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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > General
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.
Vietnam POWs came home heroes, but twenty years earlier their predecessors returned from Korea to shame and suspicion. In the Korean War (1950-1953) American prisoners were used in propaganda twice, first during the conflict, then at home. While in Chinese custody in North Korea, they were pressured to praise their treatment and criticize the war. When they came back, the Department of the Army and cooperative pundits said too many were weaklings who did not resist communist indoctrination or "brainwashing." Ex-prisoners were featured in a publicity campaign scolding the nation to raise tougher sons for the Cold War. This propaganda was based on feverish exaggerations that ignored the convoluted circumstances POWs were put in, which decisions in Washington helped create. POWs became pivotal to the Korean War after peace talks began in summer 1951. Since fighting had stalemated, both sides raced to win propaganda victories. The Chinese publicized American airmen who confessed to alleged germ warfare atrocities. American commanders worked to discredit communism by encouraging thousands of North Korean and Chinese prisoners to defect. Clandestine agents and a fraternity of anticommunist prisoners launched a violent campaign to inflate the number of POWs refusing repatriation after the war. Armistice negotiations floundered while China and North Korea demanded their soldiers back. United States delegates held out for what they called "voluntary repatriation," but in reality, thousands of prisoners were terrorized into renouncing their right of return. American POWs remained captive for eighteen more months of fighting over the terms of a compromised prisoner exchange. In the United States, details of the voluntary repatriation policy were suppressed. Name, Rank, and Serial Number explains how this provides new insight into why Korea became "the forgotten war."
If there was one man, other than Napoleon himself, who determined the course of the Napoleonic Wars, it was Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert, the foremost military theorist in France from 1770 to his death in 1790. Taking in the full scope of the times, from the ideas of the Enlightenment to the passions of the French Revolution, Jonathan Abel's Guibert is the first book in English to tell the remarkable story of the man who, through his pen and political activity, truly earned the title of Father of the Grande Armee. In his Essai general de tactique, published in 1771, Guibert set forth the definitive institutional doctrine for the French army of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. But unlike many other martial theorists, Guibert, who served in the French Ministry of War from 1775 to 1777 and again from 1787 to 1789, was able to put his ideas into practice. Drawing on a wealth of primary source documents - including Guibert's own papers and the letters and memoirs of his friends and associates - Jonathan Abel re-creates the temper of an era of great turbulence and remarkable creativity. More than a military theorist, Guibert was very much a man of his day; he attended salons, wrote poetry and plays, and was inducted into the Academie francaise. A fiery figure, he rose and fell from power, lived and loved fiercely, and died swearing that he would ""find justice."" In Abel's account, Guibert does at last receive a measure of justice: a thorough, painstakingly documented picture of this complex man in the thick of extraordinary times, building the foundation for Napoleon's success between 1796 and 1807 - and in significant ways, changing the course of European history.
Routledge Library Editions: Revolution in England examines the turbulent times that led to the English revolution and civil war as new political and religious ideas led to the overthrow of the king and establishment of a republic. Modern ideas of democracy were established then, and are analysed here in a series of books that look at the various radical sects such as the Nonjurors and Levellers that espoused new political thought and ways of living.
The Armed Conflict Survey provides yearly data on fatalities, refugees and internally displaced people for all major armed conflicts, alongside in-depth analysis of their political, military and humanitarian dimensions. This edition covers the key developments and context of more than 40 conflicts worldwide. It features essays by the world's leading authorities on armed conflict, covering the development of jihadism after 9/11, hybrid warfare, refugees and internally displaced people, criminality and conflict and the evolution of peacekeeping operations. It includes maps, infographics and the IISS Chart of Conflict.
An important contribution to the international relations and military studies literature, this study considers the problem of conflict termination in Europe--an area of immense strategic importance to both the United States and the Soviet Union. The author argues that a well-thought-out policy for conflict termination is lacking within the NATO alliance, which currently relies almost exclusively on policies that emphasize the prevention of war. This lack of a conflict termination strategy, Cimbala asserts, leaves nations open to the danger of a quickly escalating nuclear conflict, should prevention policies fail and a war in Europe actually occur. In developing his arguments, Cimbala considers the relationship between war and politics as perceived by Soviet and Western planners; compares the superpowers' likely views on the process of escalation; and assesses the command, control, and communications perspectives implicit in Soviet and American writings and deployments and their implications for war termination. Cimbala begins with an overview of the problems and choices involved in ending war in Europe under contemporary conditions. Subsequent chapters examine such topics as the philosophical and practical issues related to the problem of preemption; the problem of military stability and its specific applications to modern Europe; and Western and Soviet approaches to the escalation and limitation of war. Soviet perspectives on command and control as well as the Soviet view of war termination receive extended treatment in two chapters. Finally, Cimbala contrasts the orthodox view of mutual assured destruction with the strategic revisionism of defense dominance or mutual assured survival. He concludes that policymakers and military planners must recognize that nuclear weapons will almost certainly be a part of any war in Europe and that termination must focus on limiting the use of these weapons before the pressures of in the field escalation tendencies begin to work against the early conclusion of a conflict. Students and scholars of military policy will find Cimbala's work enlightening and provocative reading.
From 1702 to 1714, the War of the Spanish Succession affected most of Europe and significant parts of the New World, with battles ranging from the Hungarian plains to the harbors of Rio de Janeiro. The death of the last Hapsburg King of Spain unleashed a struggle for his empire. This book includes entries analyzing the individuals who determined the course of the war, who played a diplomatic, economic, or military role, as well as entries analyzing the pivotal battles influencing the outcome. The provisions of the final treaties, known as the Pacification of Utrecht, are examined in detail, as is the significance of those provisions. The diplomats at Utrecht followed the principles of balance of power, compensation, and legitimacy to mold the peace. The peace set the boundaries of Western Europe until the convulsion of the French Revolution. The book opens with an introduction pointing to the significance of the treaties provisions. The alphabetical arrangement of the entries, the numerous cross-references, the bibliographies at the end of the entries, a genealogical table, a chronology, and the index make this work easy to use.
The colourful career of a member of Napoleon's staff
This is the compelling story of a. man who learned to fly before WWII. He soon joined the regular army air corps as a private. As war became inevitable he completed flight training as a staff sergeant and had the wings of a military pilot. He flew bombers, fighters and transport aircraft before being sent to the Pacific area. Flying i54's loaded with priority cargo and personnel in and the wounded out. It was one bloody island after another from the East Indies to Tokyo Not flying as a group but as a single sitting duck for the enemy and friendly fire. As a single plane he landed at Atsugi airport to bring out the first loads of decimated allied prisoners. This was followed by flying "the hump" to help Chang Kia-chek against the communists. Discharged as a captain, he flew for up-start airlines that went bankrupt one after another. Two major carriers did no better. He was called to active duty during the Korean War to drop a weather station in northeast Greenland. Again a civilian, he was a chief pilot, operations director, a student of design and aeronautical engineering while running an aircraft conversion shop. From Peru to the Artic wastelands and places around the world were his work area. This was followed by being a personal pilot and aviation consultant for powerful executives.
Polls show that a sizeable portion of the American population believes that troops found WMD in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was somehow responsible for the attacks of September 11. Even after the 9/11 Commission Report and numerous other reports have concluded that our intelligence was flawed, people in the freest nation on earth continue to be misinformed about something that could not be more vital to understand—the reasons for sending troops into harm's way. This insightful analysis argues that the media should have done a better job of performing its traditional role of skeptic and watchdog, and it examines what went wrong. There are, of course, many people whose support for going to war in Iraq was not contingent on the existence of WMD or a connection to al-Qaeda. But many others based their support for the war on misinformation. Dadge explores why the media did not aggressively investigate the claims made by the administration and intelligence agencies; in short, why they did not do their job: to fully inform the citizenry to the best of their ability. He examines pressures from the Bush administration, pressures from corporate consolidation of media ownership, patriotism and self-censorship, and other factors. He concludes with recommendations for ways in which the media can improve their reporting on government.
Just before the dawn of the Global War on Terror, Kieran Michael Lalor left his career as a high school social studies teacher, endeavoring to fulfill his lifelong dream. Lalor followed his father and brother's footsteps into the United States Marine Corps. This Recruit presents Lalor's nightly journal entries, beginning with the uneasy trip to the recruiter's office and the eerily quiet midnight bus ride to Parris Island. Lalor describes the wicked combination of fatigue, nerves, disorientation, misery, loneliness, and homesickness that conspire to keep him from his goal-along with the hours of close order drill, push-ups, hand-to-hand combat training, the pit, and the unrelenting mind games. Witness the nasty recruit-on-recruit infighting that results when young men struggle to survive while being pushed past their limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. Gaze at the target from the five hundred yard line on Qualification Day, when failure means at least an extra two weeks on the island and the added humiliation of failing the quintessential test of a Marine. Experience the rappel tower, night firing, the infiltration courses, and long, back-crushing humps. Struggle with Lalor and his platoon as they try to overcome the Crucible, the final obstacle before claiming the title of United States Marine.
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