This book offers a scientific interpretation of the field of military knowledge situated between strategy and tactics, better known as operational art', and traces the evolution of operational awareness and its culmination in a full-fledged theory. The author, a Brigadier General (ret.) in the Israeli Defence Forces and Doctor of History, King's College, London, clarifies the substance of operational art' and constructs a cognitive framework for its critical analysis. He chronicles the stages in the evolution of operational theory from the emergence of 19th-century military thought to Blitzkrieg. For the first time the Soviet theories of Deep Operations' and Strike Manoeuvre' that emerged in the 1920s and 1930 are discussed. The author argues that it is these doctrines that eventually led to the crystallization of the American Airland Battle theory, successfully implemented in the Gulf War.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War had a traumatic effect on the Middle East and its implications were particularly serious for Israel, which felt obliged to reassess its strategic and military perspectives. This is an examination of the lessons that the Gulf War holds for Israel.

Why do presidents and their advisors often make sub-optimal decisions on military intervention, escalation, de-escalation, and termination of conflicts? The leading concept of group dynamics, groupthink, offers one explanation: policy-making groups make sub-optimal decisions due to their desire for conformity and uniformity over dissent, leading to a failure to consider other relevant possibilities. But presidential advisory groups are often fragmented and divisive. This book therefore scrutinizes polythink, a group decision-making dynamic whereby different members in a decision-making unit espouse a plurality of opinions and divergent policy prescriptions, resulting in a disjointed decision-making process or even decision paralysis. The book analyzes eleven national security decisions, including the national security policy designed prior to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the decisions to enter into and withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2007 "surge" decision, the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program, the UN Security Council decision on the Syrian Civil War, the faltering Kerry Peace Process in the Middle East, and the U.S. decision on military operations against ISIS. Based on the analysis of these case studies, the authors address implications of the polythink phenomenon, including prescriptions for avoiding and/or overcoming it, and develop strategies and tools for what they call Productive Polythink. The authors also show the applicability of polythink to business, industry, and everyday decisions.

Throughout the world, countries are obliged to make great sacrifices in order to raise the vast sums of money needed to secure their defence. But both the sacrifice and the money will be wasted unless properly prepared and qualified commanders are available to direct military operations in the event of war breaking out.

Many books have been written which attempt to deduce the qualities required of contemporary generals by studying the performance of the great captains of history. By contrast, in "Directing Operations," first published in 1989, Kitson works out the qualities needed by studying the tasks that would be likely to confront commanders of the day. He goes on to discuss how traditional methods of producing senior officers, which may have been suited to the needs of the massed armies of the first half of the twentieth century, should be adapted to fit the demands of the modern world.

Kitson's writings continue to be widely read and provoke strong opinions, and the ideas contained in "Directing Operations" remain highly relevant to the armies of all developed countries.

This book offers a scientific interpretation of the field of military knowledge situated between strategy and tactics, better known as operational art', and traces the evolution of operational awareness and its culmination in a full-fledged theory. The author, a Brigadier General (ret.) in the Israeli Defence Forces and Doctor of History, King's College, London, clarifies the substance of operational art' and constructs a cognitive framework for its critical analysis. He chronicles the stages in the evolution of operational theory from the emergence of 19th-century military thought to Blitzkrieg. For the first time the Soviet theories of Deep Operations' and Strike Manoeuvre' that emerged in the 1920s and 1930 are discussed. The author argues that it is these doctrines that eventually led to the crystallization of the American Airland Battle theory, successfully implemented in the Gulf War.

One critical facet of Taiwan's extraordinary development is conspicuously absent from nearly all studies of its recent history: the role of the military in the nation-building process. In this important study, a soldier-citizen describes the role of the Republic of China's military in the political socialization of Taiwan's citizens during the first two decades after the Nationalists' defeat on the Chinese mainland. The book describes in detail how the military was used by the government to promote patriotic values throughout the society, often going beyond what is considered part of the military-commission. Colonel Bullard coins the term "allegiance warfare" to describe the politically neutral involvement of the military in creating and maintaining nationalistic citizen values throughout the society.

"Soldier-citizens" describes the role of the Republic of China's military in the political socialization of Taiwan's citizens during the first two decades after the loss of the Chinese mainland. This book describes in detail how the military was used by the government to promote patriotic values throughout society, often going beyond what is considered part of its military mission.

Contemporary European Security explores the complex European security architecture and introduces students to the empirical, theoretical and conceptual approaches to studying the subject. Written by experts in each subfield, it addresses key topics within the wider strategic context of international security. Presenting traditional and critical debates to illuminate this ever-changing field it addresses specifically: European security since 2000 and the end of the Cold War. The evolution of International Relations theories in understanding security in Europe. The role of NATO in the post-war period and its strategy, impact and enlargement. The institutionalisation of the CSCE and the political tensions within the OSCE. The EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and recent policy initiatives in defence. Feminist conceptions of European security. European military innovation. Security challenges in the post-Soviet space and the growing instability in the Middle East and North Africa. The emergence of human security. Internal and societal security. This essential textbook will be of key interests to students and scholars of European Security, Security and Military studies, Strategic Studies, European Politics and International Relations.

Assessing trends toward creating innovative forms of political, economic and security co-operation in Southeast Asia, this text discusses the international dynamics of Southeast Asian security, and its impact on such external factors as the US, China and Japan.

Assessing trends toward creating innovative forms of political, economic and security co-operation in Southeast Asia, this text discusses the international dynamics of Southeast Asian security, and its impact on such external factors as the US, China and Japan.

Perspectives on Strategy examines in depth five aspects of strategy. Strategic thought and behaviour are explored and explained from the perspectives of intellect, morality, culture, geography, and technology. Each perspective has attracted persisting controversy. Perspectives on Strategy is strongly complementary to the author's previous book, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (OUP, 2010). This new work takes a notably holistic view of strategic phenomena, which serves as a master framework within which detailed examination of strategic history and issues can usefully be pursued in the light of particular perspectives. Foundational for the argument in Perspectives on Strategy is the proposition that distinctive aspects of strategy (e.g. ethics, culture, inter alia) can only be appreciated properly when they are regarded in context. The author shares this view with T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who wrote of the 'whole house of war'. Perspectives on Strategy gratefully adapts Lawrence and writes about the 'whole house of strategy'. The book insists that the nature of strategy is best represented by a Venn diagram that shows overlapping perspectives. Thus, the subject of each chapter is shown as having meaning for, and in turn is influenced by, the subjects of the other chapters. For example, the book explores the importance of strategic ideas relative to the significance of the material weapons of war. The author poses the hardest of questions pertinent to each chosen perspective (e.g. do ideas matter more than muscle?-in practice how robust is the ethical code with which warfare is waged?-is geography destiny, as some theorists have claimed?-and do technically superior weapons win wars? Perspectives on Strategy demonstrates that it is possible to look closely at strategic matters from limited but arguably powerful perspectives, without being captured by them. This book asks and answers the most challenging and rewarding questions that can be posed in order to reveal the persisting universal nature, but ever changing character, of strategy.

This collection of essays by a distinguished group of Israeli, American and British strategists assesses the balance of opportunities and risks confronting Israel at this critical juncture in her history and offers possible solutions to her pressing dilemmas. Among the issues discussed in this volume: the economic consequences of peace for Israeli security; the implications of the New World Order for Israel's strategic interests; military and strategic risks attending the land-for-peace formula and possible solutions; Israel's nuclear weapons and the problem of regional non-conventional proliferation; Israeli-Palestinian water conflicts and ways for their resolution; and, finally, the operational and strategic challenges posed by the Middle Eastern future battlefield.

A distinguished group of strategists assesses the balance of opportunities confronting Israel at this critical juncture in its history and offers possible solutions to its pressing dilemmas. The contributors address such issues as the economic consequences of peace for Israeli security, the implications of the new world order for Israel's strategic interests, Israel's nuclear weapons and the operational and strategic challenges posed by the future Middle Eastern battlefield.

This text prepares the ground - both for US policy makers and America's allies in Asia - for the time in the not too distant future when the United States will no longer be in a position to guarantee the stability of the Asia-Pacific region by its unilateral actions and forward military presence. Arguing that the US-dominated system of Asian security from the Cold war era needs a fundamental transformation over the next ten years, the authors recommend a number of steps the US can take to help develop a moderate multipolar balance of power in Asia.

Contributions to this book question the concept of the clash of cultures. The challenge to the West does not lie in the monolith of Islam turning aggressively outward to Europe and the US, but in the rivalries between regimes ruling over societies divided by an imbalance in wealth and power.

Contributions to this book question the concept of the clash of cultures. The challenge to the West does not lie in the monolith of Islam turning aggressively outward to Europe and the US, but in the rivalries between regimes ruling over societies divided by an imbalance in wealth and power.

Japanese defence and security policies have often been at odds with international norms. When one considers the war renouncing constitution, the popular response to the 1990-1 Gulf crisis, or the limitations on Japanese self-defence-forces when taking part in United Nations peace keeping operations in the early 1990s, Japan appears to be an anomoly in the international community. This study seeks to explain the nature of Japanese defence and security policies by taking account of how the people have responded to militarization and demilitarization processes in the postwar period, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s. The author shows the Japan is moving towards being a "normal" military state and explains how, even 50 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the promulgation of an anti-militaristic constitution a few years later, the Japanese people are still influenced in their responses to defence and security policies by these twin experiences. This study challenges many of the preconceived notions on Japanese defense and security policies and the policy making process in Japan.

This ambitious ten-volume series develops a comprehensive analysis of the evolving world role of the post-Soviet successor states. Each volume considers a different factor influencing the relationship between internal politics and international relations in Russia and the western and southern tiers of newly independent states. The contributors were chosen not only for their recognized expertise but also to ensure a stimulating diversity of perspectives and a dynamic mix of approaches.

In this volume, international experts analyse the politics of conventional military policy and military relations among the Soviet successor states. The work analyses various national perspectives on security and approaches to military affairs.

The main aim of this book is to argue that the use of private force by states has been restricted by a norm against mercenary use. The book traces the evolution of this norm, from mercenaries in medieval Europe through to private security companies in modern day Iraq, telling a story about how the mercenaries of yesterday have evolved into those of today in the process.
The norm against mercenaries has two components. First, mercenaries are considered to be immoral because they use force outside legitimate, authoritative control. Second, mercenaries are considered to be morally problematic because they fight wars for selfish, financial reasons as opposed to fighting for some kind of larger conception of the common good.
The book examines four puzzles about mercenary use, and argues that they can only be explained by understanding the norm against mercenaries. First, the book argues that moral disapproval of mercenaries led to the disappearance of independent mercenaries from medieval Europe. Second, the transition from armies composed of mercenaries to citizen armies in the nineteenth century can only be understood with attention to the norm against mercenaries. Third, it is impossible to understand why international law regarding mercenaries, created in the 1970s and 1980s, is so ineffective without understanding the norm. Finally, the disappearance of companies like Executive Outcomes and Sandline and the development of today's private security industry cannot be understood without the norm.
This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

The post-cold war security landscape is changing almost daily. Gone is the monolithic threat from a communist bloc led by the Soviet Union. In its place are scores of new concerns: the challenge of system transformation and political and economic reconstruction in central and eastern Europe; the re- emerging threats of ethnic conflict from the former Yugoslavia to the new central Asian republics; and, perhaps most important, the problems associated with the reconstruction of the Russian superpower--including economic and political instability, the threat from the right, the safety of nuclear stockpiles, and the nation's legitimate security interests as it attempts to regain influence. As these threats change, so must existing European security institutions. In this book, Catherine Kelleher examines emerging trends in post-cold war European security. She provides an overview of existing security structures and relationships and of the dynamics of changes within them. She offers insightful analysis into the strengths and weaknesses of the these structures, as well as the challenges to closer cooperation. Kelleher details recent events in Europe's most important security institutions--NATO, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and the Western European Union (WEU)--with special emphasis on new programs being designed to fit the changing landscape, programs like the Partnership for Peace, the Eurocorps, and the Combined/Joint Task Forces. She examines how they have responded to events in central and eastern Europe--from economic and security outreach efforts toward the emerging democracies to the response of these institutions to the Gulf and Yugoslav crises. Kelleherconcludes with policy prescriptions that will make a significant contribution to the ongoing debate about the future of European security--where it is going and the best way to get there--and America's central role in that future.

The Soviet military concept of operational art and the associated theories such as "war of annihilations," "deep battle," and "deep operations" have been observed by the West since World War II. The Soviet government hid their military-theoretical work behind a veil of secrecy. Here, the Soviet theories are revealed in the words of those who created them in peacetime and applied them in war.

The essays in this volume analyze war, its strategic characterisitics and its political and social functions, over the past five centuries. The diversity of its themes and the broad perspectives applied to them make the book a work of general history as much as a history of the theory and practice of war from the Renaissance to the present. "Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age" takes the first part of its title from an earlier collection of essays, published by Princeton University Press in 1943, which became a classic of historical scholarship. Three essays are repinted from the earlier book; four others have been extensively revised. The rest--twenty-two essays--are new.

The subjects addressed range from major theorists and political and military leaders to impersonal forces. Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and Marx and Engels are discussed, as are Napoleon, Churchill, and Mao. Other essays trace the interaction of theory and experience over generations--the evolution of American strategy, for instance, or the emergence of revolutionary war in the modern world. Still others analyze the strategy of particular conflicts--the First and Second World Wars--or the relationship between technology, policy, and war in the nuclear age. Whatever its theme, each essay places the specifics of military thought and action in their political, social, and economic environment. Together the contributors have produced a book that reinterprets and illuminates war, one of the most powerful forces in history and one that cannot be controlled in the future without an understanding of its past.

The transition from the end of the Cold War to a new world order is both promising and perilous. Security concerns are based more on the prevention or containment of regional and civil conflicts than on fears of nuclear or Eurasian global wars. The antagonists of the Cold War will be the collaborators of the next century in seeking to stabilize the conflict inside and outside Europe and to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Deterrence characteristics of the pre-Cold War period will in the 21st century again become normative.

Starting in the early part of the nineteenth century, American administrations expressed a desire to own Cuba. A rationale for adding Cuba to the territory of the United States could be built on Cuba's sugar and tobacco industries, as well as Cuba's mineral deposits. But economics was not the primary motivation. American presidents knew that in the event of war, any nation occupying Cuba would have an advantage over the US military strategies; this fear, coupled with the economic benefit, explains a century of policy decisions. As Frank R. Villafana shows, Cubans were not sitting idle, waiting for outsiders to liberate them from Spanish oppression. A major part of this research is devoted to studying Cuban efforts to liberate their island from prolonged Spanish domination. Cuba had been struggling for independence from Spain since the 1830s, followed by the Ten Year War. During the 1895-1898 War of Independence, Cuba came close to defeating Spain, but a merciless Spanish military effort converted Cuba into a series of concentration camps. Spain surrendered after its naval defeats by the US at Manila Bay and Santiago de Cuba, following a failed ground campaign in eastern Cuba. After the US occupied Cuba militarily, American political leaders realized only a small minority of Cubans supported annexation, and the Platt Amendment was developed as a substitute. Today, most Cubans agree that independence, even constrained by the United States, was better than enslavement by the Castro brothers. However, as Villafana emphasizes, Cubans living in Cuba as well as abroad still seek a land free and independent of foreign threat and domestic tyrants.