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Assessing Russia's Decline: Trends and Implications for the United States and the U. S. Air Force
by Olga Oliker Tanya Charlick-PaleyWhat challenges does today's Russia pose for the United States and the U.S. Air Force? If certain economic, military, social, and political negative trends in Russia continue, they may create a new set of dangers that might prove more real, and therefore more frightening, than the far-off specter of Russian attack ever was. In a number of scenarios, the U.S. Air Force is certain to be called upon for transportation and perhaps for various military missions in a very demanding environment.
Assessing the Implications of Allowing Transgender Personnel to Serve Openly
by Agnes Gereben Schaefer Jennifer Kavanagh Kayla M. Williams Srikanth Kadiyala Radha Iyengar Amii M. Kress Charles C. EngelThe U.S. Department of Defense is considering a change in policy to allow transgender military personnel to serve openly. A RAND study examined the health care needs of transgender personnel, the costs of gender transition-related care, and the potential readiness implications of a policy change. The experiences of foreign militaries that permit transgender service members to serve openly also point to some best practices for U.S. policymakers.
Assessing the Value of U.S. Army International Activities
by Anny Wong Jefferson P. Marquis Cathryn Quantic Thurston Jasen J. Castillo Richard E. DarilekThis report presents a framework for assessing U.S. Army International Activities (AIA). It also provides a matrix of eight AIA "ends," derived from top-level national and Army guidance, and eight AIA "ways," which summarize the various capabilities inherent in AIA programs. In addition, the report describes the new online AIA Knowledge Sharing System (AIAKSS) that is being used to solicit programmatic and assessment data from AIA officials in the Army's Major Commands.
Assessment of Agent Monitoring Strategies for the Blue Grass and Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants
by Committee on Assessment of Agent Monitoring Strategies for the Blue Grass Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot PlantsJanuary 2012 saw the completion of the U. S. Army's Chemical Materials Agency's (CMA's) task to destroy 90 percent of the nation's stockpile of chemical weapons. CMA completed destruction of the chemical agents and associated weapons deployed overseas, which were transported to Johnston Atoll, southwest of Hawaii, and demilitarized there. The remaining 10 percent of the nation's chemical weapons stockpile is stored at two continental U. S. depots, in Lexington, Kentucky, and Pueblo, Colorado. Their destruction has been assigned to a separate U. S. Army organization, the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) Element. ACWA is currently constructing the last two chemical weapons disposal facilities, the Pueblo and Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants (denoted PCAPP and BGCAPP), with weapons destruction activities scheduled to start in 2015 and 2020, respectively. ACWA is charged with destroying the mustard agent stockpile at Pueblo and the nerve and mustard agent stockpile at Blue Grass without using the multiple incinerators and furnaces used at the five CMA demilitarization plants that dealt with assembled chemical weapons - munitions containing both chemical agents and explosive/propulsive components. The two ACWA demilitarization facilities are congressionally mandated to employ noncombustion-based chemical neutralization processes to destroy chemical agents. In order to safely operate its disposal plants, CMA developed methods and procedures to monitor chemical agent contamination of both secondary waste materials and plant structural components. ACWA currently plans to adopt these methods and procedures for use at these facilities. The Assessment of Agent Monitoring Strategies for the Blue Grass and Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants report also develops and describes a half-dozen scenarios involving prospective ACWA secondary waste characterization, process equipment maintenance and changeover activities, and closure agent decontamination challenges, where direct, real-time agent contamination measurements on surfaces or in porous bulk materials might allow more efficient and possibly safer operations if suitable analytical technology is available and affordable.
Assessment of Failed Federalism in Iraq: Federal in Name Only
by Hemin R.A. AkreyiAkreyi investigates the development of federal relations in Iraq from the adoption of the new Federal Constitution in 2005 to the Kurdistan independence referendum in 2017.The book highlights the dysfunctionality of the Iraqi federal system even after the independence referendum and shows the true picture of the key issues between the Kurdistan Region and the Iraqi government in Baghdad. This informative content is presented in an easy-to-grasp manner, originating primarily from face-to-face interviews with relevant elites and decision-makers in Iraq as well as foreign diplomats.A valuable source for academics, researchers, journalists, and students of politics and international relations at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in all universities, especially in the West and Middle East.
Assessment of Supercritical Water Oxidation System Testing for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant
by National Research Council Board on Army Science and Technology Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences Committee to Assess Supercritical Water Oxidation System Testing for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot PlantAssessment of Supercritical Water Oxidation System Testing for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant reviews and evaluates the results of the tests conducted on one of the SCWO units to be provided to Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant. The Army Element, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) is responsible for managing the conduct of destruction operations for the remaining 10 percent of the nation's chemical agent stockpile, stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot (Kentucky) and the Pueblo Chemical Depot (Colorado). Facilities to destroy the agents and their associated munitions are currently being constructed at these sites. The Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP) will destroy chemical agent and some associated energetic materials by a process of chemical neutralization known as hydrolysis. The resulting chemical waste stream is known as hydrolysate. Among the first-of-a-kind equipment to be installed at BGCAPP are three supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) reactor systems. These particular hydrolysate feeds present unique non-agent-related challenges to subsequent processing via SCWO due to their caustic nature and issues of salt management.This report provides recommendations on SCWO systemization testing inclusive of durability testing and discusses systemization testing objectives and concepts.
Assessment of the AHRQ Patient Safety Initiative
by Michael D. Greenberg Cheryl L. Damberg Donna O. Farley Melony E. Sorbero M. Susan RidgelyUpdates the policy context of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety initiative; documents the current priorities and activities undertaken; and assesses contributions of health information technology projects and dissemination actions to support adoption of evidence-based safe practices. Discusses implications for future AHRQ policy, programming, and research; suggests ways to strengthen AHRQ activities.
Assignment Gestapo
by Sven HasselA sobering portrait of the absurdity of the Nazi regime and the atrocities committed by Hitler's secret police.'Frighteningly vivid, a most strongly felt piece of writing' IRISH TIMESAfter months of fighting a savage war on the Eastern Front, the 27th Penal Regiment - men considered little more than criminals - are joined by German reserves.A garrison has been attacked and occupied by Russian troops. The German soldiers have been slaughtered. Sven Hassel and his comrades are ordered to get behind Russian lines and massacre those responsible. But this is only the beginning... Because then the orders change: the regiment are sent to Hamburg, where their next assignment is guard duty for the mercilessly cruel Gestapo...
Assignment Gestapo (Sven Hassel War Classics)
by Sven HasselA sobering portrait of the absurdity of the Nazi regime and the atrocities committed by Hitler's secret police.'Frighteningly vivid, a most strongly felt piece of writing' IRISH TIMESAfter months of fighting a savage war on the Eastern Front, the 27th Penal Regiment - men considered little more than criminals - are joined by German reserves.A garrison has been attacked and occupied by Russian troops. The German soldiers have been slaughtered. Sven Hassel and his comrades are ordered to get behind Russian lines and massacre those responsible. But this is only the beginning... Because then the orders change: the regiment are sent to Hamburg, where their next assignment is guard duty for the mercilessly cruel Gestapo...
Assignment Rescue: An Autobiography
by Varian FryThe Gestapo's blacklist was thousands of names long.... How many people could he get out before Hitler sealed the frontiers? Varian Fry didn't know any more about being an undercover agent than what he'd seen in the movies. But he was the one man who could get into Vichy France, where thousands of people had fled Hitler's Germany. Unless he could get them out, they'd be trapped--turned back to the concentration camps and death camps. An exciting, true story of World War II--Varian Fry describes the methods he used to get thousands of hunted men and women to safety.
Assignment to Berlin
by Harry W. FlanneryBy the man who succeeded William L. Shirer as the Berlin correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Assignment to Berlin by U.S. journalist and author Harry W. Flannery, first published in 1942, covers Germany in the crucial year 1941.Packed with lively incident, shrewd comment and startling information, it brings the story of life in Hitler’s domain up to the eve of America’s entry into the war.
Assignment to Hell: The War Against Nazi Germany with Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A. J. Liebling, Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle
by Timothy M. GayTHEIR WORK ON THE FRONT LINES MADE HEADLINES In February 1943, a group of journalists—including a young wire service correspondent named Walter Cronkite and cub reporter Andy Rooney—clamored to fly along on a bombing raid over Nazi Germany. Seven of the sixty-four bombers that attacked a U-boat base that day never made it back to England. A fellow survivor, Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune, asked Cronkite if he’d thought through a lede. “I think I’m going to say,” mused Cronkite, “that I’ve just returned from an assignment to hell. ” During his esteemed career Walter Cronkite issued millions of words for public consumption, but he never wrote or uttered a truer phrase. Assignment to Hell tells the powerful and poignant story of the war against Hitler through the eyes of five intrepid reporters. Crisscrossing battlefields, they formed a journalistic band of brothers, repeatedly placing themselves in harm’s way to bring the war home for anxious American readers. Cronkite crashed into Holland on a glider with U. S. paratroopers. Rooney dodged mortar shells as he raced across the Rhine at Remagen. Behind enemy lines in Sicily, Bigart jumped into an amphibious commando raid that nearly ended in disaster. The New Yorker’s A. J. Liebling ducked sniper fire as Allied troops liberated his beloved Paris. The Associated Press’s Hal Boyle barely escaped SS storm troopers as he uncovered the massacre of U. S. soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge. Assignment to Hell is a stirring tribute to five of World War II’s greatest correspondents and to the brave men and women who fought on the front lines against fascism—their generation’s “assignment to hell. ” .
Assignment: Churchill
by Walter Henry ThompsonAN UNIQUE, INTIMATE VIEW OF WINSTON CHURCHILL BY THE MAN WHO GUARDED HIM NIGHT AND DAY FOR 20 MOMENTOUS YEARS.When Tommy Thompson as assigned to guard Winston Churchill by Scotland Yard he shuddered. Churchill was considered a tough assignment and Thompson had had his share of tough ones. From Lloyd George to King Alexander of Yugoslavia. But he did it for almost 20 years.Here is a delightful intimate view of the great statesman and his contemporaries—Lawrence of Arabia, F.D.R., Joseph Stalin, seen with the well-trained eye of a Scotland Yard man.“As intimate a portrait of Churchill as has ever been committed to print.”—San Francisco Chronicle“A supremely colorful man, chewing on his dead cigars striking matches on the walls of the kremlin parading naked before an embarrassed President Roosevelt—indifferent to the lesser things in life, but never missing the main chances of his destiny.”—New York Times“Gripping...Churchill’s biographers will unquestionably have to draw on this book by the officer who was the great man’s shadow for 20 years.”—Saturday Review Syndicate“If it’s suspense and excitement you seek in a book...just read ASSIGNMENT: CHURCHILL.”—Los Angeles Times
Assignment: The Original Series #84
by Greg CoxCaptain Kirk first encountered Gary Seven on twentieth-century Earth. Now Seven, a time-traveling operative for unknown alien forces, makes a surprise visit to the U.S.S. Enterprise. Kirk is on an urgent mission to bering relief to a disaster ravaged planet, but Seven has an agenda of his own -- and he's not above hijacking the Starship Enterprise and sending it on a perilous journey deep into the heart of the Romulan Empire. Kirk must date to trust Gary Seven once again, as he confronts the possibility that the enigmatic stranger may bring death and destruction to Kirk's own era.
Assize of Arms: The Disarmament of Germany and Her Rearmament (1919-1939)
by J. H. MorganBritish lawyer and Brigadier-General John Hartman Morgan served as Deputy Adjutant-General in Berlin from 1919-1923 at the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control—a term used in a series of peace treaties concluded after World War I (1914-1918) between different countries. Each of these treaties was concluded between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (consisting of the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan) on the one hand, and one of the Central Powers like Germany, Turkey or Bulgaria.One of the terms of such treaties required conversion of all of the Central Powers’ military and armaments related production and related facilities into purely commercial use. The decision and the modus operandi to ensure this rested with a Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control. The Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control was also entrusted with a number of other responsibilities, including (a) setting the number of customs officials, local urban and rural police, forest guards and other officials under the control of the Government of the central power concerned; and (b) receiving information relating to the location of the stocks and depots of arms, munitions and war material and their operations.It was during this period of 1919-1923 that Brig.-Gen. Morgan witnessed German attempts to build up their army contravening the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and he published his findings in October 1924 in the Quarterly Review, titled “The Disarmament of Germany and After.” However, it would not be until after World War II that he would decide to elaborate on this theme—the result is the present volume, Assize of Arms: The Disarmament of Germany and Her Rearmament (1919-1939).First published in 1945, it was intended to be published in two volumes; however, owing to Brig.-Gen. Morgan’s passing in 1955, it remained as a single volume.A valuable addition to any World Wars library.
Assured Response (Scott Dalton and Jackie Sullivan #3)
by Joe WeberNew threats require new weapons. New villains require new heroes. The time is the near future. Osama Bin Laden has been succeeded by a generation of even deadlier terrorists who will stop at nothing in their fanatical quest to destroy the United States. Conventional security is no longer enough. Former military pilots Scott Dalton and Jackie Sullivan are the government's newest weapons--operatives so secret that their very existence is denied by the officials who hired them. Armed with the most up-to-date technology and equipment, their mission is to prevent a plan of nuclear holocaust that will begin at the Canadian border and explode in the centers of American power. They have their work cut out for them. Foremost among their foes are Saeed Shayhidi, a billionaire Iranian "businessman" and mass murderer, far more sophisticated and sadistic than Bin Laden himself; Khaliq Farkas, a mysterious and ever-elusive terrorist, bearing a barbaric grudge; and Zheng-Yen Tsung, the powerful Chinese official who may be the mastermind behind it all. From a shocking sarin attack on a legendary ocean liner to the stalking of chemical plants and oil refineries by aircraft filled with explosives, no attack is too insidious, no symbol of strength and freedom immune. For Dalton and Sullivan, their expertise has never been more necessary--their bravery never more needed--than in a world where unrepentant evil requires an assured response.
Assuring a Future U.S.-Based Nuclear and Radiochemistry Expertise
by Committee on Assuring a Future U.S.-Based Nuclear Chemistry ExpertiseThe growing use of nuclear medicine, the potential expansion of nuclear power generation, and the urgent needs to protect the nation against external nuclear threats, to maintain our nuclear weapons stockpile, and to manage the nuclear wastes generated in past decades, require a substantial, highly trained, and exceptionally talented workforce. <P><P>Assuring a Future U.S.-Based Nuclear and Radiochemistry Expertise examines supply and demand for expertise in nuclear chemistry nuclear science, and radiochemistry in the United States and presents possible approaches for ensuring adequate availability of these skills, including necessary science and technology training platforms.<P>Considering a range of reasonable scenarios looking to the future, none of these areas are likely to experience a decrease in demand for expertise. However, many in the current workforce are approaching retirement age and the number of students opting for careers in nuclear and radiochemistry has decreased dramatically over the past few decades. In order to avoid a gap in these critical areas, increases in student interest in these careers, in the research and educational capacity of universities and colleges, and sector specific on-the-job training will be needed. Concise recommendations are given for actions to avoid a shortage of nuclear chemistry, nuclear scientists, and radiochemists in the future.
Astride Two Worlds
by Barton C. HackerBy the middle of the nineteenth century, industrialization and military-technological innovation were beginning to alter drastically the character and conditions of warfare as it had been conducted for centuries. Occurring in the midst of these far-reaching changes, the American Civil War can justly be labeled both the last great preindustrial war and the first major war of the industrial age. Industrial capacity attained new levels of military significance as transportation improved, but in this, as in many other respects, the Civil War was distinctly transitional. Smoothbore artillery still dominated the battlefield, horse-drawn wagons and pack mules still carried the main logistic burden, seamstresses still outnumbered sewing-machine operators. Astride Two Worlds addresses the various causes and consequences of technological change for the course and outcome of the American Civil War.
Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Strategy and History)
by Everett C. DolmanThis volume identifies and evaluates the relationship between outer-space geography and geographic position (astrogeography), and the evolution of current and future military space strategy. In doing so, it explores five primary propositions.
Asylum: A Survivor's Flight from Nazi-Occupied Vienna Through Wartime France
by P. N. Singer Moriz ScheyerA recently discovered account of an Austrian Jewish writer's flight, persecution, and clandestine life in wartime France.As arts editor for one of Vienna's principal newspapers, Moriz Scheyer knew many of the city's foremost artists, and was an important literary journalist. With the advent of the Nazis he was forced from both job and home. In 1943, in hiding in France, Scheyer began drafting what was to become this book. Tracing events from the Anschluss in Vienna, through life in Paris and unoccupied France, including a period in a French concentration camp, contact with the Resistance, and clandestine life in a convent caring for mentally disabled women, he gives an extraordinarily vivid account of the events and experience of persecution. After Scheyer's death in 1949, his stepson, disliking the book's anti-German rhetoric, destroyed the manuscript. Or thought he did. Recently, a carbon copy was found in the family's attic by P.N. Singer, Scheyer's step-grandson, who has translated and provided an epilogue.
Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict
by Peter R. LavoyThe 1999 conflict between India and Pakistan near the town of Kargil in contested Kashmir was the first military clash between two nuclear-armed powers since the 1969 Sino-Soviet war. Kargil was a landmark event not because of its duration or casualties, but because it contained a very real risk of nuclear escalation. Until the Kargil conflict, academic and policy debates over nuclear deterrence and proliferation occurred largely on the theoretical level. This deep analysis of the conflict offers scholars and policymakers a rare account of how nuclear-armed states interact during military crisis. Written by analysts from India, Pakistan, and the United States, this unique book draws extensively on primary sources, including unprecedented access to Indian, Pakistani, and U. S. government officials and military officers who were actively involved in the conflict. This is the first rigorous and objective account of the causes, conduct, and consequences of the Kargil conflict.
Asymmetric Warfare: Politics and Cultures of Violence in the Modern Era (Elements in Modern Wars)
by Jacob HagstromThe forces that fight asymmetric wars are so distinct that one side avoids direct military confrontation in favor of political, social, or otherwise unorthodox means of resistance. These conflicts have been a mainstay of modern times, though scholars have often separated them into various designations by era. Observers have referred, in chronological order, to Indian warfare, petite guerre (small war), guerrilla warfare, irregular or revolutionary war, and terrorism. The proliferation of labels over time has obscured the continuity of asymmetric wars throughout modernity. Stark distinctions in resources and capabilities have shaped the reasons why states and societies have decided to fight, and the manner in which they have fought. Across the modern era, mismatches arose in the domains of technology, intelligence production, and law. But in recent decades, so-called weak powers have neutralized many of the typical advantages of strong military states.
Asymmetrical Warfare On The Great Plains: A Review Of The American Indian Wars-1865-1891
by Lieutenant Colonel Lowell Steven YarbroughThe American Indian policy, formulated at the turn of the 19th century, significantly impacted the national military strategy. President Jefferson's plan for Indian removal became the cornerstone for federal policy. Congress would bear the responsibility for crafting the nation's Indian policies, but the burden for execution was left to an unprepared and undermanned Army.From the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the principal mission of the Army was fighting Indians. Returning to the Western frontier the Army attempted to fight the Indians using the tactics that proved successful in the Civil War. The diverse Great Plains tribes, using raids and ambushes, successfully fought a thirty-year war against a superior military force. It would finally take the unorthodox tactics of several field commanders to bring an end to the fighting.This paper examines the national policy and the means used to implement it. The paper examines asymmetrical warfare through its discussion on critical shortcomings in military preparedness and strategy. The past several conflicts that U.S. military forces have participated in (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan) suggest that the American Indian Wars offer valuable strategic lessons.
Asymmetries of Conflict: War Without Death
by John LeechDecisions about defence and security are becoming increasingly open to public influence. This book therefore aims to give both the voter and the decision maker a new vision of how to manage crises and avert hostilities with non-traditional means.
Así fue
by Jorge Luis Vargas ValenciaEL HOMBRE DETRÁS DE LAS OPERACIONES CONTRA 'OTONIEL', EL 'MONO JOJOY', 'CUCHILLO', 'RAÚL REYES', FABIO OCHOA, 'GAVILÁN', EL 'LOCO BARRERA', VIOLETA Y OTROS GRANDES CRIMINALES QUE PUSIERON EN JAQUE A COLOMBIA Por más de 30 años, el general (r) Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia persiguió y atrapó a los criminales más buscados de Colombia. Su trabajo, valentía y resultados lo llevaron a obtener el máximo grado que un policía puede recibir en el país y a convertirse en director general de la Policía Nacional, cargo que ocupó hasta la llegada al poder del actual presidente Gustavo Petro. Durante esas tres décadas, el mundo ha sido testigo de cómo las carreras delictivas de 'Otoniel', el 'Mono Jojoy', 'Raúl Reyes', Violeta, Fabio Ochoa y 'Cuchillo', entre muchos otros, terminaron en una celda o en una tumba como consecuencia de operaciones en las que Vargas cumplió un papel fundamental. En este libro, el general en retiro se viste de cronista para revivir cómo fue la planeación de esas acciones cinematográficas y revela los secretos que pusieron en marcha su ejecución: un comando entrenado sumergido en un manglar durante catorce días para capturar a un gran capo, ocho años de espera para infiltrar los corredores de comunicación del otrora gran jefe del Clan del Golfo, toda la inteligencia del Estado al servicio de la Policía y el Ejército para dar de baja a 'Raúl Reyes', el rastreo a los movimientos y transacciones de Alex Saab para identificar su entramado, y muchas otras historias que sorprenderán incluso a los lectores más enterados. En Así fue, Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia también reflexiona sobre el presidente Gustavo Petro, el gobierno actual y los retos de ese país violento y armado que ha recorrido hasta la médula.