S2 Actual reading list

Military Deception: Hiding The Real - Showing The Fake - Denial Operations, Propaganda, Disinformation, Joint Doctrine, Soviet Maskirovka, Desert Storm Persian Gulf War Examples

U.S. Government

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this book discusses military deception techniques and history. "Military deception" is an umbrella term that includes both denial and deception. Denial hides the real and deception shows the fake. Denial and deception are operations; propaganda and disinformation are the products. Joint doctrine says that military deception, as applied by a joint force commander (JFC), targets an adversary's decision-making process. Ultimately, the intent is to shape the adversary's behavior in the JFC's favor or to cause an adversary to form an inaccurate impression of the battlespace. Consequently, planning for deception operations depends on intelligence and security for success. Obviously, a commander wants to conceal deception efforts from the enemy, but often he'll conceal all or some of his efforts from his own troops to prevent confusion and/or compromise of the plan. During the early years of Soviet involvement in World War II, mishandling of information by soldiers and planners resulted in the compromise of many maskirovka (or deception) operations. As a result, the Soviets implemented aggressive security measures to protect their deception plans. Specifically, Soviet commanders restricted the number of planners and documents involved in the deception operations and communicated to subordinates only what they needed to know, when they needed to know it. The general enjoyed his breakfast while reading his morning paper and listening to the international news channel. Hearing the Balkans mentioned—his area of responsibility—he looked up as a foreign correspondent began to comment on the aftermath of an Allied bombing mission from the day before. The gruesome details suddenly made the general's scrambled eggs a bit less appealing. The graphic pictures showed what appeared to be the remnants of an orphanage. There in the rubble lay a bloodstained, tattered doll. Those images left him wondering about the carnage that lay beneath the collapsed brick and mortar. Had his staff miscalculated and inadvertently struck an orphanage? A similar misstep had occurred a few weeks ago when another bombing mission resulted in civilian casualties in a marketplace. As the general bemoaned the potential ramifications of accidentally bombing an orphanage, a memory surfaced. Years of flying high-performance aircraft had sharpened his senses, and something about the scene seemed familiar. Could that be the same bloodstained doll he had seen in photographs of the earlier marketplace mishap? The general had been briefed on the enemy's rather low-tech yet successful use of deception. Was he, along with the rest of the world, a target of military deception? As he pondered this, his pager went off. This fictitious example illustrates both how easy it is to manipulate the media in deception operations and how a thorough understanding of deception can help prevent a military leader from falling victim to it. The U.S. military is transforming itself with technological advancements in warfighting capability. Weapon systems, force structure and training have all improved. The amount and kind of information available to the warfighter is also improving. But even a technologically advanced nation like the United States is susceptible to deception. Analysis of friendly and enemy deception techniques in Operations DESERT STORM and ALLIED FORCE shows the main U.S. vulnerabilities to include its insatiable appetite for "news," the lack of deception-detection expertise in the military, and the tendency to believe that technological advancements make a nation deception-proof. Therefore, the key to mitigating the U.S. vulnerabilities to deception lies in educating the media about the military and common deception practices, giving the military intensive deception-detection training, and abandoning the notion that technolo

My Commando Operations: The Memoirs of Hitler's Most Daring Commando

Otto Skorzeny

The memoirs of the legendary Skorzeny appear here in its first unabridged English edition. Skorzeny's fame began with the successful raid to free Benito Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, Italy in 1943. His elite commandos surprised Italian guards in a daring daytime raid. Hitler presented Skorzeny with the Knight's Cross for this operation. Not only is this raid explained in minute detail, many of Skorzeny's previously unknown operations in all European and Russian theatres of World War II are given in detailed accounts. Operation Griffin - the innovative use of German Kommandos dressed as American soldiers working behind enemy lines - during the Ardennes Offensive in 1944 is given in-depth coverage, as is Skorzeny's rememberances on the Malmedy massacre. Skorzeny also offers his insights into the mysterious Rudolf Hess mission to England in May 1941, and offers a behind the scenes look at German and Russian secret military intelligence, and the workings of Canaris and Gehlen. ***This 1997 Schiffer edition has the same ISBN (0887407188. 9780887407185) as the 1995 edition from the same publisher, though the dust-jacket is completely different.***

PAVN: People's Army of Vietnam

Douglas Pike

Da Capo Press · 1991

From the original 34-man Armed Propaganda Team of the 1930s, headed by Vo Nguyen Giap and managed by Ho Chi Minh, the People's Army of Vietnam has grown into the third largest military force in the world, exceeded only by the armies of the USSR and China. When viewed in terms of military capability and success, it is a phenomenon. Since its inception, the PAVN has taken on two major powers - France and the United States - and won decisive victories. It is this phenomenon that Douglas Pike describes in this work. At the same time, there also appears a picture of the use of force in politics, the nature of organizations and the limits of both technology and ideology. The book is aimed at those interested in the inner workings of the army that won the Vietnam War.

Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort, 1941-1945

Richard Overy

Penguin Books · 1998

A penetrating and compassionate book on the most gigantic military struggle in world history.--The New York Times Book Review An extraordinary tale... Overy's engrossing book provides extensive details of teh slaughter, brutality, bitterness and destruction on the massive front from the White Sea to the flank of Asia.--Chicago Tribune The Russian war effort to defeat invading Axis powers, an effort that assembled the largest military force in recorded history and that cost the lives of more than 25 million Soviet soldiers and civilians, was the decisive factor for securing an Allied victory. Now with access to the wealth of film archives and interview material from Russia used to produce the ten-hour television documentary Russia's War, Richard Overy tackles the many persuasive questions surrounding this conflict. Was Stalin a military genius? Was the defense of Mother Russia a product of something greater than numbers of tanks and planes--of something deep within the Russian soul?

Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943 (Modern War Studies)

Joel S.A. Hayward

University Press of Kansas · September 2001

By the time Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941, he knew that his military machine was running out of fuel. In response, he launched Operation Blau, a campaign designed to protect Nazi oilfields in Rumania while securing new ones in the Caucasus. All that stood in the way was Stalingrad. Most accounts of the Battle of Stalingrad have focused on the dismal fate of the German Army. Joel Hayward now chronicles Luftwaffe operations during that campaign, focusing on Hitler's use of the air force as a tactical rather than strategic weapon in close support of ground forces. He vividly details the Luftwaffe's key role as flying artillery, showing that the army relied on Luftwaffe support to a far greater degree than has been previously revealed and that its successes in the East occurred largely because of the effectiveness of that support. Hayward analyzes this major German offensive from the standpoint of cooperation between ground and air forces to attain mutually agreed objectives. He draws on diaries of both key commanders and regular airmen to recreate crucial battles and convey the drama of Hitler's frustrations and reckless leadership. Ultimately, Hayward shows, the poorly conceived strategies of Hitler, Goering, and others in Berlin doomed the efforts of air commander Wolfram von Richthofen, a courageous and resolute leader attempting to come to grips with an increasingly impossible situation. Stopped at Stalingrad is a dynamic case study in combined arms warfare that fills in many of the gaps left by other studies of the eastern war. By reconsidering the campaign in the light of a wider body of documentary sources and analyzing many previously ignored events, Hayward provides military historians and general readers a much deeper and more complete understanding of the Battle of Stalingrad and its impact on World War II.

Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism

David Kilcullen

Oxford University Press · 2016

2014 has the potential to go down as a crucial year in modern world history. A resurgent and bellicose Russia took over Crimea and fueled a civil war in Eastern Ukraine. Post-Saddam Iraq, in many respects a creature of the United States because of the war that began in 2003, lost a third of its territory to an army of hyper-violent millennialists. The peace process in Israel seemed to completely collapse. Finally, after coalescing in Syria as a territorial entity, the Islamic State swept into northern Iraq and through northeastern Syria, attracting legions of recruits from Europe and the Middle East. In short, the post-Cold War security order that the US had constructed after 1991 seemed to be coming apart at the seams. David Kilcullen was one of the architects of America's strategy in the late phases of the second Gulf War, and also spent time in Afghanistan and other hotspots. In Blood Year, he provides a wide-angle view of the current situation in the Middle East and analyzes how America and the West ended up in such dire circumstances. Whereas in 2008 it appeared that the U.S. might pull a modest stalemate from the jaws of defeat in Iraq, six years later the situation had reversed. After America pulled out of Iraq completely in 2011, the Shi'ite president cut Sunnis out of the power structure and allowed Iranian influence to grow. And from the debris of Assad's Syria arose an extremist Sunni organization even more radical than Al Qaeda. Unlike Al Qaeda, ISIS was intent on establishing its own state, and within a remarkably short time they did. Interestingly, Kilcullen highlights how embittered former Iraqi Ba'athist military officers were key contributors to ISIS's military successes. Kilcullen lays much of the blame on Bush's initial decision to invade Iraq (which had negative secondary effects in Afghanistan), but also takes Obama to task for simply withdrawing and adopting a "leading from behind" strategy. As events have proven, Kilcullen contends, withdrawal was a fundamentally misguided plan. The U.S. had uncorked the genie, and it had a responsibility to at least attempt to keep it under control. Instead, the U.S. is at a point where administration officials state that the losses of Ramadi and Palmyra are manageable setbacks. Kilcullen argues that the U.S. needs to re-engage in the region, whether it wants to or not, because it is largely responsible for the situation that is now unfolding. Blood Year is an essential read for anyone interested in understanding not only why the region that the U.S. invaded a dozen years ago has collapsed into utter chaos, but also what it can do to alleviate the grim situation.

German Military Intelligence in World War II: The Abwehr

Lauran Paine

Stein and Day · 1984

The astonishing true story of the German military intelligence organization dedicated to Nazi victory - commanded by a man who was dedicated to Nazi defeat. It was primarily from the Abwehr that Hitler and his top generals got the information they used in planning the subjugation of Europe. But to this day few people know the full story of how the commander of that organization, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and some of his trusted subordinates, deliberately and secretly contributed to the downfall of Nazi Germany. high treason against Hitler's government originated within the Abwehr; at least three attempts on the Fuhrer's life were secretly planned, ordered, and carried out by its personnel. From 1938 until the last months of the war, Abwehr officers balanced on the sword's edge and did it so well that detection and terrible retribution came only when the armies of America and the Soviet Union were approaching Berlin. After peace came, strict orders were issued against revealing much that is now detailed in this book. Lauran Paine was associated with U.S. intelligence operations for over thirty years. He was also the author of "The CIA At Work" and several other books on intelligence matters.

Japanese Intelligence in World War II (General Military)

Ken Kotani

Osprey · 2009

In the eyes of history, Japanese intelligence in World War II has fared very poorly. However, these historians have most often concentrated on the later years of the war, when Japan was fighting a multi-front war against numerous opponents. In this groundbreaking new study, Japanese scholar Ken Kotani re-examines the Japanese Intelligence department, beginning with the early phase of the war. He points out that without the intelligence gathered by the Japanese Army and Navy they would have been unable to achieve their long string of victories against the forces of Russia, China, and Great Britain. Notable in these early campaigns were the successful strikes against both Singapore and Pearl Harbor. Yet as these victories expanded the sphere of Japanese control, they also made it harder for the intelligence services to gather accurate information about their growing list of adversaries. At the battle of Midway in 1942, Japanese intelligence suffered its worst mishap when the Americans broke their code and tricked the Japanese into revealing the target of their attack. It was a mistake from which they would never recover. As the military might of Japan was forced to retreat and her forces deteriorated, so too did her intelligence services.

Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad, 1941-1944 (Studies in Russian and East European History and Society)

John Barber

Palgrave Macmillan · 2005

From 1941-1944 Leningrad saw by far the largest-scale famine ever to occur in a developed society. This book examines the nature and consequences of the extreme conditions created by the German blockade of Leningrad between September 1941 and January 1944. Using declassified documents from Party and State archives in Moscow and St Petersburg and interviews with survivors, the authors have produced the most informed and detailed analysis to date of the impact of the siege on the lives and health of the people of Leningrad.

Night Letters: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Afghan Islamists Who Changed the World

Chris Sands

C. Hurst and Company (Publishers) Limited · 2019

In 1969, several young men met on a rainy night in Kabul to form an Islamist student group. Their aim was laid out in a simple typewritten statement: to halt the spread of Soviet and American influence in Afghanistan. They went on to change the world. 'Night Letters' tells the extraordinary story of the group’s most notorious member, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the guerrilla organisation he came to lead, Hizb-e Islami. By the late 1980s, tens of thousands were drawn to Hekmatyar’s vision of a radical Islamic state that would sow unrest from Kashmir to Jerusalem. His doctrine of violent global jihad culminated in 9/11 and the birth of ISIS, yet he never achieved his dream of ruling Afghanistan. The peace deal he signed with Kabul in 2016 was yet another controversial twist in an astonishing life. Sands and Qazizai delve into the secret history of Hekmatyar and Hizb-e Islami: their wars against Russian and American troops, and their bloody and bitter feuds with domestic enemies. Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews carried out across the region and beyond, this is the definitive account of the most important, yet poorly understood, international Islamist movement of the last fifty years.

Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East

Stephen G. Fritz

University Press of Kentucky · 2011

On June 22, 1941, Germany launched the greatest land assault in history on the Soviet Union, an attack that Adolf Hitler deemed crucial to ensure German economic and political survival. As the key theater of the war for the Germans, the eastern front consumed enormous levels of resources and accounted for 75 percent of all German casualties. Despite the significance of this campaign to Germany and to the war as a whole, few English-language publications of the last thirty-five years have addressed these pivotal events. In Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East , Stephen G. Fritz bridges the gap in scholarship by incorporating historical research from the last several decades into an accessible, comprehensive, and coherent narrative. His analysis of the Russo-German War from a German perspective covers all aspects of the eastern front, demonstrating the interrelation of military events, economic policy, resource exploitation, and racial policy that first motivated the invasion. This in-depth account challenges accepted notions about World War II and promotes greater understanding of a topic that has been neglected by historians.

The German Air War in Russia

Richard R. Muller

Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co. of America · 1992

Dr. Richard Muller has produced a new interpretation of the longest continous air offensive waged by the Luftwaffe. He delineates the shifts in German air strategy as well as the relationship between operational art, aviation technology, and the strategy of the German air force's general staff.

The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Christian Brose

Hachette Books · Apr 21, 2020

For generations of Americans, our country has been the world's dominant military power. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America's traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war. As Christian Brose reveals in this urgent wake-up call, the future will be defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are revolutionizing global industries and are now poised to overturn the model of American defense. This fascinating, if disturbing, book confronts the existential risks on the horizon, charting a way for America's military to adapt and succeed with new thinking as well as new technology. America must build a battle network of systems that enables people to rapidly understand threats, make decisions, and take military actions, the process known as "the kill chain." Examining threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere, The Kill Chain offers hope and, ultimately, insights on how America can apply advanced technologies to prevent war, deter aggression, and maintain peace

The Spy in Moscow Station: A Counterspy's Hunt for a Deadly Cold War Threat

Eric Haseltine

Thomas Dunne Books · Apr 30, 2019

The thrilling, true story of the race to find a leak in the United States Embassy in Moscow--before more American assets are rounded up and killed. Foreword by Gen. Michael V. Hayden (Retd.), Former Director of NSA & CIA In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist--those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy? Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia, but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know. Eric Haseltine's The Spy in Moscow Station tells of a time when--much like today--Russian spycraft had proven itself far beyond the best technology the U.S. had to offer. The perils of American arrogance mixed with bureaucratic infighting left the country unspeakably vulnerable to ultra-sophisticated Russian electronic surveillance and espionage. This is the true story of unorthodox, underdog intelligence officers who fought an uphill battle against their own government to prove that the KGB had pulled off the most devastating penetration of U.S. national security in history. If you think The Americans isn't riveting enough, you'll love this toe-curling nonfiction thriller.

Tiger Tanks at War

Michael Green

Zenith Press · February 15, 2008

The first prototype for the Tiger tank was set to be ready for Hitlers birthday on April 20, 1942. The Henschel Company, competing with Porsche, produced the superior model, and by August of that year the formidable Tiger-or Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. H. -was in full production. This book takes us behind the scenes with the Tiger tank, reviewing the full history, the design and mechanics, and the mixed record of this machine, which was designed to outgun its Russian counterparts. Military writer Michael Green offers a close-up account-accompanied by photographs, diagrams, and maps-of how the Tiger tank operated, how it was armed, and where it succeeded brilliantly, as well as where it failed miserably. His book fills a fascinating niche in the history of military technology, and of the impact of technology on history itself.