In the spring of 2004, army reservist and public affairs officer Steven J. Alvarez waited to be called up as the U.S. military stormed Baghdad and deposed Saddam Hussein. But soon after President Bush’s famous PR stunt in which an aircraft carrier displayed the banner “Mission Accomplished,” the dynamics of the war shifted. Selling War recounts how the U.S. military lost the information war in Iraq by engaging the wrong audiences—that is, the Western media—by ignoring Iraqi citizens and the wider Arab population, and by paying mere lip service to the directive to “Put an Iraqi face on everything.” In the absence of effective communication from the U.S. military, the information void was swiftly filled by Al Qaeda and, eventually, ISIS. As a result, efforts to create and maintain a successful, stable country were complicated and eventually frustrated. Alvarez couples his experiences as a public affairs officer in Iraq with extensive research on communication and government relations to expose why communications failed and led to the breakdown on the ground. A revealing glimpse into the inner workings of the military’s PR machine, where personnel become stewards of presidential legacies and keepers of flawed policies, Selling War provides a critical review of the outdated communication strategies executed in Iraq. Alvarez’s candid account demonstrates how a fundamental lack of understanding about how to wage an information war has led to the conditions we face now: the rise of ISIS and the return of U.S. forces to Iraq.

To be the best, you must learn from the best. Drawing on exclusive interviews with former members of the U.S. Special Forces and leading sales professionals from a variety of industries, executive coach Bill Hart shows you how to develop the mindset, habits, and disciplines to elevate your sales performance to become the elite of your industry. With Hart’s proven tips and practical tools, you’ll learn: · How to train for any situation you’ll encounter in the field · How to overcome fear and channel it into productivity · How to leverage failures for personal growth · How to find your “why” and keep it alive · How to build your team’s shared vision, purpose, and goals Get inspired by these real stories from the very best in action, and discover why “The Way of the Warrior” will put your success within reach.

A same-sex attraction for soldiers and sailors spans the globe and predates the term “homosexual” by several thousand years. But these days “military chasers” are likely to be seen as doubly incorrect. Most are gay men who pursue straight men. And, many of them do it in public. What continues to motivate so many men to brave arrest, violence, and the scorn of gay leaders who condemn any non-gay homosexual desire as “internalized homophobia”?In Military Trade (now updated to include an expanded photo insert!), Steven Zeeland, author of Sailors and Sexual Identity, The Masculine Marine, and Barrack Buddies and Soldier Lovers, brings together an edgy, enlightening, and richly entertaining collection of voices with a passion for servicemen, including: a TV talk-show host who pimped Marines to Hollywood stars a heavy metal superstar who dreams of being reincarnated as a Marine boot a women “trapped in a gay man’s body” who seduces Marines online then dominates them in person with strap-on dildos a former Force Recon Marine who complains of being chased by civilians but is now a Marine-chaser himself By turns steamy, hilarious, appalling, and deeply moving, Military Trade challenges assumptions about both chaser and chased and poses pointed questions about the wisdom of those who seek to divide the world into “straight” and “gay.” The interviews and essays collected in this book suggest that, paradoxically, for many men the advances of the gay rights movement have actually made it more difficult to form affectional bonds with other men. Gay sex has never been more openly advertised. But the military love of comrades is something that gay life can’t offer. Military Trade offers groundbreaking insight into: the difference between “military chasers” and uniform fetishists why gay men prefer sailors and Marines over soldiers and airmen the surprising range of sexual, “buddy,” and even love relationships “chasers” form with servicemen the nuances of “trade” and civil-military male prostitution what has been overlooked in the “sex panic” debate about men who have sex in public places For anyone interested in queer theory, the construction of masculinity, or sex between men outside of gay urban culture--and for anyone who has ever thrilled at the sight of a man in uniform--Military Trade is must reading.

In Buying Military Transformation, Peter Dombrowski and Eugene Gholz analyze the United States military's ongoing effort to capitalize on information technology. New ideas about military doctrine derived from comparisons to Internet Age business practices can be implemented only if the military buys technologically innovative weapons systems. Buying Military Transformation examines how political and military leaders work with the defense industry to develop the small ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, advanced communications equipment, and systems-of-systems integration that will enable the new military format. Dombrowski and Gholz's analysis integrates the political relationship between the defense industry and Congress, the bureaucratic relationship between the firms and the military services, and the technical capabilities of different types of businesses. Many government officials and analysts believe that only entrepreneurial start-up firms or leaders in commercial information technology markets can produce the new, network-oriented military equipment. But Dombrowski and Gholz find that the existing defense industry will be best able to lead military-technology development, even for equipment modeled on the civilian Internet. The U.S. government is already spending billions of dollars each year on its "military transformation" program-money that could be easily misdirected and wasted if policymakers spend it on the wrong projects or work with the wrong firms. In addition to this practical implication, Buying Military Transformation offers key lessons for the theory of "Revolutions in Military Affairs." A series of military analysts have argued that major social and economic changes, like the shift from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age, inherently force related changes in the military. Buying Military Transformation undermines this technologically determinist claim: commercial innovation does not directly determine military innovation; instead, political leadership and military organizations choose the trajectory of defense investment. Militaries should invest in new technology in response to strategic threats and military leaders' professional judgments about the equipment needed to improve military effectiveness. Commercial technological progress by itself does not generate an imperative for military transformation. Clear, cogent, and engaging, Buying Military Transformation is essential reading for journalists, legislators, policymakers, and scholars.