Modern War Studies – serie

In January 1951, Lieutenant Evgeniy Borisov was sent to the headquarters of the Soviet 5th Army in Spassk-Dalnii, a small city in the Russian Far East. Borisov was there on a secret mission. Together with his superior, Major Rusinov, his job was to establish the 91st Special Forces Company. The 91st was to be one of forty-six similar units spread out across the Soviet Union. The new forces were called “spetsnaz”—short for spetsnialnoe naznachenie, which translates to “special purpose.”In Spetsnaz, Tor Bukkvoll presents the first in-depth history of the Soviet, and, later, Russian special operations forces from their establishment until today. He focuses on three broad topics: Soviet and later Russian thinking on the use of special operations forces; the actual process of constructing these forces and how this was facilitated or hampered by other agencies of the Soviet and Russian states; and the use of these forces in combat.Bukkvoll uses a variety of sources, but the most important are the recollections of former spetsnaz soldiers and officers themselves, which allow Bukkvoll to present the history of these forces as the men of spetsnaz see and have seen it. Bukkvoll also draws upon observations and judgments from other parts of the Soviet and Russian militaries, from a number of KGB sources, and from independent Russian experts and journalists.Spetsnaz is essential reading for anyone interested in special operations forces or Russian military history.

For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives ("short and lively")—wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again.Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great "sleigh-drive" against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.Through this long view, Citino reveals an essential recurrent pattern—characterized by rapid troop movements and surprise attacks, maneuvers to outflank the enemy, and a determination to annihilate the opposition—that made it possible for the Germans to fight armies often larger than their own. He highlights the aggressiveness of Prussian and German commanders—trained simply to find the enemy and keep attacking—and destroys the myth of Auftragstaktik ("flexible command"), replacing it with the independence of subordinate commanders. He also brings new interpretations to well-known operations, such as Moltke's 1866 campaign and the opening campaign in 1914, while introducing readers to less familiar but important battles like Langensalza and the Annaberg.The German way of war, as Citino shows, was fostered by the development of a widely accepted and deeply embedded military culture that supported and rewarded aggression. His book offers a fresh look at one of the most remarkable, respected, and reviled militaries of the past half millennium and marks another sterling contribution to the history of operational warfare.

For Hitler and the German military, 1942 was a key turning point of World War II, as an overstretched but still lethal Wehrmacht replaced brilliant victories and huge territorial gains with stalemates and strategic retreats. In this major reevaluation of that crucial year, Robert Citino shows that the German army's emerging woes were rooted as much in its addiction to the ""war of movement""—attempts to smash the enemy in ""short and lively"" campaigns—as they were in Hitler's deeply flawed management of the war.From the overwhelming operational victories at Kerch and Kharkov in May to the catastrophic defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, Death of the Wehrmacht offers an eye-opening new view of that decisive year. Building upon his widely respected critique in The German Way of War, Citino shows how the campaigns of 1942 fit within the centuries-old patterns of Prussian/German warmaking and ultimately doomed Hitler's expansionist ambitions. He examines every major campaign and battle in the Russian and North African theaters throughout the year to assess how a military geared to quick and decisive victories coped when the tide turned against it.Citino also reconstructs the German generals' view of the war and illuminates the multiple contingencies that might have produced more favorable results. In addition, he cites the fatal extreme aggressiveness of German commanders like Erwin Rommel and assesses how the German system of command and its commitment to the ""independence of subordinate commanders"" suffered under the thumb of Hitler and chief of staff General Franz Halder.More than the turning point of a war, 1942 marked the death of a very old and traditional pattern of warmaking, with the classic ""German way of war"" unable to meet the challenges of the twentieth century. Blending masterly research with a gripping narrative, Citino's remarkable work provides a fresh and revealing look at how one of history's most powerful armies began to founder in its quest for world domination.

Winner of the Arthur Goodzeit AwardThroughout 1943, the German army, heirs to a military tradition that demanded and perfected relentless offensive operations, succumbed to the realities of its own overreach and the demands of twentieth-century industrialized warfare. In his new study, prizewinning author Robert Citino chronicles this weakening Wehrmacht, now fighting desperately on the defensive but still remarkably dangerous and lethal. Drawing on his impeccable command of German-language sources, Citino offers fresh, vivid, and detailed treatments of key campaigns during this fateful year: the Allied landings in North Africa, General von Manstein's great counterstroke in front of Kharkov, the German attack at Kasserine Pass, the titanic engagement of tanks and men at Kursk, the Soviet counteroffensives at Orel and Belgorod, and the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. Through these events, he reveals how a military establishment historically configured for violent aggression reacted when the tables were turned; how German commanders viewed their newest enemy, the U.S. Army, after brutal fighting against the British and Soviets; and why, despite their superiority in materiel and manpower, the Allies were unable to turn 1943 into a much more decisive year. Applying the keen operational analysis for which he is so highly regarded, Citino contends that virtually every flawed German decision-to defend Tunis, to attack at Kursk and then call off the offensive, to abandon Sicily, to defend Italy high up the boot and then down much closer to the toe-had strong supporters among the army's officer corps. He looks at all of these engagements from the perspective of each combatant nation and also establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the synergistic interplay between the fronts. Ultimately, Citino produces a grim portrait of the German officer corps, dispelling the longstanding tendency to blame every bad decision on Hitler. Filled with telling vignettes and sharp portraits and copiously documented, The Wehrmacht Retreats is a dramatic and fast-paced narrative that will engage military historians and general readers alike.

This pioneering study focuses on the experiences and writings of the surprisingly large number of Prussian, British, and French military observers who witnessed the Civil War firsthand. Luvaas's fascinating account reveals why they came, what they wrote, what their armies learned (or failed to learn) from their reports, and how their writings influenced later European military theorists.For this edition, Luvaas has added a thoughtful introduction that analyzes why some "military lessons" are learned and others ignored and examines the extent to which such lessons can be applied to subsequent conflicts.

Four months before Pearl Harbour, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met in secret aboard a ship in a secluded Newfoundland harbour. This was the first summit conference of World War II. Although it would soon be overshadowed by the events to come, the 1941 summit at Placentia Bay produced dramatic results. It confirmed the policy of material aid for Britain and sanctioned the ""Atlantic Charter"". It also laid the groundwork for the three-way alliance that would bring about the destruction of the Axis powers. In this revised edition of his study, historian Theodore Wilson has expanded and updated the narrative. Drawing upon primary sources made available since the first edition he has added new material. Wilson analyzes the events of August 1941 and concludes that President Roosevelt was not totally in control. As the country lurched from crisis to crisis, bureaucratic politics and organizational dynamics were far more influential than FDR in determining the evolution of US strategy, US policy toward Japan, Anglo-American economic relations, and the efforts to mobilize for war. Wilson also recaptures the drama and colour of the shipboard discussions - from Roosevelt's bizarre working methods to Churchill's choice of entertainment in the evenings.

An account of the Vietnam War, as seen by the American PFCs, sergeants and platoon leaders in the rivers and jungles and trenches. Into their stories, Lehrack has woven a narrative that explains the events they describe and places them into both a historical and a political context. The book tells the story of teenagers leading squads of men into the jungle on night missions, the story of boredom, confusion, and equipment shortages, of friends suddenly blown away, of disappointing homecomings. It is also the story of young men placed under unbearable strain and asked to do the impossible, who somehow stretched to meet the demands placed upon them.

Examining citizenship and military manpower policy in the United States, this book reviews pertinent American history and investigates such issues as voluntarism versus conscription, forces-in-being versus mobilisation, social welfare versus military readiness, and big wars versus small.

Jefferson Davis is a historical figure who provokes strong passions among scholars. Through the years historians have place him at both ends of the spectrum: some have portrayed him as a hero, others have judged him incompetent. In ""Jefferson Davis and his Generals"", Steven Woodworth aims to show that both extremes are accurate - Davis was both heroic and incompetent. Yet neither viewpoint reveals the whole truth about this complicated figure. Woodworth's portrait of Davis reveals an experienced, talented, and courageous leader who, nevertheless, undermined the Confederacy's cause in the trans-Appalachian west, where the South lost the war.

It took the US army two full years after the attack on Pearl Harbour to break the radio codes of the Japanese Imperial Army. But by 1944, the US was decoding more than 20,000 messages a month filled with information about enemy movements, strategy, fortifications, troop strengths and supply convoys. In MacArthur's ULTRA, historian Edward Drea recounts the story behind the army's painstaking operation and its dramatic breakthrough. He demonstrates how ULTRA (intelligence from decrypted Japanese radio communications) shaped MacArthur's operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. By correlating the existing intelligence with MacArthur's operational decisions, Drea shows how MacArthur used - and misused - intelligence information. He also clarifies the role of ULTRA in Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, and examines the role of ULTRA on the outcome of World War II.

Since 1798, when Congress authorised John Adams to employ the navy to capture armed French vessels preying on American shipping along the Atlantic coast, US presidents have grappled with the complexities of war. Some have dealt with it skilfully while others have tended towards the inept. Some have wanted to exert their war powers while others have shied away from them. Some have been successful while others have not. Never having had their authority clearly defined, the presidents, as commanders in chief, have been allowed to interpret the scope of their involvement in wartime decision-making. The question of whether a president can order forces into combat against another nation has never been resolved and precedent supports both sides. ""Essentially, says Raymond O'Connor, ""the president can do whatever he can get away with."" ""Commanders in Chief"" offering an enlightening look at the president's constitutional and political roles during wartime, brings together the work of several prominent historians. These experts analyse the war powers of the presidency as well as the wartime leadership of six presidents - William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Two of the authors take provocative revisionist views of their subjects. Lewis Gould asserts that McKinley delivered able and talented leadership during the Spanish-American War, while Robert Ferrell sharply criticises Wilson's leadership during World War I. On the other hand, Warren Kimball emphatically confirms the high ranking by most scholars of Roosevelt as the most gifted wartime chief executive of the 20th century, and Clayton James substantiates Truman's strong and pragmatic leadership in two conflicts. In Frank Vandiver's essay on Johnson, and Stephen Ambrose's on Nixon, the authors emphasise the diversity of challenges the two presidents faced during the controversial Vietnam War. Revising and updating earlier studies, including ""The Ultimate Decision: The President as Commander in Chief"", the 1960 collection edited by Ernest May, this book offers a thoughtful critique of the character and capabilities of America's modern commanders in chief.

Harry Truman's administration began searching for an American response to the clash in Indochina between French colonialism and Vietminh communism in 1945. 30 years and five administrations later, Gerald Ford and his aides tried unsuccessfully to solicit additional aid for South Vietnam from a reluctant Congress. For Truman, Ford and every American leader in between, the dilemma in Vietnam hung ominously over the presidency. In ""Shadow on the White House"", seven historians examine how the leadership of six presidents and an issue that grew into a difficult and often unpopular war shaped each other. Focusing on the personalities, politics, priorities and actions of the presidents as they confronted Vietnam, the authors consider the expansion of presidential power in foreign-policy formulation since World War II. In their analyses, they chronicle the history of executive leadership as it related to Vietnam, assess the presidential prerogatives and motives on war and peace issues, and clarify the interconnection between the modern presidency and the nation's frustrating and humiliating failure in Southeast Asia. Although other histories have been written about the Vietnam experience, this book is a systematic and comparative survey on presidential leadership as it relates to the war issue. It is organised by presidential administrations, giving a detailed examination of each president's decisions and policies. Based on the most recently opened archival sources, the essays provide a framework on which to hang the events of the war.

The Marine Corps - the elite fighting force in America's military - has not always been highly regarded. As Jacki Shulimson shows, only a century ago the Corps' identity and existence were much in question. Although the Marines were formally established by Congress in 1798 and subsequently distinguished themselves fighting on the Barbary Coast, their essential mission and identity remained unclear throughout most of the 19th century. But amid the cross-currents of industrialisation, technological change, professionalisation and reform that emerged in ""Gilded Age America"", the Corps underwent a gradual transformation that ultimately secured its significant and enduring military role. In this study, Shulimson argues that the Marine Corps officers' inextricable ties to the Navy both hampered and aided their attempt to define their own special jurisdiction and professional identity. Often treated like a poor relation, the Marine officers frequently found themselves in direct competition with their counterparts in the Navy and at times the object of the latter's scorn. Shulimson reveals the processes, politics and personalities that converged to create these tense and sometimes embattled relations, but he goes on to show how marine officers (with the Navy's blessing) eventually transcended their second-class role.

Between 1919 and 1933, German military leaders created and nurtured the Reichswehr, a new military organisation built on the wreckage of the old Imperial Army. James Corum traces the crucial transformations in military tactical doctrine, organisation and training that laid the foundations for the Nazi Blitzkrieg. He aims to provide a clear understanding of military thinking, reform and reorganisation in post-World War I Germany, as well as to raise important questions regarding fundamental processes in the study and development of military doctrine.

Lyndon Johnson, when it comes to his role in the Vietnam war, is popularly portrayed as an irrational ""hawkish"" leader who bullied his advisers and refused to solicit a wide range of opinions. That depiction, David Barrett, argues, is simplistic and far from accurate. Johnson zealously worked to shroud his advisory system in secrecy, fearing leaks that might prematurely foreclose his options. The result, says Barrett, is that Johnson appeared to ignore diverse and dissenting opinions, relying instead on a few like-minded advisers. Barrett contends that this insistence on secrecy, plus Johnson's colourful personality, has overshadowed his approach to policymaking and his consideration of a wide spectrum of opinion from a variety of formal and informal advisers. In this book, Barrett presents evidence showing Johnson developed a complex system of consultation. He systematically assesses Johnson's encounters with his advisers and records how the president, the advisers, and outside observers viewed the adviser/advisee relationships. Following a paper trail of memoranda, letters, diaries and notes, Barrett not only examines how Johnson dealt with his advisers and developed an advisory system, but delves into Johnson's personality and style to show their impact on his decisions. Despite Johnson's willingness to consider opposing viewpoints, Barrett concedes, his rational advisory system nevertheless produced a flawed and fatal set of policies because they were based on an increasingly outdated world view.

Following the fall of Atlanta, rebel commander John Bell Hood rallied his demoralized troops and marched them off the Tennessee, desperately hoping to draw Sherman after him and forestall the Confederacy's defeat. But Sherman refused to be lured and began his infamous "March to the Sea," while Hood charged headlong into catastrophe.In this compelling dramatic account of a final and fatal invasion by the Confederate Army of Tennessee, Wile Sword illuminates the missed opportunities, senseless bloody assaults, poor command decisions, and stubborn pride that resulted in 23,500 Confederate losses—including 7,00 casualties in one battle—and the pulverization of the South's second largest army.Sword follows Hood and his army as they let an early advantage and possible victory slip away at Spring Hill, then engage in a reckless and ill-fated frontal attack on Franklin, often called the "Gettysburg of the West." Despite that disaster, Hood refuses to yield and presses on the Nashville and a two-day bloodbath that unhinges what is left of his battered troops—the worst defeat suffered by any army during the war.Telling the story from both the Confederate and the Union perspectives, Sword pursues personalities as well as battles and troop strategy. He portrays Hood as a gutsy yet irresponsible leader—"a fool with a license to kill his own men"—whose valiant but rapidly dwindling troops were no match for the methodical General George G. Thomas and his better prepared—and entrenched—Union army. Hood, however, was not entirely to blame for Confederate failures, says Sword, who shows how decision making and actions—both good and bad, logical and chaotic—by key players on both sides helped determine the battles' outcomes.

Drawing from a wide range of sources, including official documents, first-person accounts, histories and personal letters, in addition to folklore and fiction, this book examines the common structure and themes of American prisoner-of-war narratives.

June 6, 1944: the Allies launch the largest combined aerial and amphibious assault in modern history. Taking the Germans by surprise, they storm the heavily fortified defences at the beachheads along the Normandy coast. The cost in Allied lives is enormous (nearly 10,000 lost at Omaha alone), but the long-awaited Second Front is finally opened, marking the beginning of the end for Hitler's Third Reich. 50 years later, we are still trying to come to grips with the impact of what General Dwight Eisenhower called ""this great and noble undertaking"". In ""D-Day 1944"" 20 authors reassess the meanings and lessons of this monumental event and show why it retains such a prominent place in our national memory. Drawing upon a vast array of newly available archival sources, these authors extend and revise our understanding of coalition warmaking, the controversy over opening the Second Front, the logistics of operations ""Bolero"" and ""Overlord"", air and naval operations, small unit training and combat, the unique contributions of ""special forces"" and of ""Ultra"" and ""Fortitude"" intelligence, the war zone experience for French civilians, Eisenhower's leadership, and the comparative performances of the American, British and Canadian forces in combat. ""D-Day 1944"" also features valuable eyewitness commentaries by General Omar Bradley, Vice-Admiral Friedrich Ruge (German Navy), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Don Whitehead, and George Marshall's biographer Forrest Pogue. Together, these essays remind us why a half century later D-Day remains one of the true defining moments of World War II.

As a war correspondent, Wilbur Fisk was an amateur, yet his letters to the Montpelier ""Green Mountain Freeman"" comprise one of the finest collections of Civil War letters in existence. But Fisk was no novelist. He was a rural school teacher from Vermont, primarily self-educated, who enlisted in the Union Army simply because he believed he would regret it later if he didn't. Between December 11, 1861, and July 26, 1865, Fisk wrote nearly 100 letters from the battlefield. At the beginning of the war he was exuberant and eager for contact with the enemy. Two years later, Fisk was disillusioned and war weary: ""The rebel dead and ours lay thickly together, their thirst for blood forever quenched. Their bodies were swollen, black and hideously unnatural. Their eyes glared from their sockets, their tongues protruded from their mouths, and in almost every case, clots of blood and mangled flesh showed how they had died, and rendered a sight ghastly beyond description. I though I had become hardened to almost anything, but I cannot say I ever wish to see another sight like that I saw on the battle-field of Gettysburg"". Unlike professional war correspondents, Private Fisk had no access to rank or headquarters. Instead, he wrote of life as a private - as one of the foot soldiers who slept in the mud and obeyed orders no matter how incomprehensible.

Steven Woodworth's previous book, the critically acclaimed Jefferson Davis and His Generals, won the prestigious Fletcher Pratt Award and was a main selection of the History Book Club. In that book he showed how the failures of Davis and his military leaders in the west paved the way for Confederate defeat. In Davis and Lee at War, he concludes his study of Davis as rebel commander-in-chief and shows how the lack of a unified purpose and strategy in the east sealed the Confederacy's fate.Woodworth argues that Davis and Robert E. Lee, the South's greatest military leader, had sharply conflicting views over the proper conduct of the war. Davis was convinced that the South should fight a defensive war, to simply outlast the North's political and popular support for the war. By contrast, Lee and the other eastern generals-notably P.G.T. Beauregard, Gustavus Smith, and Stonewall Jackson-were eager for the offensive. They were convinced that only quick and decisive battlefield victories would prevent the North from eventually defeating them with its overwhelming advantage in men and materials.Davis and Lee, Woodworth shows, shared a mutual respect for each other for most of the war. But it was respect mixed with a stubborn resistance to the other's influence. The result of this tense tug-of-war was Davis's misguided pursuit of a middle ground that gave neither strategy its best chance for success. The war finally ground to a bloody conclusion with Davis as indecisive as ever and virtually blind to how little confidence his generals had in his leadership.Drawing extensively upon the papers of Jefferson Davis and the works of leading Civil War historians, Woodworth places the eastern military campaigns in an entirely new light and expands our understanding of Davis as leader of the Confederacy.

This work offers a view of how the GI and his officers fought the war. The author sets out to demonstrate that the key to the US success was the flexibility and ingenuity of its soldiers. He points out that the most important element in overcoming the Germans was the intelligence of America's front-line officers and troops, and their ability to make sound decisions on the spot. The author also shows the GI as an amateur who learned quickly and well and who, by the end of the war, had turned himself into a formidable enemy.

Following a skirmish on June 28, 1864, a truce is called so the North can remove their dead and wounded. For two hours, Yankees and Rebels mingle, with some of the latter even assisting the former in their grisly work. Newspapers are exchanged. Northern coffee is swapped for Southern tobacco. Yanks crowd around two Rebel generals, soliciting and obtaining autographs.As they part, a Confederate calls to a Yankee, "I hope to miss you, Yank, if I happen to shoot in your direction." "May I, never hit you Johnny if we fight again," comes the reply.The reprieve is short. A couple of months, dozens of battles, and more than 30,000 casualties later, the North takes Atlanta.One of the most dramatic and decisive episodes of the Civil War, the Atlanta Campaign was a military operation carried out on a grand scale across a spectacular landscape that pitted some of the war's best (and worst) general against each other.In Decision in the West, Albert Castel provides the first detailed history of the Campaign published since Jacob D. Cox's version appeared in 1882. Unlike Cox, who was a general in Sherman's army, Castel provides an objective perspective and a comprehensive account based on primary and secondary sources that have become available in the past 110 years.Castel gives a full and balanced treatment to the operations of both the Union and Confederate armies from the perspective of the common soldiers as well as the top generals. He offers new accounts and analyses of many of the major events of the campaign, and, in the process, corrects many long-standing myths, misconceptions, and mistakes. In particular, he challenges the standard view of Sherman's performance.Written in present tense to give a sense of immediacy and greater realism, Decision in the West demonstrates more definitively than any previous book how the capture of Atlanta by Sherman's army occurred and why it assured Northern victory in the Civil War.

This work examines America's wartime propaganda campaign against Nazi Germany. Detailing the creation, evolution and field operations of the various agencies, it shows how they were as much at war with each other as with the Third Reich, due to a failure to establish an official propaganda policy.

This work provides an analysis of the evolution of Stalin's Red Army during the 1930s and its near decimation at the beginning of World War II. It argues that the Stalinist state largely failed in its attempt to use military service as a means to indoctrinate its citizens, especially the peasantry.

This work attempts to present a comprehensive and wide-ranging study on the economics of American warfare, from 1606 to 1865. It focuses on the means used to make and sustain armies and navies that fought during this period.

Author Bradley Smith reveals the surprisingly rich exchange of wartime intelligence between the Anglo-American allies and the Soviet Union, as well as the procedures and politics that made such an exchange possible. Between the late 1930s and 1945, allied intelligence organisations expanded at an enormous rate in order to acquire the secret information their governments needed to win the war. But, as Smith demonstrates, the demand for intelligence far outpaced the ability of any one ally to produce it. For that reason, Washington, London and Moscow were compelled to share some of their most sensitive secrets. Historians have long known about the close Anglo-American intelligence collaboration, but until now the Soviet connection has been largely unexplored. Smith contends that Cold War animosities helped keep this story from a public that might have found it hard to believe that such cooperation was ever possible. In fact, official denials - from such illustrious Cold Warriors as Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell and the CIA's Sherman Kent - continued well into the late 1980s. Smith argues that, contrary to the official story, Soviet-American intelligence exchanges were both extensive and successful. He shows that East and West were not as hostile to each other during the war or as determined to march right off into the Cold War as many have suggested. Among other things, he provides convincing evidence that the US Army gave the Soviets its highest-grade ULTRA intelligence in August 1945 to speed up the Soviet advances in the Far East. Based on interviews and research in Anglo-American archives and despite limited access to tenaciously guarded Soviet documents, Smith's book persuasively demonstrates how reluctant and suspicious allies, driven by the harsh realities of total war, finally set aside their ideological differences to work closely with people they neither trusted not particularly liked.

This text examines Operation FRANTIC, an ambitious but doomed Soviet-American warfare coalition. It was designed to help deliver the final blow to the Nazis, however, despite early periods of comradely euphoria, relations chilled amidst cultural differences and clashing national visions.