Armies Of Sand

Author : Kenneth Michael Pollack
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190906960
Total Pages : 697 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Armies of Sand written by Kenneth Michael Pollack and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armies of Sand asks, 'why have Arab militaries fought so poorly in the modern era?' It examines the performance of over two-dozen Arab militaries from 1948 to 2017, and compares them to a half-dozen non-Arab militaries, to conclude that politics, economics, and culture all contributed to the past weakness of Arab armies.

Author : Kenneth M. Pollack
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190906987
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Armies of Sand written by Kenneth M. Pollack and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-06 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil-military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties. Armies of Sand, Kenneth M. Pollack's powerful and riveting history of Arab armies from the end of World War Two to the present, assesses these differing explanations and isolates the most important causes. Over the course of the book, he examines the combat performance of fifteen Arab armies and air forces in virtually every Middle Eastern war, from the Jordanians and Syrians in 1948 to Hizballah in 2006 and the Iraqis and ISIS in 2014-2017. He then compares these experiences to the performance of the Argentine, Chadian, Chinese, Cuban, North Korean, and South Vietnamese armed forces in their own combat operations during the twentieth century. The book ultimately concludes that reliance on Soviet doctrine was more of a help than a hindrance to the Arabs. In contrast, politicization and underdevelopment were both important factors limiting Arab military effectiveness, but patterns of behavior derived from the dominant Arab culture was the most important factor of all. Pollack closes with a discussion of the rapid changes occurring across the Arab world-political, economic, and cultural-as well as the rapid evolution in war making as a result of the information revolution. He suggests that because both Arab society and warfare are changing, the problems that have bedeviled Arab armed forces in the past could dissipate or even vanish in the future, with potentially dramatic consequences for the Middle East military balance. Sweeping in its historical coverage and highly accessible, this will be the go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of warfare in the Middle East since 1945.

Author : Zoltan Barany
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190866209
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Armies of Arabia written by Zoltan Barany and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armies of Arabia is the first book to comprehensively analyze the armed forces of the Gulf monarchies. Zoltan Barany explains the conspicuous ineffectiveness of Gulf militaries with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Following a brief exposition on their historical evolution, he explores the region's six armies of the region comparatively, through the lenses of military politics, sociology, economics, and diplomacy. The book'sthemes come together in the last chapter that critically evaluates the Saudi and Emirati armed forces' record in the on-going war in Yemen.

Author :
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 0803287836
Total Pages : 732 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Arabs at War written by and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenneth M. Pollack, formerly a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA and Director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, describes and analyzes theømilitary history of the six key Arab states?Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria?during the post?World War II era. He shows in detail how each Arab military grew and learned from its own experiences in response to the specific objectives set for it and within often constrained political, economic, and social circumstances. This first-ever overview of the modern Arab approach to warfare provides a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the Arab militaries, some of which are the United States? most likely adversaries, and some of which are our most important allies.

Author : Steven R. Ward
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 1626160325
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Immortal, Updated Edition written by Steven R. Ward and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immortal, now in an updated paperback edition, is the only single-volume English-language survey of Iran’s military history. CIA analyst Steven R. Ward shows that Iran’s soldiers, from the famed “Immortals” of ancient Persia to today’s Revolutionary Guard, have demonstrated through the centuries that they should not be underestimated. This history also provides background on the nationalist, tribal, and religious heritages of the country to help readers better understand Iran and its security outlook. Drawing on a wide range of sources including declassified documents, the author gives primary focus to the modern era to relate the buildup of the military under the last Shah, its collapse during the Islamic revolution, its fortunes in the Iran-Iraq War, and its rise from the ashes to help Iran become once again a major regional military power.

Author : Ralph A. Bagnold
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816547734
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sand, Wind, and War written by Ralph A. Bagnold and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sand, Wind, and War records the work, travels and adventures of one of the last of the great British explorers, a man who served in both world wars and carved out a special niche in science through his studies of desert sands. Ralph Alger Bagnold was born in 1896 into a military family and educated as an engineer. Posted to Egypt in 1926, he was one of a group of officers who adapted Model T Fords to desert travel and in 1932 made the first east-west crossing—6,000 miles—of the Libyan desert. Bagnold established such a name for himself that in World War II he was again posted to Egypt where he founded and trained the Long Range Desert Group that was to confound the German and Italian armies. Bagnold’s fascination with the desert included curiosity over the formation of dunes, and beginning in 1935 he conducted wind tunnel experiments with sand that led to the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. Eventually, he was to see his findings called on by NASA to interpret data on the sands of Mars. He devoted subsequent research to particle flow in fluids, and also served as a consultant to Middle Eastern governments concerned with the interference of sand flow in oil drilling. Sand, Wind, and War is the life story of a man who not only helped shape events in one part of the world but also contributed to our understanding of it. It is a significant benchmark not only in the history of science, but also in the annals of adventure.

Author : Peter Caddick-Adams
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199974640
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Monte Cassino written by Peter Caddick-Adams and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an authoritative account of the lesser-known yet devastatingly brutal battle waged by the Italian campaign during World War II.

Author : Frank N. Schubert
Publisher : Government Printing Office
ISBN 13 : 9780160429545
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Whirlwind War written by Frank N. Schubert and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 1995 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CMH Publication 70-30. Edited by Frank N. Schubert and TheresaL. Kraus. Discusses the United States Army's role in the Persian Gulf War from August 1990 to February 1991. Shows the various strands that came together to produce the army of the 1990s and how that army in turn performed under fire and in the glare of world attention. Retains a sense of immediacy in its approach. Contains maps which were carefully researched and compiled as original documents in their own right. Includes an index.

Author : Stephen Biddle
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400837820
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Military Power written by Stephen Biddle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In war, do mass and materiel matter most? Will states with the largest, best equipped, information-technology-rich militaries invariably win? The prevailing answer today among both scholars and policymakers is yes. But this is to overlook force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war, this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war, becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error--with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship. In clear, fluent prose, Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous, multimethod testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. Military Power will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare, the size of the military, and the makeup of the defense budget.

Author : Sandra Postel
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 9780393319378
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pillar Of Sand written by Sandra Postel and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1999-07-06 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Pillar of Sand points the way toward protecting rivers and vital ecosystems even as we aim to produce enough food for a projected 8 billion people by the year 2030. Postel shows how innovative irrigation technologies and strategies can alleviate hunger and environmental stress at the same time. And she calls for a new ethic of sufficiency and sharing in response to impending water limits."--BOOK JACKET.