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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General
This is a study of the war which established Japan's image as a warrior nation, an image which in many ways persists today. Using extensive Japanese materials, including the letters of frontline troops and provincial newspapers, it presents the diverse experience both of soldiers and civilians, and reveals how war accelerated the modernization of Japanese society. Included are such topics as the soldiers' impressions of duty, nation and their "fellow" Asians; the role of the emperor as commander-in-chief; the use of the war in schools; and the activities of small business, institutional religion and patriotic societies.
War often comes down to one thing: money. The role of economics in the study of both peace and war is arguably then the most important single factor when it comes to the study of defence. This excellent new book from Fanny Coulomb will be of interest not only to those involved in the burgeoning field of defence economics - it will also be of vital interest to students and academics from international relations, defence studies, philosophy and political science backgrounds.
"The Great Captains" frequently looked to crucial battles to learn lessons that they themselves employed. While the battles of antiquity have often been examined, Western generals looked to the wars of the Greeks and the Romans, the Chinese to their own campaigns, and so on. Never before have military leaders and other students of military history had the benefit of a systematic look at the key battles throughout the ancient world. In this volume, Gabriel and Boose examine the 31 wars, campaigns or battles from Megiddo (1479 B.C.) to the fall of Constantinople (A.D. 1453) that had the greatest impact on the ancient world, stretching from the Mediterranean through the Middle East to Japan and Korea. Beginning with Megiddo, the first battle in history for which there is a relatively detailed account of strategy and tactics, Gabriel and Boose provide a systematic survey of major battles, wars, and campaigns. Each analysis begins with the Strategic Setting, which places events within the larger political and strategic context; then looks to The Antagonists, providing a comparative look at each army, its equipment, tactics, weaponry, logistics, style of combat leadership, and doctrine to assess its major strengths and weaknesses. The authors then examine The Battle, offering a detailed account of the struggle complete with maps and charts to clarify the analysis of what happened on the battlefield. The final section, Lessons of War, dissects each battle for its successes and failures that are particularly relevant to the development and conduct of war in the modern age. Each survey ends with a bibliography of key sources for further reading. This volume is designed to be an invaluable reference source for military historians and professionals as well as the general reader.
This book examines how the European Union can pursue a grand strategy and become a distinct global actor in a world of emerging great powers. At the grand strategic level, its sheer economic size makes the EU a global power. However, the EU needs to take into account that many international actors continue to measure power mostly by assessing military capability. To preserve its status as an economic power, therefore, the EU has to become a power across the board, which requires a grand strategy, and the means and the will to proactively pursue one. The authors of this book aim to demonstrate that the EU can develop a purposive yet distinctive grand strategy that preserves the value-based nature of EU external action while also safeguarding its vital economic interests. The book analyses the existing military capability of the European Union and its bottom-up nature, which results in a national-based focus in the member-states, impeding deployment capability. A systematic realignment of national defence planning at the strategic level will enable each member-states to focus its defence effort on the right capabilities, make maximal use of pooling and specialization, and contribute to multinational projects in order to address Europe's strategic capability shortfalls. A stronger Europe will therefore result, it is argued, a real global actor, which can then become an equal strategic partner to the United States, leading to a revitalized Transatlantic partnership in turn. This book will be of interest to students of military studies, European Union policy, strategic studies and International Relations generally.
The USSR's different spheres of influence each present their own special problems. This is particularly true of areas outside Eastern Europe and areas non-contiguous with the borders of the USSR. Sicker defines and clarifies the two major Soviet perceptions of policy that radically differ from most western perspectives: patience with long-term policy, and the belief that class struggle law is of primary importance, superseding even international law. The first part of the book considers the pattern and process of expansion that has created the USSR's current configuration in Eurasia. The chapters demonstrate that in many respects, Soviet policies are similar in objective to their Czarist forerunners. Part II addresses current problems in Soviet geostrategic politics and includes discussions on their evolution and the necessity of their solution in order to preserve the viability of the USSR's spheres of influence.
The 1983 Unesco Yearbook takes a more theoretical approach to the subject of peace and conflict research than previous editions. The first section, Trends and Approaches to Peace and Conflict Studies, is itself divided into three parts, beginning with two socio-psychological views of perceptions of threat and attitude formation in societies and among individuals. This is followed by the results of a study which used content analysis to relate perceptions of threat to the arms race and examined the use of mass media to shape those perceptions. The second part continues the debate begun in the 1982 yearbook over the notion of security itself, relating it to international legal and economic problems in general and perceived threats and corresponding conceptions of security in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Theoretical and Bibliographical Surveys provides sources and material on peace and conflict research. The report of the Unesco meeting on Different Perceptions of Threat and Conceptions of Security opens the final section. The yearbook ends with a brief discussion of the newly formed Peruvian Peace Research Association.
This book is a fascinating critical examination of the characteristics and development of the armed forces in Iran, their role under the Shah and their re-creation in the war against Iraq as the fighting forces of Islam. The author examines the contradictory accounts, including the Shah's own Answer to History, as well as newly available accounts by highly placed ex-officials, and interviews with exiled army officers. He examines in detail the apparent shift of allegiance within the forces from the Shah to Imam and the ways in which this was accomplished. Major Iranian offensives, changing strategies from human wave assault to the Tankers War, and the delicate balance between the regular Army and the Revolutionary Guards, are also extensively examined. The book concludes with an analysis of the potential role of the armed forces in a succession crisis.
The Kosovo war has concentrated new attention on the transatlantic relationship and its principal institution, NATO. Europeans argue over the future of their Union, suggesting a struggle over control of Europe's future. The threat of a transatlantic trade war shows the struggle overflowing to affect the Atlantic relationship that has secured Europe's peace for fifty years. Distinguished experts consider the arguments over NATO and the EU in order to assess the state of the vital Atlantic relationship and its future.
This book analyses the root causes of suicide terrorism at both the elite and rank-and- file levels of the Hamas and also explains why this tactic has disappeared in the post-2006 period. This volume adopts a multi-causal, multi-level approach to analyse the use of suicide bombings by Hamas and its individual operatives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It uses extensive fieldwork and on-the-ground interviews in order to delve beneath the surface and understand why and how suicide operations were adopted as a sustained mechanism of engagement within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three core factors fuelled Hamas's suicide bombing campaigns. First, Palestinian suicide operations are a complex combination of instrumental and expressive violence adopted by both organisations and individuals to achieve political and/or societal survival, retaliation and competition. In other words, suicide bombings not only serve distinct political and strategic goals for both Hamas and its operatives but they also serve to convey a symbolic message to various audiences, within Israel, the Palestinian territories and around the world. Second, suicide operations perform a crucial role in the formation and consolidation of Palestinian national identity and are also the latest manifestation of the historically entrenched cultural norm of militant heroic martyrdom. Finally, Hamas's use of political Islam also facilitates the articulation, justification and legitimisation of suicide operations as a modern-day jihad against Israel through the means of modern interpretations and fatwas. This approach not only facilitates a much needed, multifaceted, holistic understanding of suicide bombings in this particular region but also yields policy-relevant lessons to address extreme political violence in other parts of the world. This book will be of much interest to students of Hamas, terrorism, Middle East politics and security studies.
Despite growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area as the daughter of four lesbians, Kellen Kaiser envisioned her life working out, fairy tale–like, with a Prince Charming. When her possible prince did arrive, however, it was not without complications. Home on leave from the Israeli army, the man Kaiser picks doesn’t seem like a sure bet. Starting with some casual sex gone awry, they face a number of obstacles, not the least of which are war in the Middle East, long-distance romance, and differing views on sexuality and their approaching adulthood. But they find themselves most challenged by a more mundane concern: the upkeep of a relationship between two people. Funny and keenly observed, Queerspawn in Love is a story about identity, family, and figuring out, through loving someone else and failing, how to love yourself.
Violence, war and internal conflicts have assumed a new intensity with the decline of the Cold War. There are over 32 civil wars going on today. The world may well witness 100 million refugees in the year 2000 as a direct result of internal wars. This volume consists of case studies and theory-orientated papers dealing with Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Taken together, they spell out implications of wide general interest, providing a comparative basis for a systematic approach to conflict transformation. The author has also written "Conflict Resolution in Uganda" and "Ethnic Conflicts and Human Rights".
In an increasingly complex post-Cold War world system, scholars interested in conflict and conflict resolution must consider a wider collection of variables in drawing conclusions about important security issues. This compendium features 13 original essays that explore the importance of culture and identity with respect to civil-military relations, national security, and nation building. Contributors reflect upon both theoretical and substantive issues and draw from case studies representing different regions of the world. The work begins with two articles offering theoretical and cross-cultural treatment of conflict and conflict resolution. Next, authors include ten case studies that explore the re-emergence of identity as a focal ingredient in determining national security doctrine. Case studies range from China to Southern Europe to Liberia to Brazil. A third section concentrates on the role of nationalism.
'The eight decades of British colonial rule, as selected by the author, are covered extremely well in this book. It is well researched, documented and presented. Besides being of general interest, it covers a number of issues related to the Indian Army which are topics of serious debate even today, and is recommended for professional study and understanding the British colonial psyche.'- Lt-General(Retd) K.S. Brar, India Today; ...extensive and impressive...professionally presented and supported by detailed tables, references and footnotes...a valuable research tool for other scholars working in this field...' - T.A. Heathcote, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History; This is an important book, not only because it deepens our knowledge of how the British-Indian army worked but because it poses questions which social and military historians ought to ask about all armies.' - David French, War in History;This is the first scholarly study of the subject for twenty years, and the only one based on extensive archival research. The Indian Army conquered India for the British, and protected the Raj against its enemies within and without. In this evocative and compassionate work, D
This book presents a collection of new and updated essays on what has come to be known as the territorial explanation of war. The book argues that a key both to peace and to war lies in understanding the role territory plays as a source of conflict and inter-group violence. Of all the issues that spark conflict, territorial disputes have the highest probability of escalating to war. War, however, is hardly inevitable; much depends on how territorial issues are handled. More importantly, settling territorial disputes and establishing mutually recognized boundaries can produce long periods of peace between neighbors, even if other salient issues arise. While territory is not the only cause of war and wars arise from other issues, territory is one of the main causes of war, and learning how to manage it, can, in principle, eliminate an entire class of wars. This book will be of great interest to all students of war and conflict studies, causes of war and peace, international security and strategic studies. John A. Vasquez is Thomas B. Mackie Scholar in International Relations at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is author of The Steps to War (2008) (with Paul Senese) and The War Puzzle Revisited (2009). He has been president of the Peace Science Society (International) and the International Studies Association. Marie T. Henehan is Director of Internships and Lecturer, Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is author of Foreign Policy and Congress: An International Relations Perspective and co-editor of The Scientific Study of Peace and War.
Ever since its employment in the First World War, chemical warfare has always aroused controversy. Governments have responded by pursuing the policies of disarmament and deterrence in the hope of avoiding its recurrence. However, despite the signing of the Geneva Protocol in 1925 which banned the use of poison gas, chemical weapons have been used in subsequent conflicts and most recently in the Gulf War between Iraq and Iran. In this work the policies of disarmament and deterrence will be reassessed within a broad historical and strategic context. It will be argued that poison gas could still be used in a modern European conflict; that the Soviet forces are the best equipped to operate in a contaminated environment; and that weaknesses persist in NATO's anti-chemical defences and in her deterrent. It will be emphasised, too, that the Geneva disarmament talks, which have made some progress in recent years, still face formidable difficulties over the issues of verification and compliance. Above all, it will be claimed that the onset of nuclear parity between the superpowers has eroded the credibility of a deterrent to chemical attack based upon the threat of nuclear release. Accordingly, this book will contend that the United States should modernize her stockpile of chemical weapons to bolster the Western deterrent and to provide more leverage for the negotiations in Geneva. |
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