Sublime

In contrast, there was an attempt to create an elite unit specialized in counterinsurgency operations in the final phase of the war. In September 1943, the north China special security force was organized with intelligence, counterintelligence, and combat capabilities. It was specifically designed to deal with the Communists, whose influence kept g

THERE WAS NOTHING exceptional about what these soldiers from the Eighty-Second Airborne Division did on this balmy Baghdad night. And that is precisely the point. They were undertaking the sort of modest, tedious, mundane intelligence gathering and security operations that have been a cornerstone of counterinsurgency operations since the days of Al

2 30AU in Nazi Germany. As Hitler’s Third Reich collapsed under assault from Allied forces, small, mobile parties of 30AU men were able to seize key targets: industrial factories, often using slave-labour from concentration camps, major naval bases and experimental workshops developing new weapons of war. In one brilliant coup, 30AU also captured t

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin,