A forbidden love. A daring escape. A gathering storm. Forty years have passed since the Empire was restored. Emperor Kiva the Golden, his wife Jala Parishid, and his brother Marshal Quintillian have together overseen decades of peace and prosperity, a time when the horrors of the civil war could begin to fade from memory. But nothing can last forever. A forbidden love drives Quintillian from the capital far into the eastern deserts, where he discovers...

Omolade Adunbi investigates the myths behind competing claims to oil wealth in Nigeria's Niger Delta. Looking at ownership of natural resources, oil extraction practices, government control over oil resources, and discourse about oil, Adunbi shows how symbolic claims have created an "oil citizenship." He explores the ways NGOs, militant groups, and community organizers invoke an ancestral promise to defend land disputes, justify disruptive actions,...

'A breath of fresh air' - Norman Finklestein Workers in the Global South are doomed through economic imperialism to carry the burden of the entire world. While these workers appear isolated from the Global North, they are in fact deeply integrated into global commodity chains and essential to the maintenance of global capitalism. Looking at contemporary case studies in India, the Philippines and South Africa, this book affirms the significance...

Insurgency is one of the oldest and most prevalent forms of warfare. The last fifty years have seen the increase in the numbers and intensity of insurgencies worldwide, particularly in urban insurgencies. Global trends of virtually unconstrained population growth and urbanization (particularly in underdeveloped countries), globalization, and the information revolution create conducive environments for urban insurgency. The approach taken in this thesis...

Assesses and explains the emergence since 2011 of Sunni jihadist organizations in Syria's fledgling insurgency, charts their evolution and situates them within the global Islamist project. Unprecedented numbers of foreign fighters have joined such groups, who will almost certainly continue to host them. Thus, external factors in their emergence are scrutinized, including the strategic and tactical lessons learned from other jihadist conflict zones...

During the early 1960s the Cold War reached its climax. Britain's dwindling power in the Middle East was under siege from Arab nationalism, the Communist bloc and from American designs in the region. Aden, with its strategic military base and old Protectorate buffer zone, was soon the main battleground. The 1962 Egyptian-inspired coup in the neighboring Kingdom of North Yemen further tightened the noose. So began a bitter and bloody insurgency war...

A rag-tag group of Apache warriors, led by an elderly man in his late seventies, took on the U.S. Army's Ninth Cavalry in revenge for the death of the great Apache war chief Victorio. Using guerilla warfare, they led raids through New Mexico, slaughtering men, women, and children and evading the Cavalry and the Buffalo Soldiers. In the end, they won! Interesting historical characters abound. Billy the Kid was killing people in the southern part of...

The Difficult War: Perspectives on Insurgency and Special Operations Forces is a collection of essays that deals with theoretical concepts related to insurgency as well as to the practice of irregular warfare. Since special operations forces are such an integral element to counter-insurgency, this volume also contains a large SOF component. Importantly, this book will assist the practitioner of the profession of arms to understand insurgency or, perhaps...

This will be a case study of the little known Fetterman Massacre of 1866. It will look the situation at the time, possible causes, key players, the massacre itself and the aftermath. Similarities to the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan will be noted where applicable throughout this paper. A case will be proposed that the Army was ill prepared for the Indian Wars of the latter 19th Century, just as they were initially ill prepared for an extended Afghanistan...