The Last Hot Battle Of The Cold War

Author : Peter Polack
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2013-12-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9781612001951

Get Book

The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War by Peter Polack Pdf

As the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of collapse during the late 1980s, and America prepared to claim its victory, a bloody war still raged in Southern Africa, where proxy forces from both sides vied for control of Angola. The result was the largest battle on the dark continent since Al Alamein, with forces from both sides paying in blood what U.S.-Soviet diplomats were otherwise spending in diplomacy. The socialist government of Angola and its army, FAPLA, fully stocked with Soviet weapons, had only to wipe out a massive resistance group, UNITA, secretly supplied by the U.S, in order to claim full sovereignty over the country. A giant FAPLA offensive so threatened to succeed in overcoming UNITA that apartheid-era South Africa stepped in to protect its own interests. The white army crossing the border prompted the Angolan government to call on their own foreign reinforcementsÑthe army of Communist CubaÕs. Thus began the epic battle of Cuito Cuanavale, largely unknown in the U.S., but which raged for three months in the entirely odd match-up of South African Boers vs. CastroÕs armed forces, which for the first time in the Cold War proved what it could achieve. And it turned out the Cubans were very good. The South Africans were no slouches at warfare themselves, but had suffered under a boycott of weapons since 1977. The Cubans and Angolan troops, instead, had the latest Soviet weapons, easily delivered. But UNITA had its secret U.S. supply line and the South Africans knew how to fight, mainly at a disadvantage in air power for lack of spare parts. Meantime the Cubans overcame their logistic difficulties with an impressive airlift of troops over the Atlantic, while the Boers simply needed to drive next door. As a case study of ferocious fighting between East and WestÑalbeit proxies for the great powers on all sidesÑthis book unveils a remarkable episode of the end-game of the Cold War largely unknown to the public. The Angolans on both sides suffered heavily, but it was the apartheid South Africans versus CastroÕs armed forces that provides utter fascination in one of historyÕs rare match-ups.

Author : Yangwen Zheng,Hong Liu,Michael Szonyi
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004175372

Get Book

The Cold War in Asia by Yangwen Zheng,Hong Liu,Michael Szonyi Pdf

The Cold War stayed cold in Europe but it was hot in Asia. Its legacy lives on in the region. In none of the three dominant historiographical paradigms: orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist, does Asia, or the rest of the Third World, figure with much significance. What happens to these narratives if we put them to the test in Asia? This volume argues that attention to what has been conventionally considered the periphery is essential to a full understanding of the global Cold War. Foregrounding Asia necessarily leads to a re-assessment of the dominant narratives. This volume also argues for a shift in focus from diplomacy and high politics alone towards research into the culture of the Cold War era and its public diplomacy. "As a whole, the essays contribute to enriching our understanding of what was really happening in an era that is too often understood in the catch-all framework of the Cold War." - Akira Iriye, "Harvard University"

Author : Peter G. Tsouras
Publisher : Tantor eBooks
Page : 411 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2011-10-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781618030238

Get Book

Cold War Hot by Peter G. Tsouras Pdf

It was in the Third World that the ambitions and fears of the two Cold War superpowers were played out v Korea, Vietnam, Egypt and Syria, Afghanistan. In their bizarre way, these were carefully controlled wars, carefully controlled in the sense that neither great power allowed itself to become directly engaged in a hot war with the other. Equally, neither allowed itself to go for broke in a grand sweep across the Third World in fear of provoking that final confrontation. But this fear of direct confrontation was never as rigidly controlled as one would think. Again and again events veered towards a clash between Eagle and Bear. The authors of this book make real such terrifying possibilities as Korea or the 67 War dragging in both superpowers; they predict the consequences of the United States or the Soviet Union attempting radical strategies in Vietnam or in a divided Germany, either to follow the British success in Malaya or to invade the North; they imagine the invasion of Cuba when the delicate signals failed to find a way out of the Missile Crisis and bring to life a scenario in which the Soviet Union knocks the Great Game off the board by using Afghanistan as base to bring down Pakistan and achieve its warm water port on the Indian Ocean. Cold War Hot vividly brings to life these and many other alternate scenarios, taking the reader behind the scenes at these momentous moments in history. In showing what could have happened, the authors show how precarious the Cold War peace actually was, and how little it would have taken to tip the balance into World War Three.

Author : Peter Tsouras
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Cold War
ISBN : 0739435590

Get Book

Cold War Hot by Peter Tsouras Pdf

Author : Harry Turtledove
Publisher : Del Rey
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2016-07-19
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780553390742

Get Book

Fallout by Harry Turtledove Pdf

“Turtledove is the standard-bearer for alternate history.”—USA Today The novels of Harry Turtledove show history balancing on single moments: One act of folly. One poor decision. One moment of rage. In this astounding new series, the unthinkable has come to pass. The Cold War turns hot—and the United States and the Soviet Union unleash their nuclear arsenals upon each other. Millions die. Millions more are displaced. Germans battle side by side with Americans, Polish freedom fighters next to Russian fascists. The genie is out of the bottle. And there’s no telling what fresh hell will come next. At the heart of Fallout are Harry Truman and Josef Stalin. Even as Joe McCarthy rises in power, the U.S. president is focused elsewhere, planning to cut off the head of the Soviet threat by taking out Stalin. It’s a daring gambit, but the Soviets have one of their own. Meanwhile, Europe’s weak sisters, France and Italy, seem poised to choose the winning side, while China threatens to overrun Korea. With Great Britain ravaged and swaths of America in ruins, leaders are running out of options. When the United States drops another series of bombs to slow the Russian advance in Europe, Stalin strikes back—with horrifying results. These staggering events unfold through the eyes of a sprawling cast of characters: a Holocaust survivor in a displaced persons camp in Washington; the wife of a bomber pilot and her five-year-old daughter starting a new existence; a savage Soviet fighter waging war by his own rules; a British pub owner falling in love with an American pilot. In the masterly hands of Harry Turtledove, this epic chronicle of war becomes a story of human struggle. As the armies of the world implode, the next chapter will be written by the survivors—those willing to rise up for an uncertain future. Praise for Fallout “Turtledove proves, yet again, that he is the best when it comes to rewriting history!”—Suspense Magazine “Turtledove, the master of alternate history, has done well again.”—Shelf Awareness “No one writes alternate-history novels quite like Turtledove. . . . Expect epic political stakes as well as personal and heartfelt stories of war.”—BookTrib

Author : PETKO KADIEV
Publisher : AuthorHouse
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2014-02-24
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781491895634

Get Book

IN THE HEAT OF THE COLD WAR by PETKO KADIEV Pdf

The personal recollections of a participant in the Cold War ... During the peak of the Cold War in Europe, a young Bulgarian graphic artist meets a British diplomatic secretary in Sofia, Bulgaria. From this accidental meeting develops a romantic relationship that draws the attention of the secret service on both sides: the British MI6 and the Bulgarian counter-intelligence under the direction of the KGB. It occurred in the period between spring 1955 and summer 1959.

Author : Lori Lyn Bogle
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Cold War
ISBN : LCCN:2001031997

Get Book

The Cold War: Hot wars of the Cold War by Lori Lyn Bogle Pdf

Author : E. S. Williams
Publisher : Robert Hale
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015050125601

Get Book

Cold War, Hot Seat by E. S. Williams Pdf

In this first book for almost half a century by an attache serving in the Soviet Union, Air Commodore Ted Williams describes the life of these unsung men and women working in the tight security of the Cold War.

Author : Kenneth Michael Pollack
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 697 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : HISTORY
ISBN : 9780190906962

Get Book

Armies of Sand by Kenneth Michael Pollack Pdf

Armies of Sand asks, 'why have Arab militaries fought so poorly in the modern era?' It examines the performance of over two-dozen Arab militaries from 1948 to 2017, and compares them to a half-dozen non-Arab militaries, to conclude that politics, economics, and culture all contributed to the past weakness of Arab armies.

Author : Michael Burgan
Publisher : Raintree
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2000-09
Category : Cold War
ISBN : 073981835X

Get Book

The Hot Conflicts by Michael Burgan Pdf

Presents a narrative of the personalities, political machinations, conflicts, and outcomes of the Cold War from the post-World War II development of the "iron curtain" to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Author : John Piña Craven
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2002-06-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9780743242257

Get Book

The Silent War by John Piña Craven Pdf

The Cold War was the first major conflict between superpowers in which victory and defeat were unambiguously determined without the firing of a shot. Without the shield of a strong, silent deterrent or the intellectual sword of espionage beneath the sea, that war could not have been won. John P. Craven was a key figure in the Cold War beneath the sea. As chief scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Office, which supervised the Polaris missile system, then later as head of the Deep Submergence Systems Project (DSSP) and the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle program (DSRV), both of which engaged in a variety of clandestine undersea projects, he was intimately involved with planning and executing America's submarine-based nuclear deterrence and submarine-based espionage activities during the height of the Cold War. Craven was considered so important by the Soviets that they assigned a full-time KGB agent to spy on him. Some of Craven's highly classified activities have been mentioned in such books as Blind Man's Bluff, but now he gives us his own insights into the deadly cat-and-mouse game that U.S. and Soviet forces played deep in the world's oceans. Craven tells riveting stories about the most treacherous years of the Cold War. In 1956 Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine and the backbone of the Polaris ballistic missile system, was only days or even hours from sinking due to structural damage of unknown origin. Craven led a team of experts to diagnose the structural flaw that could have sent the sub to the bottom of the ocean, taking the Navy's missile program with it. Craven offers insight into the rivalry between the advocates of deterrence (with whom he sided) and those military men and scientists, such as Edward Teller, who believed that the United States had to prepare to fight and win a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. He describes the argument that raged in the Navy over the reasons for the tragic loss of the submarine Thresher, and tells the astonishing story of the hunt for the rogue Soviet sub that became the model for The Hunt for Red October -- including the amazing discovery the Navy made when it eventually found the sunken sub. Craven takes readers inside the highly secret DSSP and DSRV programs, both of which offered crucial cover for sophisticated intelligence operations. Both programs performed important salvage operations in addition to their secret espionage activities, notably the recovery of a nuclear bomb off Palomares, Spain. He describes how the Navy's success at deep-sea recovery operations led to the takeover of the entire program by the CIA during the Nixon administration. A compelling tale of intrigue, both within our own government and between the U.S. and Soviet navies, The Silent War is an enthralling insider's account of how the submarine service kept the peace during the dangerous days of the Cold War.

Author : Leopold Scholz
Publisher : Africa@War
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 1913336077

Get Book

The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale by Leopold Scholz Pdf

In the broad history of the Cold War, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the climax of a far-off, but nonetheless important African war. It was waged between the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) and the armed forces of the communist MPLA government in Angola and the People's Republic of Cuba. Led by Soviet generals, the MPLA embarked on a grand offensive in order to knock out the pro-Western rebel movement UNITA in southeastern Angola. As UNITA's survival was crucial to South Africa's military strategy in fighting its own counter-insurgency war against the South West African rebel movement SWAPO, the SADF stepped in with a single mechanised brigade and broke the back of the overwhelming MPLA offensive. The MPLA forces were subsequently driven back over a hundred kilometres, before the SADF advance was finally stopped just short of the town of Cuito Cuanavale. Since then, a hot war of words have been waged about who actually won. In this book, a South African military historian and retired journalist examines the campaign, the adversaries, and their achievements on the basis of his research in SADF archives. His scrupulous attempt at objectivity results in interesting conclusions. While the MPLA lost hands down, he posits a draw between the Cubans and the SADF. Although having been a South African reservist officer himself, he has critical words for the SADF leadership. Many misunderstandings, some of which were purposefully created by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, are put to rest. While not sharing Castro's political beliefs, he acknowledges Castro's military acumen and political savvy in extricating his country from an unwinnable war while smelling of roses. The analysis contains many lessons about mechanised warfare in the African context from which both laymen and military professionals alike may learn.

Author : Al J. Venter
Publisher : Helion and Company
Page : 564 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2017-04-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781913118105

Get Book

Battle For Angola by Al J. Venter Pdf

Following the publication of Al Venter’s successful Portugal’s Guerrilla Wars in Africa - shortlisted by the New York Military Affairs Symposium’s 'Arthur Goodzeit Book Award for 2013' - his Battle for Angola delves still further into the troubled history of this former Portuguese African colony. This is a completely fresh work running to almost 600 pages including 32 pages of color photos, with the main thrust on events before and after the civil war that followed Lisbon’s over-hasty departure back to the metrópole. There are also several sections that detail the role of South African mercenaries in defeating the rebel leader Dr Jonas Savimbi (considered by some as the most accomplished guerrilla leader to emerge in Africa in the past century). There are many chapters that deal with Pretoria’s reaction to the deteriorating political and military situation in Angola, the role of the Soviets and mercenaries in the political transition, as well as the civil war that followed. With the assistance of several notable military authorities he elaborates in considerable detail on South Africa’s 23-year Border War, from the first guerrilla incursions to the last. In this regard he received solid help from the former the head of 4 Reconnaissance Regiment, Colonel Douw Steyn, who details several cross-border Recce strikes, including the sinking by frogmen of two Soviet ships and a Cuban freighter in an Angolan deepwater port. Throughout, the author was helped by a variety of notable authorities, including the French historian Dr René Pélissier and the American academic and former naval aviator Dr John (Jack) Cann. With their assistance, he covers several ancillary uprisings and invasions, including the Herero revolt of the early 20th century; the equally troubled Ovambo insurrection, as well as the invasion of Angola by the Imperial German Army in the First World War. Former deputy head of the South African Army Major General Roland de Vries played a seminal role. It was he - dubbed ‘South Africa’s Rommel’ by his fellow commanders - who successfully nurtured the concept of ‘mobile warfare’ where, in a succession of armored onslaughts ‘thin-skinned’ Ratel Infantry Fighting Vehicles tackled Soviet main battle tanks and thrashed them. There is a major section on South African Airborne – the ‘Parabats’ –by Brigadier-General McGill Alexander, one of the architects of that kind of warfare under Third World conditions. Finally, the role of Cuban Revolutionary Army receives the attention it deserves: officially there were almost 50,000 Cuban troops deployed in the Angolan war, though subsequent disclosures in Havana suggest that the final total was much higher.

Author : Christian Jennings
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1472821696

Get Book

Flashpoint Trieste by Christian Jennings Pdf

Author : Odd Arne Westad
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 720 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2017-09-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780465093137

Get Book

The Cold War by Odd Arne Westad Pdf

The definitive history of the Cold War and its impact around the world We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions around the world. In The Cold War, Westad offers a new perspective on a century when great power rivalry and ideological battle transformed every corner of our globe. From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of the world. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe, but it had its deepest reverberations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where nearly every community had to choose sides. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world. Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. Its ideologies influence China, Russia, and the United States; Iraq and Afghanistan have been destroyed by the faith in purely military solutions that emerged from the Cold War. Stunning in its breadth and revelatory in its perspective, this book expands our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically, and offers an engaging new history of how today's world was created.