Deception in War: The Art of the Bluff, the Value of Deceit, and the Most Thrilling Episodes of Cunning in Military History, from the Trojan Horse to the Gulf War

Latimer, Jon

ISBN 10: 1585672041 / ISBN 13: 9781585672042

Published by Overlook Press, New York, 2001

About this Item

The cover has some scuffing over the front and back.

Seller Inventory # 078276

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Deception in War: The Art of the Bluff, the Value of Deceit, and the Most Thrilling Episodes of Cunning in Military History, from the Trojan Horse to the Gulf War
• Publisher: Overlook Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1585672041
• ISBN 13: 9781585672042
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 2nd Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Military

About this title

Synopsis

January 16, 1991. Operation Desert Storm's coalition forces are arrayed along the Saudi border with Kuwait, on the other side of which lurks the bulk of Saddam Hussein's army. While the battle for air supremacy is being waged in the skies, the coalition forces pull off a stunning, and ultimately decisive, deception. Later dubbed the "Hail Mary Pass," it consists of the abrupt relocation of the coalition ground forces hundreds of miles to the West. Meanwhile, as inflatable decoys, deceptive radio transmissions, and psyops leaflets all lead them to believe, the Iraqis are expecting an amphibious assault from the Persian Gulf, hundreds of miles from where it is actually occurring. The world's fourth largest army is preparing to engage a horde of phantoms. The coalition forces are able to march deep into Iraq with little opposition. Within one hundred days, Kuwait City is liberated and a decisive victory by the coalition forces is won.

Deception on the battlefield is surely as old as warfare itself. The examples stretch from the very beginnings of recorded military history—Pharaoh Ramses II's campaign against the Hittites in 1294 B.C.—to modern times, when technology has placed a stunning array of devices into the arsenals of military commanders. Military historians often underestimate the importance of deception in warfare. This book is the first to fully describe its value. Jon Latimer shows how simple some tricks have been, but also how technology has increased the range and subtlety of what is possible—bogus radio traffic, virtual images, even false smells. He draws examples from land, sea, and air to show how great commanders have always had, as Winston Churchill put it, that indispensable "element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten."

About the Author

Jon Latimer served for sixteen years as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, as Platoon Commander, Assault Troop Leader and Battalion Intelligence Officer. He has published widely in military journals, and is also the author of Operation Compass 1940 and, with Jim Laurier, of CAM080 Tobruk 1941.