BEHIND THE ENIGMA

By John Ferris

The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency

For a hundred years, GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters – has been at the forefront of innovation in national security and British secret statecraft. Famed for its codebreaking achievements during the Second World War, and essential to the Allied victory, GCHQ also held a critical role in both the Falklands War and Cold War. Today, amidst the growing threats of terrorism and online crime, GCHQ continues to be the UK’s leading intelligence, security and cyber agency, and a powerful tool of the British state. Based on unprecedented access to classified archives, Behind the Enigma is the first book to authoritatively tell the entire history of this most unique and enigmatic of organisations – and peer into its future at the heart of the nation’s security

D-DAY DOCUMENTS

By Paul Winter

Published in partnership with the National Archives, D-Day Documents is a commemorative collection of previously unpublished documents marking the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. This unprecedented book contains not only 21st Army Group intelligence reports on ‘Omaha’ Beach, RAF Photographic Reconnaissance prints and the ship’s log of HMS Warspite but various other important official documents covering different aspects of Operations Neptune and Overlord. Crucially, this single volume brings together for the first time the war diary entries of all Anglo-Canadian ‘spear-head’ units and regiments who landed in France on 6 June 1944. A unique publication, which celebrates one of the most momentous days in modern military history, D-Day Documents will fascinate anyone with an interest in the Second World War, as well as offering an invaluable primary source for military historians.

RED FEAR

By Iqbal Chand Malhotra

The China Threat

What was the reason for the first real armed encounter between Indian and Chinese troops on Chinese soil in the town of Dinghai on Chusan Island in July 1840?

Were the orders for the invasion of Aksai Chin issued by Mao from Moscow in December 1949, at Stalin’s behest?

Was the pluck and raw courage of Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh to hold Nathu La first in 1965 and then again in 1967 the basis for General K. Sundarji’s bold moves at Sumdorong Chu in 1986 and 1987?

Red Fear: The China Threat catalogues, evaluates and infers the consequences of the political and military confrontations between India and China from the 15th to the 21st century. Contrary to the glowing accounts in popular imagination of a congruence of values and interests between these two nations, the relationship has been confrontational and antagonistic at many levels throughout these last six centuries. The lessons of history are hard to learn. Nevertheless, China seems to have learnt them better than India. It bided its time well and positioned itself to humiliate and denigrate India whenever possible as retribution for the perceived harm India and Indians did to its society and economy during the infamous Chinese century of humiliation between 1839 to 1940. For India, today’s post-Galwan situation is reminiscent of the challenge India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru faced in 1962 and the identical challenge India’s 14th Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in 2020. Vedic philosophy argues that time is cyclical, and not linear, and by this argument, the year 2020 completes a 60-year cycle that began in 1960. How Modi responds to this challenge will define India’s relationship with China as well as its position in the world through the rest of the 21st century.

THE ISIS CALIPHATE

By Stanly Johny

FROM SYRIA TO THE DOORSTEPS OF INDIA

The rapid rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria was almost like a fairy tale. A group that was unheard of in early 2013 captured territories as big as Great Britain by 2014 June, effectively erasing the border between Iraq and Syria. It announced a Caliphate, drew in thousands of fighters and supporters from across the world, including India, launched attacks in nations from Brussels to Bangladesh and earned loyalties of local militant groups in conflict-ridden states such as Nigeria, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. By the end of 2014, ISIS had transformed itself into a global force of terror. ISIS Caliphate tells the story of this phenomenon. Based on primary sources and interviews, the book explores the geopolitical, organisational and ideological roots of ISIS and narrates how the group has spread its wings from its core in Iraq and Syria to the peripheries of India and Pakistan.