Author: Mark Moyar
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465093019
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Oppose Any Foe is the epic story of America's most elite warriors: the Special Operations Forces. Born as small appendages to the conventional armies of World War II, the Special Operations Forces have grown into a behemoth of 70,000 troops, including Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, Air Force Night Stalkers, Special Operations Marines, Rangers, and Delta Force. Weaving together their triumphs and tribulations, acclaimed historian Mark Moyar introduces a colorful cast of military men, brimming with exceptional talent, courage and selflessness. In a nation where the military is the most popular institution, America's Special Operations Forces have become the most popular members of the military. Through nighttime raids on enemy compounds and combat advising of resistance movements, special operators have etched their names into the nation's registry of heroes. Yet the public knows little of the journey that they took to reach these heights, a journey that was neither easy nor glamorous. Fighting an uphill battle for most of their seventy-five year history, the Special Operations Forces slipped on many an occasion, and fell far on several. Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama have enthusiastically championed Special Operations Forces, but their enthusiasm has often surpassed their understanding, resulting in misuse or overuse of the troops. Lacking clearly defined missions, Special Operations Forces have had to reinvent themselves time and again to prove their value in the face of fierce critics-many of them from the conventional military, which from the start opposed the segregation of talent in special units. Highlighting both the heroism of America's most elite soldiers and the controversies surrounding their meteoric growth, Oppose Any Foe presents the first comprehensive history of these special warriors and their daring missions. It is essential reading for anyone interested in America's military history-and the future of warfare.

Author: John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Publisher: Delta
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Collected in one illuminating volume, the writings and speeches of John F. Kennedy reveal the man and president who inspired a generation. Here are the words that propelled a nation and moved the world, offering an important portrayal of the 35th president's entire career. Photographs throughout.

Author: Jack Mars
Publisher: Jack Mars
ISBN: 1632918501
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
“One of the best thrillers I have read this year. The plot is intelligent and will keep you hooked from the beginning. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. I can hardly wait for the sequel.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Any Means Necessary) OPPOSE ANY FOE is book #4 in the bestselling Luke Stone thriller series, which begins with ANY MEANS NECESSARY (book #1), a free download with over 250 five star reviews. A small arsenal of U.S. nuclear weapons are stolen from a NATO base in Europe. The world scrambles to figure out who the culprits are and what their target is—and to stop them before they unleash hell on humanity. With only hours left before it is too late, the President has no choice but to call in Luke Stone, the former head of an elite FBI para-military team. Finally getting his life back in order, and with devastating news on his own family front, Luke does not want the job. But with the newly elected female President desperate for his help, he realizes he cannot turn his back on her. In the action-packed, international cat-and-mouse chase that follows, Luke, Ed and his former team will have to be more daring, and break more rules, than ever before. With the fate of the world at stake, Luke heads into the murky fog of war and espionage, and discovers the culprit is not who he thinks it is after all. A political thriller with non-stop action, dramatic international settings and heart-pounding suspense, OPPOSE ANY FOE is book #4 in the bestselling and critically-acclaimed Luke Stone series, an explosive new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #5 in the Luke Stone series is also now available!

Author: Alastair MacKenzie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857721011
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The exploits of the British Army's elite 22nd Special Air Service Regiment - the regiment of the SAS that forms part of the Regular army - are shrouded in mystery and myths abound about its members. But what is the truth behind the public facade of clinical professionalism? How has such a small regiment attracted so many weighty legends? And what is the purpose of the SAS in the 21st century? "Special Force" provides an original and unusually critical overview of the activities of the SAS from the Malayan Emergency of 1950 to the present day. In the context of a detailed and often controversial analysis of the post-war activities of the Regiment, MacKenzie establishes that the Regiment's almost legendary professional competence is often not backed up by reality. Far from being part of a structured deployment of strategic military assets, MacKenzie argues that the use of the SAS in recent years has been primarily driven by the 'entrepreneurial' actions of a few SAS commanding officers. "Special Force" not only offers a revelatory history of the SAS in the modern period, it is also a disturbing expose of the truth behind the myth. It will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the British military - past, present and future.

Author: Mike Ritland
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250024978
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
An insider's account of the world of elite Navy SEAL military canines traces the author's international search for eligible dog combat unit candidates with whom SEAL handlers eventually forged close bonds and saved countless lives.

Author: Ed Catmull
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0593594657
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Author: Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1569769397
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
As a young, black, MIT-educated social scientist, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo landed her dream job at the EPA, working with Al Gore, assisting post-apartheid South Africa. But when she tried to get the government to investigate allegations that a multinational corporation was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans mining vanadium—a vital strategic mineral--she found that the EPA was the first line of defense for the corporation. When the agency stonewalled, Coleman-Adebayo blew the whistle. How could she know that the agency with a hippie-like logo would use every racist and sexist trick in their playbook in retaliation? The EPA cost her her career, endangered her family, and sacrificed more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africa—but also brought about an upwelling of support from others in the federal bureaucracy who were fed up with its crushing repression. Upon prevailing in court, Coleman-Adebayo organized a grassroots struggle to bring protection to all federal employees facing discrimination and retribution from the government. The No FEAR Coalition that she organized waged a two-year-long battle with Congress over the need to protect whistleblowers—and won. This book is her harrowing story.

Author: Linda Robinson
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations Press
ISBN: 9780876095508
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
U.S. special operations forces are doing more things in more places than ever before. They are now active in some seventy countries and, since 2001, have seen their combined budget nearly quintuple -- a trend that seems likely to continue. As the United States seeks ways to tackle a range of security threats worldwide, shore up the resilience of its friends and allies against terrorist and criminal networks, and minimize need for large-scale military interventions, the importance of special operations forces will grow. Yet, the strategic vision for special operations forces has not kept pace with the growing demands for their skills. Most people -- and, indeed, many policymakers -- associate the special operations forces with secret nighttime raids like the one that targeted Osama bin Laden: tactical operations against a particular individual or group. The abilities of special operations forces, however, extend much further, into military training, information operations, civil affairs, and more. As the United States shifts its focus from war fighting to building and supporting its partners, the author argues, it will become critical to better define these strategic capabilities and ensure that special operations forces have the staffing and funding to succeed. The author further calls on the Pentagon to remove bureaucratic and operational obstacles to cooperation among the special operations forces of each service, and between special and conventional forces. She also recommends that all special operations forces commands work to develop a pipeline of talented, motivated officers with expertise in these issues, and that the role of civilian leadership in budget and operational oversight be reinforced.

Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812994930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
An inspiring look at the historic foreign policy triumph of John F. Kennedy’s presidency—the crusade for world peace that consumed his final year in office—by the New York Times bestselling author of The Price of Civilization, Common Wealth, and The End of Poverty The last great campaign of John F. Kennedy’s life was not the battle for reelection he did not live to wage, but the struggle for a sustainable peace with the Soviet Union. To Move the World recalls the extraordinary days from October 1962 to September 1963, when JFK marshaled the power of oratory and his remarkable political skills to establish more peaceful relations with the Soviet Union and a dramatic slowdown in the proliferation of nuclear arms. Kennedy and his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, led their nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the two superpowers came eyeball to eyeball at the nuclear abyss. This near-death experience shook both leaders deeply. Jeffrey D. Sachs shows how Kennedy emerged from the Missile crisis with the determination and prodigious skills to forge a new and less threatening direction for the world. Together, he and Khrushchev would pull the world away from the nuclear precipice, charting a path for future peacemakers to follow. During his final year in office, Kennedy gave a series of speeches in which he pushed back against the momentum of the Cold War to persuade the world that peace with the Soviets was possible. The oratorical high point came on June 10, 1963, when Kennedy delivered the most important foreign policy speech of the modern presidency. He argued against the prevailing pessimism that viewed humanity as doomed by forces beyond its control. Mankind, argued Kennedy, could bring a new peace into reality through a bold vision combined with concrete and practical measures. Achieving the first of those measures in the summer of 1963, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, required more than just speechmaking, however. Kennedy had to use his great gifts of persuasion on multiple fronts—with fractious allies, hawkish Republican congressmen, dubious members of his own administration, and the American and world public—to persuade a skeptical world that cooperation between the superpowers was realistic and necessary. Sachs shows how Kennedy campaigned for his vision and opened the eyes of the American people and the world to the possibilities of peace. Featuring the full text of JFK’s speeches from this period, as well as striking photographs, To Move the World gives us a startlingly fresh perspective on Kennedy’s presidency and a model for strong leadership and problem solving in our time. Praise for To Move the World “Rife with lessons for the current administration . . . We cannot know how many more steps might have been taken under Kennedy’s leadership, but To Move the World urges us to continue on the journey.”—Chicago Tribune “The messages in these four speeches seem all too pertinent today.”—Publishers Weekly

Author: Ruslan Pukhov
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781879944992
Category : Special forces (Military science)
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Introduction / Christopher Marsh -- Russian military special forces / Alexey Ramm -- Russian special operations forces: eight years and three wars / Alexey Nikolsky -- Ukrainian special operations forces / Anton Lavrov -- French special operations forces / Ruslan Pukhov -- German special forces / Sergey Denisentsev -- Italian special operations forces / Mikhail Barabanov -- Polish special forces / Ruslan Pukhov -- Iranian special forces / Yuri Liamin -- Israeli special forces / Mikhail Barabanov -- Jordanian Joint Special Operations Command / Maxim Shepovalenko -- From Akinjis to Maroon Berets: an assessment of the Turkish Special Forces Command and other elite units in Turkey / Metin Gurcan and Alexander Vasilyev -- Chinese special operations forces / Vasiliy Kashin -- At the edges of a spear's tip: Singapore's Special Operations Task Force / Graham Ong-Webb -- Colombian special operations forces / Nikita Lomov -- Algerian special operations forces / Akram Kharief