. The study concludes that close air support is not the best use of air assets in a high density air defense environment. Battlefield air interdiction is more effective to the operational ground commander. Localized control of air defense systems is needed to allow the use of air to ground assets. The final conclusion is that suppression of enemy air defense systems is a joint service responsibility.




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