After the Cold War, Africa earned the dubious distinction of being the world's most bloody continent. But how can we explain this proliferation of armed conflicts? What caused them and what were their main characteristics? And what did the world's governments do to stop them?

In addressing these and other questions, Paul Williams offers the first comparative assessment of more than two hundred armed conflicts which took place in Africa between 1990 and 2009 - from the continental catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the environmental disaster in the Niger Delta and mass atrocities in the Sudan. Taking a broad comparative approach to examine the political contexts in which these wars occurred, he explores the key ingredients that provoked them and the major international responses undertaken to deliver lasting peace.

Part I, Contexts provides an overview of the most important attempts to measure the number and scale of Africa's armed conflicts and provides a conceptual and political sketch of the terrain of struggle upon which these wars were waged.

Part II, Ingredients analyses the role of five widely debated features of Africa's wars: the dynamics of neopatrimonial systems of governance; the construction and manipulation of ethnic identities; questions of sovereignty and self-determination; as well as the impact of natural resources and religion.

Part III, Responses, discusses four major international reactions to Africa's wars: attempts to build a new institutional architecture to help promote peace and security on the continent; this architecture's two main policy instruments, peacemaking initiatives and peacekeeping operations; and efforts to develop the continent.

"War and Conflict in Africa" will be essential reading for all students of international peace and security studies as well as Africa's international relations.

This volume offers a comprehensive history of warfare since 1648, covering conventional and unconventional operations and demonstrating how most modern wars have been hybrid affairs that involved both. The book uses a broad range of conflicts to explore the societal forces that have shaped wars. Written by noted military historian Thomas R. Mockaitis, this book explores conventional and unconventional conflicts and considers the relationships between them. It considers how epic struggles like the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the conflicts in the Middle East, among many others, shaped human history. The coverage serves to highlight four themes: the relationship between armed forces and the societies that create them; the impact of technology (not just armaments) on warfare; the role of ideas and attitudes towards violence in determining why and how wars are fought; and the relationship between conventional and unconventional operations. The book also covers the advent and evolution of unconventional warfare, including counterinsurgency, the War on Terror, and current conflicts in the Middle East. It concludes with consideration of the forms armed conflict will take in the future. The book includes valuable excerpts from the writings of military thinkers such as Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and supporting maps and diagrams.

A Horse Gunner's view of the world's most famous battle
brCaptain Mercer has left posterity a vital and remarkable book in his Journal of the Campaign of 1815. It is, of course, written from the perspective of an officer of the Royal Horse Artillery of Wellington's army and so brings to life a host of detail about the composition, daily workings, camp life and battle field manoeuvrings of the British Horse Artillery during the Napoleonic Wars. This alone would recommend it to anyone interested in the period. It is much more. Mercer's substantial work covers a comparatively short period of time from the call to arms following Napoleon's escape from Elba through to the landing on the continent, the fearsome battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo-which all but destroyed his troop-to the pursuit of the fleeing French Army to Paris and the subsequent occupation. He recorded everything he saw, felt and personally experienced in fine detail on a day by day basis. This not only provides us with an incomparable portrait of momentous events, but also a detailed and illuminating view of Belgium, Northern France and Paris itself from it's people to the minutiae of everyday life and the culture of the capital in the early years of the 19th century.

Over the past 60 years, the U.S. armed forces have created a web of military bases all over the world, from Australia to Iceland to Saudi Arabia. This is the aspect of military service that the majority of soldiers know and remember. Interaction between U.S. personnel and local populations is almost a given, and it is inevitable that the American and host communities will influence each other in numerous ways. This book looks at the history and impact of American military communities overseas. It discusses how U.S. bases affected economic and political life in the host communities, how host societies shape the profile and activities of military communities, and what happens when relations break down. Through case studies of communities around the world, Baker shows that the U.S. armed forces have had a surprisingly large impact both positive and negative on the affairs of many (but not all) host societies, including economic revitalization, cultural change, and, sometimes, tragic social consequences. In not a few cases, the U.S. military presence has become politically controversial on a national level. On the other hand, many host nations have successfully circumscribed the activities of military communities, rendering their potentially disruptive presence almost invisible.

This unique volume provides a bibliography and analysis of American women's literary interpretations of war and peace during the twentieth century. Chapters cover World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, nuclear war, and fictional interpretations of war and peace that span more than one war or are nonspecific to a certain war. Annotated entries on novels and short fiction provide an analysis of the work's representation of the effect of war on women. Annotations include excerpts from the works themselves and from reviews. The bibliography includes works by such well-known writers as Edith Wharton, Joyce Carol Oates, Cynthia Oick, and Bobbie Ann Mason, as well as many lesser known writers. The work begins with an introductory discussion of women's fiction on war. Each chapter begins with an introductory overview of the war literature in that chapter. In addition to the annotated entries, each chapter concludes with a list of sources of literary criticism and bibliographic resources. The work concludes with author, title, and subject indexes.

As a Confederate Soldier, John Fulton Brown opposed all things pointing to a division of the United States. He felt he was helping to establish a cause that he did not want established. His heart was not in it and it didn't reflect his interests. He was half-starved all the time and was plagued by the horrid, hungry insects that sucked out what little beef and rice he didn't get at suppertime. Who wouldn't move, influenced by a variety of facts such as these?

In "The Bushwhackers," he recounts how, while traveling in the high, craggy mountains of Tennessee, they discovered the area had been overrun by both Yanks and Rebs. Barns and corncribs were empty with no men in sight, except every now and then a very old man would wander out of hiding. Women with long, peaked faces peeped out through cracks in their huts, looking as scared to death as they undoubtedly were. Children with woolly heads and prominent eyeballs, pale from lack of sufficient food-skedaddled in all directions. Real pretty girls, or those who would have been pretty if there were peace and plenty, looked as though they had never had a full meal in their lives.

Ever since Myanmar regained her independence in January 1948, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) has been crucial in restoring and maintaining law and order. It is one of the most important institutions in Myanmar politics. Various aspects of the Tatmadaw have been studied. The most notable area of study has been the political role of the military. This study looks at the organizational development of the Myanmar armed forces. It analyses four different aspects of the Tatmadaw: military doctrine and strategy, organization and force structure, armament and force modernization, and military training and officer education. It sets out security perceptions and policies, charting developments in each phase against the situation at the time, and also notes the contributions of the leading actors in the process. Since early 1990s, the Tatmadaw has implemented a force modernization programme. This work studies rationales and strategy behind the force modernization programme and examines the military capabilities of the Tatmadaw. Drawing extensively from archival sources and existing literature, this empirically grounded research argues that, while the internal armed security threat to the state continues to play an important role, it is the external security threat that gives more weight to the expansion and modernization of the Tatmadaw since 1988. It also argues that, despite its imperfections, the Tatmadaw has transformed from a force essentially for counter-insurgency operations into a force capable of fighting in limited conventional warfare.

In this comprehensive, balanced examination of Argentina's "Dirty War," Lewis analyzes the causes, describes the ideologies that motivated both sides, and explores the consequences of all-or-nothing politics. The military and guerrillas may seem marginal today, but Lewis questions whether the "Dirty War" is really over. Lewis traces the Dirty War's origins back to military interventions in the 1930s and 1940s, and the rise of General Juan Peron's populist regime, which resulted in the polarization of Argentine society. Peron's overthrow by the military in 1955 only heightened social conflict by producing a resistance movement out of which several guerrilla organizations would soon emerge. The ideologies, terrorist tactics, and internal dynamics of those underground groups are examined in detail, as well as their links to other movements in Argentina and abroad. The guerrillas reached the height of their influence when the military withdrew from power in 1973 and turned over the government to Peron's puppet president, Hector Campora. They quickly found themselves in opposition again after Peron returned from exile, and as Peronism dissolved into factions after Peron's death, the military prepared to take power again, inspired by a new "National Security Doctrine." The origins of this ideology in U.S. Cold War doctrine and in French "revolutionary war" doctrine are fully explored because the Argentine military's "Dirty War" strategy and tactics grew directly out of these ideas. The arrests, the treatment of prisoners, and the mindset of the interrogators are treated in detail. Special attention is given to the anti-guerrilla war in Tucuman's jungles, the strange history of David Graiver(the guerrillas' banker) and the Timerman case. In the concluding section of the book, Lewis describes the intrigues that undermined the military regime, its retreat from power, and the human rights trials that were held under the new democratic government. Those trials eventually were stopped by military revolts. Presidential pardons followed and have left Argentina divided once more. This is an important survey for scholars and students of Latin American politics, contemporary history, and civil-military relations.

"I went in behind the lines and emerged as a kind of agent. I went in as a reporter and came out a kind of soldier. I sometimes wish I had never gone in at all." -Paul Morton

War correspondents have long entered combat zoned at great personal risk, determined to capture the conflict for those on the home front. But during World War II, Toronto Star journalist Paul Morton found himself not just reporting the war but fighting his own personal battle in a shocking turn of events that led to disastrous consequences for his career.

Morton volunteered in 1944 to parachute behind Nazi lines and report on the guerrilla war being waged by Italian partisans. But after he spent two months writing a series, the British Army changed its battle strategy and ordered stories on the partisans to cease. Morton's stories were "spiked," and he was discredited as a correspondent. Morton was subsequently fired by the Toronto Star after they unfairly claimed his reporting was fabricated.

Eye-opening and gripping, Inappropriate Conduct shares the dramatic true story of how Morton became the target of a ruthless campaign that shattered his journalistic integrity and his career. Journalist Don North captures Morton's experiences from the beginning, using Morton's previously unpublished memoir and archival sources to create a seamless, powerful narrative that speaks to the tenuous relationship between the truth and propaganda during war.

He always wondered what war would be like. "So This is War": a collage of emotions and events featuring the triumphs, defeats, hardships, humor, discomforts, and boredom of war as the author's Cavalry Squadron journeys around Iraq in an attempt to fight an invisible enemy, find a peace, and build a country. Combat has eluded the author since his initial enlistment in the Army during the Cold War in 1985. After leaving the service and living a cushy life as a finance executive in Arizona, Captain Olson returned to active duty following the attack on America on 9/11 and soon found himself fighting in Iraq with the legendary 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Follow the adventures and thoughts of this Intelligence Officer as he endures a year of the triumphs, defeats, hardships, humor, discomforts, and boredom of war while his Cavalry Squadron moves through Kuwait to the Triangle of Death south of Baghdad and on to Northwest Iraq to tame the volatile city of Tal Afar and secure the vast and porous Syrian border from invading Jihadists. As Captain Olson soon learns, his visions of a glamorous, dangerous, and exhilarating war are quickly crushed as the officers and soldiers in the unit do their best to find and fight an invisible enemy, rebuild a once-great Iraqi Army, and attempt to gain the trust and cooperation of the Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish populace who are largely against the U.S. occupation. He always wondered what war would be like. So This is War.

Who defines defense policy in the North Atlantic Alliance? Is it NATO, the national government, or the national military? Dutch scholar Jan Willem Honig addresses this widely misunderstood issue. His conclusion--which runs counter to the conventional wisdom that NATO is highly influential--is that the decisive influence in defining defense policy lies neither with NATO nor the allied governments but with the individual national military establishments. He argues that the Alliance does not possess the powers or the institutional framework to effectively control or steer allied defense policies.

Honig's important and timely conclusion challenges conventional wisdom. He analyzes the issue in a detailed case study of the Netherlands' defense policy between 1949 and 1991. Because the fabric of Western security is undergoing its most radical transformation since NATO's inception, this study is especially valuable for its analysis of the changing parameters of European defense requirements. Policy makers and academics interested in NATO will find this work illuminating.

A multitude of literary and cinematic works were spawned by the Vietnam war, but this is a unique book, combining moving prose with powerful illustrations created by combat artists in the U.S. military. Dr. Noble has assembled a remarkable collection of 153 reproductions printed in black and white, arranged with oral histories, letters and other commentaries to give the reader a more intimate understanding of the combat soldier who served in Vietnam and what he had to endure. Forgotten Warriors is not intended to argue the merits of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Rather, through the visual impact of the illustrations, the soldiers themselves express what the Vietnam experience was like in a way that is different and more profound than perhaps any other work on the subject.

The main focus of the book is on the way artists saw the world of the grunt: patrols, life in the rear, fighting the terrain and weather, tests of endurance, the machines of war and the effects of combat and its aftermath. The reader is also given a sense of how some writers and artists felt about the country and the people of South Vietnam. To date, our perceptions of the Vietnam war have been influenced largely by movies, television and novels. Recognizing this, Dr. Noble enlisted Professor William J. Palmer, a noted authority on the media and their reportage fo the war, to provide an essay that allows the reader to compare his or her past impressions with the art works contained in this book. A moving collection, "Forgotten WarriorS" offers the truest picture of the Vietnam war in human terms.

It is about a young Marine being sent to Vietnam and my experiences in the infantry. Assign to the 1st Battalion 9th Marines, Charlie Company 2nd Platoon. Just before I get to my new outfit, a Marine that has been in Vietnam for a while come up to us and tells us that we're going to a badass outfit.

I joined the 2nd platoon of Charlie Company with 46 men in March of 1967 and ended up with only four men left in Dec. pf 1967. During that time with the 1st Battalion 9th Marines other Marines outfits called us "the Walking Dead." From the time I was with them the N.V.A. have hit us with mortars, artillery, human wave attacks, flamethrowers, and ambushes. The only people that help us were artillery from both the Army and Marines and F-4 Phantom aircrafts.

On Dec. 16, 1967 I transferred over to a new Recon outfit being for in the 3rd Marines Division called "E" Echo Company. The last time this company was formed was back in World War II. When back to Okinawa for thirty days to be trained as Recon and then sent back to Vietnam to finish my tour. I stayed with this outfit until I rotated back home which was April 1, 1968.