Reading this book is like eating cashews, proclaimed one reviewer. Once you start, you cant stop. A must read for students of political-military history, C-C-Cold War Syndrome is a collection of 43 non-fiction short stories from award-winning author G.H. Spaulding. They weave a fascinating account of the human and humorous side of the Cold War. While not a single shot is fired between the covers of this book, there is just enough tragic irony interspersed among the laughs to keep things in perspective as the United States and Soviet Union engage in historys epic superpower confrontation. An entertaining global journey that includes forays into naval aviation when things dont always go according to Hoyle and unforgettable glimpses behind the scenes at the White House, at the Pentagon and at the historic American-Soviet arms talks in Geneva. Meet some of the Cold War victors...Booker, Moon, Foggy Bob, Blotto, Snake, Beaver, Jay Beasley, Fawn Hall, The Purple People Eater, Dracula and Flash Gordon. And some of the losers...head Soviet Nikita Khrushchev and KGB agent Sergei Kryuchkov. Then experience the demise of the Soviet Union through the eyes of senior Soviet army colonel Anatoli Yurchenko. Two of the stories in this collection...Dilbert Dunker and KGB...are national award winners.
Newlyweds honeymooning in Cairo stumble into a hornet’s nest of American-Chinese political intrigue. Nicolas McCayne, who once served as U.S. Naval Attaché to Egypt, is now an associate professor of international relations at Denver University. His capriciously adventurous bride Laura is a successful Denver trial attorney. Things take an unexpected turn for the couple in Cairo during a diplomatic reception for Tsun Ziyang, a man the CIA believes is plotting to become China’s next president. Sparks fly as Nick and Tsun argue the politics of Tiananmen Square and further intensify after Tsun and the McCaynes embark on the same five-day Nile cruise. Aboard ship Tsun’s tiny red notebook falls into Laura’s hands. Chinese and Egyptian thugs working for Tsun commit murder while trying to recover it. Convinced the notebook contains crucial intelligence information, the newlyweds risk death attempting to get it into the right hands. They are aided by a mysterious stranger, British soldier of fortune Michael Hastings. Together they flee the killers in a desperate race through the Sahara to Alexandria where they face a nail-biting midnight escape from Egypt by boat. Matters conclude in Washington with a surprising twist that reveals how Chinese takeout can be murder.
From September 1990 to June 1991, the UK deployed 53,462 military personnel in the Gulf War. After the end of the conflict anecdotal reports of various disorders affecting troops who fought in the Gulf began to surface. This mysterious illness was given the name “Gulf War Syndrome” (GWS). This book is an investigation into this recently emergent illness, particularly relevant given ongoing UK deployments to Iraq, describing how the illness became a potent symbol for a plethora of issues, anxieties, and concerns. At present, the debate about GWS is polarized along two lines: there are those who think it is a unique, organic condition caused by Gulf War toxins and those who argue that it is probably a psychological condition that can be seen as part of a larger group of illnesses. Using the methods and perspective of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, the author provides a new approach to understanding GWS, one that makes sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.
Richard Bartle and Lindy Heinecken are acknowledged experts in this area and they bring together a contemporary collection of papers from leading authorities in 12 countries.
It is one of the most extraordinary cases in the history of science: the mating calls of insects were mistaken for a “sonic weapon” that led to a major diplomatic row. Since August 2017, the world media has been absorbed in the “attack” on diplomats from the American and Canadian Embassies in Cuba. While physicians treating victims have described it as a novel and perplexing condition that involves an array of complaints including brain damage, the authors present compelling evidence that mass psychogenic illness was the cause of “Havana Syndrome.” This mysterious condition that has baffled experts is explored across 11-chapters which offer insights by a prominent neurologist and an expert on psychogenic illness. A lively and enthralling read, the authors explore the history of similar scares from the 18th century belief that sounds from certain musical instruments were harmful to human health, to 19th century cases of “telephone shock,” and more contemporary panics involving people living near wind turbines that have been tied to a variety of health complaints. The authors provide dozens of examples of kindred episodes of mass hysteria throughout history, in addition to psychosomatic conditions and even the role of insects in triggering outbreaks. Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria is a scientific detective story and a case study in the social construction of mass psychogenic illness.
Presents the proceedings of the Jan. 1997 hearing to examine new studies suggesting links between Gulf service and higher rates of illnesses. Includes witness testimony and prepared statements from a number of medical researchers and practitioners (Harvard Medical School, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Univ. of Iowa Medical College), Gulf War veterans, Defense Dept. representatives, and members of Congress. Also contains a treatment protocol of a biopsychological therapeutic approach for the treatment of multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome in veterans of Desert Storm. Charts and tables.
Two terms, closely related, are often used as synonyms but it is important to keep the distinction between them always in mind. The meaning of “national security” is clear enough—it means how safe are we as a nation? It is not always easy to give an accurate answer to that question but we know what we are trying to assess. “National strategy,” on the other hand, refers to how we seek to be secure. It frequently is the subject of great, continuous, and emotional debate and little about it can be taken for granted. This book examines the security of the United States from the perspective of the strategy we have followed at various times. Because if things are not working out right, it will be because our ideas about how to be secure, and what we need to do about it, need adjusting. In the aftermath of our wounding experience in Vietnam, the second war with Iraq, and the later phase of the Afghanistan War, we are at a point where we seriously need to consider that we have been doing wrong. Embarking on a war is always a very risky thing. If a nation is attacked, it has little option; it must either respond with force or surrender. But going to war is often a matter of choice. No decision a nation can make compares in importance with this one. It is not just that war inevitably brings destruction and bloodshed in its train. War turns individual lives upside down. For the nation as a whole it means facing the sobering fact that whatever ability you previously had to unilaterally control your national fate, is now abandoned. You have entered a very dicey partnership to inflict mutual destruction. No matter if you have a neat set of war plans which are designed to get you in the fighting where you want to go at minimum cost. Your enemy will have other plans, and they will enter into and distort the equation. So the most important consideration when making the decision to go to war is to be as absolutely sure as you can be that you really need to do it. “Is this war really necessary?” should be printed at the top of all congressional and White House stationery. It is the prime question to which all analyses of national security must be addressed from the perspective of grand strategy. It might be supposed that so solemn a decision as that of going to war would only be taken after much thought and examination both of alternatives and of the likely course of events, given a range of scenarios. Nothing could be farther from the actuality. That is emphatically not how the United States goes to war. Obviously, for anyone to question whether war is really necessary or even desirable requires a cool head in a time when the discussion is highly likely to be very heated. Yet if rational considerations are abandoned, we get whatever comes of it, good, bad, or worse. That there are rational considerations for judging the desirability and feasibility of a war should not be doubted, just because they are so often not taken seriously or fully into account. We shall have much to say about what they are as we go on. A second obvious (but easily overlooked) consideration is to have some plan for ending a war, once begun. When the leaders of the Japanese government decided in mid-1941 that war with the United States was inevitable, they planned the Pearl Harbor attack. While from America’s point of view it was a sneak and unprovoked attack, from a military point of view it was a brilliant initial move. But the Japanese did not have the resources to invade the continental United States and subdue it. So, having begun well, the Japanese had no real hopes of achieving the aims that had inspired the attack. Unless they could count on America’s nerves and will being so undermined by the Pearl Harbor attack that the United States would seek a negotiated peace. If they had initially done a careful assessment of the American character and history, they would have quickly realized that the United States was not likely
This book analyzes the paradox that despite being a national security state, Pakistan has become even more insecure in the post-Cold War era. It provides an in-depth analysis of Pakistan’s foreign and security policies and their implications for the overall state and society. The book identifies the immediate security challenges to Pakistan and charts the distinctive evolution of Pakistan’s national security state in which the military elite became the dominant actor in the political sphere of government during and after the Cold War period. By examining the national security state, militarization, democracy and security, proxy wars and the hyper-military-industrial complex, the author illustrates how the vanguard role of the military created considerable structural, sociopolitical, economic, and security problems in Pakistan. Furthermore, the author argues that the mismatch between Pakistan’s national security stance and the transformed security environment has been facilitated and sustained by the embedded interests of the country’s military-industrial complex. A critical evaluation of the role of the military in the political affairs of the government and how it has created structural problems for Pakistan, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian Politics and Security, South Asian Foreign and Security Policy, International Relations, Asian Security, and Cold War Studies.
"Featuring new evidence on: the end of the Cold War, 1989; the fall of the Wall; Sino-Soviet relations, 1958-59; Soviet missile deployments, 1959; the Iran Crisis, 1944-46; Tito and Khrushchev, 1954.
