To Dare & To Conquer Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, from Achilles to Al Qaeda - Essay Example

124). The third part covers the American Revolution during the firs World war. It touches a bit on the French revolution, though it is American centric. The last part covers the post-first world war period through the present and the future.. Derek Leebaert, reveals the stories of the Special Forces, including those who were valued in the ancient myths and today's Delta Force. He describes the magnetic leaders behind the historical actions, and explains how such combinations have contributed in shaping the world.

The book shows how risk operations have evolved in order to accommodate new technology and social change. Special operations grew out from the Second World War, and expanded during the savage wars after 1945 (Leebaert 2007, p. 201). The emergence of warfare at the last stages of the cold war resulted in to special operation throughout the world. The government seeks to meet more and new challenges in cost-effective and sparing ways of the sentimentality that passes for integrity in the period of 24-hour media.

To Dare and to Conquer offers an impressive thesis: that special operations have continuously changed the course of human events. As a mode of testing, Leebaert puts the reader on a captivating tour of western military history; from siege of troy to the invasion of Iraq (Leebaert 2007, p. 301). The ambitious book not only uncovers the military history, but also shows the diplomatic, technical, political and cultural tide of events. Moreover, it introduces Alexander the Great and Roman emperor.

It also shows American Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, civil war and World War II. This is where Leebaert describes the special operations. He claims that Alexander was the conqueror of Egypt, Persia and other known parts of the world, encamped with his soldiers in the known countryside on border between Afghanistan and Pakistan (Leebaert 2007, p. 254). Alexander was dealt as a loosing person but he later turned to be victorious since he created a 300-man Special Forces team which was equipped with iron tent pegs which were used in place of pistons, as pistons had not been invented by then.

Lee baert also explains about the British Navy captain, Sidney Smith, who was commanded to remove the French from Egypt after being conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. He recruited a thousand Balkan mercenaries and took them to Levant to strengthen the fortress at Acre. In addition to that, he captured the fundamental French siege guns and thereafter halted the Napoleon's advance. According to the book, Bonaparte claimed that he could have changed the fate of the world if he could get the chance of reaching the Constantinople of India.

Leebaert cites some special operations that later turned to a battle, took down a dynasty, wrecked a port and changed history. The question that this book raises is "how can any difficult military mission succeed without special operations" According to (Leebaert, ), the examples of special operations include familiar historical events such as Mexican cortez's conquest and Peru pizarro's takeover (Leebaert 2007, p 3224). He also considered the organizational questions and deals with the issues that have continually afflicted special operation efforts of U.S.: the issues concerning sufficient intelligence for protecting the operations.

The book raises some questions like: what actually was achieved by U.S. special