Before the political rupture between Russia and the West—triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022—the Royal Navy and the Russian Navy engaged in a complex programme of military cooperation. From 1988, the Royal Navy first collaborated with the Soviet Navy, then the Russian Federation Navy, culminating in a 1998 Memorandum of Understanding on naval cooperation. This book explores that unique period, examining how both navies operated and the les...

From the author of Children of the Camps, a look at the disturbing activities of the Kempeitai, Japan's feared military and secret police.The book opens by explaining the origins, organization, and roles of the Kempeitai apparatus, which exercised virtually unlimited power throughout the Japanese Empire. Author Mark Felton reveals their criminal and collaborationist networks that extorted huge sums of money from hapless citizens and businesses. They ran the...

The author of Storm Clouds Over the Pacific, 1931–1941 chronicles Japan's dramatic reversal of fortune as Allied forces gained advantage during WWII.In early 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were advancing on all fronts, humiliating Allied forces throughout the Pacific. In a matter of months, Japan had conquered an area larger than Hitler's empire at its apex. Hawaiians and Australians feared a future under Hirohito. The fate of half of mankind wa...

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan's utter devastation—was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces.In recounting these extraordinary events, Max Hastings draws incisive portraits of MacArthur, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and other key figures of the war in the East. But he is equall...

The Korean War was a 20th Century conflict that has never ended. South Korea, a powerhouse economy and dynamic democracy sits uneasily alongside North Korea, the world's most secretive, belligerent, unpredictable and repressive totalitarian state. Today, tensions simmer and occasionally flare into outright violence on a peninsula dense with arms, munitions and nuclear warheads.Cameron Forbes, acclaimed author of Hellfire, tells the story of the war and Australia's ...

A Washington Post Notable BookIn March 1941, after a year of devastating U-boat attacks, the British War Cabinet turned to an intensely private, bohemian physicist named Patrick Blackett to turn the tide of the naval campaign. Though he is little remembered today, Blackett did as much as anyone to defeat Nazi Germany, by revolutionizing the Allied anti-submarine effort through the disciplined, systematic implementation of simple mathematics and probability...

A gripping account of one of the Royal Navy's most significant modern warships.The HMS Invincible is a ship whose eventful life story, it is argued, embodies that of the Royal Navy itself during the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. From her conception and design, through her various deployments (including the Falklands) and her evolving role and technical adaptation to meet changing strategic requirements, her fluctuating fortunes have bee...

For a long time, the Australian Signals intelligence (or Sigint) story has been kept secret. Until now...Why does Australia have a national signals intelligence agency? What does it do and why is it controversial? And how significant are its ties with key partners, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, to this arrangement?Revealing Secrets is a compelling account of Australian Signals intelligence, its efforts at revealing the secrets of ot...

Named one of Foreign Affairs' Best Books of 2016In his magisterial 1,208 page narrative of the Pacific War, Francis Pike's Hirohito's War offers an original interpretation, balancing the existing Western-centric view with attention to the Japanese perspective on the conflict. As well as giving a 'blow-by-blow' account of campaigns and battles, Francis Pike offers many challenges to the standard interpretations with regards to the causes of the war; Emperor...

The story of the first 25 years of Australia's national signals intelligence organisation, told for the first time.'This story has never been told, because in the secret world we could not, and cannot, share what we do all day, even with family and loved ones.' - from the foreword by Rachel Noble, Director-General, Australian Signals DirectorateAt the end of World War II, it was clear that the nation must never aga...

Explaining and illustrating the immediate background to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this book investigates the Ukrainian and Russian regular and irregular forces which have been fighting in the Donbas region since 2014.In February 2014, street protests in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities led to the ousting of the Russian-backed President Yanukovych. Simultaneously, Russia carried out an almost-bloodless seizure of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. Ukraine's ...

The gripping account of Australia in the Korean War and how 3RAR battalion held back an entire Chinese army division to prevent Seoul being overrun.'In the only war in which Australian soldiers ever faced off against the might of Mao, this is a revealing and spellbinding account of an extraordinary victory.' - Peter FitzSimonsWe charged and we began to get shot down . . . there were so many bullets coming that it was like walking, runni...