From Army Rangers to Green Berets to the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden, this book explains what makes Special Forces "special," covering the rich and varied history of elite formations in American military history and describing their recruitment, intense training, and equipment in depth. Most civilians have only a vague idea of what the U.S. Special Forces are all about—who they are, how they differ from our "normal" military forces, what they've accomplished throughout our history, and how they operate today. Fighting Elites: A History of U.S. Special Forces examines the rich and varied history of U.S. Special Forces, identifies their contributions to specific conflicts from colonial times forward, and highlights their present operational excellence. In this first-ever reference guide to U.S. Special Forces, military historian John C. Fredriksen provides a carefully balanced presentation, describing all units in their own detailed section that discusses their origins, recruitment, training, tactics, and equipment, and defining military engagements, if known. The text also contains 20 biographical entries of noted personalities associated with special purpose activities.

From political communications expert Dr. Michael Widlanski comes a rich and detailed portrayal of how intellectual arrogance and complacency in our government has led to a failure to effectively use counter-terrorism intelligence. When 3,000 people were murdered in simultaneous terror attacks on September 11, 2001, The New York Times said the attacks came “out of the blue.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Arab-Islamic terrorists had been attacking the West for a decade—in Arabia and Africa, but the attacks began to focus on America itself with the World Trade Center strike in 1993. Dr. Michael Widlanski describes other attacks and plots that were largely forgiven, ignored, or botched by academia, media, and government in this provocative book. He paints a chilling portrait of how our top analytical institutions were unaware as terrorists bragged about their plans, in mosques in New York and New Jersey, while professors, the media, the FBI, the CIA, and CNN all dropped the ball. Terrorists want to get into our head, not into our house. Their goal is not seizing territory, but rather, controlling the mind—including manipulating communication and public opinion. Combating terror means fighting on the battlefield of the mind. Battle for Our Minds confronts this battle, and shows how the West has been defeating itself. Timely, informative, and thoroughly researched, this is an eye-opening portrayal of the top echelons of our country’s counter-terrorism system.

The Europe of Elites is the first comprehensive study of how European political and economic leaders think and feel about Europe and about what course future European integration should take.

Learn the trade secrets of special operatives. It is easy to visualize special operations troops as men in camouflage with painted faces, lurking in the shadows of modern warfare. But the truth is far more complex—and enthralling. A wide array of skills, both physical and cerebral, combines to make up the modern elite soldier. Fighting Techniques of the Elite Forces not only shows the road down which the specialist must travel to reach his place as one of the world's fighting elite, it details the equipment he uses to carry out his missions and the actual techniques he employs. Themed chapters and a wealth of illustrations explain everything you need to know about the formidably trained warriors of the British and Australian SAS, US Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, the French GIGN, and more. Learn how to select a drop zone for parachute insertions or how to execute a High Altitude High Opening (HAHO) insertion when you are twenty miles' distance from your objective. Find out how combat swimmers launch from submarines to carry out beach reconnaissance prior to an invasion. Understand the special considerations and knowledge required to fight and, more importantly, survive in such hostile environments as jungle, desert, or mountain. Discover how today's special operative must master skills as diverse as horsemanship and the compact computer, or how to kill silently with a knife or laser designator. Fighting Techniques of the Elite Forces is a must-have for anyone interested in the covert world of elite forces; it will provide the key to understanding what makes the specialist soldier so very "special."

The most authoritative and up-to-date account available on special forces in history, with texts by noted military historians. Many of the most famous fighting forces in history have been elite units, trained and equipped for particular tasks, whether as imperial guards, shock troops, fighter pilots, or behind-enemy-lines special forces. This highly illustrated survey covers fifty-two such units, from the Persian Immortals of 2,500 years ago to the Delta Force and Green Berets today. These forces are distinguished by: • a willingness to fight to the death (the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae; the Knights of Malta) • a spearhead role (Alexander the Great’s Companion Cavalry; the Mongol Keshik; the Aztec Military Orders) • specialist skills and endurance (Edward III’s longbow men; Navy Seals) • reliability and loyalty to a leader or cause (the Zulu Impis; Mosby’s Rangers in the Civil War) Each profile lists important dates and includes a key battle and quotations from contemporary sources. The wide range of illustrations includes battle scenes and special uniforms and insignia.

In a continuation of the tactics mini-series, this book analyzes the physical tactics of the close-quarter fighting that took place in ruined cities during World War II. Street-to-street fighting in cities was not a new development, but the bombed-out shells of cities and advances in weaponry meant that World War II took such strategies to a new level of savagery and violence. Packed with eye-witness accounts, tutorials from original training manuals, maps, and full-colour artwork, this is an eye-opening insight into the tactics and experiences of infantry fighting their way through ruined cities in the face of heavy casualty rates and vicious resistance.

Over the last two decades, the process of European integration has become interwoven with the theme of citizenship and the debate on the democratic quality of the EU and of its institutions has become more salient. What are the views about Europe which emerge when we interrogate the national elites of the four large South European countries, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and what is their vision of a supra-national citizenship in its different facets? Are these views sufficiently homogeneous and do they distinguish themselves from those of the rest of the European Union to the point of enabling us to talk about a "distinctive region of Europe"? Which interpretation(s) of European citizenship emerges from a systematic exploration of these opinions? Using a set of survey and textual data collected in the framework of the IntUne project, the authors attempt to provide some original answers to these questions. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

Over 100 color paintings of mounted cavalry through the centuries--in the most spectacularly illustrated book on the subject ever published--highlight this tribute to 2,500 years of history's most fascinating fighting force. From the early rise of Assyrians, Persians, Carthaginians, and Romans, view the ascendency of Parthians, Goths, Byzantines, Mongols, and the Ottoman Empire, and follow it to the 20th-century triumphs of Texas Rangers, Russian Cossacks, Bengal Lancers, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Examines techniques used by special forces around the world: the lethal strikes of the Spetsnaz, locks and constrictions used by the Egyptian special forces, U.S. Army throws and holds, and elementary methods taught to Britain's Parachute Regiment.

An original full-length novel set in the Halo universe and based on the New York Times bestselling video game series! It has been six years since the end of the Covenant War...and yet on the planet Carrow, a world on the edge of the Joint Occupation Zone, a decisive new battle suddenly erupts. Human colonists and the alien Sangheili have already been living a tension-filled coexistence in this place, with Unified Earth Government envoy Melody Azikiwe attempting to broker a lasting peace between their two species. But as civil war now engulfs the Sangheili, Melody must act on an additional covert assignment courtesy of the Office of Naval Intelligence: free the SPARTAN-IIs known as Gray Team, held in stasis since the end of the war by a cunning Elite fleetmaster consumed with vengeance. And none can anticipate the ongoing violence leading to the discovery of an even greater, unstoppable threat—one hidden for eons below the surface of the planet...