NORTHCOM Battle Knowledge Centers

Turn Around and Run Like Hell reveals stories of amazing deceptions, unprecedented tactics, and cunning generals succeeding against all odds. Readers observe brilliant strategists at their creative best in battle tactics that unfold in often odd-ball and always unorthodox and astonishing narratives. The stories range from King Cyrus diverting a river for a surprise attack on Babylon via the river bed to Napoleon, who made 29 men look like an army, to dropping opium-laced cigarettes on the Turks in WWI for an Allied victory. We follow the Mongols, creators of the worlds first major empire, as they perfect their strategy of the false retreat tactic which caught their opponents out almost every time. We learn how to exploit an enemy's weak spots and how to fashion handy weapons out of everything from trees to dead bodies. And, in more than one story, we appreciate that there comes a time when the best strategy is simply to retreat.

On the eve of World War II, the national interests of Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union collided in the North Pacific. Alaska's Hidden Wars tells the story of the war in the North Pacific, a story of savage weather, isolation, and sacrifice. Two island chains, the Aleutians and the Kuriles, became the focus of a series of major campaigns that pitted the Americans against the Japanese. Alaska's Hidden Wars chronicles the role of Japanese-American intelligence specialists and reveals a Japanese eyewitness account of the defense of Attu. Two virtually unknown aspects of the North Pacific war are also exposed: the brutal North Pacific weather and the imprisonment of American airmen in Kamchatka. In 1942, the Japanese raided Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands and occupied the islands of Kiska and Attu. The Americans mounted a vigorous campaign, and the Japanese retreated to the Kuriles. For the next two years, the Americans launched air raids and fleet bombardments, while American soldiers maintained lonely outposts along Aleutian coasts. But in 1945, when Japan finally surrendered, the Kuriles were taken, not by the waiting Americans, but by the Soviets. Alaska's Hidden Wars is a fast-moving history that brings declassified archival sources to light and draws the reader into the lonely, bitter war fought in the North Pacific.

This volume offers a comprehensive history of warfare since 1648, covering conventional and unconventional operations and demonstrating how most modern wars have been hybrid affairs that involved both. The book uses a broad range of conflicts to explore the societal forces that have shaped wars. Written by noted military historian Thomas R. Mockaitis, this book explores conventional and unconventional conflicts and considers the relationships between them. It considers how epic struggles like the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the conflicts in the Middle East, among many others, shaped human history. The coverage serves to highlight four themes: the relationship between armed forces and the societies that create them; the impact of technology (not just armaments) on warfare; the role of ideas and attitudes towards violence in determining why and how wars are fought; and the relationship between conventional and unconventional operations. The book also covers the advent and evolution of unconventional warfare, including counterinsurgency, the War on Terror, and current conflicts in the Middle East. It concludes with consideration of the forms armed conflict will take in the future.