By every principle of war, every shred of military logic, logistics support to Canada's Task Force Orion in Afghanistan should have collapsed in July 2006. There are few countries that offer a greater challenge to logistics than Afghanistan, and yet Canadian soldiers lived through an enormous test on this deadly international stage - a monumental accomplishment. Canadian combat operations were widespread across southern Afghanistan in 2006, and logistics soldiers worked in quiet desperation to k...
Based on extensive original research in the Republic of Tatarstan, in the Central Volga region of Russia, this book examines the economic development path followed by Tatarstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Russian financial crash of 1998. It argues that the roles of global capitalism and globalisation are somewhat exaggerated in much contemporary academic literature. In the case of Tatarstan, a strong state role, tightly-knit local elite networks, and the inheritance of the So...
Turkey's New Regional Security Role: Implications for the United States
by Dr Richard Weitz
"An astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women's rights in the Muslim world. Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cult...
The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History
by Thomas J. Craughwell
(Sanitized)Unclassified Russian-Language Papers on Geophysical and Environmental Issues(sanitized)
Why do autocrats build spectacular new capital cities? In The Geopolitics of Spectacle, Natalie Koch considers how autocratic rulers use "spectacular" projects to shape state-society relations, but rather than focus on the standard approach—on the project itself—she considers the unspectacular "others." The contrasting views of those from the poorest regions toward these new national capitals help her develop a geographic approach to spectacle. Koch uses Astana in Kazakhstan to exemplify her ar...
Origins of Ceramics and Hunter Gatherers of Northern Eurasia (Institute of Archaeology S.)
by Peter David Jordan and Marek Zvelebil
Conventionally the use and origins of pottery have been associated with the emergence of the Neolithic and the advent of farming. However, we now know that there is no exclusive association between ceramic use and farming, and that pottery use amongst hunter-gatherers was far more widespread than has hitherto been recognised. It was hunter-gather societies that were responsible for the invention and dispersal of this innovation and the origins and the use of ceramics have no necessary associatio...
Adventure, travel, history and myth combine in this story of the search for Shangri-La, the legendary paradise, including failed attempts by the British Royal Geographical Society in 1922 and the successful discovery of the hiddenfalls.
Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science. We know that the foundations of sc...
Routledge Handbook of the Silk Road
Rejecting the notion that the Silk Road ended with the rise of maritime trade, The Routledge Handbook of the Silk Road offers an innovative and interdisciplinary overview of the field. In addition to addressing the standard themes such as art and trade the international team of contributors cover unconventional areas such as astrology, technology and modernity to open up the discipline. This handbook begins by providing a holistic historical introduction to the Silk Road in the current histori...
From one of the world's leading historians?a comprehensive narrative of the 3,000 years that have formed Asia's people, culture, and global destiny Tracing its origins in Mesopotamia to its modern role on the global geopolitical stage, historian Arthur Cotterell offers a compelling, lively, and readable account of one of the most culturally diverse, and often misunderstood, parts of the world. Beginning with the emergence of the world's earliest civilization in 3000 BC, Asia: A Concise History p...
The Author sets the scene with his early experiences as a sniper during his 2004 Cimic House Al-Amarah tour in Iraq where hard lessons were learnt. Next stop after rigorous training came participation on Op HERRICK 8/9 in Helmand District, Afghanistan. Having already been a Sniper Instructor for eight years by the start of the Helmand Tour, he is well qualified to explain sniping tactics and techniques in fascinating detail. Together with the operational background, his descriptions of many sni...
Regional Implications of an Independent Kurdistan
by Alireza Nader, Larry Hanauer, Brenna Allen, and Ali G Scotten
In "How We Missed the Story, Second Edition," Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Roy Gutman extends his investigation into why two successive U.S. administrations failed to head off the assaults of 9/11 and to look at the U.S. military intervention that followed. With American forces due to withdraw in 2014 from a country far from stable, he suggests that the longest ever U.S. military intervention was doomed by the same flawed outlook that prevailed in the 1990s. During that twenty-five-year spa...
Strategic Narratives, Public Opinion and War (Contemporary Security Studies)
This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained...