Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars; use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military. Guerrilla groups are a type of violent non-state actor.
The Afghan Armed Forces are the military forces of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. They consist of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Air Force. The President of Afghanistan is Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces, which is administratively controlled through the Ministry of Defense. The National Military Command Center in Kabul serves as the headquarters of the Afghan Armed Forces. The Afghan Armed Forces currently has approximately 200,000 active duty soldiers and airmen, which are expected to reach 260,000 soldiers and airmen in the coming year.
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was the official name used by the U.S. government for the Global War on Terrorism. On October 7, 2001, in response to the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush announced that airstrikes targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban had begun in Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom primarily refers to the War in Afghanistan, but it is also affiliated with counterterrorism operations in other countries, such as OEF-Philippines and OEF-Trans Sahara.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and a number of 'tri-service' units. The ADF has a strength of just under 80,000 full-time personnel and active reservists, and is supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies.
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing military capability in a manner consistent with national defense policy. Military science serves to identify the strategic, political, economic, psychological, social, operational, technological, and tactical elements necessary to sustain relative advantage of military force; and to increase the likelihood and favorable outcomes of victory in peace or during a war. Military scientists include theorists, researchers, experimental scientists, applied scientists, designers, engineers, test technicians, and other military personnel.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast is a large-yield bomb, developed for the United States military by Albert L. Weimorts, Jr. of the Air Force Research Laboratory. At the time of development, it was said to be the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal. The bomb is designed to be delivered by a C-130 Hercules, primarily the MC-130E Combat Talon I or MC-130H Combat Talon II variants.
An invasion is a military offensive in which large parts of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering; liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory; forcing the partition of a country; altering the established government or gaining concessions from said government; or a combination thereof. An invasion can be the cause of a war, be a part of a larger strategy to end a war, or it can constitute an entire war in itself. Due to the large scale of the operations associated with invasions, they are usually strategic in planning and execution.
People's war, also called protracted people's war, is a Marxist military strategy first developed by the Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976). The basic concept behind People's War is to maintain the support of the population and draw the enemy deep into the countryside where the population will bleed them dry through a mix of mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare. It was used by the Communists against the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II and by the Chinese Soviet Republic in the Chinese Civil War.
Operation Athena is the Canadian Forces contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.The operation was divided in two phases: the first one took place from July 2003 to July 2005 in the Kabul region and the second one from August 2005 to December 2011 in the Kandahar area. The operation's main objective was to improve Afghanistan's security and governance. Operation Athena in Kandahar constituted the longest combat mission in the history of Canadian Forces. With over 40 000 Canadian military units that, at some point, entered the country - often several times - this operation constitutes the largest military deployment of the Canadian Forces since World War II.
The "Rumsfeld Doctrine", named after former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, is a neologism created by journalists concerned with the perceived transformation of the military of the United States. It would be considered Rumsfeld's own take on RMA. It seeks to increase force readiness and decrease the amount of supply required to maintain forces, by reducing the number in a theater. This is done mainly by using LAVs to scout for enemies who are then destroyed via airstrikes. The basic tenets of this military strategy are:
The term military campaign applies to large scale, long duration, significant military strategy plans incorporating a series of inter-related military operations or battles forming a distinct part of a larger conflict often called a war. The term derives from the plain of Campania, a place of annual wartime operations by the armies of the Roman Republic.
The Battle of Panjwaii was fought in mid-2006 between primarily Canadian and Afghan soldiers, supported by small elements of Dutch, American, and British forces, and the Taliban. There were two separate times in which the forces were involved in heavy fighting in the region. The first phase was fought in July 2006, and the second encounter lasted from September to October 2006.
Operation Herrick is the codename under which all British operations in the War in Afghanistan were conducted from 2002 to the end of combat operations in 2014. It consisted of the British contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and support to the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Since 2003, Operation Herrick has increased in size and breadth to match ISAF's growing geographical intervention in Afghanistan.
Abdallah ibn Amir was a governor of Busra (647–656) and a notably successful military general during the reign of Rashidun Caliph Uthman ibn Affan. His father was a maternal uncle of Caliph Uthman, thus making Abdallah a cousin of Uthman. He is well known for his administrative and military prowess; his campaign of reconquest and pacification of former territories of the Persian Empire has left a legacy of Islamization in both Iran and Afghanistan.
Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami Afghanistan, shortened to Hezb-e Wahdat, was founded in 1989. Like most contemporary major political parties in Afghanistan, Hezb-e Wahdat is rooted in the turbulent period of the anti-Soviet resistance movements in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was formed to bring together nine separate and mostly inimical military and ideological groups into a single entity. During the period of the Afghan civil war in the early 1990s, it emerged as one of the major actors in Kabul and some other parts of the country. Political Islamism was the ideology of most of its key leaders but the party gradually tilted towards its Hazara ethnic support base and became the key vehicle of the community's political demands and aspirations. Its ideological background and ethnic support base has continuously shaped its character and political agenda. Through the anti-Soviet jihad and the civil war, Hezb-e Wahdat accumulated significant political capital among Afghanistan's Hazaras.
The Waziristan campaign 1919–1920 was a military campaign conducted in Waziristan by British and Indian forces against the fiercely independent tribesmen that inhabited this region. These operations were conducted in 1919–20, following the unrest that arose in the aftermath of the Third Anglo-Afghan War.
This article covers the history of Afghanistan since the communist military coup on 27 April 1978, known as the Saur Revolution, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power. Since that day, an almost continuous series of armed conflicts has dominated and afflicted Afghanistan.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is a United States–based think tank founded in 2007 by Kimberly Kagan. ISW describes itself as a non-partisan think tank providing research and analysis regarding issues of defense and foreign affairs. Others have described ISW as "a hawkish Washington" group favoring an "aggressive foreign policy". It has produced reports on the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, "focusing on military operations, enemy threats, and political trends in diverse conflict zones". The non-profit organization is supported by grants and contributions from large defense contractors, including Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp and others. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The 1979 Herat uprising was an insurrection that took place in and around the town of Herat, Afghanistan in March 1979. It included both a popular uprising and a mutiny of Afghan Army troops against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The communist regime at first appealed to its Soviet allies for help, but the Soviet leadership declined to intervene. After the insurgents seized and held the city for about a week, the regime was able to retake it with its own forces, and the subsequent aerial bombardment and recapture of Herat left up to 25,000 of its inhabitants dead.
Operation Strangle was a U.S. Air Force (USAF) bombing campaign of the Korean War. In Summer 1951, as the war bogged down into mutual defensive ground warfare characterized by trench warfare, United Nations close air support found fewer and poorer targets for its fighter-bombers. The USAF turned to interdiction of Korean lines of communication in an effort to cut the communist supply lines.
