![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General
A penetrating history of how the Japanese army, once admired for its chivalry, became a legion of brutality and atrocity.
War is hell and the battlefield is no playground. But can war change a boy into a man, and more than that, a leader of men?
"Mr. Prime Minister, to achieve order in the casbah I have to act brutally toward people free of crime, too. I feel humiliated by this behavior. The situation has become a catastrophe. It's breaking us." So spoke an Israeli soldier when Prime Minister Shamir visited troops in the West Bank. Until Not Shooting and Not Crying, few have addressed, from a psychological perspective, the coping strategies and unconventional resolutions constructed by the Israeli soldier in the face of overwhelming moral dilemmas, which he traditionally solved by unselfishly risking his life, but not by refusing to fight. In Israel, refusing to fight for one's country is considered deviant behavior, but in the war in Lebanon individuals adopted this unconventional mode of moral resolution for the first time. Linn assesses the nature of the decision-making process involved in this mode of selective conscientious objection and attempts to define the moral meaning of such behavior, both to the dedicated Israeli soldier and his society. This volume investigates how and why the phenomenon of selective conscientious objection emerged so dramatically during the war in Lebanon, identifies the psychological characteristics of the soldiers who chose this course of action, and considers the impact and future consequences of this action on Israeli society. Linn summarizes the military history of Israel from the 1967 Six-Day War to the undeclared war currently being waged in the occupied territories. The nine chapters, followed by references, tables, and appendixes, address such areas as: the individual conscience at war--a search for a theoretical framework; why the Lebanon war precipitated the phenomenon of conscientious objection; the objectors' claims for moral superiority and consistency; refusing soldiers compared to striking physicians; and others. Scholars and students of military affairs, psychologists, and those concerned with contemporary ethical/moral issues will find Linn's work indispensable.
This book is the first about military-media relations to argue for a fundamental restructuring of national journalism and the first to document the failure of American journalism in the national security field for the past thirty years. Press complaints of excessive control by the military during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 were the inevitable result of the failure of American journalism to train competent specialists in military reporting and to provide an organizational structure that would assure continuing, comprehensive coverage of national defense in peace and war. This, in turn, is the result of retaining the "city-room" concept as the basic organizational feature of the press, with continuing reliance on the generalist in an age that demands increasingly well-trained specialists. So long as the press fails to modernize its basic methods of training to assure well-trained defense specialists, the military will be required to closely control reporters, as in the Persian Gulf War, as a basic requirement of security for armed forces members and the national interests. Permitting the military to control how the military itself is reported is a grave danger to the democratic process. Yet, so long as the press refuses to accept responsibility for large-scale reform, the public will continue to support close military control as an essential element of safety for its sons and daughters in the armed forces, and out of concern for the success of U.S. military operations. This book will be of interest to students of the press, of the military, and of the media at large.
Volume one of Ney's early career
Garret deals with the issue of humanitarian intervention, of which the recent Kosovo conflict provides a prime example. Even though the writing of this book was completed before NATO began its intervention on behalf of the Kosovars, the book provides a valuable background for assessing the Kosovo issue--it lays out the history of previous humanitarian interventions and analyzes the controversies surrounding them. Garret provides a sophisticated framework by which such interventions can be evaluated both morally and pragmatically. His book offers some particularly relevant material on the American role in humanitarian interventions. This book is valuable for those who wish to make sense of the pros and cons of humanitarian efforts in international hot spots, like Kosovo. After an analysis of the legal and philosophical issues bearing on the idea of humanitarian intervention, defined as the use of force by one or more states to remedy severe human rights abuses in a particular country--this study focuses upon the moral duties that individual members of the international community have toward the welfare of others. Recent events have indicated that humanitarian intervention will likely play a larger role in international relations in the future. Examples in the contemporary period include Kosovo Somalia, Liberia, Haiti, the Kurds in Iraq, Uganda, and East Pakistan. This book emphasizes the role of the United States in humanitarian intervention and argues that increased American involvement is essential. Garrett suggests that the American people as a whole may be more prepared to see the United States take an active role in humanitarian intervention than are certain media and government elites. Strong national leadership that stresses the moral duty of the United States will be necessary to tap this latent altruism in order to contribute to higher standards of international human rights. Individual topics include assessment criteria for the moral legitimacy of intervention, unilateral versus multilateral efforts, and factors that appear to persuade or dissuade states from participating in such intervention. This volume focuses on certain themes and patterns in humanitarian intervention, which are then illustrated by using historical data taken from a variety of different examples.
Perhaps the most famous and admired soldier to fight in World War II was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who achieved immortality as the Desert Fox. Rommel's first field command during the war was the 7th Panzer Division-also known as the Ghost Division-which he led in France in 1940. During this campaign, the 7th Panzer suffered more casualties than any other division in the German Army. During the process, it inflicted a disporoportionate amount of casualties upon the enemy. It took 97,486 prisoners, captured 458 tanks and armored vehicles, 277 field guns, 64 anti-tank guns and 4,000 to 5,000 trucks. It captured or destroyed hundreds of tons of other military equipment, shot down 52 aircraft, destroyed 15 more aircraft on the ground, and captured 12 additional planes. It destroyed the French 1st Armored Division and the 4th North African Division, punched through the Maginot Line extension near sSivry, and checked the largest Allied counteroffensive of the campaign at Arras. When France surrendered, the Ghost Division was within 200 miles of the Spanish border. No doubt about it-Rommel had proven himself a great military leader who was capable of greater things. His next command, in fact, would be the Afrika Korps, where the legend of the Desert Fox was born. Rommel had a great deal of help in France-and much more than his published papers suggest. His staff officers and company, battalion and regimental commanders were an extremely capable collection of military leaders, which included 12 future generals (two of them SS), and two colonels who briefly commanded panzer divisions but never reached general rank. They also included Colonel Erich von Unger, who would no doubt have become a general had he not been killed in action while commanding a motorized rifle brigade on the Eastern Front in 1941, as well as Kark Hanke, a Nazi gauleiter who later succeeded Heinrich Himmler as the last Reichsfuehrer-SS. No historian has ever recognized the talented cast of characters who supported the Desert Fox in 1940. No one has ever attempted to tell their stories. This book remedies this deficiency. In the weeks prior to D-Day, Rommel analyzed Allied bombing patterns and concluded that they were trying to make Normandy a strategic island in order to isolate the battlefield. Rommel also noticed that the Allies had mined the entire Channel coast, while the naval approaches to Normandy were clear. Realizing that Normandy would be the likely site of the invasion, he replaced the poorly-equipped 716th Infantry Division with the battle-hardened 352nd Infantry Division on the coastal sector. But his request for additional troops was denied by Hitler. Mitcham offers a remarkable theory of why Allied intelligence failed to learn of this critical troop movement, and why they were not prepared for the heavier resistance they met on Omaha Beach. He uses a number of little-known primary sources which contradict previously published accounts of Rommel, his officers, and the last days of the Third Reich. These sources provide amazing insight into the invasion of Normandy from the German point of view. They include German personnel records, unpublished papers, and the manuscripts of top German officers like general of Panzer Troops Baron Leo Geys von Schweppenburg, the commander of Panzer Group West. This book also contains a thorough examination of the virtually ignored battles of the Luftwaffe in France in 1944.
Focusing on 45 military leaders from four continents and 13 countries, spread across four centuries, this study paints, for the first time, a collective, comparative portrait of high-ranking military officers. The authors develop an interactional theory of military leaders, stressing the interplay between sociodemographic variables, psychological dynamics, and situational factors. They examine age and birthplace, socioeconomic status, family life, ethnicity and religion, education and occupation, activities and experiences, and ideologies and attitudes. They find military leaders to be a remarkably coherent and homogeneous group of men propelled toward the military by a combination of nationalism, imperialism, relative deprivation, love deprivation, marginality, and vanity.
At the age of fifteen, Earl Russell's life was ripped out from under him. His uncle, the only father he ever knew, banished Earl from the only home the boy had ever known. Earl found himself a teen outcast in a state of despair that sent him spinning without direction or hope for years. His vision and dreams blurred by tears, he walked blindly through life. Desperate, he turned to the military for salvation and structure. When he was eighteen, he earned the distinction of being one of the youngest platoon sergeants in the Korean War. During his service, he traveled to thirty-six countries. In this memoir, he now shares some of the highlights and heartbreaks of a young man thrown into war and travel, including his time served in a Libyan prison for the crime of holding a woman's hand in public. For Earl the world was a dazzling adventure. This collection of true tales of one man's journeys is, at times, humorous, amorous, and poignant. Often, the world traveler and soldier felt like a dog chasing his own tail. In the end, his travels brought him back to the hills and mountains of his childhood home in Georgia. He left as an unsettled boy and returned a wiser man. These are his stories.
They were young, and they were fighting a war no one wanted to fight. They chose to serve their country despite these challenges. In "In Our Duffel Bags ," authors Richard Geschke and Robert A. Toto narrate the stories and the experiences of what junior army officers faced as citizen soldiers during pre-voluntary military service from 1969 to 1972. This memoir provides an inside view of the military on the training fields of the Cold War in West Germany and on the combat fields of Vietnam. It presents a poignant and detailed drawing of what junior officers contended with during these turbulent times in American history. From the training grounds in Fort Benning, Georgia; to the jungle warfare school in Panama; to the streets of West Germany; and to the rice paddies of Vietnam, "In Our Duffel Bags " intimately describes the sights, sounds, and smells of life in the military Much more than a historical account, " In Our Duffel Bags " interweaves Geschke's and Toto's individual experiences and perspectives, ties them back to their families, and sets it all within the volatile historical and political setting of the 1960s and 1970s. It shows how these times affected history as well as impact current politics.
This book presents a radical reappraisal of British policy towards West German rearmament until the Federal Republic's incorporation into NATO and contains a series of major new theses on British attitudes towards European integration, Anglo-Soviet relations and the 'Special Relationship'. It places policy in the context of Anglo-German distrust, American demands for a German contribution and British fears of antagonising the Soviets. It clarifies numerous controversial issues by demonstrating British willingness to compromise with the Soviets over German unification, the British military's desire to reduce the continental commitment and Eden's enthusiasm for a European Army.
Key to developing national security strategy is figuring out what other countries want. What are their national interests? How do they perceive them? How do they project them onto the world stage? Understanding all of this helps us to predict their behavior. In developing a national security strategy for Asia, the United States must take into account the desires of two emerging giants of the 21st century: China and India. We would be mistaken, Lal argues, if we lumped China and India together in one Asian policy, because these two countries differ greatly from one another. Based on over 120 in-depth interviews with government officials and scholars in Beijing and New Delhi, the author's research yields some surprising news about the differences between China and India. Chinese leaders define their national interest as preservation of the state and territorial unity, whereas Indian decision makers define their national interests in relation to forces beyond India, such as the forces of globalization and their geopolitical status. One factor that accounts for these differences, among the many explored in this book, is the influence of one-party rule in China and parliamentary democracy in India. Another important finding is that China and India are unlikely to pursue hostility with each other. The U.S. approach to Asia will need to take these differences into account. |
You may like...
How to Win the Lottery - 2 Books in 1…
Amy White, Ryan James
Hardcover
Creativity in Computing and DataFlow…
Suyel Namasudra, Veljko Milutinovic
Hardcover
R4,204
Discovery Miles 42 040
Handbook of Research on Advanced…
Ahmed J. Obaid, Ghassan H Abdul-Majeed, …
Hardcover
R7,311
Discovery Miles 73 110
Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of…
Tiago Miguel Ferreira, Hugo Rodrigues
Paperback
R4,703
Discovery Miles 47 030
|