THE MILITARY ADVANTAGE, 2012 EDITION is the most up-to-date annual guide to military benefits for active duty service members, veterans, military retirees, and family members. These valuable benefits include billions of dollars in scholarships, educational benefits, home loan guarantees, and military discounts. This year THE MILITARY ADVANTAGE provides detailed information about the following key benefit changes:*GI Bill Housing Stipend Payments for Online Students*Education Benefits for Active-Duty and Dependents*GI Bill Tuition and Fee Coverage*GI Bill Benefits to Cover Vocational Training*Cost-of-Living Adjustment for Retirees and Vets*TRICARE Premiums and Co-Pays*Pay Raises for 2012*And much, much more…THE MILITARY ADVANTAGE is published in partnership with Military.com, the nation s largest military membership organization.
“Wheel books” were once found in the uniform pockets of virtually all junior officers and many senior petty officers. Each small notebook was unique to the Sailor carrying it, but all had in common a collection of data and wisdom that the individual deemed useful in the effective execution of his or her duties. Often used as a substitute for experience among neophytes and as a portable library of reference information for more experienced personnel, those weathered pages contained everything from the time of the next tide, to leadership hints from a respected chief petty officer, to the color coding of the phone-and-distance line used in underway replenishments.In that same tradition, the Naval Institute has created and aptly named the Wheel Book series, portable libraries culled from USNI’s vast array of information that has accumulated for more than a century. Articles from the Institute’s flagship publication Proceedings are combined with selections from USNI’s oral history program and from Naval Institute Press books to create unique guides on a wide array of relevant professional subjects.Just as the “wheel books” of yesterday served the fleet well, the Naval Institute Wheel Books of today provide supplemental information, pragmatic advice, and cogent analysis on topics important to modern naval professionals. The pinnacle of leadership in a military organization is command. Article 0801 of Navy Regulations defines both the authority and the responsibility of command as “absolute.” This Naval Institute Wheel Book provides practical guidance and food for thought that actual and would-be commanders can use to carry out that absolute authority while being absolutely responsible. Included in this specially-selected collection is the sage advice of those who have commanded as well as the expectations of those who are commanded. Aspirants as well as practitioners will do well to exploit this selected survey of what Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz described as the “one purpose” for entering the Navy.
The U.S. Naval Institute Chronicles series focuses on the relevance of history by exploring topics like significant battles, personalities, and service components. Tapping into the U.S. Naval Institute's robust archives, these carefully selected volumes help readers understand nuanced subjects by providing unique perspectives and some of the best contributions that have helped shape naval thinking over the many decades since the Institute’s founding in 1873.This edition of Chronicles culls articles and excerpts from the vast library of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings to tell the story of the U.S. Naval Academy, training ground for the men and women who serve in the U.S. Navy.
The best way for today’s sailors to learn about a battle is from those who fought it. The Battle of Midway, commemorated annually in the U.S. Navy, warrants close attention. This Naval Institute guide includes some of the most vibrant and informed accounts by individuals who fought on both sides of the June 1942 battle. The anthology pulls together memoirs, articles, excerpts from other Naval Institute books, and relevant government documents to help readers understand what happened and explain why the battle was so significant to the naval service. The core of the book focuses on events leading up to the battle and the battle itself, with a separate section examining how others have interpreted the battle’s often desperate engagements. When the U.S. Navy stopped the Japanese steamroller off Midway Island, it not only turned the progress of the war but set the Navy’s foundation for future counter offensives. The Navy’s comeback spread led to the Solomon Islands and on to the other key strategic areas in the Pacific. While many know that Midway was a crucial American victory, they often do not know the details of the battle. This book tells how, for example, the American PT boats contributed to the victory, how the carrier planes formed up for their attacks, and what role radar played in the battle. In addition to excerpts from books and articles, the guide includes selections from several important Naval Institute oral histories. From the enlisted man’s perspective all the way to the admiral’s, for both Americans and Japanese, readers see the U.S. Navy’s greatest victory as the participants saw it.
Central to CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein's career has been the mission to introduce America's military leaders to Arabic works of military significance. Just like American military leaders who had an obsession for all things Russian during the Cold War in order to understand the Soviets, the war on al-Qaida and the complex nuances of the Arab Spring demand a deeper comprehension of the Middle East from direct sources. The memoirs of General Mohamed Fawzi, Egyptian War Minister from 1967 to 1971, were first published in 1984, but his work has not ben translated and remains undiscovered by English speaking readers. Many in the United States Armed Services have yet to be introduced to his ideas, perspectives, and the seeds by which the 1973 Yom-Kippur War were laid. In this new contribution to his series of essays written for Infantry Journal, Aboul-Enein has determined to bring to life the military thoughts of this Arab War Minister. This book is a joint Infantry-Naval Institute Press project that has condensed the entire collection of essays on Fawzi to a single volume, to provide future generations of America’s military leaders with access his ideas. Fawzi is unique among Arab generals for his scathing critique of his own armed forces, and from his critical examination of what went wrong in 1967, he was able to slowly resurrect the Egyptian Armed Forces to a level that enabled Sadat to consider an offensive in 1973. This Egyptian general will provide insights into the level of Soviet cooperation and military aid provided Egypt after the 1967 Six-Day War, known simply in Arabic by one word, al-Naksah (the setback), not to be confused with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War known by one word, al-Nakbah (the catastrophe). While Fawzi lapses into conspiracy, indulges in wishful thinking, and employs the language of pan-Arabism on occasion, much like Soviet military theorists couched their ideas in Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, this will not stop serious American students of war from recognizing his brilliance about the lessons learned from the crushing defeat of Egyptian arms in the 1967 Six-Day War .
The U.S. Naval Institute Chronicles series focuses on the relevance of history by exploring topics like significant battles, personalities, and service components. Tapping into the U.S. Naval Institute's robust archives, these carefully selected volumes help readers understand nuanced subjects by providing unique perspectives and some of the best contributions that have helped shape naval thinking over the many decades since the Institute’s founding in 1873.Serving as a companion to the history of women in the Navy, this volume presents the challenges that have accompanied the long road to gender integration. In these pages readers will find edification, clarification, and much food for thought about one of the most significant national defense issues of modern times.
In this new paperback edition of America Spreads Her Sails, fourteen writers and historians demonstrate how American men and goods in American-made ships moved out over Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “broad common,” the sea, to extend the country’s commerce, power, political influence, and culture. Capt. Thomas ap Catesby Jones, Lt. John “Mad Jack” Percival, and Comm. Matthew Calbraith Perry are among some of the colorful names that many will recognize. They are all gone now, these strong men and their stout ships, who carried their country’s colors up to the Northern Lights, down to the Antarctic’s stillness, over the cutting coral, across the Roaring Forties, and into the great ports and the backwaters of the world. The results of their adventures, however, are not forgotten, but instead set the stage for America to indisputably become the dominant world power of the past century.
Airpower Reborn offers a conceptual approach to warfare that emphasizes airpower’s unique capability to achieve strategic effects. Six world-leading theorists argue that a viable strategy must transcend the purely military sphere, view the adversary as a multi-dimensional system, and pursue systemic paralysis and strategic effects rather than military destruction or attrition.The book is divided into three parts. The first section presents a historical perspective on airpower theory and airpower strategy, tracing their evolution from the 1920s to the 1980s. The second section contains in-depth examinations of the strategic concepts that John R. Boyd and John A. Warden developed in the 1980s and 1990s, with an emphasis on their contemporary relevance. The final section provides further context on modern airpower theory and strategy. Theory, in this setting, serves as the basic paradigm, strategy represents its generic, mechanisms-centered application, and plans of campaign constitute the specific steps for any given situation.In short, the authors look beyond the land-centric, battlefield-oriented paradigm that has continued to dominate military theories and strategies long after airpower offered new options. The book acknowledges the essential role of advanced technology in improving airpower capabilities, but emphasizes that air services must cultivate and harness the intellectual acumen of airmen and encourage officers and men to think conceptually and strategically about the application of aerospace power. Modern airpower can offer political decision-makers more and better options—provided the underlying strategy coherently links the application of airpower directly to the end-state objectives rather than limiting it to “the battle.”The book recommends that all countries should consider establishing a dynamic and vibrant environment for mastering aerospace history, theory, strategy, and doctrine; a milieu for cultivating broader knowledge of and insight into airpower; and a setting in which airpower experts have the opportunity to communicate their narrative to politicians, the media, and fellow officers, and to interact to mutual benefit with experts from all sectors of governance. This effort should emphasize the potentially unique contribution of airpower to political objectives and joint operations, and in turn connect to operational headquarters that do operational planning. Mastering such strategic thought lies at the heart of the military profession, but it requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of theory, strategy, and airpower, and transcends traditional metrics.
China's aircraft carrier program is making major waves well before the first ship has been completed. Undoubtedly, this development heralds a new era in Chinese national security policy. While the present volume presents substantial new insight on that particular question, its focus is decidedly broader in scope. Chinese Aerospace Power offers a comprehensive survey of Chinese aerospace developments, with a focus on areas of potential strategic significance previously unexplored in Western scholarship. The book also links these developments to the vast maritime battlespace of the Asia-Pacific region and highlights the consequent implications for the U.S. military, particularly the U.S. Navy.
For more than two decades at the beginning of the 20th century William S. Sims was at the forefront of naval affairs. From the revolution in naval gunnery that he led as a junior officer, to his advocacy for the Dreadnaught style all-big-gun battleship, to his development of torpedo boat and destroyer operations, he was a central figure in helping to prepare the U.S. Navy for World War I. During the war he served as the senior naval commander in Europe and was instrumental in the establishment of the convoy system that won the Battle of the Atlantic. Following the war his leadership as President of the Naval War College established the foundations of the creative and innovative Navy that would develop the operating concepts for submarines and aircraft carriers which would lead to success in World War II.Despite his dramatic impact on the U.S. Navy in the first half of the 20th century, Sims is a relatively unknown figure today. Overshadowed in our memory by the World War II generation of strategic Admirals, like Chester Nimitz and Raymond Spruance, he receives little attention from historians or professional naval officers. Despite the fact that he won a Pulitzer Prize for history, hardly anyone reads the books or articles he left as his legacy. This collection of six essays written by Sims illustrates why his thinking and leadership are relevant to the challenges faced in the 21st century. From the perils of military conservatism, to the responsibilities of the professional officer, to military downsizing and reform, he helped lay the foundations of the modern Navy. Armstrong’s introductions and analysis of these essays links them directly to the issues of innovation, professional education, and leadership that are as important at the start of this century as they were at the start of the last.