Hmm...so the closed notes version is that Yemen has always been a royal goatf*ck...Originally Posted by CrowBat
What happens when Arabs living in poverty and chaos are unwanted by their more prosperous and secure co-ethnics? Oh wait...
Maybe Merkel can stretch her arms even wider?
Bashing of Merkel will not get one far....yes a hassle for Germany but all those refugees created a grand total of 23,000 paying jobs and the economy is booming without effecting it at all...what many commenters actually miss....and all those overfilled relocation centers IE gyms..will be emptied by May....AND all refugees will have been biometrically registered as well.....Hmm...so the closed notes version is that Yemen has always been a royal goatf*ck...
What happens when Arabs living in poverty and chaos are unwanted by their more prosperous and secure co-ethnics? Oh wait...
Maybe Merkel can stretch her arms even wider?
Of the thousands of refugee status requests that were in backlog..only 43,000 remain not decided and those will be finished by JUN...so all in all....over 1M registered..fed..clothed and a large number of children in kindergartens and schools and tens of language classes later...a majority of Germans do not give a single thought...
AND what is interesting is the secular impact of those refugees especially coming from Syria and Iraq on the more conservative Turkish population...
Side note....far more "tips" about radicalize individuals" are now coming in from those "refugees" than ever before....as they fully understand the "threat" far better than most.
BTW...an interesting security development that even the US does not have....
There has been massive development on AI driven speech recognition software as part of internet and comms legal monitoring that now allows a person to simply read a set number of paragraphs in their native language and the AI software can identify down to the tribe and location where the individual is from allowing for a better identification of those arriving without passports and or IDs....
Will at some point be marketed/sold to the US.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-21-2017 at 07:02 PM. Reason: Partly copied to two other threads
Depends on the part of Yemen in question.Hmm...so the closed notes version is that Yemen has always been a royal goatf*ck...
There were lengthy peaceful and highly prosperous periods in the history of the country. The last 150 years - and especially the last 60 yeares - saw nothing of that primarily because foreign powers decided there would be no peace. Principal reason for this was perfectly summarized by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in a chat with Kennedy, in late 1962, ‘What Britain wants is a weak government in Yemen, not able to make trouble’.
This is what the British taught the Saudis to do with Yemen, and what the latter are actively practising ever since.
Merkel had her good reasons for what she did. While I do not agree with the way she 'organized' (i.e. not at all) what she did, I would say most of the effects of her decision are actually positive.What happens when Arabs living in poverty and chaos are unwanted by their more prosperous and secure co-ethnics? Oh wait...
Maybe Merkel can stretch her arms even wider?
That said, my book (i.e. the two volumes that are currently planned) has nothing to do with all of this (besides, there are next to no refugees from Yemen arriving in Europe): while providing geo-political backgrounds, this project is concentrating on military history, and aerial warfare in particular (and then: 'local air warfare').
As usually, introduction is offering a summary of Yemen's history over the centuries and an overview of the coming-into-being of its modern-day military.
There is a big chapter on Egyptian military intervention - and particularly the involvement of the Egyptian air force in that campaign (a lot of this based on interviews with participating pilots) - and then the Soviet 'take-over' (in North and then in South Yemen) of 1967-1968. All of this almost exclusively explained from Egyptian and then Yemeni points of view.
Two other chapters are describing the build-up of both Yemeni militaries through the 1970s and 1980s and their mutual conflicts (they fought a number of short but bitter wars), and the final chapter of the Volume 1 is discussing aerial warfare during the Yemen 'Civil' War of 1994.
Volume 2 is to follow with the development of the Yemeni military ever since; then the so-called 'Six Sa'ada Wars', i.e. the emergence of the Houthis and the first series of wars between them and the central government. This campaign, i.e. its sixth part, culminated in the war of 2009-2010 that saw a massive Saudi involvement too. Here I've got some particularly interesting insights from several Saudi sources.
Clearly, final chapters are going to cover the Yemen War since 2015.
Curiously, 'Hot Skies over Yemen, Volume 1' is out since something like two months, and selling quite good. Still, the only 'segment' of customers that discovered it for them so far seem to be model-builders, and then British model-builders ('of course').
...at last, some of them have published the first review of that volume, so far.
BTW, Volume 2 - which is covering the history of air warfare over Yemen from 1994 until 2017 - was meanwhile delivered, and is about to enter production, later this month. This is going to be its cover.
The next volume of the Middle East@War series to get published will be the part 3 in the Iran-Iraq War mini-series.
Primary topic of this volume remains the southern front of the Iran-Iraq War. Specifically, the volume is providing particularly detailed descriptions of the final large-scale Iranian offensives of 1987 and then the Iraqi counter-offensives of 1988. As far as I can say - and despite the publication of numerous related books over the last, say, 5-6 years, this will be the first ever to tell the 'full story'. Prepared with help of new documentation from Iraq, USA, and Iran, and in cooperation with multiple veterans from both sides of this conflict interviewed over the years, plus colleagues in the USA, Israel, and Iraq, it offers the following content:
Chapter 1: Iran’s Last Chance
Operations Kerbala-4, -5, and -8, which were the final IRGC-run attempts to break the backbone of the Iraqi army and capture Basrah, in 1987.
Chapter 2: Two Armies
The - meanwhile 'usual' - 'review' of the strategy, tactics, status, equipment, expansion, and 'everyday life' of both armies on the southern frontlines of this war.
Chapter 3: Saddam’s First Blow
Iraqi offensive on the Iranian-held Faw Peninsula, April 1988.
Chapter 4: Iranian Burn-Out
Emboldened by their success at Faw, the Iraqis launched another 'trial' offensive with the aim of liberating the Majnoon islets and surrounding areas.
Chapter 5: End Game
The final Iraqi offensives into Khuzestan of the summer 1988 have de-facto destroyed the Iranian military's ability to defend.
Of course, I'm biased, but...I would lie if stating anything else than this volume came out far better than ever expected - and that 'already' content-wise. Thanks to Ted's endless efforts, the results of an entire decade of research with help of a myrad of sources, literal 'millions of pieces of the puzzle' were put into the same volume, in a nicely sorted-out and beautifully narrated fashion. The volume bristles with ORBAT tables, very precise descriptions of involved commanders, units, geography, and the flow of specific operations. Thus, and although there is meanwhile plenty of literature about the Iran-Iraq War, this work offers an exclusively precise insight.
Simplest description: this is exactly the kind of book about Iran-Iraq War I always wanted to read.
Distribution of this volume is to start the next week.
Attached bellow are the final cover and a few 'specimen pages'.
Moderator at work
Prompted by Crowbat's last post I have found there is a small, closed thread (from 2008-2013) which holds - apparently - most of the posts on the Iran-Iraq War. It is:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5508
I will copy the posts here on that war to that thread in a moment.
davidbfpo
With the next volume of the Middle East@War going to the print, it's about the time to announce details of it, too.
This is going to be the - much expected, apparently - 'Iran-Iraq War, Volume 4: The Forgotten Fronts', i.e. the fourth band in this mini-series.
The volume is detailing operations on the central and northern frontlines of the Iran-Iraq War. These frontlines were actually decisive at certain points during this war, but only on something like 'temporary' basis. Therefore, most of foreign observers didn't even pay attention about them, and they received very little coverage even in official publications by both of involved parties. On the contrary, we went to extension to not only describe often complex geo-political backgrounds of these frontlines (mind: 'Kurds'), but can observe up front: to the best of my knowledge, we didn't miss a single operation undertaken by either party in this war, no matter how small.
Contents:
Chapter 1 The Opening Operations
Essentially, this is the summary about the Kurdish uprising of 1979, and the Iranian (foremost: IRGC's) intervention in regards of the same, and then the Iraqi invasion of 1980.
Chapter 2 Private Wars
Although part of a greater struggle, many operations by both sides on the northern and central fronts had the characteristics of private wars. These were fought in a wide range of terrain and, unlike the big battles on the southern front, were characterized by the absence of a continuous line.
Chapter 3 The Central Front 1982-1987
In 1982, the central front - which was quite 'peaceful' already since October 1980, was re-activated by the Iranians who launched the Operation Fatah al-Mobin. This was - by far - the most successful offensive launched by the Iranian military during that war. In turn, it not only emboldened Tehran into launching dozens of such operations for the next five years, but also kept this frontline 'active' throughout this period.
Chapter 4 The Northern Front 1982-1987
Chapter 4 follows with a similar description of - mostly - relatively 'small action' on the northern frontlines in period 1982-1987.
Chapter 5 Iran’s Last Chance
Following the bloody failures around Basra (see Volume 3), and with the passing of Khomeini’s deadline for ‘final victory’ by 31 March 1987, the SDC reconsidered its strategic options. Finally concluding that taking Basra was extremely unlikely, it decided to switch the strategic focus northwards, and press deeper into northern Iraq with Kurdish support. A key factor for this decision was the existence of extensive areas – ‘sanctuaries’ – held by militants of the Kurdish PUK around Suleymaniyah.
Chapter 6 The Kurdish Front 1980-1988
Centrepiece of this chapter are Iranian operations into northern Iraq (Ops Fath-1 up to Fath-10 and Zafar-1 to Zafar-7), and then of Iraqi campaigns code-named Anfal (these went from Anfal-1 to Anfal-8). This was the hardest chapter of this book to write: lots of 'minor operations, small-unit action and similar.
Chapter 7 The Last Battles 1988
In June 1988, following success in the south, Saddam Hussein ordered a major offensive in the north too, with the aim of 'liberating Arab land from Persians', but also with the aim of mauling the Iranian military and rendering it non-operational. Thus came into being the planning for little-known, multi-corps Ops like Tawakkalna ala Allah-3 and -4, run in July 1988. Finally, once Tehran accepted the UN-mediated cease-fire, Saddam 'unleashed' the MEK/MKO (i.e. the 'NLA') into an attack on Kermanshah, in July 1988.
The book is illustrated by no less than 13 maps: point is that most of northern and central battlefields are little known, and require good maps for reader's easier orientation.
In regards of colour profiles, we've got two new artists for 'tanks'. One of them is Peter Penev from Bulgaria who already drew artworks of North-Korean-made Koksan SP-guns for Volume 3, and then continued with preparing 11 additional artworks for this volume. This is his first project of this kind, and his work is simply outstanding - in regards of details and precision in particular. Since we've had enough space, and have presented all the major types in service with both armies to extension in earlier volumes, I've asked him foremost to draw less-well-known heavy vehicles of this war (say, Yugoslav-made M60 APCs, or Brazilian-made EE-9 Cascavels, and then various self-propelled artillery pieces).
Overall, a volume that's nicelly rounding-up this mini-series.
Attached bellow are the final cover and a few 'specimen pages'.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-29-2018 at 12:54 PM. Reason: Copied to the thread on the Iran-Iraq wars.
Preliminary results of the 'Operation Four Aces 18'.... ;-)OpFourAces18sm.jpg
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