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For more than half of its existence, members of the Marine Corps largely self-identified as soldiers. It did not yet mean something distinct to be a Marine, either to themselves or to the public at large. As neither a land-based organization like the Army nor an entirely sea-based one like the Navy, the Corps' missions overlapped with both institutions. This work argues that the Marine Corps could not and would not settle on a mission, and therefore it turned to an image to ensure its institutional survival. The process by which a maligned group of nineteenth-century naval policemen began to consider themselves to be elite warriors benefited from the active engagement of Marine officers with the Corps' historical record as justification for its very being. Rather than look forward and actively seek out a mission that could secure their existence, late nineteenth-century Marines looked backward and embraced the past. They began to justify their existence by invoking their institutional traditions, their many martial engagements, and their claim to be the nation's oldest and proudest military institution. This led them to celebrate themselves as superior to soldiers and sailors. Although there are countless works on this hallowed fighting force, How the Few Became the Proud is the first to explore how the Marine Corps crafted such powerful myths.

One of the most difficult security challenges of the post-Cold War era has been stabilizing failing states in an era of irregular warfare. A consistent component of the strategy to address this problem has been security force assistance where outside powers train and advise the host nation's military. Despite billions of dollars spent, the commitment of thousands of advisors, and innumerable casualties, the American efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq failed catastrophically. Nevertheless, among those colossal military disasters were pockets of success. The Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) held back the Islamic State in 2014 long enough to allow American and allied forces to flow back into the country, and many Afghan commando units fought to the bitter end as their country disintegrated around them. What made those units successful while the larger missions ended disastrously? Author Frank K. Sobchak explores security force assistance across five case studies, examining what factors were most critical for U.S. Special Forces units to build capable partners like the ISOF and the commandos. More specifically, the book assesses the impact of five components of Special Forces advisory missions: language training and cultural awareness of the advising force; the partner force-to-advisor ratio; the advisors' ability to organize host-nation forces; whether advisors are permitted to guide in combat; and the consistency in advisor pairing. Based on the experiences of U.S. Army Special Forces in El Salvador (1981-1991), Colombia (2002-2016), the Philippines (2001-2015), Iraq (2003-2011), and Afghanistan (2007-2021), Sobchak argues that the most crucial factors in producing combat-effective partners are consistency in advisor pairing and maintaining a partner force-to-advisor ratio of twelve special forces soldiers advising a company-sized force or smaller. Intriguingly, and counter to conventional wisdom, at first glance language training and cultural awareness do not seem to be critical factors, as most of the Green Berets that trained units in Iraq and Afghanistan lacked both capabilities. Despite an orthodoxy that argues the opposite, there is little evidence that combat advising is decisive in producing effective partners and there is conflicting evidence that language training and cultural awareness are important. Many of these findings, while focused on Special Forces operations and doctrine, could be used to improve the odds of success for larger security-force assistance missions as well.

This book is a unique combination of intellectual history, personal memoir, and military theory. When Conrad Crane retired from twenty six years of active duty to become a research professor at the Army War College, he never expected to become a modern Cassandra, fated to tell truth to power without being heeded. As he watched the world change after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he warned the Army that it was not prepared for Phase IV stability operations, counterinsurgency, and eventually the reconstruction of Iraq. Eventually his work attracted the attention of Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who along with his Marine counterpart James Mattis, was launching a broad program to make the American military a learning organization better prepared for modern war. Crane soon found himself in charge of a team of Soldiers, Marines, and civilian academics with the mission to create the very counterinsurgency doctrine he had pleaded for. For the next year he wrestled with conflicting ideas, complex personalities, and bureaucratic inertia to create the groundbreaking Field Manual 3-24/ Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency. The process was long and tortuous, and much more complicated than the way it has been characterized so far in other narratives. The end result was a unique blend of traditional and modern theory, tempered by hard lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. Its principles and paradoxes of counterinsurgency, focus on legitimacy, and concepts of operational campaign design have had immense influence on US and NATO doctrine. The new doctrine was not perfect, and had been rushed through production in record time, but the guidance it provided would be an essential element in the Surge in Iraq that secured breathing space for the nascent Iraqi government to solve its political differences. Crane found that out when General Petraeus asked him to come observe the Surge himself in late 2007. Traveling all around that embattled nation, Crane watched the greatest counterinsurgency force the world had ever seen adapting to the exigencies of modern counterinsurgency is a very complex environment. He describes in great detail the hard work of dedicated Soldiers, Marines, and civilians that were creating a mosaic peace out of a mosaic war, in places as disparate as Baghdad, Anbar Province, and the detention facilities at Bucca. There were still problem areas, such as in the British zone and Diyala Province, but the conflict was definitely trending in the right direction. Crane closes his book with an account of what went wrong in Iraq, as the mosaic peace unraveled with the Americandeparture, and also how the new counterinsurgency doctrine was never properly resourced or applied in Afghanistan. His final chapter covers the lessons be believes should be gleaned from the past decade and a half of global war. There have been many critics of the new doctrine, and Crane recounts their arguments and concedes that promises of counterinsurgency were oversold. But much of what has been labeled as counterinsurgency is really just modern warfare, and while the United States is understandably reluctant to engage in further irregular conflicts and nation building, they remain a growth industry in the rest of the world. The United States government, military and civilian agencies, must be prepared to do better next time. And Cassandra says, there will be a next time.

On 26 February 1991, cavalry troops of Cougar Squadron, the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, charged out of a sandstorm during Operation Desert Storm and caught Iraqs Republican Guard Corps in the open desert along the North-South grid line of a military map referred to as the 73 Easting. Taken by surprise, the defending Iraqi armor brigade was swept away in salvos of American tank and missile fire in what became the U.S. Armys largest tank battle since World War II. Douglas Macgregor, the man who trained and led Cougar Squadron into battle, recounts two stories. One is the inspiring tale of the valiant American soldiers, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains who fought and won the battle. The other is a story of failed generalship, one that explains why Iraqs Republican Guard escaped, ensuring that Saddam Husseins regime survived and Americas war with Iraq dragged on. Certain to provoke debate, this is the latest book from the controversial and influential military veteran whose two previous books, Breaking the Phalanx and Transformation Under Fire, are credited with influencing thinking and organization inside Americas ground forces and figure prominently in current discussions about military strategy and defense policies. Its fast-moving battle narrative, told from the vantage point of Macgregors Abrams tank, and its detailed portraits of American soldiers, along with vivid descriptions of the devastating technology of mounted warfare, will captivate anyone with a taste for adventure as well as an interest in contemporary military history.

How does one engage in the study of strategy? Strategy: Context and Adaptation from Archidamus to Airpower argues that strategy is not just concerned with amassing knowledge; it is also about recognizing our imperfect understanding of the environment and respecting the complex nature of adaptation to the unforeseen or unexpected. In essence, the strongest strategists are those who commit to an education that cultivates a more holistic and adaptive way of thinking. With that thought in mind, the contributors to Strategy, each a current or former professor at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, widely considered the Department of Defense's premier school of strategy, offer ways of thinking strategically about a variety of subject matters, from classical history to cyber power. Practitioners in the profession of arms, perhaps more than any other profession, must employ critical thinking where the application of power on land, at sea, in the air, and in space and cyberspace are concerned. Strategy examines various sub-disciplines regarding the use of power, and illuminates different approaches to thinking which have implications beyond the implementation of force.

Less than five years after naval aviation led the forces that defeated Imperial Japan that very organization was in serious trouble. The force had been drastically reduced and, despite the Korean War, growing sentiment supported by no less than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs argued that the new Air Force could do anything naval aviation might be required to do. Meanwhile, the naval aviation mishap rate soared. The very survival of naval aviation was at stake. It took fifty years to turn this around. Today, in spite of hot wars, cold wars, contingencies, and peacetime operations in support of friends and allies, the Navy and Marine Corps accident rate is at least as good as that of the Air Force, and it approaches that of commercial aviation. Gear Up, Mishaps Down explains that this accomplishment was achieved through dedicated and professional leadership, a focus on lessons learned from mishaps and near-mishaps, a willingness to learn from other enterprises, and by better leadership, training, maintenance, supply and more.

Fighting the Fleet recognizes that fleets conduct four distinct but interlocking tasks at the operational level of war-striking, screening, scouting, and basing-and that successful operational art is achieved when they are brought to bear in a cohesive, competitive scheme. In explaining these elements and how they are conjoined for advantage, a central theme emerges: despite the utility and importance of jointness among the armed forces, the effective employment of naval power requires a specialized language and understanding of naval concepts that is often diluted or completely lost when too much jointness is introduced. Woven into the fabric of the book are the fundamental principles of three of the most important naval theorists of the twentieth century: Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske, Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie, and Captain Wayne Hughes. While Cares and Cowden advocate the reinvigoration of combat theory and the appropriate use of operations research, they avoid over-theorizing and have produced a practical guide that empowers fleet planners to wield naval power appropriately and effectively in meeting today's operational and tactical challenges.

"A Pitiful, Unholy Mess is a detailed combat narrative of the 7 December 1941 Japanese attacks on O'ahu's Wheeler, Bellows, and Haleiwa Fields. The work focuses on descriptions of actions in the air and on the ground at the deepest practical tactical level, from both the U.S. and Japanese perspectives. The interwoven nature of the narratives of both sides provides a deep understanding of the events that has been impossible to present heretofore"--

USS Iowa BB-61, the first of four Iowa-class battleships built for the US Navy, was launched in 1942. Capable of thirty-three knots and armed with nine new fifty-caliber sixteen-inch guns, she was the pinnacle of battleship design for the US Navy during World War II. This book tells her story.

On a mission over central Afghanistan, Punk is hit - and taken captive by the Taliban. And after he escapes, the challenge is not over. Because now Punk must navigate the war-torn country not from the skies, but on the ground - seeing up close for the first time the world of resistance fighters, warlords, CIA undercover ops, and corrupt officers.

"'I had no qualms fighting the Australians, just as I have killed without remorse any of the Emperor's enemies: the British, the Americans and the Dutch', so admits Takahiro Sato in this ground-breaking oral history of Japan's Pacific War. Thanks to years of research and over 100 interviews with veterans, the Author has compiled a fascinating collection of personal accounts by former Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen."--

On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines traces the history of the development of military staffs and ideas on the operational level of war and operational art from the Napoleonic Wars to today, viewing them through the lens of Prussia/Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States. B. A. Friedman concludes that the operational level of war should be rejected as fundamentally flawed, but that operational art is an accurate description of the activities of the military staff, an organization developed to provide the brainpower necessary to manage the complexity of modern military operations. Rather than simply serve as an intercession between levels, the military staff exists as an enabler and supporting organization to tacticians and strategists alike. On Operations examines the organization of military staffs, which has changed little since Napoleon's time. Historical examinations of the functions staffs provided to commanders, and the disciplines of the staff officers themselves, leads to conclusions about how best to organize staffs in the future. Friedman demonstrates these ideas through case studies of historical campaigns based on the military discipline system developed.

Marine Maxims is a collection of fifty principle-based leadership lessons that Thomas J. Gordon acquired commanding Marines over a career spanning three decades of service. Dealing with the complexities and challenges of the contemporary operating environment requires an internal moral compass fixed true. These maxims focus on developing inner citadels of character, moral courage, and the resilience to persevere in a contested domain where information is key. Its purpose is to provide future leaders with a professional development plan that will steel their resolve and enable them to lead with honor. Thematically, these maxims build upon a foundation of character, courage, and will. To be effective, a leader must model and inspire the will to persevere in the face of danger or adversity. The essence of effective leadership is credibility. A leader's credibility is derived from a congruence of competence and character. Exceptional leaders are not remembered for what they accomplished, but how they did it. Those that lead with integrity will be remembered as a leader worth following.

Chronicles the planning and conduct of Operation Inherent Resolve by US Central Command (CENTCOM) from August 2014 to mid-2018, with a principal focus on the contributions of US Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT).

July 1918. Preparing to speak to an eager audience, 61-year-old Teddy Roosevelt receives the telegram that all parents of children who serve in war fear most: His son Quentin's plane has been shot down in a dogfight over France. His fate is unknown. Despite rising fear for his youngest son, Teddy takes the stage to speak to his beloved fellow citizens. It is, he says, "e;my simple duty."e; But the speech evolves from politics and the war, into an examination of his life, the choices he's made, and the costs of his "e;Warrior Philosophy."e; Overflowing with his love of nature, adventure, and justice, Teddy dramatically illustrates the life of one of America's greatest presidents. His many accomplishments ranged from charging up San Juan Hill in Cuba as commander of the Rough Riders, to facing down U.S. corporate monopolies, to launching the Great White Fleet, building the Panama Canal, and the preservation of hundreds of millions of acres of natural American beauty. And finally, to the vigorous life at Sagamore Hill and his immense pride in a beloved and rambunctious family. Teddy reveals how even the greatest of men is still just a man, and how even the most modest man can grow to be great.

Readers with a penchant for real-life cloak-and-dagger stories won't be disappointed with this memoir. Dan Pinck's World War II adventures behind Japanese lines in China resulted in vital information being passed along to the Allies and his up close-and-personal look at the world of covert military operations in that country will fascinate.

Into the thick of the choking smoke and fury came a hero with a white cross on his helmet. 'Padre' to the Catholic, 'Rabbi Joe' to the Jewish boys, Chaplain O'Callahan was 'Father' to everyone on board. Father O'Callahan tells of his own experiences, recapturing the perilous and heroic drama of the Franklin, the most damaged ship to ever reach port.

This practical guide advises officers of all paygrades, experience levels, and warfare communities on life and work in Washington, D.C., and in the Pentagon, in particular.

On July 31, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox began a reconnaissance cruise off the coast of North Vietnam. On August 2 three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the ship prompting US retaliation. The author compares eye witness accounts with other forms of available evidence to conclude that that no attack occurred that night.

The Civil War is often considered a "soldiers war", but Life in Jefferson Davis's Navy acknowledges the legacy of courage, endurance and the ability of the officers and men of the Confederate States Navy. In this full length study Tomblin addresses every aspect of a Confederate sailor's life.

The 'Stan is a collection of short comics about America's longest war. Individual stories highlight different perspectives-one through the eyes of a Taliban ambassador and others through the eyes of Afghan and U.S. Army soldiers-but every account highlights the human element of war. The tales in this book-based on reporting by David Axe and Kevin Knodell and drawn by artist Blue Delliquanti-are all true and took place in roughly the first decade of the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. While the stories are from the recent past, The 'Stan is still very much about Afghanistan's and America's present-and likely their future.

In 1921 Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims won the Pulitzer prize in history for Victory at Sea. The commander of US naval forces operating in European waters during the WWI, Sims offers an authoritative account of the US Navy's role in the war.

From unpromising beginnings in March 1942, the Allied submarine base at Fremantle on the west coast of Australia became a vital part of the Allied offensive against Japan. Pushed back from the Philippines and the Netherlands' East Indies, American submariners, accompanied by a small group of Dutch forces, retreated to Fremantle as a last resort. The location was chosen for its good harbor and the fact that it was outside the range of land-based Japanese aircraft. Unfortunately the base was also far from their patrol areas and supply lines, and it was difficult to reinforce should the enemy attack. Thanks largely to a welcoming civilian population, morale quickly improved. The hospitality and sense of belonging fostered by Western Australians became legendary among Allied submariners and remains central to their wartime memories. Perhaps as a result of such a positive experience, the Allied forces became much more successful in combat. Intertwining social and military history, Fremantle's Submarines relates how courage, cooperation, and community made Fremantle arguably the most successful military outpost of World War II from the standpoint of troop morale.

Admiral Raoul Castex is France's most important modern naval strategist. Military historian Eugenia Kiesling offers the essence of Castex's original five volume study, Theories Strategiques, in a useful one-volume abridgment and a very readable translation. It emphasizes the admiral's method of strategic analysis while omitting most of the historical narrative. Included are chapters defining strategy and relating it to policy and geography, analyzing the role of maritime forces and the significance of command at sea, prescribing a theory of conduct of operations, and introducing Castex's favorite themes: strategic manoeuvre, strategie generale, and the theory of "e;perturbation."e; Two narrative chapters on German operations in the North Sea from 1914 to 1916 remain as examples of the author's historical style. The introduction places Castex's work in four distinct contexts: the international debate among naval theorists on the nature and importance of "e;command at sea,"e; the controversy within France between advocates of the "e;historical"e; and "e;material"e; schools of naval strategy, the contemporary concern over coordinated naval strategy for total war, and his contribution to the formulation of French strategy between the world wars. In an era of expanding global responsibilities and shrinking national economies, Castex's balanced view of naval power offers many insights for today's new generation of naval thinkers.

The publication of this long out-of-print book should facilitate the ongoing conversation on how the American war in Vietnam continues to serve as a comparison for more recent U.S. overseas military campaigns.Thomas C. Thayers War Without Fronts, first appearing in 1985, offered an analysis of U.S. military operations in the Vietnam War. Thayer had worked as a systems analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the late 1960s and early 1970s, compiling data to better understand the war and hopefully find trends that might help improve U.S. civil and military operations. While Thayer publicized his findings through a series of reports and newsletters distributed within the defense community, not until the publication of War Without Fronts was this information available to the outside world. His work thus offers an insiders view of American military strategy during the Vietnam War.Thayer provides a window into the world of systems analysts trying to make sense of one of the United States most complex wars of the twentieth century. Within the charts and tables is a search for meaning, an attempt to explain why America lost its first overseas war. While Thayer believed the war in Vietnam unwinnable, at least as fought, his work offers a treasure trove of data for those seeking to gain a better understanding for the conduct of American soldiers in Vietnam and how military operations affected the Vietnamese people.

Originally published in 1990, Sky Ships is the most comprehensive history of US Navy airships ever written. The Naval Institute Press is releasing this new edition - complete with two hundred new photographs--to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the book's publication.

Before Jutland is a definitive study of the naval engagements in northern European waters in 1914-15 when the German High Sea Fleet faced the Grand Fleet in the North Sea and the Russian Fleet in the Baltic. Author James Goldrick reexamines one of the key periods of naval operations in the First World War, arguing that a focus on the campaign on the western front conceals the reality that the Great War was also a maritime conflict. Combining new historical information from primary sources with a comprehensive analysis of the operational issues, this book is an extensive revision of The King's Ships Were at Sea, Goldrick's earlier work on this naval campaign. In all, Before Jutland shows not only what happened, but how the various navies evolved to meet the challenges that they faced during the Great War and whether or not that evolution was successful.

Written by veteran aerospace journalist Bob Ward, who spent years investigating his subject, the father of modern rocketry, this biography presents a revealing but even-handed portrait of the one-time Nazi Party member who brought the United States into the Space Age.

This is the first biography of Capt. Joe Rochefort, the Officer in Charge of Station Hypo the U.S. Navys decrypt unit at Pearl Harbor and his key role in breaking the Imperial Japanese Navys main code before the Battle of Midway. It brings together the disparate threads of Rocheforts life and career, beginning with his enlistment in the Naval Reserve in 1918 at age 17 (dropping out of high school and adding a year to his age). It chronicles his earliest days as a mustang (an officer who has risen from the ranks), his fortuitous posting to Washington, where he headed the Navys codebreaking desk at age 25, then, in another unexpected twist, found himself assigned to Tokyo to learn Japanese.This biography records Rocheforts surprising love-hate relationship with cryptanalysis, his joyful exit from the field, his love of sea duty, his adventure-filled years in the 30s as the right-hand man to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, and his reluctant return to codebreaking in mid-1941 when he was ordered to head the Navys decrypt unit at Pearl (Station Hypo).The book focuses on Rocheforts inspiring leadership of Hypo, recording first his frustrating months in late 1941 searching for Yamamotos fleet, then capturing a guilt-ridden Rochefort in early 1942 mounting a redemptive effort to track that fleet after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor . It details his critical role in May 1942 when he and his team, against the bitter opposition of some top Navy brass, concluded Midway was Yamamotos invasion target, making possible a victory regarded by many as the turning point in the Pacific War.The account also tells the story of Rocheforts ouster from Pearl, the result of the machinations of key officers in Washington, first to deny him the Distinguished Service Medal recommended by Admiral Nimitz, then to effect his removal as OIC of Hypo. The book reports his productive final years in the Navy when he supervises the building of a floating drydock on the West Coast, then, back in Washington, finds himself directing a planning body charged with doing spade work leading to the invasion of Japan. The Epilogue narrates the postwar effort waged by Rocheforts Hypo colleagues to obtain for him the DSM denied in 1942a drive that pays off in 1986 when President Reagan awards him the medal posthumously at a White House ceremony attended by his daughter and son. It also explores Rocheforts legacy, primarily his pioneering role at Pearl in which, contrary to Washingtons wishes, he reported directly to Commander in Chief, US Fleet, providing actionable intelligence without any delays and enabling codebreaking to play the key role it did in the Battle of Midway.Ultimately, this book is aimed at bringing Joe Rochefort to life as the irreverent, fiercely independent and consequential officer that he was. It assumes his career cant be understood without looking at his entire life. It seeks to capture the interplay of policy and personality, and the role played by politics and personal rifts at the highest levels of Navy power during a time of national crisis. This bio emerges as a history of the Navys intelligence culture.