Flying Brothers: From Dogfights to Diplomacy in Cold War Southeast Asia (Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History)

Flying Brothers drops you into cockpits and crisis rooms across the Cold War: supersonic F-5s herding rebel "Tora-Toras" over Manila in 1989, F-86 Sabres firing the first Sidewinder missiles against MiG-17s above the Taiwan Strait in 1958, and AT-6s striking a mutinous warship on a river in downtown Bangkok in 1951.Instead of retelling Vietnam, Flying Brothers follows America's three treaty allies in Southeast Asia-Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines-showing how they built airpower that actually worked.The deal was stark: trade territory for technology. By hosting US bases, these countries gained jets, radar, and training they couldn't otherwise afford-while wrestling with the sovereignty headaches that came with a foreign force on their soil.At the heart of the story are "diplomats in flight suits": American advisors flying, fixing, and planning alongside their counterparts to turn hand-me-down aircraft into credible defenses and hard-won victories-from the Philippines' air-ground c