Written by an expert on modern Special Forces units and the operations they undertake, this book explains the evolution of the Rangers' missions in Panama, the first Gulf War, Somalia and the post 9/11 invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It reveals the training and organizational changes that the unit has undergone and investigates in particular how their doctrine and tactics have changed during the 14-year war in Afghanistan.
At the beginning of the war the Rangers were an elite light infantry unit of picked men tasked with short duration recon raids and securing ground behind enemy lines in support of Special Forces; they have since evolved into a special-mission unit themselves - on the cusp of being assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command.

After the Fall of France in 1940, a new puppet state was set up in the south. Officially known as the French State, it is better known as Vichy France. This collaborationist Vichy regime's armed forces were more active and usually more numerous than German troops in the task of hunting down and crushing the maquis--the French Resistance guerrilla forces .This book covers the organization and operations of Vichy French Security Forces, including: the new Vichy Police Nationale, particularly their Groupes Mobiles de Reserve, the Service d'Ordre Légionnaire, and the Milice Francaise, a ruthless anti-Resistance militia armed partly with British weapons captured from SOE airdrops. Fully illustrated throughout with contemporary photographs and commissioned artwork, it tells the story of Occupied France from the perspective of those who sought to keep it in German hands.