The Korean War: A 50‐year critical historiography

Scholarly research and publication in many countries has made the Korean War not only remembered, but also better understood. Material from Russia and China have been especially helpful in adding nuance and detail to now‐dated writing about the war's causes. Much more work needs to be done on Korean politics and the 1952–53 period, but in all the scholarship simply confirms the shared responsibility of all the belligerents ‐ including the Koreans ‐ in starting and continuing the war.     

Britain and the chevaline project: The hidden nuclear programme, 1967–82

With the words quoted above, the new Secretary of State for Defence in the Thatcher government revealed for the first time the existence of a project that have remained a closely guarded secret, even from amny Cabinet members of four governments, since the late 1960s. Despite the passage of more thatn 20 years since Mr Pym's announcement, the story of the Chevaline project still remains largely unknown outside a small group of select politicians, officials and scientists. This article sets out to use recently declassified documents and what is in the public domain to tell the story of Chevaline from the secret debates about the need to improve Britain's Polaris deterrent force shortly after it was deployed in the late 1960s to the official announcement of the project in 1980 and its eventual operational deployment in 1982. In particular, attention is focused on three main questions: Why was the project kept secret for so long? Why did the improvement programme take so long to come to fruition? Why, given the spiralling costs involved, was it not cancelled? In order to consider these questions relating to what Pym described as ‘the front end’ of the Poaris missile, it is necessary to begin by looking at the background to the project.     

Churchill's naval holiday: Arms control and the Anglo‐German naval race, 1912–1914

Brian Johnson, The Secret War. London: BBC, 1978. Pp. 352; £6.50.

R. V. Jones, Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–45. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978. Pp. xx + 556; £7.95.

Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords 1904–46. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978. Pp. 00 (Information not available from publisher); £8.50.

Adrian Preston, ed., General Staffs and Diplomacy before the Second War. London: Croom Helm, 1978. Pp. 138; £5.95.

W. G. F. Jackson. ’Overlord’: Normandy 1944. London: Davis Poynter, 1978. Pp. 250; £6.75.

Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1977. Pp. 292 + index + appendices; Np.

Gerard J. Mangone, Marine policy for America—The United States at Sea. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1977. Pp. 370, £17.50.

F. M. Richardson, Fighting Spirit. London: Leo Cooper, 1978. Pp. 189 + xv; £7.50.

Allen R. Millet, Ed., A Short History of the Vietnam War. London &; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Pp. 169; £2.75.

Robert P. Berman, Soviet Airpower in Transition. Washington: Brookings, 1978. Pp. 82; $2.95 (Paper).     

The artful use of national power: Portuguese Angola (1961–1974)

In its colony of Angola, Portugal during its colonial wars (1961–1974) was able to exploit the economic dependence and divided population loyalties of its hostile neighbours the Congo and Zambia as well as the cleavages within the nationalist movements to prevent a crippling insurgency. The rulers of both countries were largely dependent on Angola for trade, and were eager to have the side effects of the robust Angolan economy with its 11% annual growth brush off on their own moribund ones. While relationships were never comfortable, the sponsors of revolution were forced to reign in their ‘freedom fighters’ in order to maintain the functioning of their export-dependent economies. Portuguese leadership also played a vital role, as it was able to bring together diverse elements of national power in a concerted policy for dealing with these enemies, whether they were insurgents or their sanctuary countries. This policy of leveraging national power and playing on the vulnerabilities of its opponents worked well during its war in Angola and still holds valuable lessons for countries that find themselves in similar circumstances.     

Book reviews

John Lawrence Tone, The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain. Chapel Hill and London; The University of North Carolina Press 1994. Pp.vii + 239, 1 map, biblio., index. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–8078–2169–1.

Robert Holland (ed), Emergencies and Disorder in the European Empires after 1945. London: Frank Cass, 1994. Pp.x + 256; index. £32 (cloth); £15 (paper). ISBN 0–7146–4516–8 and 4109 X

Deborah L. Norden, Military Rebellion in Argentina: Between Coups and Consolidation. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Pp.242, index, $35/$17.50 (paper). ISBN 0–8032–8369–5.

William M. Minter, Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique. London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books Ltd; Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994. Pp. xii +308, 3 maps, biblio., index. $69.95/£39.95 (cloth); $29.95/£16.95(paper). ISBN 1–85649–266–4 and 266–4.     

Strategic differences: Al Qaeda's Split with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham

As part of the next phase of the Global Jihad, al Qaeda has been committed to winning popular support among Muslims. Ayman al-Zawahiri and the al Qaeda inner circle recognise that a global terror movement and civil conflicts in the Middle East, brought about by the Arab revolutions, necessitate different operational methods. As such, they have disavowed the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham for their insubordination and unconstrained tactics, a move that has implications for the Middle East, international relations, the legitimacy of the al Qaeda leadership, and the future of the Global Jihad.