After eight challenging years in Afghanistan, the new U.S. strategy, aimed at winning hearts and minds rather than search-and-destroy, refocuses the conflict on Special Forces: unorthodox soldiers who work outside of traditional military forces to combine secret military operations with nation building. Tony Geraghty, an expert author in this field for almost thirty years, unveils the evolution of this refined style of war-making from its roots in anti-guerrilla warfare in Ireland and Palestine, by way of the creation of the CIA, the SAS, the Green Berets, America's Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and many others. Israel's Special Forces, including Mossad, are an organic part of the same coherent history, and their story is narrated here for the first time. This is more than a tale of derring-do, it is a sweeping examination of Black Ops at a time when they represent the future of an open-ended global war against terrorism.--From publisher description.