Special Air Service Research Articles

Warfare by other means: special forces, terrorism and grand strategy

This contribution looks at the role of Special Forces in anti-terrorist operations with particular emphasis on the British Special Air Service. It argues that Special Forces have played a pivotal role in such operations since the era of Palestinian terrorism in the early 1970s. The essay looks at the operations in Afghanistan leading to the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and shows that the seven Special Forces involved there proved crucial to the success of the limited ground forces. In particular they served a valuable force multiplier by acting as a nexus between the regional warlords and the use of air power as well as mobile strike units against fortified Al Qaeda and Taliban positions. In the latter instance their success was mixed, involving attacks on difficult cave hideouts, though overall it can be concluded that Special Forces have demonstrated their capacity in fighting unconventional warfare against mobile and transnational terrorist groupings.

This Is the SAS: A Pictorial History of the Special Air Service Regiment.

This Is the SAS: A Pictorial History of the Special Air Service Regiment.

The Cambridge special air service courses in Persian

The Cambridge special air service courses in Persian

Medical Aspects of the Special Air Service

Medical Aspects of the Special Air Service

Reviews of Books

Abstract Man of Valour: Field Marshal Lord Gort, VC. By J. R. Colville (Collins) £3.50 Hankey: Man of Secrets, Vol. II: 1919–1931. By Stephen Roskill (Collins) £5 Denis Healey and the Policies of Power. By Bruce Reed and Geoffrey Williams (Sidgwick and Jackson) £3.50 The Great Duke, or the Invincible General. By Sir Arthur Bryant (Collins) £3.50 Napoleon. By Vincent Cronin (Collins) £3.50 I, SPY?: Gehlen: Spy of the Century. By E. H. Cookridge (Hodder and Stoughton) £3.75 Memoir: NOTES IN EVIDENCE: The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945. Ed. by David Dilks (Cassell) £6 Memoir: JOTTINGS IN YOUTH: Schoolboy at War: Gunner Subaltern 1914–1918. Julian Tyndale-Biscoe (Leo Cooper) £2.50 First World War: FOLIES POLITIQUES: The French and the Dardanelles. By George H. Cassar (Allen & Unwin) £4 EFFORT WITH MERIT: Arms, Men and Governments: the War Policies of Canada, 1939–1945. By C. P. Stacey (Queen's Printer: Canada) £7.50 CHANGE AND DIVISION: The Long Retreat. By C. J. Bartlett (Macmillan) £4.95 … AND AFTER: Italy Since 1945. By Elizabeth Wiskemann (Macmillan) £2.95 Middle East: IMPERIALISM REDRAWN—AND REHASHED: Perfidious Albion: the Origins of Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant. By John Marlowe (Elek Books) £5 Middle East: IMPERIALISM REDRAWN—AND REHASHED: The British in Egypt. By Peter Mansfield (Weidenfeld and Nicolson) £3.50 Middle East: A GLORIOUS FEAST: The Middle East: a Handbook. Ed. by Michael Adams (Anthony Blond) £8 Far East: VAST BUT SUPERIOR: The Soviet Far East. By E. Stuart Kirby (Macmillan) £5 Far East: PROBLEMS UNRESOLVED: British Strategy in the Far East, 1919–1939. By Wm. Roger Louis (Clarendon Press) £3.25 Far East: OBSERVER UNLIMITED: Worlds Apart. China 1953–55; USSR 1962–65. By Humphrey Trevelyan (Macmillan) £3.25 The Siege and Capture of Havana, 1762. Ed. by David Syrett (Navy Records Society) £3.50 (to non-members) Hard Lying: the Birth of the Destroyer. By Peter Smith (William Kimber) £2.50 The Tribals. By Martin H. Brice (Ian Allan) £3.80 Royal Sailors. By A. Cecil Hampshire (William Kimber) £3.25 Early Aviation—Man Conquers the Air. By Sir Robert Saundby (Macdonald) 70p Armament of British Aircraft, 1909–1939. By H. F. King (Putnam) £5.50 Airborne to Battle: 1918–1971. By Maurice Tugwell (William Kimber: London) £4.50 Regimental History: STIRLING CHARACTERS: The Special Air Service. By Philip Warner (William Kimber) £3.50 Regimental History: TEETH ARMS: History of the Royal Army Dental Corps. By Leslie J. Godden (Gale and Polden) £3 Regimental History: ARMS FOR PEACE: The Blue Berets: the Story of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. By Michael Harbottle (Leo Cooper) £3 Military History: BONES AND STONES: The Medieval Soldier. By Vesey Norman (Barker) £3 Military History: BONES AND STONES: The Medieval Castle. By Philip Warner (Barker) £2.50 Military History: VG—MG!: Pictorial History of the Machine Gun. By F. W. A. Hobart (Ian Allan) £3.45 Defence—Military and Civil: REVOLT AT ARMS: The Nigerian Military, a Sociological Analysis of Authority and Revolt, 1960–1967. By Robin Luckham (Cambridge University Press) £6 Defence—Military and Civil: SOCIAL POWER: Political Disobedience. By Leslie J. Macfarlane (Macmillan) Papermac: 60p Defence—Military and Civil: Brassey's Annual: Defence and the Armed Forces. Ed. by Major-General J. L. Moulton, RM (retd) (William Clowes & Sons Ltd) £5 Defence—Military and Civil: Seaford House Papers, 1970. Foreword by Alastair Buchan (Ministry of Defence: distributed to Universities, Institutes and journals without charge)