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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research
For half a century Adelphi Papers have been the archetype of an international security monograph. Drawn from the Greek word for 'brother', Adelphi Papers had their debut during the height of the Cold War and were intended as a vehicle to form an international network of specialists advancing understanding in international and strategic studies. Although one volume cannot possibly do justice to the depth and insight provided by more than 400 monographs published over the past five decades, it can provide the reader an understanding of the evolution of strategic thinking during that period. These papers are important because of the intellectual contribution they made at the time; but they are equally important because of their enduring value in shedding light even on today's security challenges.
With the rise of religiously motivated violence and terrorism, governments around the world need to develop their religious and ideological capabilities in parallel with strengthening their law enforcement, military and intelligence capabilities. Terrorist Rehabilitation: A New Frontier in Counter-terrorism aims to provide an understanding of the importance of the approach and strategy of terrorist rehabilitation in countering this threat.Comprising of nine chapters, this book provides case study assessments of terrorist rehabilitation practices set against the backdrop of their unique operational and geopolitical milieu in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. This will help the reader to form a foundational understanding of the concept of terrorist rehabilitation by combining the insights, successes and experience of senior government officials and counter-terrorism experts. In addition, the contributors provide discussions on religious concepts that have been manipulated by violent Islamists as a background to understanding religiously or ideologically motivated terrorism and the avenues open for countering it.
The South Asian security complex refers to security interdependencies between the states in the region, and also includes the effect that powerful external actors, such as China, the US and Russia, and geopolitical interests have on regional dynamics. This book focuses on the national securities of a number of South Asian countries in order to discuss a range of issues related to South Asian security. The book makes a distinction between traditional and non-traditional security. While state-centric approaches such as bilateral relations between India and Pakistan are considered to be traditional realist approaches to security, the promotion of economic, environmental and human security reflect global concerns, liberal theories and cosmopolitan values. The book goes beyond traditional security issues to reflect the changing security agenda in South Asia in the twenty-first century, and is a useful contribution to studies on South Asian Politics and Security Studies.
The human dimension of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) implies an alternative vision of security and co-operation in Europe, based on respect for human rights, democracy, the rule of law, minority rights and human contacts. Until recently the human dimension has been the main claim to perpetuity of the CSCE. It has been through the years the main point of controversy among its participating states, and has played an important role in the revolutionary events of 1989 which transformed Europe.
Are the relationships that the United States forged with North and Central Europe during the Cold War still viable today? As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) declines and the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) emerges, can the United States and Europe bridge the transatlantic fissures that opened when the United States prepared to go to war with Iraq? In a post-9/11 world, North and Central Europe have had to adapt their national security policies and rethink their relationship with the United States. In an in-depth look at the security policies of the states in North and Central Europe, Andrew Michta highlights how historical legacies, regional geostrategic constraints, and individual capabilities have shaped their response to the new environment. Michta raises the broad question of whether traditional alliances and NATO are still viable ways to deal with new security concerns. The two key questions that arise from this discussion are to what extent NATO still matters to the United States, beyond its political utility, and whether the European Union as a whole can become a partner for the United States in a new security environment. The Limits of Alliance argues that, although NATO will continue to exist in the coming decade, the hollowing-out of the alliance will be accompanied by a shift in transatlantic security relations toward bilateralism determined by regional security considerations.
Any state at war attempts to steer the conflict to the point where it can demonstrate its relative advantage. Thus underlying each war is a struggle over its particular nature, and in a dynamic process each side attempts to shape a war paradigm that suits its own relative strengths, while the adversary attempts to impose its preferred paradigm on the conflict. Israel, for example, seemingly has an edge in military effectiveness, and has therefore always preferred short, decisive wars. Its enemies, however, have an overall advantage in stamina and ability to leverage the international system. They therefore strive to lengthen the war and bring Israel to the point of defeat through attrition of the Israeli political-civilian system. In this book, Ron Tira examines the different aspects that characterise a war, from the centre of gravity to be attacked to the elements constituting military decision, as they are manifested in "simple" symmetrical wars; asymmetrical wars versus a state opponent; guerrilla warfare; parallel warfare; and next generation warfare. The author first surveys types of war and the circumstances whereby the classical doctrine of war is progressively less valid, and then devises additional analytical tools necessary to understand these more complex conflicts. The study examines the relevance of classical doctrine and applies these new tools and concepts to a range of historical examples, from the Second Punic War to World War II to some of Israel's main wars. The final case evaluated is the next generation of wars that Israel and other Western countries may find themselves fighting -- wars against states that have adopted the guerrilla paradigm. Published in association with the Institute for National Security Studies, Israel.
Since World War II, military intervention in developing world internal conflicts (DWIC) has become the primary form of U.S. military activity, and these interventions have proven unsuccessful in places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This book argues such failure was entirely predictable, even inevitable, due both to the nature and dynamics of foreign military intrusion in the affairs of other countries and especially the DWICs that provide the major contemporary form of potential U.S. military in the foreseeable future. Basing its analysis in both human nature (the adverse reaction to prolonged outsider intrusion) and historical analogy, the book argues strongly why military intervention should be avoided as a national security option and the implications of such a policy decision for national security strategy and policy.
This book conducts a comprehensive study on China's maritime strategy. It discusses the lessons of maritime power history that must be learnt by Chinese today, the relations between China's maritime strategy and domestic developing problems of China, the status and influence of maritime strategy from China's overall development strategy perspective, and the geopolitical targets of Chinese navy in 2050.China's maritime strategy is one of the most important academic and realistic subjects in the present and future. This book is the first book to discuss China's maritime strategy comprehensively in and outside China. It will give readers a better sense of why China has to develop its sea power, why it lays so much emphasis on Taiwan and the South China sea, why the country can make friends with India but not Japan, and why China's maritime strategy will never challenge America but has to face the pressure from America's maritime hegemony, and so on.
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2016 Perhaps the most basic national security question that U.S. leaders and the body politic continuously face is where and under what circumstances to consider and in some cases resort to the use of armed force to ensure the country's safety and well-being. The question is perpetual-but the answer is not. This insightful text helps students make sense of the ever-changing environment and factors that influence disagreement over national security risks and policy in the United States. The book takes shape through a focus on three considerations: strategy, policy, and issues. Snow explains the range of plans of action that are possible and resources available for achieving national security goals, as well as the courses of action for achieving those goals in the context of a broad range of security problems that must be dealt with. However, there is little agreement among policymakers on exactly what is the nature of the threats that the country faces. Snow helps readers frame the debate by suggesting some of the prior influences on risk-assessment, some of the current influences on national security debates, and suggestions for how future strategy and policy may be shaped.
Since World War II, military intervention in developing world internal conflicts (DWIC) has become the primary form of U.S. military activity, and these interventions have proven unsuccessful in places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This book argues such failure was entirely predictable, even inevitable, due both to the nature and dynamics of foreign military intrusion in the affairs of other countries and especially the DWICs that provide the major contemporary form of potential U.S. military in the foreseeable future. Basing its analysis in both human nature (the adverse reaction to prolonged outsider intrusion) and historical analogy, the book argues strongly why military intervention should be avoided as a national security option and the implications of such a policy decision for national security strategy and policy.
The region encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af/Pak region) is undergoing a fundamental strategic change. This book analyses the nature of this strategic change, in ordre to seek possible future scenarios and to examine policy options. It also undertakes a critical review of the basic elements of the Western strategic approach towards dealing with regional conflicts in all parts of the world, with special emphasis on the Af/Pak region. Dealing with the political developments i one of the most volatile regions in the world - Afghanistan and Pakistan - the volume focuses on Western strategic concerns. The withdrawal of ISAF by 2014 will change the overall political setting and the work addresses the challenges that will result for Western policymakers thereafter. It examines the cases of Afghanistan and Pakistan separately, and also looks at the broader region and tries to identify different outcomes. This book will be of much interest to students of Central and South Asian politics, strategic studies, foreign policy and security studies generally.
In the interwar period, Red Army commanders headed by Tukhachevskii developed a new doctrine of mobile warfare and "deep operations". The military requirements of armaments and industrial production in the event of war was a central parameter in Stalinist industrialization. Based on recently opened Russian archives, the book analyzes military dimensions of Soviet long term economic and military reconstruction plans from the mid 1920s until 1941. It presents a new framework for estimating the Soviet war economic preparations, drastically underestimated by contemporaries.
Despite the substantial output of revisionist scholarship over the last decade reappraising the performance of the British Army on the Western Front during the First World War, there still remains a stubborn perception that its commanders were incompetent, inflexible and unimaginative. Whilst much ink has been spilled vilifying or defending individual commanders, or looking for overarching trends and 'learning curves', this is the first work to examine systematically the vertical nature of command - that is the transmission of plans from the high-command down through the rank structure to the front line. Through such an investigation, a much more rounded measure of the effectiveness of British commanders can be gained; one moves the argument beyond the overly simplistic 'casualties to ground gained' equation that is usually offered. The Battle of Fromelles (19-20 July 1916) was selected as the case study as it was relatively small in scale, in the right period, and retains sufficient primary sources available to sustain the analysis. It also witnessed the first time Australian forces were used in offensive operations on the Western Front, and thus looms large in wider Commonwealth perceptions of 'Bumbling British Generals'. The book follows the progress of the battle plan from its inception in the strategic designs of the supreme commander down through the various intermediate level commands at operational and tactical headquarters until it became the orders that sent the infantry forward into the attack. In so doing it provides a unique insight into the strengths and weaknesses of British command structure, allowing a much more scholarly judgement of its overall effectiveness.
The ideas of the Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) underlie most modern military thought. This intellectual history of the reception of Carl von Clausewitz's military theories in Britain and the United States thus provides an important and revealing examination of the evolution of military thinking in both countries. In the first comprehensive study of the literature, Christopher Bassford argues that the impact of Clausewitzian theory - particularly the classic On War, published in 1832 - has been widely misunderstood, and he follows the trail of Clausewitzian influence from early-Victorian Britain to 1945. He examines the attitudes and interpretations of a large array of commentators, ranging from soldiers like the Duke of Wellington, "Wully" Robertson, and Dwight Eisenhower to theorists like Julian Corbett, to journalists and historians like Spenser Wilkinson and Basil Liddell Hart, to a wide range of reformers, special pleaders, and propagandists. By exploring the changing ways in which Clausewitz's ideas have been received by these various groups of commentators, Bassford also offers some penetrating lessons concerning the manner in which ideas are ignored, acclaimed, rejected, distorted, or re-transmitted. In bringing this literature to light, Clausewitz in English makes a persuasive case for Clausewitzian theory having had a broad impact on the development of British and American military thinking. It will be of interest to a wide range of military and intellectual historians.
How have US economic defence policies promoted its security since 1933? US Policies of Economic Warfare, 1933-1991 concentrates on an important and neglected facet of America's fight for survival in the latter half of the twentieth century. It explains how US policy-makers crafted and used instruments of economic statecraft against states that posed vital threats to the survival of the USA. This study situates economic defence policy within the broad context of US foreign policy and explores its response to the totalitarianism of the 1930s, the Second World War and the complex strategic and political developments of the Cold War.
The origins of the First World War remain one of the greatest twentieth century historical controversies. In this debate the role of military planning in particular and of militarism in general, are a key focus of attention. Did the military wrest control from the civilians? Were the leaders of Europe eager for a conflict? What military commitments were made between the various alliance blocks? These questions are examined in detail here in eleven essays by distinguished historians and the editor's introduction provides a focus and draws out the comparative approach to the history of military policies and war plans of the great powers.
The human dimension of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) implies an alternative vision of security and co-operation in Europe, based on respect for human rights, democracy, the rule of law, minority rights and human contacts. Until recently the human dimension has been the main claim to perpetuity of the CSCE. It has been through the years the main point of controversy among its participating states, and has played an important role in the revolutionary events of 1989 which transformed Europe.
During the decolonization wars in East and Southern Africa, tracking became increasingly valuable as a military tactic. Drawing on archival research and interviews, Stapleton presents a comparative study of the role of tracking in insurgency and counter-insurgency across Kenya, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Web Programming for Business: PHP Object-Oriented Programming with Oracle focuses on fundamental PHP coding, giving students practical, enduring skills to solve data and technical problems in business. Using Oracle as the backend database, the book is version-neutral, teaching students code that will still work even with changes to PHP and Oracle. The code is clean, clearly explained and solutions-oriented, allowing students to understand how technologies such as XML, RSS or AJAX can be leveraged in business applications. The book is fully illustrated with examples, and includes chapters on:
Powerpoint slides, applied exam questions, and the raw code for all examples are available on a companion website. This book offers an innovative approach that allows anyone with basic SQL and HTML skills to learn PHP object-oriented programming.
Special Operations Executive was one of the most secretive organizations of the Second World War, its activities cloaked in mystery and intrigue. The fate, therefore, of many of its agents was not revealed to the general public other than the bare details carved with pride upon the headstones and memorials of those courageous individuals. Then in 2003, the first batch of SOE personal files was released by The National Archives. Over the course of the following years more and more files were made available. Now, at last, it is possible to tell the stories of all those agents that died in action. These are stories of bravery and betrayal, incompetence and misfortune, of brutal torture and ultimately death. Some died when their parachutes failed to open, others swallowed their cyanide capsules rather than fall into the hands of the Gestapo, many died in combat with the enemy, most though were executed, by hanging, by shooting and even by lethal injection. The bodies of many of the lost agents were never found, destroyed in the crematoria of such places as Buckenwald, Mauthausen and Natzweiler, others were buried where they fell. All of them should be remembered as having undertaken missions behind enemy lines in the knowledge that they might never return.
This is the most comprehensive bibliography to date on the vast English-language literature covering the myriad aspects of peace and security issues in the East Asia/Pacific region. McClean contacted 150 key research institutions and publishers around the world for information about the most significant books, articles, dissertations, and official documents on international and intra-state security, arms control, conflict-avoiding diplomacy, and militarization in the area. He has selectively annotated 12,645 cross-referenced entries and organized them into 27 sub-regional and country chapters including two particularly extensive chapters on Japan and China and two further chapters on relations between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, and on U.S. and Soviet policy.
In The Tank Debate, John Stone highlights the equivocal position
that armour has traditionally occupied in Anglo-American thought,
and explains why - despite frequent predictions to the contrary -
the tank has remained an important instrument of war. This book
provides a timely and provocative study of the tank's developmental
history, against the changing background of Anglo-American military
thought.
Why has U.S. security policy scarcely changed from the Bush to the Obama administrations? The theory of "double government" posed by the 19th century English scholar Walter Bagehot suggests a disquieting answer that is extensively discussed in National Security and Double Government. Michael J. Glennon challenges the myth that U.S. security policy is made through the visible, "Madisonian institutions"-the President, Congress, and the courts, proposing that their roles are largely illusory. Presidential control is nominal, congressional oversight is dysfunctional, and judicial review is negligible. He argues that security policy is really made by the managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies- a concealed "Trumanite network" of several hundred members who are responsible for protecting the nation, and who are primarily immune from constitutional restraints. As such, this new system of "double government" will not correct itself, as to do so would require those branches to exercise the very power that they lack. Glennon suggests that the main problem is political ignorance, which is becoming more acute as public influence on security policy declines. This book aims to inform and enlighten the reader about the Trumanite network, and highlight the restraints on the Constitution, which operates primarily upon the hollowed-out Madisonian institutions, and poses a grave threat to democratic accountability.
In the globalized Arctic there has been a transformation from military security to human security. Climate change, the utilization of Arctic resources and other global challenges have caused the Arctic 'paradox' and a need to redefine security.
This volume brings together scholars from different fields to explore the power, consequences and everyday practices of security expertise. Expertise mediates between different forms of knowledge: scientific and technological, legal, economic and political knowledge. This book offers the first systematic study of security expertise and opens up a productive dialogue between science and technology studies and security studies to investigate the character and consequences of this expertise. In security theory, the study of expertise is crucial to understanding whose knowledge informs security making and to reflect on the impact and responsibility of security analysis. In science and technology studies, the study of security politics adds a challenging new case to the agenda of research on expertise and policy. The contributors investigate cases such as academic security studies, security think tanks, the collaboration between science, anthropology and the military, transnational terrorism, and the ethical consequences of security expertise. Together they challenge our understanding of how expertise works and what consequences it has for security politics and international relations. This book will be of particular interest to students of critical security studies, sociology, science and technology studies, and IR/security studies in general. |
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