FOREWORD BY SIR NICK CARTER, FORMER UK CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF
The world is becoming a more dangerous place. Since the fall of Kabul and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US-led liberal international order is giving way to a more chaotic and contested world system. Western credibility and deterrence are diminishing in the face of wars in Europe and the Middle East, tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and rising populism and terrorism around the world. Can peace, mutual respect and democracy survive, or are we destined to a permanent chaos in which authoritarians and populists thrive?

Using decades of experience as policy advisors in conflicts in Iraq and across Africa, and on recent fieldwork in Israel and Taiwan, the authors analyse the nature of modern war, considering state-on-state and intra-state conflicts. They investigate how technology can be a leveller for small powers against larger aggressors and the role of leadership, diplomacy and economic assistance.

The Art of War and Peace explores how wars can be won on the battlefield and how that success can be translated into a stable and enduring peace.

Shortlisted for the 2020 Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History

A new look at the crusaders, which shows how they pursued long-term plans and clear strategic goals

Medieval states, and particularly crusader societies, often have been considered brutish and culturally isolated. It seems unlikely that they could develop “strategy” in any meaningful sense. However, the crusaders were actually highly organized in their thinking and their decision making was rarely random.

In this lively account, Steve Tibble draws on a rich array of primary sources to reassess events on the ground and patterns of behavior over time. He shows how, from aggressive castle building to implementing a series of invasions of Egypt, crusader leaders tenaciously pursued long-term plans and devoted single-minded attention to clear strategic goals. Crusader states were permanently on the brink of destruction; resources were scarce and the penalties for failure severe. Intuitive strategic thinking, Tibble argues, was a necessity, not a luxury.

'This deep dive into the evolution of tank warfare could not be timelier, and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who has more experience than most on these machines, is the perfect person to tell their tale' James Holland

'Tank Command is an exciting and original look at tanks and tank warfare by a tank commander with over twenty years experience of commanding and fighting these behemoths of the battlefield' Al Murray

Who would have thought that steel boxes with guns would endure as the stalwart of the battlefield for over a hundred years? For all the new trickery and wizardry of the modern fight, the tank's ability to pack a huge punch at up to 3000 metres, protected by steel, ceramics and now, electronics, is still the most reliable and durable weapon in the military toolbox.

In this thrilling new book, former tank commander Hamish de Bretton-Gordon OBE offers a unique and timely exploration of the evolution of the tank, on and off the battlefield. Written in close collaboration with the world-renowned Tank Museum, it brings the thrill of hardware together with the sweep of history, telling the tank's origin story on the battlefields of World War I, charting its primacy during World War II, and analysing its critical role in modern warfare, whether in the Gulf (where Hamish served) or on the new Ukrainian and Russian front lines.

From the MARK IV at the battle of Cambrai to the Challenger 2 in Ukraine, discover the characters who sat at the helm of these iron chariots and what they saw, those who innovated the machine to continue the tank's prominence despite numerous attempts to write it off, and why it remain critical to success in battle even in today's era of drones and cyber warfare.

With thousands of hours commanding Chieftains, Challenger 1s, and Challenger 2s, Hamish is the leading authority on the subject, and Tank Command is an essential addition to any military history reader's bookshelf.

'This review of tank warfare by an accomplished exponent is timely given the increased risks of high intensity conflict and the need to equip our Army effectively' General Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the Defence Staff

'I fought with Hamish in a tank squadron in the First Gulf War, and gauge there are few better people to explain the evolution of the tank from Cambrai to the Donbass' General Sir Richard Sherriff, Deputy Commander of NATO

'With the world seemingly on the precipice of war again, Tank Command is a timely reminder of the heritage and future of the tank which has been the backbone of warfare for over a hundred years, and my fellow Royal Tank Regiment officer is just the man to tell this story' Rt Hon Sir Andrew Mitchell MP, former DFID Minister and ex Royal Tank Regiment

'A great read, and confirmation that the evolution of the tank is not over' General Sir James Everard Colonel, Commandant of the Royal Lancers

Masterfully crafted and surprisingly modern, History of the Peloponnesian War has long been celebrated as an insightful, eloquent, and exhaustively detailed work of classical Greek history. The text is also remarkable for its deep political and military dimensions, and scholars have begun to place the work alongside Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Clausewitz’s On War as one of the great treatises on strategy. The perfect companion to Thucydides’ impressive History, this volume details the specific strategic concepts at work within the History of the Peloponnesian War and demonstrates, through case studies of recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the continuing relevance of Thucydidean thought to an analysis and planning of strategic operations. Some have even credited Thucydides with founding the discipline of international relations. Written by two scholars with extensive experience in this and related fields, Thucydides on Strategy situates the classical historian solidly in the modern world of war.

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War and power are two of the most-widely discussed issues in all of human history, and yet they are, time and again, misunderstood – often disastrously so.

Whilst we might think the outcome of war is determined by so-called ‘Great Powers’ who dominate their opponents with their impressive size and military prowess, the reality of modern conflict, as renowned strategic historian Professor Phillips Payson O’Brien demonstrates, is very different. He urges us instead to look for ‘Full Spectrum Powers’.

For if we are considering how powerful a nation is and who will win a war, we need to think less about weapons, and more about the economies and societies that produce them; less about individual battles, and more about sustaining campaigns and alliances in which states operate.

Using fascinating examples from the late 19th century to the present day, War and Power explains how misunderstanding war and power has led to terrible, even preventable conflicts – such as the war in Ukraine – and how more accurate analysis can help us consider the potential conflict between the US and China.

War and Power provides a bold new way of understanding the dangerous world around us.

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‘Phillips O’Brien is always fantastic. Heterodox. He’s pretty scathing, even about Biden administration policy . . . A really interesting book’ Paul Krugman, Distinguished Professor of Economics

‘As Phillips O’Brien points out in this important book, the character of war evolves, but some of the underlying truths, particularly from the second World War, are still very much with us.’ Eliot Cohen, Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins SAIS

September, 1939. While Britain hovered on the brink of the Second World War, a team of unlikely and ill-assorted characters assembled in their secret headquarters. They had left their civilian roles as politicians, journalists, novelists and spies, advertisers, artists and even forgers, to work for a covert government organisation. Their goals: to weaken enemy morale, sow confusion and encourage resistance. In the ‘hush-hush’ village of Aspley Guise near Woburn Abbey (8 miles from the codebreakers at Bletchley Park), they set to work.

The once top-secret wartime efforts of the Political Warfare Executive were remarkable in their variety and inventiveness – from pornographic leaflet drops to rumour campaigns, underground publications and fake French and German radio shows. But to break Nazi morale, these men and women found themselves skirting the edges of their own morality. What do you lose when you deploy lies – even brilliant, believable lies – to achieve your ends?

Korea: War Without End examines the stand-off between East and West in Korea that ultimately defined the second half of the 20th century. It provides a critical analysis of the lack of preparation by the West for war; the results of the North Korean invasion in June 1950; the counter-stroke by MacArthur in September and then the strategic overreach which led to communist China’s involvement on the North Korean side, and the rapid escalation to consideration of the use of nuclear weapons.

Through meticulous analysis of all the source material, this book details the chaos of political decision-making at the war’s outset and as it progressed. The Korean War was not planned as a Communist offensive against the West. In turn, the East did not understand the principle at the core of the Western response to Kim Il-sung’s aggression, namely a refusal to appease an aggressor, the key mistake the West considered to be at the heart of the rise of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan in the 1930s.

Korea: War Without End also considers the effect of the fighting on civilians. While the war was a proxy one between East and West, the people of Korea suffered immensely, with approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II. This is the definitive history of the conflict that is long overdue.