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Of all the warfare books and reads about defence issues, not all of them fit into nice neat categories. That’s why you’ll find them here, an assortment of books about everything from irregular warfare and asymmetric warfare, to cyber warfare, military innovation, and much more.
Browsing this section might introduce you to something completely unexpected, or something a little different from the usual warfare non-fiction books.
Popular warfare books
One way to discover the best warfare & defence issues books is to search via bestsellers. This will bring the most popular books to the top of the page, so you can see what other readers are enjoying right now.
On of these popular books is Tribe, by Sebastian Junger. It’s a read about the challenges that veterans face as they return to society, and the post-traumatic stress disorder that often entails. Junger suggests that it’s not necessarily the trauma of the veterans, but rather the society they come back to, that’s at the heart of the issue. He posits that humans are more inclined to live in large groups and rely on one another, much like they do in military life, so coming back to an individualistic society can feel jarring and unnatural.
One read that hits close to home is Nuked. This is the little-known story behind Australia’s involvement in the AUKUS deal, and the country’s decision to invest in a new submarine fleet. The book goes into detail about the havoc this decision eventually caused, with interviews with many of the people involved across the world, and how Australia allegedly conspired to overthrow the winning French bid in favour of a US submarine instead.
Unconventional warfare books
Not all wars are waged on a physical battlefront, which can mean there’s less awareness and coverage of what’s happening. In unconventional warfare books, we learn more about the wars we don’t see.
One such book is Punishing Putin. This read explains the many measures Western leaders took to fight back against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. With the goal of sapping Russia’s strength, a huge number of sanctions were put in place, as well as seizures of Russian assets such as superyachts, blocking the sale of military technology, and manipulating the price of oil. Russia became a warfront of a different sort, in which all the battles from the West were economic.
