Military Studies: Aerospace Studies professional reading list

A sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin's invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past--and anticipate in the future--in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world. Drawing on their different perspectives and areas of expertise, Petraeus and Roberts show how often critical mistakes have been repeated time and again, and the challenge, for statesmen and generals alike, of learning to adapt to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies [print book]

A cautionary tale for current practitioners of aerial warfare. They examine the complex reasons for the catastrophic failures of the Russian, Polish, French, British, Italian, German, Argentine, and American air services. Complemented by reading lists and suggestions for further research, this seminal study provides an essential and detailed analysis of defeat. [ebook; also available as a print book]

American policymakers have repeatedly invoked the "lessons of history" as they contemplated taking their nation to war. Do these historical analogies actually shape policy, or are they primarily tools of political justification? Yuen Foong Khong argues that leaders use analogies not merely to justify policies but also to perform specific tasks essential to political decision-making. [ebook; also available as a print book]

A practical guide for leaders looking to make their organizations more interconnected and unified in the midst of sudden change. The author channels his experiences, both military and corporate, into powerful strategies for unifying isolated and distrustful teams. This practical guide will help leaders in any field implement the Team of Teams approach to tear down their silos improve collaboration, and avoid turf wars.

Examines Lincoln's diverse leadership abilities and how they can be applied to today's complex world. Only ten days before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office in 1861, the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union, taking all Federal agencies, forts, and arenas within their territory; having been elected by a minority of the popular vote, was thought of by his own advisors as nothing more than a gawky second-rate country lawyer with no leadership experience. And then became one of the most honored and revered president in American history.

Print Book

How do we win a game that has no end? Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules, and a clear endpoint. The winners and losers are easily identified. Infinite games, games with no finish line, like business or politics, or life itself, have players who come and go. The rules of an infinite game are changeable, while infinite games have no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers - only ahead and behind. The question is, how do we play to succeed in the game we’re in?

eBook

The ideas of US Air Force Colonel John Boyd have transformed American military policy and practice. A first-rate fighter pilot and a self-taught scholar, he wrote the first manual on jet aerial combat; spearheaded the design of both of the Air Force's premier fighters, the F-15 and the F-16; and shaped the tactics that saved lives during the Vietnam War and the strategies that won the Gulf War.

eBook

China is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States. What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it? Doshi provides a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War, uncovering Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders.

Ebook

A country with no natural borders, no single ethnic group, no true central identity, Russia has mythologized its past to unite its people and to signal strength to outsiders. Galeotti takes us behind the myths to the heart of the Russian story: the formation of a nation through its early legends including Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great the rise and fall of the Romanovs, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, Chernobyl and the Soviet Union the arrival of an obscure politician named Vladimir Putin.

Print book

An incisive look at the transformative changes underway in China today. Through a wide-ranging exploration of Xi Jinping's top political, economic and foreign policy priorities, Economy identifies the tensions, shortcomings, and successes of Xi's reform efforts over the course of his first five years in office.

Print book

We need imagination now more than ever--to find new opportunities, rethink our businesses, and discover paths to growth. Yet too many companies have lost their ability to imagine. What is this mysterious capacity? How does imagination work? And how can organizations keep it alive and harness it in a systematic way?

Print book

By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the Moon by President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline, and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the Moon--in just four months.

Ebook

With a focus on China, the United States, and India, this book examines the economic ambitions of the second space race. The authors argue that space ambitions are informed by a combination of factors, including available resources, capability, elite preferences, and talent pool. The authors demonstrate how these influences affect the development of national space programs as well as policy and law.

Ebook

A famous short book based on a series of thoughts on how an infantry unit with only 50 men could defend a river crossing. Scenarios are acted out and with several lessons learned such as the effect of enfilading fire, the limitations of a simple trench, the use of the military crest versus being located on top of the hill, the effect the local sympathetic population may have on aiding guerrilla fighters, the effect of surprise, disguising your defense from view, and more.

Print book; also available as an ebook

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn't true? Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding.

Print book

A pioneer in learning organizations offers five disciplines that reveal the link between far-flung causes and immediate effects and that can save organizations from becoming learning disabled, helping them to learn better and faster.

Print book; also available as an ebook.

Kissinger describes the ways in which the art of diplomacy and the balance of power have created the world we live in, and shows how Americans, protected by the size and isolation of their country, as well as by their own idealism and mistrust of the Old World, have sought to conduct a unique kind of foreign policy based on the way they wanted the world to be, as opposed to the way it really is.

Print book

The most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832, it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soldiers, political leaders, and intellectuals.

Print book

Born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.

Print book

Builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the recent and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. He then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian Subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East.

Print book

On the night of November 9, 1967, Sijan was ejected from his crippled fighter-bomber over the steep mountains of Laos. Although critically injured and virtually without supplies, he evaded capture in savage terrain for six weeks. Finally caught and placed in a holding camp, he overpowered his guards and escaped, only to be captured again. He resisted his interrogators to the end, and he died two weeks later in Hanoi. His courage was an inspiration to other American prisoners of war, and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Print book

Why do so many world-changing insights come from people with little or no related experience? Charles Darwin was a geologist when he proposed the theory of evolution. And it was an astronomer who finally explained what happened to the dinosaurs. Shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.

Print book

A book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant. Great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Print book; also available as a ebook.

An investigation of this highly complex and often poorly understood country: its regions, ethnicities, competing religious traditions, varied social landscapes, deep political tensions, and historical patterns of violence; but also its surprising underlying stability, rooted in kinship, patronage, and the power of entrenched local elites.

Ebook; also available as a print book.

Grand strategy is one of the most widely used and abused concepts in the foreign policy lexicon. Brands explores what grand strategy is, why it is so essential, and why it is so hard to get right amid the turbulence of global affairs and the chaos of domestic politics. At a time when "grand strategy" is very much in vogue, Brands critically appraises just how feasible that endeavor really is.

Ebook; also available as a print book.

If you're an American working in China or Japan for the first time, you may not realize the way each culture thinks and reasons is quite different from your own, which can lead to frequent misunderstandings. Conrad explains the different ways Americans, Chinese, and Japanese think, reason, and interpret the world. He'll equip you to successfully navigate unfamiliar territory by offering best practices and recommendations for interacting with and understanding each other. [Print book]

Have you ever: Invested time in something that, with hindsight, just wasn't worth it? Or continued doing something you knew was bad for you? These are examples of cognitive biases, simple errors we all make in our day-to-day thinking. But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better decisions.

Print book

The authors reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas-and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick. [ebook; also available as a print book]

Based on in-depth interviews with tribal Sheiks involved in the Awakening and their American military counterparts, this is a study of decision-making processes and the political psychology of the Sunni Awakening in al Anbar. It traces the change in American military strategy that made the Awakening collaboration between the Sunni tribes and the U.S. forces possible. [ebook; also available as a print book]

Despite the exemplary service of most American military members, a persistent minority of U.S. flag officers (Navy admirals and Army, Air Force, and Marine generals) have embroiled the profession in scandal since the Revolutionary War. In Generals and Admirals, Criminals and Crooks, award-winning author Jeffrey J. Matthews examines bad leadership in American military history over the past one hundred years, beginning with war crimes in the Philippine-American War and ending with the recent Fat Leonard corruption scandal [ebook]

The incredible story of the first African American military pilot, who went on to become a Paris nightclub impresario, a spy in the French Resistance and an American civil rights pioneer. Eugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of eleven to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African American fighter pilot in history.

Print Book

An examination of the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people's minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life. You'll learn how an international debate champion wins arguments, a Black musician persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, a vaccine whisperer convinces concerned parents to immunize their children, and Adam has coaxed Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox.

eBook

Andrew Marshall is a Pentagon legend. For more than four decades he has served as Director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon's internal think tank, under twelve defense secretaries and eight administrations. The authors trace Marshall's intellectual development from his upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to his decades in Washington as an influential behind-the-scenes advisor on American defense strategy.

Ebook

Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives.

Print book; also available as an ebook

The dramatic inside story of the historic flights that launched SpaceX--and Elon Musk--from a shaky startup into the world's leading-edge rocket company

Print book

The riveting true story of the women who launched America into space. In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn't turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible.

Print book; also available as an ebook.

Offers a definitive and original vision of space warfare that theorises often-overlooked aspects of contemporary space activities based in the discipline of Strategic Studies. This original research draws out the implications of spacepower for wider debate in grand strategy and IR. This book presents a theory of spacepower and considers the implications of space technology on strategy and international relations.

Ebook

Illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon's historic trip to Beijing.

Print book

Marquete was a Naval Academy graduate and an experienced officer when selected for submarine command. Trained to give orders in the traditional model of “know all–tell all” leadership, he faced a new wrinkle when he was shifted to a nuclear-powered submarine. Facing a high-stress environment where there’s little margin for error, he was determined to reverse the trends of poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention rate in the fleet.

Ebook

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

Available as both a print book and ebook

The daughter of a scientist who frequently noted her lack of "genius," Angela Duckworth is now a celebrated researcher and professor. It was her early eye-opening stints in teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience that led to her hypothesis about what really drives success: not genius, but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance.

Print book

For more than forty years, the United States has played an indispensable role helping the Chinese government build a booming economy, develop its scientific and military capabilities, and take its place on the world stage, in the belief that China's rise will bring us cooperation, diplomacy, and free trade. But what if the "China Dream" is to replace us, just as America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot?

Print book

Draws upon the four presidents that Kearns Goodwin has studied most closely--Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)--to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times.

Print book

To understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet's three largest forces--Moore's law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss)--are accelerating all at once. These accelerations are transforming five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community.

Print book

For more than a decade, America has been waging a new kind of war against the financial networks of rogue regimes, proliferators, terrorist groups, and criminal syndicates. Zarate explains in unprecedented detail how a small, dedicated group of officials redefined the Treasury's role and used its unique powers, relationships, and reputation to apply financial pressure against America's enemies.

Print book

The most complete and current history of United States defense policy and military institutions and the conduct of America's wars. Examines the nation's pluralistic military institutions in both peace and war, the tangled civil-military relations that created the country's commitment to civilian control of the military, the armed forces' increasing nationalization and professionalization, and America's growing reliance on sophisticated technologies spawned by the Industrial Revolution and the Computer and Information Ages.

Print book

Bracken argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities.

Print book

International strategist Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the planet is aging into a mass retirement that will enervate markets and capital supplies; and how, against all odds, it is the ever-ravenous American economy that - alone among the developed nations - is rapidly approaching energy independence. Combined, these factors are doing nothing less than overturning the global system and ushering in a new (dis)order.

Print book

Renz provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of Russia's military revival under Putin's leadership. Whilst the West must adjust to the reality of a modernised and increasingly powerful Russian military, she argues that the renaissance of Russian military might and its implications for the balance of global power can only be fully understood within a wider historical context.

Print book

How we think in groups--and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity--not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities.

Ebook; also available as a print book

The saga of three extraordinary aviators--Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle--and how they redefine heroism through their genius, daring, and uncommon courage.

Print book

A comprehensive guide to cybersecurity and cyberwar policy and strategy. Includes discussion of how compromises of computers and networks permit unauthorized parties to extract information or force systems to misbehave; government policies; cyberwar in the context of military operations; sub rosa attacks; proxy cyberwar; norms; the future of cyberwar, and more.

Print book