Best canadian military history books according to redditors
We found 74 Reddit comments discussing the best canadian military history books. We ranked the 29 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
11. Ultimate Guide to U.S. Special Forces Skills, Tactics, and Techniques (Ultimate Guides)
1 mention
No, the rooms are in the buildings at either end where the cable lands. Those are the ... official? ones. But they can tap it even without your cooperation if they want to, as this book revealed around 16 years ago. They just prefer not to. Maintenance is easier, I guess.
If anyone is interested, here is a good book about it:
Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1891620088/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Allied intelligence in WWII was often damn brilliant.
The Man Who Never Was
Actually most highly decorated US warship of all time. You can read about her incredible missions in Blind Man's Bluff. It's a really great book that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone.
>Pretty sure anything short of a sentence that includes "smuggling nuclear weapons to ISIS" is not going to be any worse than I think...
Funny you should mention that. Let me introduce you to The Most Dangerous Mobster In The World: Semion Mogilevich He is the boss of the Russian mafia.
The Russian mafia should also not be confused with a mere crime syndicate. It is an organization comprised of state actors, oligarchs, and specific groups of individuals working collectively with the authority of the Russian government — a “mafia state.” At times, it is difficult to tell where the mob ends and the government begins.
According to the FBI Mogilevich's criminal activities including trafficking in nuclear materials, drugs, prostitutes, precious gems, and stolen art.
Mogilevich's second-in-command and business partner was Vyacheslav “Yaponchik” Ivankov. In March 1992 Ivankov became Godfather of the Russian mob in America.
Robert Friedman wrote a book in 2000 about the Russian Mafia called Red Mafiya. In it he wrote,
> Despite Ivankov's flagrant, multinational criminal activities, during his first years in America, the FBI had a hard time even locating him. "At first all we had was a name," says the FBI's James Moody. "We were looking around, looking around, looking around, and had to go out and really beat the bushes. And then we found out that he was in a luxury condo in Trump Towers" in Manhattan.
> But almost as soon as they found him, he disappeared again leaving nothing but vapor trails for the FBI to follow. "Ivankov," explained an FBI agent, "didn't come from a walk-and-talk culture," like Italian gangsters who take walks to discuss family business so they can't be bugged or overheard by the bureau. "As soon as he'd sniff out the feds, he'd go into hiding for days at a time," a trait that made him harder to keep tabs on than Italian mobsters.
> "He was like a ghost to the FBI," says Gregory Stasiuk, the New York State Organized Crime Task Force special investigator. Stasiuk picked up Ivankov's trail at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, the Trump-owned casino that the real estate magnate boasted was the "eighth wonder of the world."
> The Taj Mahal had become the Russian mob's favorite East Coast destination. As with other high rollers, scores of Russian hoodlums received "comps" for up to $100,000 a visit for free food, rooms, champagne, cartons of cigarettes, entertainment,
Ivankov's personal phone book included a working number for the Trump Organization's Trump Tower Residence, and a Trump Organization office fax machine.
You talk to your local google datacenter over HTTPS (let's say). It hits their front door, they decrypt it there, and to service your request they may need to transport data from other google datacenters. Those requests are (currently) unencrypted, although they are traveling over private data lines and not the public internet. Somehow NSA is getting in the middle of that communication and intercepting the unencrypted (although supposedly private) traffic. This would also apply to replication traffic to support disaster recovery in case they lose a data center, Google needs copies of your data in more than once place in their infrastructure. So that's an opportunity for NSA to get your entire set of data going back as far as google has it, potentially.
So the real question here is how is NSA getting in the middle to attack these private links. One way would be they are either getting cooperation from or just outright breaking into the carriers of this private traffic and intercepting it. They'd literally just need access to the fiber traffic in a way to split the beams off to get their own copy - they've been caught doing this before. Also anyone who's read Blind Man's Bluff can see there's other crazier ways to break into trans-oceanic communications links.
If you enjoy reading, pick up a copy of Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage.
It's a fascinating read.
And this is precisely why the US submarine fleet is called the "silent service".
I highly recommend everybody read the book Blind Mans Bluff which talks about a number of various espionage feats the US submarine forces undertook during the 20th century. Until I read that book I had no idea we were tapping into undersea communications cables around the Soviet Union from the 1950's all the way up to when President Regan was in office. Who knows what sorts of things they've done in the last 20 years...
Don't forget:
If you have the chance, or the time, read the book Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World. Its written in 2009 but is still very very relevant today, and goes into great detail about a lot of these locations around the world where the CIA would conduct covert activity.
As you said, there was always more than Gitmo. Gitmo was just the literal tip of the iceberg (the part of that dark world that the public could see) but there was so much more than no one knew about, which this book really opens up.
Then you may like this book.
Except to those who can afford it. eg. Kolomoiskoi, Saakashvili, and the entire RUIM (Russian Ukrainian Israeli Mafiya). source:https://www.amazon.ca/Red-Mafiya-Russian-Invaded-America-ebook/dp/B002WAUVFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517707679&sr=8-1&keywords=Red+Mafiya
Read the FT links then.
A few points that are well known:
A few that are lesser known:
I will keep reposting this about Giuliani.
This is a passage from Robert Friedman's book: Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America(published May 2000)
By the dawn of the new millennium Russian mobsters were lavishing millions of dollars in contributions on Democratic and Republican politicians. In New York City, commodities mogul and alleged wiseguy Semyon (Sam) Kislin has been one of mayor Rudy Giuliani’s top campaign supporters. Kislin, various relatives, and his companies, raised or donated a total of $64,950 to Giuliani’s mayoral campaigns in 1993 and 1997. A Ukrainian immigrant well known among the Russian Jewish community in South Brooklyn, Kislin has also made generous donations to Democratic Senator Charles Schumer as well as other state politicians. According to a confidential December 1994 FBI report and underworld sources, Kislin is a member of the Ivankov organization. These sources say that Kislin’s New York commodities firm has been involved in laundering millions of dollars, and co-sponsored a U.S. visa for a man named Anton Malevsky, who is a contract killer and head of one of Russia’s most bloodthirsty Mafiya families. Kislin’s donations to charities and politicians bore fruit in 1996 when he was appointed to be a member of New York City’s Economic Board of Development Corporation. On December 2, 1999, Giuliani reappointed Kislin to the board, stating in a letter that his “service is deeply appreciated.” Kislin has denied any ties to the Russian mob, insisting at a December 1999 press conference that “I have done nothing evil.”
Such an amazing story. If people find this interesting, definitely read Blind Man's Bluff. This novel is written based off countless interviews of former submariners & others involved with US submarine espionage during the Cold War. USS Halibut is discussed in great length in there.
The story of Halibut is included in the excellent Blind Man's Bluff.
You might want to read Blind Mans Bluff, it contains a bunch of stories about American / Soviet Cold War Submarine Espionage.
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330708009&sr=8-1
It's a pretty big jump from "forensic accounting" to "here's what's going on at Area 51" particularly when nearly all of the budget is redacted.
There's also no real way to know how much money going to Groom lake is NSA money (redacted), NRO money (redacted), DIA money (more easily trackable but not necessarily unlaundered through other programs) and CIA money (same problem as DIA).
You have very poor support for any of your ideas - I like them, but you're pulling them out of your ass the same as dreamlandresort.com and abovetopsecret.com. Chances are good that Aurora flew, but stopped flying back in the '90s. Sitings dropped to nothing about '98, right about the time the NRO's new generation of smaller, more agile spy satellites. I've talked about this at length.
If this stuff truly interests you, I recommend pretty much anything by Trevor Paglen, particularly this book.
TL;DR: I study this stuff avidly and have for years and I wouldn't jump to the conclusions you have... but I recognize how fun it is to speculate.
Currently reading a book called "Blind Man's Bluff" , describing the ultra secret undersea spying using subs, very interesting describes what these early submariners had to go through and accidents that happened. Very well written.
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1891620088
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006097771X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1415992265&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SY200_QL40
Cheers!
Well you are certainly on the right track in regards to logistics. I don't want to give you the answers here, but I have a bunch of sources I can throw your way!
As a starting point, I would highly suggest ”Armored Trains” by Steven J. Zaloga and ”Engines of War” by Christian Wolmar. Both are accessible and geared towards the lay reader. The former is more on the use of trains as a weapon itself, while the latter looks more at the questions you bring up here.
A few other good books to look for would be:
“German Armored Trains in World War II”, “German Armored Trains in World War II Vol. II 1939-1945” and “German Armored Trains on the Russian Front 1941-1944” all by Wolfgang Sawodny. He is considered to be the expert on German trains, and every other source cites him constantly. His most comprehensive work, apparently, is “German Armored Trains 1904-1945” which I unfortunately have not been able to get my hands on as it is insanely expensive :(
”Armored Trains of the Soviet Union 1917-1945” by Wilfried Kopenhagen
”American Civil War Railroad Tactics,” by Robert R. Hodges, Jr.
"United States Military Railway Service: America's Soldier-Railroaders in WWII" by Don DeNevi
You mention you aren't in college yet, so I don't know if you have access to academic archives like JSTOR or Proquest, but if so, try to check these papers out.
“Forging the red thunderbolt: Armored trains provided mobile firepower during the Russian Revolution and after” by Alan. R. Koenig, in “Armor”, Vol. 110, No. 3 (May/June, 2001)
”Armored Trains a Success” from “The Science News-Letter”, Vol. 43, No. 7 (February, 13, 1943)
Hope that helps!
Well, this is called Intelligence as you mention in your text and we may have to break down by categories in order to provide a proper answer. We should talk about HUMINT, ELINT, SIGINT, OSINT, MASINT, etc etc to see which one did better.
On one hand the Soviet Union was extremely effective gathering technical intelligence, got a lot of info from Western organizations that saved them years of experimentation/development -like the atomic bomb-These success being mainly achieved through sympathizers to the Soviet cause, as mentioned by toryhistory. Soviets were also very efficient in eavesdropping. When they tried to deploy their own agents they seems to have struggled unable to cope with western lifestyle as opposed to Soviet propaganda.
US was very efficient using satellites and planes to gather intelligence and gives them a good picture of Soviet capabilities. On the other hand deploying agents agents (part of HUMINT) beyond the Iron Curtain was almost impossible, they typically depended on defectors walking into the US (or British) embassies.
A good reading on US satellite intelligence program is:
Trust but verify by D. Lindgren
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trust-But-Verify-Imagery-Analysis/dp/1557505187
Somehow polemic the so called "Mitrokhin Archives" that gives insight into the KGB methods, worth reading.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003109/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368440267&sr=1-3&keywords=mitrokhin+archive
The subject is massive really.
https://www.amazon.ca/Sharp-End-Canadian-Soldiers-Story/dp/1553657535
I enjoyed reading this book, he speaks on his time in Bosnia and Rwanda.
Non-fiction, but Blind Man's Bluff is great!
I'd also recommend Blind Man's Bluff as a companion piece for Cold War submarine operations. The Navy did equally crazy things trying to gather intelligence and track Soviet subs. The cable-tapping operation during the 80's was mind blowing.
This book is a great book that has testimonies from many marines and people from other branches of the military. It talks about dehumanization, the incident at Abu Ghraib, sexism and many more.
Here's the original source for the story. Hell of a read.
No problem. Some of the books on the nuclear subs, Cold War espionage, etc etc are actually quite cool if you haven't read them. Here's a good one.
I received this as a gift some time ago. While it isn't the end-all, there's some great info. I know that nothing beats real training but, with family, work, current events and hobbies, there isn't a while lot of room in my brain. This makes a great reminder for SERE/first aid info.
Fair point. But before it was troops + mercenaries. Now it's less troops + mercenaries, which is cheaper (which is the point of the thread).
You also reminded me of this book, which points out that as large as the Pentagon budget is, there's apparently a "shadow" budget as large or larger funding covert operations.
He spoke at my school during my grad studies and rarely have I been so enthralled and entertained. Not only is his work truly compelling, urgent, important contemporary art, it also intersects politics, power, history and the nature of knowledge in a way that few others' do. I highly recommend his book, Blank Spots on the Map, as an introduction and primer to his work.
I can brag that I had dinner with him, but unfortunately (perhaps fittingly) no pictures exist.
There's a book I found in my house called "The Ultimate Guide to the U.S. Army Survival: Skills, Tactics and Techniques" by Department of the Army and edited by Jay McCullough. It's not exactly military strategy, but there's some of it scattered around the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Special-Forces-Tactics-Techniques-ebook/dp/B00E25FVR6?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect
Presuming you're American, of course.
I liked Operation Mincemeat. If can think of anything else -- especially anything related to what you mentioned -- I'll let you know.
My stateside job was a SIGINT Analyst at the NSA - I worked on a Navy watch, and if you want what amounts to a TRUE inside story, check out Blind Man's Bluff.
Can't say much more than it was a fascinating look into my career field, and a very many things checked out compared to my daily experience!
ah I was going to suggest red storm rising but it sounds like you have read it.
Blind Mans Bluff is an excellent non fiction book on American Subs in the cold war. It is basically a series of real stories from the 1950's-1990's. Some great stuff, especially because it all actually happened. All the things you mentioned, close quarters, technical, espionage, conflict are right on the money with this one. There is a really good part about an American fast attack trailing a Russian Boomer through an entire deployment on the east coast, also great accounts of how the americans wire tapped soviet comm's cables in the Barrents sea
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X
I have the Ultimate guide to US Army survival. 1200 page compilation of all the US Army manuals in print. Food,shelter,tactics, and survival strategies in every enviroment, structure blueprints, communication, even hand to hand combat. Awesome book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602390509/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1602390509&linkCode=as2&tag=survivalgea01-20&linkId=P62ORNRKERPXCSBC
After loads of reading on the bus to work every day, here follows my reading list for military aviation:
Modern
Vietnam
WWII
Overall/Other
Bonus non-military aviation
I highly second the recommendations of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, and Diamond Age. I would also recommend:
Guys, your love with this story only proves that either you are too ignorant or you think others are that way. There is a renowned book containing all the gory details on this topic.
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Secrets-Ultra-Secret-National-Security/dp/0385499078
Have you read "Blind Man's Bluff"?
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X
He's probably in it....
Not that unfair to Canada anymore. We defunded our military and its a shell of its former self now.
This book was a bestseller.
Keep in mind sonar is not my specialty, everything I know is effectively 20 years of hearsay. That being said, I do not know of a single time that the surface guys were able to find us without us giving them an unfair advantage. A submarines mission is to hang out, be quiet, and gather information without being detected. It's all about being hidden and unseen. The name is the Silent Service after all. If you want more info you should read Blind Man's Bluff. However, a submarine is one of the weakest and most vulnerable unit's so that when it comes to a shootout a submarine is sort of a single use weapon.
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency - (2001) James Bamford
This was the first book I read about the NSA. Up until this point, I knew next to nothing about them. This book did a great job of showing the NSA's systematic crippling of industry encryption standards by infiltration, blackmail, exploitation, politics, etc. Their infiltration of RSA and attempted infiltration of PGP were some of the best parts of the book, as it showed that the NSA was looking beyond code breaking, and specifically at introducing mathematical weaknesses in standard encryption systems.
Check out operation ivy bells. Then check out the book blind man's bluff. Such a great read, and it will blow your mind some of the things that are done around the world.
I think this is the book I read! I obviously didn't know what mincemeat was when I checked it out or I think my 4th grade self would have felt pretty strange, ha.
I had an awesome recently published book on submarine warfare, that had a story very much similar to this in it. (Unfortunately I have given the book away) edit: this is the book http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X/ref=pd_sim_b_5
An American sub had gone down, in the 1950's - 60's and no one knew why, they suspected a bad torpedo, with a reason like that article, but the bosses didn't want to know as it would put them in a bad light.
So this might be based on fact.
certainly not an end-all be-all, but i just picked up The Ultimate Guide to US Army Survival: skills tactics and techniques. Missing some stuff, but its a compilation of all the army survival manuals, so it's not a bad source. too big to carry in survival gear though. http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Survival-Skills-Tactics-Techniques/dp/1602390509
This book was a very good read with great reviews.
This book was also a very good read.
Blind Man's Bluff
OK, clearly no one here has ever heard of "The Man Who Never Was.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Never-Was-Counterintelligence/dp/1557504482
It isn't just enough to get information to/across the border, it has to be done in a way that the side receiving the information believes that the information is true and not just a plant.
From the Prime perspective, one of their diplomats was just killed by the alpha side while trying to smuggle incriminating evidence back to the prime side. Everyone poking holes in the plotline here would have made really shitty real world spies.
Here is the non-mobile link from the comment above
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Somewhat off topic but there is a good book about this called Blank Spots on the Map http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Spots-Map-Geography-Pentagons/dp/0451229169
I wonder why you think a bunch of politicians can tell the army how to do things when they've been refining the art of war for >2000 years. You're implying that something must change? Well, why? How does it benefit the military to change tested and tried tactics? The environment you speak of shouldn't change (well, actually it should change and armed forces the world over are learning they've relaxed standards too much to cater to gender quotas). Next, we'll be told special forces units should change their "environment" to cater to women. Not going to happen. Why should the armed forces have to change? We're talking about life and death here and you're talking about discrimination smh.
Luckily, your training will be significantly easier than it once was and you won't have lug any big bodies around, fuck you'll barely have to do push-ups anymore. Also, women won't be taken into combat and have to experience that either. Thank god! I want you to youtube 'Canadian fire fights Afghanistan'. Tell me all the women you see in those videos and ask yourself. Is this the patriarch in action or is this reality of warfare.
Good luck with your courses. I'm sure you'll cut yourself out a fine career, sincerely. If you're looking for a neat book on the CF in Afghanistan, check out Contact Charlie. I lost a friend they mention in that book and they mention the loss of Capt. Goddard (the first Canadian female lost in combat). Serious shit in 2006.
https://www.amazon.com/Contact-Charlie-Canadian-Taliban-Afghanistan/dp/1554702763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491698700&sr=8-1&keywords=contact+charlie
Body of Secrets
is pretty good as well.
Have you ever read Blind Man's Bluff? I found it to be absolutely fascinating.