Chapter 6 assesses the impact of US air power as the ARVN shifted its offensive into southern Laos in 1971. After the Cambodian incursion, a Democratic Party-led Congress voted the Cooper–Church amendment into law, forbidding US ground troops beyond South Vietnamese borders. The ARVN objective in Laos was to achieve what US air power alone during Commando Hunt was unable to do: close off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Instead, the ill-fated Lam Son 719 raid revealed significant shortcomings in allied air–ground coordination. The South Vietnamese, minus their US military advisors and tactical air controllers, could not take advantage of the available air power to prevent the NVA from driving the ARVN from Laos. After the NVA’s victory, the North Vietnamese gambled with another general offensive.

The Argead Kingdom in Macedonia knew only primitive political institutions until the middle of the fourth century. Its Kings came from a family that had been divinely chosen and was differentiated from the rest of the population by a collective charisma. It was kept in power through its association with a Hetairoi (Companion) class, with which it socialized in symposia, which it fought with as cavalry in war, with which it hunted, sometimes for reasons of state. The royal hunt was sometimes more than a leisure activity, more than a bonding experience, and more than a preparation for war: it was one of a series of orchestrated showcases which validated and legitimized a King’s rule. In special hunts the King acted out the role of a hero, whose responsibility it was to protect all of his subjects from the forces of chaos both physical and metaphysical. As observers of the King’s prowess, the Hetairoi testified, where appropriate, to the King’s right to rule. Things began to evolve in Macedon at the end of the Peloponnesian War, but only picked up steam after the accession of Philip II. However, even as late as Alexander III, Macedonian expectations remained conservative and tradition-bound.

The image of Alexander flourished across the disiecta membra of the empire he created and far beyond it. Consideration is given here to the appropriation of the king’s image in the broader sense – and principally through the medium of texts – in relation to the founders of the greater two of the Successor dynasties, those of the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. The legend of Seleucus was richly bathed in Alexander-imagery, and this imagery was focused, in different ways, on the person of Seleucus himself. Some of the tales focus syntagmatically on his personal interaction with the king, whilst he yet lived, and indeed in one case even after even he had died. Others serve to establish paradigmatic or typological parallel between the actions of Alexander and those of Seleucus, and some seek to do both. The case of Ptolemy is different: whilst there is again some focus on Ptolemy’s personal interaction with Alexander, much of the legend-generation focuses rather on Alexander’s relationship with Ptolemy’s city of Alexandria, the glory of which was the king’s tomb. So long as Ptolemy remained ensconced in the city, he could afford to bask in a more indirectly reflected variety of the king’s charisma.

The chapter deals with the administration of Alexander’s empire. The main focus is on the satrapal administration. Although Alexander borrowed the system of regional governance from the Achaemenids, he introduced changes to it, adapting it to the new circumstances. Alexander’s actions in the administrative sphere were not aimed at a realization of any abstract ideal. They were taken to satisfy specific needs arising at given points. Nonetheless, it is obvious that all the actions of the king were in pursuit of one main goal: the creation of an effective administrative system for the Imperial lands that would allow him to control and exploit the subjugated peoples better.

The chapter discusses ancient and modern treatments of Alexander’s death. It describes the omens said to foretell his death and their cultural and historical background, treating ancient versions of what led to Alexander’s death and attempts by historians and scientists to detect the working of poison, conspiracy, or less-violent and sinister causes. The rest of the chapter focuses on Alexander’s so-called last plans, their authenticity, the reasons for their rejection, and the contentious history of his body and burial.

Alexander III inherited the Persian campaign from his father Philip II, who had aimed to conquer Asia Minor, probably in order to secure a permanent source of income from the revenues of its rich cities. Going further, Alexander ended the reign of the Achaemenid dynasty established by Darius I in 522/21 BC and campaigned to the borders of Achaemenid influence in the Indus region. Contrary to the panhellenic propaganda preserved by the Alexander historiographers, the war was about the acquisition of territory, influence and wealth – not a war of ‘liberation’ or ‘reprisal’. Since there exists no Persian historiography and the extant numismatic, administrative and archaeological sources reveal little of political history, it is difficult to view the events from a Persian perspective. However, scholarship’s traditional biased images of the Persian empire as weak, chaotic, compromised by decadence and inner strife, and hence doomed to fall, have come to be rejected as reflecting Greek and Roman stereotypes. In current scholarship, it is stressed that Alexander appropriated and adapted most of the political and administrative structures of the Achaemenid empire: it was the existing system that supported his conquest.

A. is born (6 Hecatombaeon = July 20) to Philip II and the Epirote princess Olympias.

Although Alexander’s campaign has received less attention than it might from the perspective of geographical studies, the image of Alexander himself as an explorer has, paradoxically, enjoyed great success in the modern historiography. This is partly to be explained by the widespread belief that Aristotle had a great influence on his student. From this perspective, the image of Alexander as an intellectual and a friend of knowledge fits perfectly with that of an explorer eager to know the world. In the eyes of many scholars, an assumption of this sort has allowed Alexander to become more than a mere conqueror. A new way of understanding this problem is proposed here, since we consider that both Alexander the conqueror and Alexander the explorer were essential and indissociable elements of Alexander the king, that is to say, they were indispensable characteristics of any Argead monarch, and these two facets of rulership must be studied together. In other words, knowing the world was one more way to conquer it and rule it.

Chapter 8 provides a brief history of US air power doctrine development after World War II, along with a synopsis of the modern air wars since Vietnam. Four operational and five environmental factors that impacted air operations in Vietnam are introduced to help explain when air power is likely to be effective. These nine factors are air superiority, air-to-ground capability, friendly ground force capability, enemy ground force capability, weather, lighting, geography and terrain, civilians, and concealment and cover. A summative assessment follows, which correlates these conditional factors with the military and political outcomes for the twenty-three modern US air campaigns. Finally, nine general observations are provided as to the overall effectiveness of modern air power.

Thanks to the career of Alexander the Great, Macedonia has become synonymous with military innovation and territorial conquest. The question of how he was able to accomplish this has been explored in detail by generations of scholars, and an exhaustive list of works explore this topic, by scholars including Heckel, Hatzopoulo, Karunanithy, Sekunda, Heckel, Bosworth, Engels and Fuller. This chapter outlines key elements of Alexander’s army and tactics to develop a discussion about some of the fundamental shifts he brought onto the battlefield and how they reflect aspects of Macedonian identity.

Alexander continues to be a subject of military as well as historical or cultural interest. In modern times, he began as the greatest of Great Captains, then became the inventor of modern mobile warfare, the model for romantic military genius, and, in recent decades, the unlikely precedent for leaders as different as Hitler and Mao Tse Tung. The writers promoting him include both Clausewitz and the contemporary Israeli writer, Martin Van Creveld; his detractors include Frederick the Great of Prussia and the most influential modern British military writer, B. H. Liddell-Hart. Machiavelli, Montaigne, and Montesquieu are among the civilians who join military men in giving opinions of Alexander as both a strategist and a fighter of battles. This chapter begins, however, with Julian, whose dialogue, Caesares, is the first extended comparison of great generals in the Western literary tradition. From there it moves to Machiavelli and thence to Italian as well as French writers, before going on to recent literature dominated by writers in German and English. The chapter ends with speculation as to why Alexander remains an authoritative yet iconoclastic figure in military history.

The Macedonia Alexander left in spring 334 BCE was principally the making of his father Philip II, though Philip’s ‘Macedonia proper’ had been largely a recovery of the Argead realm of Alexander I more than a century earlier. Early expansion from Pieria into the central plain of Bottiaea established a core of Argead control in Lower Macedonia. Following the retreat of Xerxes’ army after 479, Alexander I took full advantage of a power void to expand into the eastern region, conquering eastern Mygdonia, annexing Crestonia and Bisaltia eastwards to the Strymon valley and gaining control of rich supplies of mineral deposits and timber. Most of the eastern territory was lost after 450 BCE, but Philip II, in addition to recovering the old kingdom and consolidating Upper with Lower Macedonia, through conquest and diplomacy more than doubled the politically controlled territory of Macedonia. His transformation of Macedonia included the subjugation of Paeonians, Illyrians, Thracians and Triballians, the opening up of trade and securing of mining, control of Epirus, domination of Thessaly and the uniting of the southern Greek poleis under his hegemony. Alexander inherited a stable kingdom, a tested army of Macedonians, subordinate allies and a secure supply line to Asia.