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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research > General
For over a decade now, thinking on regional relations in the Gulf has focused on the competition for regional hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Today, this perspective is outdated. The smaller Gulf Arab states, led by the United Arab Emirates, are calling for their own goals and interests to be considered and a new regional order has emerged. This book asesses the UAE's increasing power and the future challenges to security it poses. It is a contemporary history and analysis of the changing role of the UAE. Dina Esfandiary argues that the UAE has become more assertive in the pursuit of its own interests in the region and beyond - even when this puts it at odds with its regional allies. This behavior includes the build-up of its military and non-military capabilities, the diversification of its partners, and its willingness to use these resources. The book examines the regional causes of the UAE's growing assertiveness - especially the 2011 Arab Uprisings - as well as the international context such as the impact of the US-announced 'Pivot to Asia', the perceptions of waning US power in the Middle East, and the 2015 nuclear deal. The UAE's changing role in the region will profoundly affect regional security. This book points towards how smaller states in the region will interact with regional hegemons in the long term, as they learn from the UAE's assertiveness and seek to imitate it.
First published in 1990, this title examines British defence policy from 1688 onwards; the year in which Britain was successfully invaded for the final time, and which marked a generation of warfare that lasted until 1714, during which Britain came to be known as a major European power. David French considers the strategic alliances that formed and changed throughout the period, and tests his hypotheses in light of the varying paradigms of war, and British wartime and peacetime practices. The ways in which the needs of both the army and the navy have been balanced over time are analysed, with particular attention paid to how parliament allotted money and resources to each. Wars under discussion include the American War of Independence (1763-83), and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. A detailed and critical title, this reissue will be of great value to history students studying Early Modern diplomacy, with a particular emphasis on the strategic development of British warfare and policy, and the place of Britain within the European power structure.
In Technology Security and National Power, Stephen D. Bryen shows how the United States has squandered its technological leadership through unwise policies. Starting from biblical times, he shows how technology has either increased national power or led to military and political catastrophe. He goes on to show how the US has eroded its technological advantages, endangering its own security. The scope ofTechnology Security and National Power extends across 3,000 years of history, from an induced plague in Athens to chemical weapons at Ypres to an atomic bomb on Hiroshima to the nuclear balance of terror. It describes new weapons systems and stealth jets, cyber attacks on national infrastructure, the looting of America's Defense secrets, and much more. The core thesis is supported by unique insight and new documentation that reaches into today's conflicted world. More than a litany of recent failures and historical errors, this book is a wake-up call for political actors and government officials who seem unable to understand the threat. Technology Security and National Power proposes that the United States can again become a winner in today's globalized environment.
For decades, the rational actor model served as the preferred guide for U.S. deterrence policy. It has been a convenient and comforting guide because it requires little detailed knowledge of an opponent's unique decision-making process and yet typically provides confident generalizations about how deterrence works. The model tends to postulate common decision-making parameters across the globe to reach generalizations about how deterrence will function and the types of forces that will be "stabilizing" or "destabilizing." Yet a broad spectrum of unique factors can influence an opponent's perceptions and his calculations, and these are not easily captured by the rational actor model. The absence of uniformity means there can be very few deterrence generalizations generated by the use of the rational actor model that are applicable to the entire range of opponents. Understanding Deterrence considers how factors such as psychology, history, religion, ideology, geography, political structure, culture, proliferation and geopolitics can shape a leadership's decision-making process, in ways that are specific and unique to each opponent. Understanding Deterrence demonstrates how using a multidisciplinary approach to deterrence analysis can better identify and assess factors that influence an opponent's decision-making process. This identification and assessment process can facilitate the tailoring of deterrence strategies to specific purposes and result in a higher likelihood of success than strategies guided by the generalizations about opponent decision-making typically contained in the rational actor model. This book was published as a special issue of Comparative Strategy.
Spurred by their commanders during the Korean War to be "tigers," aggressive and tenacious American fighter pilots charged headlong into packs of fireball-spewing enemy MiGs, relying on their keen eyesight, piloting finesse, and steady trigger fingers to achieve victory. But by the 1980s, American fighter pilots vanquished their foes by focusing on a four-inch-square cockpit display, manipulating electromagnetic waves, and launching rocket-propelled guided missiles from miles away. In this new era of automated, long-range air combat, can fighter pilots still be considered tigers? Aimed at scholars of technology and airpower aficionados alike, Steven A. Fino's Tiger Check offers a detailed study of air-to-air combat focusing on three of the US Air Force's most famed aircraft: the F-86E Sabre, the F-4C Phantom II, and the F-15A Eagle. Fino argues that increasing fire control automation altered what fighter pilots actually did during air-to-air combat. Drawing on an array of sources, as well as his own decade of experience as an F-15C fighter pilot, Fino unpacks not just the technological black box of fighter fire control equipment, but also fighter pilots' attitudes toward their profession and their evolving aircraft. He describes how pilots grappled with the new technologies, acutely aware that the very systems that promised to simplify their jobs while increasing their lethality in the air also threatened to rob them of the quintessential-albeit mythic-fighter pilot experience. Finally, Fino explains that these new systems often required new, unique skills that took time for the pilots to identify and then develop. Eschewing the typical "great machine" or "great pilot" perspectives that dominate aviation historiography, Tiger Check provides a richer perspective on humans and machines working and evolving together in the air. The book illuminates the complex interactions between human and machine that accompany advancing automation in the workplace.
The relationship between intelligence organizations and the national security policymakers which they support has its ups and downs. Sometimes the relationship is a good one; communication flows and both sides benefit from the interaction, but sometimes difficulties arise and problems develop. For example, when knowledge is required for decision but is not available or is inaccurate the outcome is frequently described as an intelligence failure. A subset of this kind of intelligence failure occurs when knowledge is distorted in order to reinforce or oppose policymaker preferences or expectations. Another less successful outcome occurs when good, accurate knowledge is not used to improve policy, but is instead set aside or ignored by those who have the responsibility and obligation to make decisions. This collection explores the difficulties that can arise in the relationship between intelligence and policy. The chapters consider both politicization of, and lack of receptiveness to, intelligence on the part of policymakers from a variety of different angles. Readers will find that this book challenges conventional wisdom and offers new ways of thinking about this important but understudied area. This book was published as a special issue of Intelligence and National Security.
Concerns over the changing nature of gangs and cartels and their relationships to states in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has resulted in the emergence of a scholarly body of work focused on their national security threat potentials. This body of work, utilizing the third generation gangs and third phase cartel typologies, represents an alternative to traditional gang and organized crime research and one that is increasingly influencing the US defense community. Rather than being viewed only as misguided youth and opportunistic criminals or, in their mature forms, as criminal organizations with no broader social or political agendas, more evolved gangs and cartels, are instead seen as developing political, mercenary, and state-challenging capacities. This evolutionary process has emerged due to the growing illicit economy and other unintended consequences of globalization. This important anthology of writings by Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan draws upon a collection of their works from the mid-1990s to the present with the addition of new essays written specifically for this publication. The work will be of great interest to academics and students in the fields of political science and criminal justice and to military, law enforcement, and governmental professionals and policy makers. This book is a collection of new and previously published works from a variety of publications, a full list of which is on the Citation Information page.
A collection of original works covering all aspects of insurgency and counterinsurgency through a multinational lens, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Modern War addresses the need to look beyond the United States and other prominent counterinsurgency actors in the contemporary world. It also reassesses some of the latent and burgeoning insurgent organizations and networks around the globe and suggests alternative approaches to understanding insurgency, counterinsurgency, and conventional and asymmetric warfare as they relate to insurgency and counterinsurgency. This book makes significant contributions to international and interdisciplinary discussions regarding the seminal features of insurgency and counterinsurgency in modern warfare. It also relates topics with terrorism in the post-9/11 era, including the historical roots of insurgency, radicalism in Europe, and regional radical groups like al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba. It emphasizes how issues around insurgency, counterinsurgency, and terrorism permeate or evolve into particular forms of warfare, military operations, and related governmental activities. Using a diversified lens of analysis, the chapters illustrate key elements that spawn insurgency such as insurgents' beliefs, motivations, aims, leadership characteristics, recruitment methods, operations planning, and responses to state and non-state efforts to contain insurgency. The book also examines how certain terrorist and insurgent operations can remain in the shadows and become secret wars beneath the growing surface threats they pose to the societies in which they breed activity. Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Modern War takes a unique look at a subject that has become widely studied and written about in reaction to modern terrorism and insurgency. It analyzes conditions under which insurgency and counterinsurgency occur from nuanced perspectives that have not previously received full consideration.
European armed forces have undergone deep changes in the past two decades. Given the breadth of the debate and the size of transformations that took place, it is somewhat surprising that relatively few academic studies have directly dealt with changes in force structure of European militaries, and the Italian armed forces in particular. The focus of this book is the organizational dimension of the restructuring of armed forces through 3 different lenses: doctrine and strategic framework, budget and resource allocation, and force structure and deployment. The key issues addressed relate to how these factors interact in shaping transformation. Of particular interest is the theme of learning, which is how armed forces endogenize change in the short and long run. This study provides valuable insights into the extent to which armed forces manage to adapt to the emerging strategic and operational challenges they have to face and to illustrate the weight of institutional legacies, resource constraints and inter-organizational learning in shaping transformation. Focusing on the Italian case in comparative perspective and based on a large variety of military operations from airstrikes to peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, the book provides an innovative viewpoint on military transformation and significantly contributes to our understanding of contemporary security that is deeply shaped by the lessons learnt in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Libya.
Recent debates in security policy have highlighted trends towards fragmentation, informalisation and privatisation in the diverse field of security policy, with its increasingly transnational security risks. In this context, the concept of security governance has risen to prominence and has inspired much valuable research. Yet, there are not only very different conceptual understandings of security governance; there is also a lack of clarity regarding its empirical manifestations and normative connotations. After a decade of research, this book therefore puts security governance to the test and scrutinises its analytical and political pitfalls and potentials. It reviews the concept of security governance and identifies central conceptual, empirical and normative challenges that need to be addressed. Moreover, this book scrutinises critical examples of security governance from EU security policy as well as in a comparative regional perspective. Case studies include EU efforts to counter piracy off the coast of Somalia, combat terrorism inside European societies and protect critical infrastructures. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Security.
First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
In May 1998, in reaction to India s nuclear weapons tests, Pakistan tested six nuclear weapons. Following this, the country opted for a policy of minimum deterrence, and within a year Pakistan had altered its policy stance by adding the modifier of minimum credible deterrence. This book looks at how this seemingly innocuous shift seriously impacted on Pakistan s nuclear policy direction and whether the concept of minimum has lost its significance in the South Asian region s changed/changing strategic environment. After providing a brief historical background exploring why and how Pakistan carried out the nuclear development program, the book questions why Pakistan could not sustain the minimum deterrence that it had conceptualized in the immediate aftermath of the 1998 test. It examines the conceptual theoretical framework of the essentials of minimum deterrence in order to question whether Pakistan s nuclear policy remained consistent with this, as well as to discover the rudimentary factors that are responsible for the inconsistencies with regard to minimum deterrence conceived in this study. The book goes on to look at the policy options that Pakistan had after acquiring the nuclear capability, and what the rationale was for selecting minimum deterrence. The book not only highlights Pakistan deterrent force building, but also analyzes closely Pakistan s doctrinal posture of first use option. Furthermore, it examines the policy towards arms control and disarmament, and discusses whether these individual policy orientations are consistent with the minimum deterrence. Conceptually providing a deeper understanding of Pakistan s post-1998 nuclear policy, this book critically examines whether the minimum deterrence conceived could be sustained both at the theoretical and operational levels. It will be a useful contribution in the field of Nuclear Policy, Security Studies, Asian Politics, Proliferation/Non-Proliferation Studies, and Peace Studies. This book will be of interest to policy makers, scholars, and students of nuclear policy, nuclear proliferation and arms control related research. "
The National Institute for Public Policy s new book, "Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence," is the first of its kind. Dr. Keith Payne, the late former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and an unparalleled bipartisan group of senior civilian and military experts critically examined eight basic assumptions of Minimum Deterrence against available evidence. In general, Minimum Deterrence does not fare well under the careful scrutiny. Proponents of a "Minimum Deterrent" US nuclear force posture believe that anywhere from a handful to a few hundred nuclear weapons are adequate to deter reliably and predictably any enemy from attacking the United States now and in the future. Because nuclear weapons are so destructive, their thinking goes, no foreign leader would dare challenge US capabilities. The benefits, advocates claim, of reducing US nuclear weapons to the "minimum" level needed are: better relations with Russia and China, reinforcement of the arms control and Nonproliferation Treaty, billions of defense dollars in savings, and greater international stability on the way to "nuclear zero." As political pressure builds to pursue this vision of minimum US deterrence, "Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence" stands as the seminal study to address the many claims of great benefit against available empirical evidence. This book was published as a National Institute Press monograph, Keith B. Payne and James Schlesinger, "Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence" (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2013) and as a special issue of "Comparative Strategy.""
At no time since the end of the Cold War has interest been higher in Russian security issues and the role played in this by the modernization of Russia's Armed Forces. The continued transformation of its Armed Forces from Cold War legacy towards a modern combat capable force presents many challenges for the Kremlin. Moscow's security concerns domestically, in the turbulent North Caucasus, and internationally linked to the Arab Spring, as well as its complex relations with the US and NATO and its role in the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014 further raises the need to present an informed analytical survey of the country's military, past, present and future. This collection addresses precisely the nature of the challenges facing Russian policymakers as they struggle to rebuild combat capable military to protect Russian interests in the twenty-first century. This book was based on a special issue of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies.
This three-volume set presents over 100 of the most influential articles in defence economics, which have been selected for their enduring value and importance and for their contribution to an understanding of the field.Topics covered in volume I include definitions of the field of defence economics, an examination of the demand side of defence economics, including the demand for military expenditures and the study of alliances, and an exploration of the impacts of defence spending on growth and development. Volume II examines the supply side of the subject, and covers the military production function, military personnel and weapon procurement. The supply side is further addressed in Volume III, which covers the defence industrial base, learning curves, costs, pricing and profits, industrial policies and the arms trade. This volume also discusses disarmament, conversion, peace and public policy and concludes with a section on non-conventional conflicts such as terrorism, insurrections and revolutions.
Dr. Larive questions whether there is such a thing as a European defense and security policy. This book analyzes the integration process by clearly illustrating to the reader the two sides of the argument in order to understand the complexity of the problems in the different stages of the creation and implementation of the European defense policy. In doing so, this study asks the question of why has the process been so halting and of such limited scope? Structured in three parts: Theories, analyzing the theoretical debates raised by the positivist paradigms of neorealism, liberalism and constructivism on European security; History, reflecting on the impacts of the Cold War, American foreign policy, the 2008 economic crisis, and the evolution of European strategy; and, Actors, by looking at the role of European institutions, Member States, and the CSDP on the transformation of the European defense policy since 1998. Each chapter is composed of sub questions allowing the reader to grasp the different forces explaining the deepening or lack of the deepening process of the CSDP. Ultimately, this book offers a unique base for fostering discussion, understanding and critical thinking on the CSDP.
This book examines the processes and factors shaping the development of homeland security policies in the European Union (EU), within the wider context of European integration. The EU functions in a complex security environment, with perceived security threats from Islamist terrorists, migration and border security issues, and environmental problems. In order to deal with these, the EU has undertaken a number of actions, including the adoption of the European Security Strategy in 2003, the Information Management Strategy of 2009, and the Internal Security Strategy of 2010. However, despite such efforts to achieve a more concerted European action in the field of security, there are still many questions to be answered about whether the European approach is really a strategic one. European Homeland Security addresses two major debates in relation to the development of homeland security in Europe. First, it reflects on the absence of 'homeland security' in European political debate and its potential consequences. Second, it examines the significant policy developments in the EU that suggest the influence of homeland security ideas, notably through policy transfer from the United States. The book will be of great interest to students of European security and EU politics, terrorism and counter-terrorism, security studies and IR.
China is flexing its growing military and strategic clout in the pursuit of broadening national security interests. At the same time, the country s economic and technology policies have also become more nationalistic, state-centered, and ambitious. China s defense economy has set its sights on catching up with the West by the beginning of the 2020s and is making steady progress in building up its innovation capabilities, although this is presently in the form of incremental and sustaining types of activities. More high-end, disruptive forms of innovation that would lead to major breakthroughs are likely to be beyond China s reach in the near-to medium term. This volume provides a wide-ranging and detailed assessment of the present state of the Chinese defense economy at a time of rapid change and accelerating advancement in its innovation capabilities and performance. This collection of articles has three main goals: (1) to locate China s defense innovation dynamics within broader historical, technological and methodological frameworks of analysis; (2) to assess the performance of the Chinese defense economy s six principal subsectors; and (3) to compare China s approach to defense industrialization with major counterparts in the Asia-Pacific region. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies."
This book analyses the way in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) defines the West after the end of the Cold War and the demise of its constitutive Other, the Soviet Union. The book offers a theoretical critique of liberal approaches to security, and focuses on NATO s construction of four geo-cultural spaces that are the sites of particular dangers or threats, which cause these spaces to be defined as the enemy of the West. While this forges a collective Western identity, effectively achieved in the 1990s, the book also includes an analysis of NATO s involvement in the War on Terror an involvement in which the Alliance fails to define a coherent West, thereby undermining the very source of its long-standing political cohesion. Contributing to theoretical development within Critical Security Studies, Behnke draws on a variety of approaches to provide an analytical framework that examines the political as well as philosophical problems associated with NATO s performance of security and identity, concluding that in the modern era of globalized, non-territorialized threats and dangers, NATO s traditional spatial understanding of security is no longer effective given the new dynamics of Western security. NATO s Security Discourse after the Cold War will be of great interest to students and researchers of International Relations, Critical Security Studies and International Organizations."
This book examines the effectiveness of multilateralism in ensuring collective security and, in particular, the EU's role in this process. In 1992, shortly after the end of the Cold War, a Security Council Summit in New York reaffirmed the salience of the system of collective security and stated the determination of the Heads of State to maintain it as the prime international instrument for preserving peace. Twenty years later, however, the record of collective security as well as of multilateralism has not been very encouraging. The system of collective security, as enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Charter, failed repeatedly to accomplish its mandate in the 1990s and has led to controversial debates in the United States and Europe that reached a climax during the Iraq crisis in 2002/03. The volume draws upon both theoretical and empirical research to answer the following core questions: What are the reasons that have made multilateralism either effective or ineffective in the field of peacekeeping, peace preservation and peacebuilding? How can multilateralism be made more effective? How can attempts made by Europe to render UN multilateralism in the security area more efficient be assessed? This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, EU policy, the UN, security studies and IR in general.
Focusing on the wartime activities of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Axis-controlled Yugoslavia during World War II, this book chronicles American policy, plans for sending aid and agents, and the establishment of the first training bases in North Africa and the Mediterranean. OSS missions and field operation with the Chetniks and partisans are cataloged and analyzed for the first time, along with OSS views on Yugoslav border claims against Italy and Austria, the OSS position on Slovenia in postwar Yugoslavia, and the role of Yugoslavs cooperating within the OSS.
Arab involvement in the Jewish-Palestine conflict had started during the late 1930s, but it was only in the wake of the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947 that active military intervention was considered. The Arab League tried to form a unified army that would prevent the implementation of the Partition Resolution, but failed. In Egypt, the government and the army opposed the idea of dispatching an expeditionary force to Palestine, but the pressure of public opinion and King Farouq's insistence carried the day. The order was given and in May 1948, Egyptian forces crossed the international border with Palestine. The author analyses the reasons for the decisive victory enjoyed by Israel over a larger opponent; and the successes and failures that were sealed in the Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement signed in Rhodes in March 1948.
Armed revolution and civil war gave birth to the Soviet Union, world War II propelled it to global pre-eminence, and the Cold War contributed to the Soviet Union's demise. Given Marxism-Leninism's idological preoccupation with war and threats of war, it is understandable that the spectre of war should play a vital role in the life and fate of the Soviet state. This study of Soviet military strategy is based upon the twin pillars of Soviet political-military actions and Soviet writings on the subject of military strategy. Thanks to the policy of glasnost, it incorporates Soviet materials hitherto unavailable in the West. It aims to be not simply a retrospective account of what was, but to form part of the context for what will be in the future. |
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