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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General
This book provides a novel introduction to the Standard Model of
electroweak unification. It presents, in pedagogical form, a
detailed derivation of the Standard Model from the high energy
behavior of tree-level Feynman graphs. In this respect, the present
text is unique among the existing monographs and textbooks on this
subject, and fills a gap in the current literature on electroweak
interactions.
Drawing on fieldwork in the Herat area, Afghanistan, this book
addresses migration patterns throughout three decades of war. It
launches a framework for understanding the role of social networks
for peoples responses to war and disaster as well as mobilizing or
maintaining material resources for security and gathering
information.
Recent controversies in NATO have caused observers to question the
Alliance's "raison d'etre." They generally contend that NATO's
crisis has gone from bad to worse and that the Alliance is
ill-adapted to the era of international terrorism, but this
assessment is inaccurate. NATO leaders have, in fact, become better
at shaping NATO to the strategic environment following a severe
crisis in the mid-1990s. At that time, the allies were trying to
turn NATO into something it could not be; at present, the allies
are on target in their efforts to adapt NATO. "NATO Renewed" is the
story of why NATO's problems are manageable and why the Atlantic
Alliance likely will continue to have both power and purpose.
In 1988, the NATO panel governing human sciences (Panel 8 on
Defence Applica of Human and Bio-Medical Sciences) established a
Research Study Group to synthe tions size information relevant to
Advanced Technologies Applied to Training Design. During its first
phase, the RSG established an active exchange of information on
advanced tech nologies applied to training design and stimulated
much military application of these tech nologies. With the
increased emphasis on training throughout the alliance, Panel 8,
during its April 1991 meeting decided to continue with Phase II of
this RSG focusing in the area of advanced training technologies
that were emerging within the alliance. In order to ac complish its
mission, the RSG held a series of workshops. Leaders in technology
and training were brought together and exchanged information on the
latest developments in technologies applicable to training and
education. This volume represents the last in a se ries based on
the NATO workshops. In Part One, it details findings from the last
work shop, Virtual Reality for Training; and in Part Two, we
provide a summary perspective on Virtual Reality and the other
emerging technologies previously studied. These include
computer-based training, expert systems, authoring systems,
cost-effectiveness, and dis tance learning. It is a natural
extension to proceed from learning without boundaries to virtual
envi ronments. From the extended classroom to the individual or
team immersion in a distrib uted, virtual, and collaborative
environment is an easy conceptual step."
A behind-the-scenes look at the environment for defense policy
and budgeting--in Congress, the news media, and the defense
industry--reveals that the appearance of stability is deceiving.
Pressures are building for change. Defense spending has leveled off
at about $265 billion a year in outlays. Current commitments to
preserve the existing force while purchasing new weaponry are
creating significant budget issues which must be addressed.
This book probes beneath the surface to show how the political
base for defense spending is eroding. The economic benefits of
defense spending and of foreign military sales are increasingly
concentrated. A few well-placed members are now the main
beneficiaries of add-ons to the budget. At the same time, mergers
and acquisitions have left the defense industrial base largely
intact, with new weapons filling every production line. Yet it will
take sharp increases in the defense budget to fund these new
weapons, increases that may not be politically viable. A
provocative analysis by some of the leading scholars and
researchers involved with defense and foreign policy issues, this
will be of great interest to experts as well as general
readers.
Combining practical and theoretical approaches, this book addresses
the political, legal and economic implications of maritime disputes
in East Asia. The maritime disputes in East Asia have multiplied
over the past few years, in parallel with the economic growth of
the countries in the region, the rise of nationalist movements,
fears and sometimes fantasies regarding the emergence of the
People's Republic of China (PRC) as a global power, increasing
military expenses, as well as speculations regarding the potential
resources in various disputed islands. These disputes, however, are
not new and some have been the subject of contention and the cause
of friction for decades, if not centuries in a few cases. Offering
a robust analysis, this volume explores disputes through the
different lenses of political science, international law, history
and geography, and introduces new approaches in particular to the
four important disputes concerning Dokdo/Takeshima, Senkaku/Diaoyu,
Paracels and Spratlys. Utilising a comparative approach, this book
identifies transnational trends that occur in the different cases
and, therefore, at the regional level, and aims to understand
whether the resurgence of maritime disputes in East Asia may be
studied on a case by case basis, or should be analysed as a
regional phenomenon with common characteristics. This book will be
of interest to students of Asian Politics, Maritime Security,
International Security, Geopolitics and International Relations in
general.
This volume takes readers beneath the surface of the South China
Sea by exploring critical but under-researched issues related to
the maritime territorial disputes. It draws attention to the
importance of private sector, civil society, and subnational
actors' roles in the disputes and sheds light on key policy issues
that are addressed less often in the literature. By going beyond
mainstream analyses focused solely on issues of traditional
security, resource economics, and international law, it offers a
fresh and engaging look at the South China Sea disputes. The book
is divided into five parts - historical foundations, enterprises,
localities, people, and policy - and its chapters investigate
historiography in the region, the global defense industry's role as
beneficiary of the disputes, tourism as a territorial strategy, the
roles of provinces and local governments, disaster management,
confidence-building measures, environmental and science diplomacy,
and other topics seldom discussed in other analyses of the South
China Sea disputes. The book's diverse content and fresh
perspectives make it an essential read not only for policymakers
and those in the international relations community but also for all
others interested in gaining a more well-rounded understanding of
the many issues at stake in the South China Sea maritime
territorial disputes.
Due to the increase of security challenges in the proximity of
Europe, the prominence of the EU's Common Security and Defence
Policy (CSDP) has augmented. This book is a systematic effort to
empirically approach the democratic deficit of CSDP, to understand
its social construction and propose ways to remedy it. The book
uses Foucault's approach of governmentality to unravel the social
construction of this deficit and to illuminate the power relations
between the different actors participating in CSDP governance and
the constraints upon them. Finally, applying the normative reading
of agonistic democracy, the author suggests concrete ways for EU
citizens to have a say in the political choices of statesmanship in
CSDP governance. The Democratic Quality of European Security and
Defence Policy will be of key interest to scholars, students and
practitioners of EU foreign and security policy and more broadly of
European governance, European Politics and democracy.
The Persian Gulf conflict was the first major combat test for U.S.
military forces since the nation ended conscription two decades
ago. As hundreds of thousands of American troops were dispatched to
the Middle East, the nation realized, seemingly for the first time,
that the composition of its armed forces was far removed from any
that the nation had previously sent to war. The deployment of
unprecedented proportions of minorities and women and the prominent
role of reserves and national guard troops aroused considerable
interest, widespread debate, and some worry. The prospect that
African Americans could bear a disproportionate share of military
casualties generated a socially diverse debate that threatened to
reopen old racial scars; the reality that American women were
exposed to perils from which, by long and deep tradition, they had
previously been shielded inspired calls for them to be admitted to
combat specialties; and controversy surrounding the readiness of
the Army's combat reserves led to an internecine struggle over the
future shape of the U.S. Army. In this book, Martin Binkin
addresses each of these issues in order to provide a better
understanding of the composition of America's fighting forces, to
prompt an assessment of attitudes toward who should fight in future
wars, and to delineate the choices for influencing the social
distribution of peril. Binkin argues that the time for public
involvement is now, while the memories of the Persian Gulf conflict
are still reasonably fresh and while a fundamental rethinking of
the post-cold war military is under way.
This book examines the debate which has long raged in Britain about
the meaning of the Falklands War. Using literary critical methods,
Monaghan examines how the Thatcherite reading of the war as a myth
of British greatness reborn was developed through political
speeches and journalistic writing. He then goes on to discuss a
number of films, plays, cartoon strips and travel books which have
subverted the dominant myth by finding national metaphors of a very
different kind in the Falklands War.
From enslaved people who joined Washington's Continental Army and
Buffalo Soldiers in the Indian Wars to the Tuskegee Airmen of World
War II and black servicemen and women serving in Iraq and
Afghanistan, African Americans have been an integral part of the
country's armed forces - even while the nation questioned,
challenged, and denied their rights, and oftentimes their humanity.
These Truly Are the Brave collects poems, stories, plays, songs,
essays, pamphlets, newspaper articles, speeches, oral histories,
letters, and political commentaries, richly contextualizing them
within their specific historical moments. This volume offers
perspectives onwar, national loyalty, and freedom from a sweeping
range of writers that includes Phillis Wheatley, James Weldon
Johnson, Natasha Trethewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass,
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Lucille
Clifton, Michael S. Harper, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gwendolyn Brooks, and
many more. Some selectionshere present African Americans embracing
wartime service as a way to express citizenship; other selections
show black people remaining steadfast in quiet civilian work.
Wrestling with their disputed place in American democracy, the
courageous writers in this anthology expose and reexamine the
foundations of U.S. citizenship.
The contributors to this volume seek to explore the
multi-dimensional--institutional, cultural, technological, and
political--environments of several Asian states to determine the
amenability of those host environments for the adoption and
adaptation of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Using a
"diffusion diagnostics" model, the book explores how these
countries are trying to address, adapt, and leverage new
information technologies to improve and strengthen their
militaries.
Since the end of bipolarism, the concept of asymmetric warfare, and
of asymmetric conflict in general, has been increasingly applied
with regard to armed forces activities and tasks. This book
presents the findings of comparative empirical research conducted
in selected military units by a group of distinguished experts on
military organization, who hail from the eight participating
countries: Bulgaria, Cameroon, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania,
the Philippines and Spain. It discusses remarks made by military
leaders with extensive experience in the field regarding current
doctrines on military leadership and their applicability in the
field, as well as proposals and suggestions for new directions. "It
is a complex relation, always based on respect and politeness, but
often with mismatched interests." (Army Colonel). "It makes you
realize that there is a cultural gap. You must firstly understand
who you are going to relate to, and the culture of these people,
and then try to establish a certain kind of relationship. Often the
platoon commander states his objective and must try to establish a
relationship, contact with the village chief." (Army Lieutenant,
Platoon Commander). "[In Afghanistan] We had meals with the locals,
sometimes the food didn't taste good, but you had to eat it if you
wanted to be welcomed back again" (Army Captain, Company
Commander). These are just some of the many voices stemming from
the ground in diverse international asymmetric conflict theatres
(in Iraq, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan...), comments by military
officers, commanders at different hierarchical levels, asked to
reflect on their experiences as military leaders in crisis response
operations. Military professionals, and military leaders in
particular, perceive themselves as facing ambiguous situations that
require an update in their professional training, and new skills to
confront unexpected and unpredictable factors. Drawing on lived
experiences, the book offers insights into what a new kind of
leadership means when leaders have to cope with diverse and unclear
missions. It also addresses leadership styles and behaviours, as
well as individual adaptive behaviours on the part of military
leaders, with special reference to middle and middle-high level
ranks, such as captains, majors and colonels. Given its scope, the
book will appeal not only to military professionals and military
affairs scholars and experts, but also to readers interested in
gaining a better understanding of the challenges that international
expeditionary units are facing in crisis areas around the globe.
Does the EU matter in international security? The authors identify
and explain the drivers of and brakes to EU foreign security
action, offer methods of assessment to ascertain influence, and
conclude that the union has become a niche international security
provider that has in turn strengthened EU foreign policy.
The Protectorate's foreign relations are among the most
misunderstood aspects of a little-known period of British history,
usually seen as an interlude between regicide and Restoration. Yet
Cromwell's unique political and military position and current
European conflicts enabled him to play a crucial role in
international affairs, playing off France against Spain and
arousing Catholic fears. Financial and security problems determined
the nature of Cromwell's policies, but he achieved great influence
among his neighbours in five turbulent years.
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