The Eye of Command


Book Description

An important new work that will change the way we think about and understand battles




A Question of Command


Book Description

Moyar presents a wide-ranging history of counterinsurgency which draws on the historical record and interviews with hundreds of counterinsurgency veterans. He identifies the ten critical attributes of counterinsurgency leadership and reveals why these attributes have been more prevalent in some organizations than others.




The Mantle of Command


Book Description

An in-depth analysis of FDR's leadership during the Second World War reveals how he assumed control over key decisions to launch a successful trial landing in North Africa to shift the war in favor of Allied forces.




Command in War


Book Description

Many books have been written about strategy, tactics, and great commanders. This is the first book to deal exclusively with the nature of command itself, and to trace its development over two thousand years from ancient Greece to Vietnam. It treats historically the whole variety of problems involved in commanding armies, including staff organization and administration, communications methods and technologies, weaponry, and logistics. And it analyzes the relationship between these problems and military strategy. In vivid descriptions of key battles and campaigns—among others, Napoleon at Jena, Moltke’s Königgrätz campaign, the Arab–Israeli war of 1973, and the Americans in Vietnam—Martin van Creveld focuses on the means of command and shows how those means worked in practice. He finds that technological advances such as the railroad, breech-loading rifles, the telegraph and later the radio, tanks, and helicopters all brought commanders not only new tactical possibilities but also new limitations. Although vast changes have occurred in military thinking and technology, the one constant has been an endless search for certainty—certainty about the state and intentions of the enemy’s forces; certainty about the manifold factors that together constitute the environment in which war is fought, from the weather and terrain to radioactivity and the presence of chemical warfare agents; and certainty about the state, intentions, and activities of one’s own forces. The book concludes that progress in command has usually been achieved less by employing more advanced technologies than by finding ways to transcend the limitations of existing ones.




Neural Control of Space Coding and Action Production


Book Description

Clinical neuropsychology has evolved by integrating in its field the knowledge derived from neuroanatomical, electrophysiological and psychophysical data, and has led to the development of rehabilitation tools. This volume tries to link the new concepts and discoveries in the field of sensorimotor coordination. It contains the main contributions of participants of an international symposium held in Lyon in 2001 entitled "Neural control of space coding and action production". The book emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between perception and action, and the essential role of active sensorimotor organization or reorganization in building up perceptual and motor representations of the self and of the external world.




Sharing Success - Owning Failure: Preparing to Command in the Twenty-First Century Air Force


Book Description

Command is the ultimate service. It is a time when we have the singular responsibility to create and lead strong Air Force units. A time when our passion for our Air Force and our vision for its future must be overwhelmingly clear. Early in the "Developing Aerospace Leaders" initiative, we began to focus on the way in which the institution teaches leadership and prepares airmen for command. What we found was a wide range of practices and a wide range of expectations - a complicating factor in today's Expeditionary Aerospace Force. We realize that preparing our officers to command effective, mission-oriented units must be a deliberate process. It must develop our unique airman perspective, creating commanders who are able to communicate the vision, have credibility in the mission area, and can lead our people with inspiration and heart. The foundation of our institution's effectiveness has always been its leaders. Colonel Goldfein's work provides valuable lessons learned and serves as a worthwhile tool to optimize your effectiveness as a squadron commander. This book is a must-read, not only for those selected to command a squadron but for all our young officers, helping them understand what the requirements of squadron command will be. Remember, command is a unique privilege - a demanding and crucial position in our Air Force. "Sharing Success - Owning Failure" takes you a step closer to successfully meeting that challenge.




The Commands of the Apostles


Book Description

The author of The Commands of Jesus presents a companion volume exploring 120 commands from the New Testament’s epistles and apostolic writings. Most studies of the epistles of the New Testament emphasize theology. In The Commands of the Apostles, noted devotional author Michael Phillips instead puts the focus of the practical commands of the Apostolic writers—and how we might follow them in our daily lives. Considering the important command found in Hebrews 6 1 2—“Let us go on to maturity”—Phillips suggests that spiritual maturity requires nothing more or less that attaining Christlikeness through obedience to commands. He therefore asks readers to put elementary doctrines aside and focus instead on the commands we as Christians are called upon to obey.




The Cartographic Eye


Book Description

The Cartographic Eye is about the mythologies of land exploration, and about space and the colonial enterprise in particular. An innovative investigation of the presumptions, aesthetics and politics of Australian explorers' texts, it concentrates on the period 1820-1880. Simon Ryan looks at the journals of John Oxley, Thomas Mitchell, Charles Sturt and Ludwig Leichhardt and shows that they are not the simple, unadorned observations the authors would have us believe, but are complex networks of tropes. The Cartographic Eye scrutinises and undermines the scientific and literary methodology of exploration. Its insightful analysis of the tendencies of colonialism will make a major contribution to 'new historicist' interrogations of colonialism. It will be a crucial text for readers in Australian literary and cultural studies, and for those interested in colonial discourse and postcolonial theory.




Command Of The Air


Book Description

In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.




The Command


Book Description

The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has proven to be the most lethal weapon in the president's arsenal. Shrouded in secrecy, the Command has done more to degrade the capacity of terrorists to attack the United States than any other single entity. And counter-terrorism is only one of its many missions. Because of such high profile missions as Operation Neptune's Spear, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, JSOC has attracted the public's attention. But Americans only know a fraction of the real story. In The Command, Ambinder and Grady provide readers with a concise and comprehensive recent history of the special missions units that comprise the most effective weapon against terrorism ever conceived. For the first time, they reveal JSOC's organizational chart and describe some of the secret technologies and methods that catalyze their intelligence and kinetic activities. They describe how JSOC migrated to the center of U.S. military operations, and how they fused intelligence and operations in such a way that proved crucial to beating back the Iraq insurgency. They also disclose previously unreported instances where JSOC's activities may have skirted the law, and question the ability of Congress to oversee units that, by design, must operate with minimum interference. With unprecedented access to senior commanders and team leaders, the authors also: Put the bin Laden raid in the larger context of a transformed secret organization at its operational best. Explore other secret missions ordered by the president (and the surprising countries in which JSOC operates). Trace the growth of JSOC's operational and support branches and chronicle the command's mastery of the Washington inter-agency bureaucracy. By Marc Ambinder, a contributing editor at the Atlantic, who has covered politics for CBS News and ABC News, and D.B. Grady, a correspondent for the Atlantic, and former U.S. Army paratrooper and a veteran of Afghanistan.