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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research
This collection is the first book-length study of NATO's bureaucracy and decision-making after the Cold War and its analytical framework of 'internationalization' draws largely on neo-institutionalist insights.
This is the first full-length work to be published about the spectacular failure of the German intelligence services in Persia (Iran) during WWII. Based on archival research it analyzes a compelling history of Nazi planning, operations, personalities, and intrigues, and follows the protagonists from Hitler's rise to power into the postwar era.
The sixth edition of "American National Security" has been extensively rewritten to take into account the significant changes in national security policy in the past decade. Thorough revisions reflect a new strategic context and the challenges and opportunities faced by the United States in the early twenty-first century. Highlights include: - An examination of the current international environment and new factors affecting U.S. national security policy making- A discussion of the Department of Homeland Security and changes in the intelligence community- A survey of intelligence and national security, with special focus on security needs post-9/11- A review of economic security, diplomacy, terrorism, conventional warfare, counterinsurgency, military intervention, and nuclear deterrence in the changed international setting- An update of security issues in East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Russia and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean- New material on globalization, transnational actors, and human security Previous editions have been widely used in undergraduate and graduate courses.
This book is a history of the complex relations between scientific advisors, primarily physicists, and U.S. presidents in their role as decision makers about nuclear weapons and military strategy. The story, unsurprisingly, is one of considerable tension between the "experts" and the politicians, as scientists seek to influence policy and presidents alternate between accepting their advice and resisting or even ignoring it. First published in 1992, the book has been brought up to date to include the experiences of science advisors to President Clinton. In addition, the texts of eleven crucial documents, from the Einstein-Szilard letter to President Roosevelt (1939) to the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative by President Reagan (1983), have been added as appendixes.
War demands that scholars and policy makers use victory in precise and coherent terms to communicate what the state seeks to achieve in war. The failure historically to define victory in consistent terms has contributed to confused debates when societies consider whether to wage war. This volume explores the development of a theoretical narrative or language of victory to help scholars and policy makers define carefully and precisely what they mean by victory in war in order to achieve a deeper understanding of victory as the foundation of strategy in the modern world.
War demands that scholars and policy makers use victory in precise and coherent terms to communicate what the state seeks to achieve in war. The failure historically to define victory in consistent terms has contributed to confused debates when societies consider whether to wage war. This volume explores the development of a theoretical narrative or language of victory to help scholars and policy makers define carefully and precisely what they mean by victory in war in order to achieve a deeper understanding of victory as the foundation of strategy in the modern world.
This book is a history of the complex relations between scientific advisors, primarily physicists, and U.S. presidents in their role as decision makers about nuclear weapons and military strategy. The story, unsurprisingly, is one of considerable tension between the "experts" and the politicians, as scientists seek to influence policy and presidents alternate between accepting their advice and resisting or even ignoring it. First published in 1992, the book has been brought up to date to include the experiences of science advisors to President Clinton. In addition, the texts of eleven crucial documents, from the Einstein-Szilard letter to President Roosevelt (1939) to the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative by President Reagan (1983), have been added as appendixes.
In this provocative and thoughtful book, Amy Zegart challenges the
conventional belief that national security agencies work reasonably
well to serve the national interest as they were designed to do.
Using a new institutionalist approach, Zegart asks what forces
shaped the initial design of the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council in ways
that meant they were handicapped from birth.
Sylvanus G. Morley (1883-1948) has been highly regarded for over a
century for his archaeological work among the Maya pyramids. As
director of the Carnegie Archaeological Program, he supervised the
reconstruction of ChichA(c)n ItzA, one of today's most visited
sites in Central America.
'Soft' Counterinsurgency reviews the promise and actual achievement of Human Terrain Teams, the small groups of social scientists that were eventually embedded in every combat brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book, based on interviews with both HTT personnel and their military commanders, examines the military's need for sociocultural information, the ethical issues surrounding research carried out in combat zones, and the tensions between military and social science organizational cultures. The account provides a close, detailed account of HTT activities, a critical reflection on the possibilities of creating a 'softer, ' less violent counterinsurgency, and the difficulty of attempting to make war more 'intelligent' and discriminating.
This edited book provides an insight into the new approaches, challenges and opportunities that characterise open source intelligence (OSINT) at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It does so by considering the impacts of OSINT on three important contemporary security issues: nuclear proliferation, humanitarian crises and terrorism.
For more than a decade, international troops have been deployed to Afghanistan. Out of all NATO members, this mission was the most difficult for Germany that had thus far never engaged in combat and offensive military activities. This book analyses how Germany's experiences in Afghanistan have changed the country's strategic culture.
In recent times, international society has countered a myriad of 'outlaw' threats at sea, including piracy, terrorism, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and the threat posed by 'rogue states'. Whilst the US has promoted 'coalitions of the willing' and sought to transform international maritime law in response to these 'outlaws', Japanese governments have developed an innovative maritime security strategy centering on the Japan Coast Guard (JCG). Concerned by Japan's international image as a former imperialist power, Tokyo has relied upon the identity of the JCG as a law enforcement and rescue organization to garner support for its maritime security strategy. Japan's non-military efforts have developed the capacities of states and built institutions in the Southeast Asian region and beyond. The JCG's response to maritime 'outlaws' belies characterizations of Japan as a passive state that does not contribute to international order.
Successful reform of the security sector has been regarded as pivotal for a successful transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Contributors examine the so far relatively unexplored theme of Security Sector Reform in Southeast Asia. In an attempt to escape the military-centered approaches dominating contemporary debate this volume examines a wide selection of policy fields, touching on different aspects of SSR such as local ownership, executive and legislative control of security forces, gender mainstreaming, the role of civil society organizations, and the commercialization of security services. Bridging the gap between academics and practitioners, the book brings together diverse perspectives on security sector related reforms in Southeast Asia and their possible future developments.
Historical research on the German army of the interwar period has concentrated on the development of the so-called 'Blitzkrieg'. However, Matthias Strohn shows that for most of the time the German army, restricted by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, was too weak to launch an offensive war or even effectively repel an invader. Accordingly, the army focused instead primarily on planning a defensive war against superior enemies, especially France and Poland. Making extensive use of German archival sources, Strohn explores the development of military thought and doctrine for the defence of Germany and shows how these ideas were tested in war games and staff rides. His findings comprehensively revise our understanding of the German army in this period, shedding new light on the ideas of leading figures in the German military and how events, such as the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, influenced military planning.
Major General Sir Wilkinson Dent Bird (1869 1943) saw active service in campaigns from the Niger Campaign in 1897 to the opening of the First World War, when he served in France. In 1923 he was appointed head of a committee to analyse wartime experiences and propose changes intended to modernise the British army. First published in 1920 and issued in an enlarged second edition in 1925, this book provides a comprehensive study of military strategy current at the time of publication, using historical examples to illustrate key concepts. Bird focuses primarily on land battles, with a chapter for naval battles and a small section for aerial combat. Originally intended as a guide to current strategic thinking, his book provides valuable analyses of historical battles with insights into the development of British military strategy after the First World War. This reissue is of the 1925 edition.
Security concerns have mushroomed. Increasingly numerous areas of life are governed by security policies and technologies. Security Unbound argues that when insecurities pervade how we relate to our neighbours, how we perceive international politics, how governments formulate policies, at stake is not our security but our democracy. Security is not in the first instance a right or value but a practice that challenges democratic institutions and actions. We are familiar with emergency policies in the name of national security challenging parliamentary processes, the space for political dissent, and fundamental rights. Yet, security practice and technology pervade society heavily in very mundane ways without raising national security crises, in particular through surveillance technology and the management of risks and uncertainties in many areas of life. These more diffuse security practices create societies in which suspicion becomes a default way of relating and governing relations, ranging from neighbourhood relations over financial transactions to cross border mobility. Security Unbound demonstrates that governing through suspicion poses serious challenges to democratic practice. Some of these challenges are familiar, such as the erosion of the right to privacy; others are less so, such as the post-human challenge to citizenship. Security unbound provokes us to see that the democratic political stake today is not our security but preventing insecurity from becoming the organising principle of political and social life.
European countries have much in common. They are geographically and culturally close and they all face the problem of relative weakness vis-a-vis larger actors. However, while their many similarities lead them to cooperate, their geopolitical differences and specificities translate into conflicting priorities over how to arrange the terms of cooperation. European security is hence defined by a powerful tension between conflict and cooperation. And Europe's most powerful countries largely delineate the mechanics of such tension. By examining the interplay between geopolitical change, British, French and German grand strategy and the evolution of NATO and the European Union's (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) between 2001 and 2010, this book seeks to shed light on the nature and evolution of European security. Only by examining the grand strategies of Europe's most powerful countries can we get a sense of their interests. However, in order to properly grasp the nature and evolution of such interests we must observe how they play out at the level of specific debates. Very often, it is only when it comes to organising the specific terms of cooperation that conflicting priorities can be properly appreciated. Herein lies the importance of the EU-NATO conundrum. Throughout the 2001-2010 period, NATO and CSDP remained the best thermometers of the powerful tension between conflict and cooperation that defines European security. This book is thus fundamental reading for students, academics and practitioners with an interest in European security, geopolitics, NATO and CSDP.
This book examines how the war crime legacy resulting from the Yugoslav war of the 1990s on political and military transformation in Serbia was an impediment to security reform, democratization and the achievement of Western standards in the Belgrade armed forces.Using original empirical research, it traces the processes of restructuring, civilianisation, legal framework and democratic control and security policy communities, in relation to reforming the Serbian military. Crucially, the book focuses on the war crimes legacy from the 1990s, not as a matter of international conditionality, but as a key factor obstructing successful reform. This book, for the first time, examines the networks linked to security, intelligence and military agencies that protected war crimes suspects, such as General Ratko Mladic, delaying democratic control of the armed forces. Only when that network was broken, could the process of democratization begin to be complete.This unique book linking war crimes and security sector reform will appeal to scholars working on Serbia/former Yugoslavia, law and conflict, security and development, civil-military relations and Central and Eastern European politics.
Offering a new perspective on the widely discussed debate on how the international community would respond to a nuclear-armed Iran, this critical research challenges the prevailing wisdom that a nuclear Iran would provoke a nuclear proliferation cascade in the Middle East.Hobbs and Moran assess the proliferation calculus of four key countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Syria, as well exploring the possibility that Iran would transfer nuclear materials to terrorists groups. The authors conclude that a nuclear domino effect would be highly unlikely, even in the face of an Iranian bomb, thus undermining one of the major arguments used in support of pre-emptive military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.A range of policy measures are outlined, that could be enacted by the international community to further reduce the risk of a regional proliferation cascade, making this text a must-read for policy makers, security and international relations scholars and all those with an interest in the Middle East.
In 1993 the first Clinton administration declared environmental security a national security issue, but by the end of the Bush administrations environmental security had vanished from the government's agenda. This book uses changing US environmental security policy to propose a revised securitisation theory, one that both allows insights into the intentions of key actors and enables moral evaluations in the environmental sector of security. Security and the Environment brings together the subject of environmental security and the Copenhagen School s securitisation theory. Drawing on original interviews with former key players in United States environmental security, Rita Floyd makes a significant and original contribution to environmental security studies and security studies more generally. This book will be of interest to international relations scholars and political practitioners concerned with security, as well as students of international environmental politics and US policy-making.
The ebbs and flows of Indian history can also be charted through the country's "maritime blindness" - its onset and the national endeavour to overcome it. The story of developing India's maritime capacity, since independence, is also about the kind of international and regional footprint it needs to have. In this book, the author discusses India's new and old maritime challenges and contextualises them in terms of its inherent institutional strengths to cope with their bewildering complexity. Their complexity is not just due to their sheer scale; the degrading institutional capacities, within countries and internationally, act as threat multipliers. The dynamics of global geopolitics, the seismic perturbations of global economy, and the dizzying pace of technology belie presuppositions for global future; all strategic analysts recognise our current, persisting conundrums. Taking into account the country's critical strategic weight in the maritime domain, the author suggests an approach - about the right 'mix' of the 'traditional' and the 'non-traditional' threats - in the institutional agendas of various governance mechanisms concerning different water bodies, especially the Indian Ocean Region, which also demands of India both hardware and software capacities, including diplomatic. He concludes that the effect of such an approach would be stabilising, consonant with the civilisational vision of the founders of the modern Indian nation.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, serious concerns were raised on domestic and international security issues. Consequently, there has been considerable interest recently in technological strategies and resources to counter acts of terrorism. In this context, this book provides a state-of-the-art survey of the most recent advances in the field of counterterrorism and open source intelligence, demonstrating how various existing as well as novel tools and techniques can be applied in combating covert terrorist networks. A particular focus will be on future challenges of open source intelligence and perspectives on how to effectively operate in order to prevent terrorist activities. |
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