Neighbors

Emerson, Stephen

Literature & Fiction

Tombouctou Books

The Wife

Small Pr Distribution

African security in the twenty-first century: Challenges and opportunities

This book explores and analyses the evolving African security paradigm in light of the multitude of diverse threats and challenges facing the continent and the international community. It challenges current thinking and traditional security constructs as woefully inadequate to meet the real security needs of African governments and their 1 billion plus citizens in an increasingly globalised and interdependent world. Through the lens of human security the authors’ examine the continent’s most pressing security challenges―from identity conflict and failing states to terrorism, disease, and environmental degradation―and in doing so provide a comprehensive look at the complexities of building peace and stability in modern-day Africa. Not only does the book critically assess the state of progress in addressing security challenges, but it presents new strategies and tools for more effectively engaging Africans and the global community in their common search for solutions.

Politics & Social Sciences

Solomon, Hussein

Politics & Government

Manchester University Press

In early 1965 the United States unleashed the largest sustained aerial bombing campaign since World War II, against North Vietnam. Through an ever escalating onslaught of destruction, Operation Rolling Thunder intended to signal America’s unwavering commitment to its South Vietnamese ally in the face of continued North Vietnamese aggression, break Hanoi’s political will to prosecute the war, and bring about a negotiated settlement to the conflict. It was not to be. Against the backdrop of the Cold War and fears of widening the conflict into a global confrontation, Washington policy makers micromanaged and mismanaged the air campaign and increasingly muddled strategic objectives and operational methods that ultimately sowed the seeds of failure, despite the heroic sacrifices by U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots and crews Despite flying some 306,000 combat sorties and dropping 864,000 tons of ordnance on North Vietnam – 42 per cent more than that used in the Pacific theater during World War II – Operation Rolling Thunder failed to drive Hanoi decisively to the negotiating table and end the war. That would take another four years and another air campaign. But by building on the hard earned political and military lessons of the past, the Nixon Administration and American military commanders would get another chance to prove themselves when they implemented operations Linebacker I and II in May and December 1972\. And this time the results would be vastly different.

Air War Over North Vietnam: Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965–1968 (Cold War 1945–1991)

History

Military

Pen and Sword Military

On March 30, 1972 some 30,000 North Vietnamese troops along with tanks and heavy artillery surged across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam in the opening round of Hanoi’s Easter Offensive. By early May South Vietnamese forces were on the ropes and faltering. Without the support of U.S. combat troops – who were in their final stage of withdrawing from the country – the Saigon government was in danger of total collapse and with it any American hope of a negotiated settlement to the war. In response, President Richard Nixon called for an aggressive, sustained bombardment of North Vietnam. Code-named Operation Linebacker I, the interdiction effort sought to stem the flow of men and material southward, as well as sever all outside supply lines in the first new bombing of the North Vietnamese heartland in nearly four years. To meet the American air armada, North Vietnamese MiG fighters took to the skies and surface-to-missiles and anti-aircraft fire filled the air from May to October over Hanoi and Haiphong.With the failure of its Easter Offensive to achieve military victory, Hanoi reluctantly returned to the negotiating table in Paris. However, as the peace talks teetered on the edge of collapse in mid-December 1972, Nixon played his trump card: Operation Linebacker II. The resulting twelve-day Christmas bombing campaign from 18–30 December unleashed the full wrath of American air power. More than 2,200 attack sorties, including 724 B-52 sorties alone, were flown by Air Force and Navy aircraft delivering 15,287 tons of bombs that laid waste to the North Vietnamese capital. Railyards, military storage depots, power stations, and bridges, as well as radar and communication sites, airfields, and anti-aircraft defenses were pummelled day and night. Linebacker II would prove to be decisive: a ceasefire agreement was signed on 23 January 1973.

Vietnam's Final Air Campaign: Operation Linebacker I & II, May–December 1972 (Cold War 1945–1991)

Asia

As the Cold War raged on in the 1970s and 1980s, much of southern Africa, from Angola to Mozambique, became caught up in the superpower competition as local and regional proxies for both Moscow and Washington fought it out on the battlefield. Thus, the struggle to determine the future of a newly independent Mozambique was shaped by multiple factors beyond the control of its people in the course of its 16-year conflict from 1977–1992. These factors also contributed to the longevity and ferocity of the Mozambican war that would leave an estimated one million dead, millions more displaced and homeless, and a country in ruins. From the rise of the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana, or Renamo, in 1977 as a Rhodesian weapon against Zimbabwean nationalist guerrillas operating in Mozambique, through South African patronage in the 1980s and to Renamo’s evolution as a self-sufficient insurgency, the forces of Mozambican nationalism became inexorably intertwined with the geopolitics of the region and the international manifestations of the Cold War. Thus, both government and rebel forces found themselves repeatedly beholden to external interests – be it American, Soviet, Cuban, South African or Rhodesian – as each sought to advance its own agenda and future vision of the country. However, it would be Mozambicans themselves who spilled their blood in a clash of men and arms that spanned the length and breadth of the country. And ultimately this is their story of sacrifice and triumph.

Mozambican Civil War: Marxist–Apartheid Proxy, 1977–1992 (Cold War 1945–1991)

Africa

By 1959 the newly independent Kingdom of Laos was being transformed into a Cold War battleground for global superpower competition, having been born out of the chaos following the French military defeat and withdrawal from Indochina in 1954. The country was soon engulfed in a rapidly evolving civil war as rival forces jockeyed for power and swelling foreign intervention further fueled the fighting. Adding even more fuel to the fire, “neutral” Laos’s geographic entanglement in the intensifying war in neighboring South Vietnam deepened in the early 1960s as Hanoi’s reliance on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for moving men and matérial through the southern Laotian panhandle grew exponentially and became a priority target of American interdiction efforts.For almost twenty years, the fighting between the Western-supported Royal Lao government and the communist-supported Pathet Lao would rage across the plains, jungles, and mountaintops largely unseen by most of the world in this so-called “secret war.” Thousands on each side would die and many more would be displaced as the conflict on the ground ebbed and flowed from season to season and year to year. And in the skies above, American and Royal Laotian aircraft would rain down their deadly payloads, decimating large swaths of the countryside in pursuit of victory. Nearly 3 million tons of bombs would be dropped on Laotian territory between 1965 and 1973, leaving a deadly legacy of unexploded ordnance that lingers to this day. Thus, the battle for Laos is the story of entire communities and generations caught up in a war seemingly without end, one that pitted competing foreign interests and their proxies against each other, and one that was forever tied to Washington’s pursuit of victory in Vietnam.

The Battle for Laos: Vietnam's Proxy War, 1955–1975 (Cold War 1945–1991)

"....an excellent summation of an averted disaster....[The]collection of images ranks among the best I have seen in a Vietnam War book." -- The VVA Veteran By the end of 1971, in what Hanoi called the American War and at the height of the Cold War, the fighting had dragged on for eight years with neither side gaining a decisive advantage on the battlefield and talks in Paris to the end the war were going nowhere. While the United States was steadily drawing down its ground forces in South Vietnam, Washington was also engaging in a grand effort to build up and strengthen Saigon's armed forces to the point of self-sufficiency. Not only had the ranks of Saigon's forces swelled in recent years, but they were now being equipped and trained to use the latest American military equipment. Perhaps now was the time for Hanoi to take one last gamble before it was too late.With the rumble of men and mechanized equipment breaking the early morning silence, some 40,000 North Vietnamese troops advanced across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam on March 30, 1972 in what would become the largest conventional attack of the war. Ill-prepared and poorly led, South Vietnamese troops in the far north were quickly routed in the face of the ensuing onslaught. Likewise, coordinated attacks across the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon and into the central highlands in the coming weeks gained steam and in due course as many as 200,000 men along with T-54/55 main battle tanks, 130mm towed artillery, ZSU-57 self-propelled ant-aircraft guns, and hundreds of trucks and armored personnel carriers were engaged across three battlefronts. Soon Saigon's beleaguered forces were being pushed to the brink of defeat in what appeared to be the end for the Thieu government. Ultimately, however, the timely and massive intervention by U.S. and South Vietnamese air power, along with the bravery of some South Vietnamese commanders and their American advisers saved the day. Hanoi's gamble had failed and in its wake lay up to 100,000 dead and South Vietnamese roads littered with the smoldering wrecks of North Vietnamese military equipment. Moreover, it would be another three years before the North had recovered enough to try again.

North Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive: Hanoi's Gamble (Cold War 1945–1991)

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Books by Emerson, Stephen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Emerson, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Neighbors

The Wife

African security in the twenty-first century: Challenges and opportunities

African security in the twenty-first century: Challenges and opportunities

Air War Over North Vietnam: Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965–1968 (Cold War 1945–1991)

Vietnam's Final Air Campaign: Operation Linebacker I & II, May–December 1972 (Cold War 1945–1991)

Mozambican Civil War: Marxist–Apartheid Proxy, 1977–1992 (Cold War 1945–1991)

The Battle for Laos: Vietnam's Proxy War, 1955–1975 (Cold War 1945–1991)

North Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive: Hanoi's Gamble (Cold War 1945–1991)