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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research > General
After a decade and a half of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, US policymakers are seeking to provide aid and advice to local governments' counterinsurgency campaigns rather than directly intervening with US forces. This strategy, and US counterinsurgency doctrine in general, fail to recognize that despite a shared aim of defeating an insurgency, the US and its local partner frequently have differing priorities with respect to the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. Without some degree of reform or policy change on the part of the insurgency-plagued government, American support will have a limited impact. Using three detailed case studies - the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines, Vietnam during the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem, and the Salvadorian Civil War - Ladwig demonstrates that providing significant amounts of aid will not generate sufficient leverage to affect a client's behaviour and policies. Instead, he argues that influence flows from pressure and tight conditions on aid rather than from boundless generosity.
Strategy is not a modern invention. It is an essential and enduring feature of human history that is here to stay. In this original essay, Colin S. Gray, world-renowned scholar of strategic thought, discusses the meaning of strategy and its importance for politicians and the military as a means of achieving desired outcomes in complex, uncertain conditions. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the Great Peloponnesian War to the Second World War, Vietnam, and the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gray ably shows how great military thinkers of the past and present have acted strategically in their various ideological, political, geographical and cultural contexts. Looking to the future, he argues that strategy will continue to provide a vital tool-kit for survival and security, but that the global threat posed by nuclear weapons remains an on-going challenge without obvious practical solutions. As Gray boldy asserts, there is no promised land ahead, only hard and dangerous times that will require us to master the theory and practice of strategy to secure our own future.
This book offers an overview of space strategy in the 21st century. The purpose of space strategy is to coordinate, integrate, and prioritize space activities across security, commercial, and civil sectors. Without strategy, space activities continue to provide value, but it becomes difficult to identify and execute long-term programs and projects and to optimize the use of space for security, economic, civil, and environmental ends. Strategy is essential for all these ends since dependence on, and use of, space is accelerating globally and space is integrated in the fabric of activities across all sectors and uses. This volume identifies a number of areas of concern pertinent to the development of national space strategy, including: intellectual foundations; political challenges; international cooperation and space governance; space assurance and political, organizational, and management aspects specific to security space strategy. The contributing authors expand their focus beyond that of the United States, and explore and analyse the international developments and implications of national space strategies of Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, Israel, and Brazil. This book will be of much interest to students of space power and politics, strategic studies, foreign policy and International Relations in general.
Intelligence and security communities have access to an overwhelming amount of information. More data is better in an information-hungry world, but too much data paralyzes individual and institutional abilities to process and use information effectively. Robert Mandel calls this phenomenon "global data shock." He investigates how information overload affects strategic ambiguity, deception, and surprise, as well as the larger consequences for international security. This book provides not only an accessible framework for understanding global data shock and its consequences, but also a strategy to prepare for and respond to information overload. Global Data Shock explores how information overload facilitates deception, eroding international trust and cooperation in the post-Cold War era. A sweeping array of case studies illustrates the role of data shock in shaping global events from the 1990 Iraqi attack on Kuwait to Brexit. When strategists try to use an overabundance of data to their advantage, Mandel reveals, it often results in unanticipated and undesirable consequences. Too much information can lead to foreign intelligence failures, security policy incoherence, mass public frustrations, curtailment of democratic freedoms, and even international political anarchy. Global Data Shock addresses the pressing need for improved management of information and its strategic deployment.
This Field Manual establishes doctrine (fundamental principles) for tactical counterinsurgency (COIN) operations at the company, battalion, and brigade level. It is based on lessons learned from historic counterinsurgencies and current operations. This manual continues the efforts of FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, in combining the historic approaches to COIN with the realities of today's operational environment (OE)- an environment modified by a population explosion, urbanization, globalization, technology, the spread of religious fundamentalism, resource demand, climate change and natural disasters, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This manual is generic in its geographic focus and should be used with other doctrinal sources.
Historical research on the German army of the interwar period has concentrated on the development of the so-called 'Blitzkrieg'. However, Matthias Strohn shows that for most of the time the German army, restricted by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, was too weak to launch an offensive war or even effectively repel an invader. Accordingly, the army focused instead primarily on planning a defensive war against superior enemies, especially France and Poland. Making extensive use of German archival sources, Strohn explores the development of military thought and doctrine for the defence of Germany and shows how these ideas were tested in war games and staff rides. His findings comprehensively revise our understanding of the German army in this period, shedding new light on the ideas of leading figures in the German military and how events, such as the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, influenced military planning.
This book is a major new study of the extent to which national mentalities, or 'ways of war', are responsible for 'national styles' of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Leading scholars examine the ways of war of particular insurgent movements, and the standard operational procedures of states and occupation forces to suppress them. Through case studies ranging from British, American and French counterinsurgency to the IRA and the Taliban, they show how 'national styles' evolve, influenced by transnational trends, ideas and practices. They examine whether we can identify a tendency to resort to a particular pattern of fighting and, if so, whether this is dictated by constants such as geography and climate, or by the available options, or else whether there exists a particular 'strategic culture' or 'national style'. Their findings show that 'national style' is not eternal but can undergo fundamental transformations.
This book is a major new study of the extent to which national mentalities, or 'ways of war', are responsible for 'national styles' of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Leading scholars examine the ways of war of particular insurgent movements, and the standard operational procedures of states and occupation forces to suppress them. Through case studies ranging from British, American and French counterinsurgency to the IRA and the Taliban, they show how 'national styles' evolve, influenced by transnational trends, ideas and practices. They examine whether we can identify a tendency to resort to a particular pattern of fighting and, if so, whether this is dictated by constants such as geography and climate, or by the available options, or else whether there exists a particular 'strategic culture' or 'national style'. Their findings show that 'national style' is not eternal but can undergo fundamental transformations.
This is a major study of French foreign and security policy before, during and after the First World War. Peter Jackson examines the interplay between two contending conceptions of security: the first based on traditional practices of power politics and the second on internationalist doctrines that emerged in the late nineteenth century. He pays particular attention to the social and political context in which security policy was made and to the cultural dynamics of the policy-making process. The result is a comprehensive reassessment of France's security policy in the era of the Great War. The book reconsiders the evolution of French war aims and reinterprets the peace policy of the Clemenceau government in 1919. It provides a perspective on the foreign policy of successive French governments in the early 1920s, and also shows that internationalist ideas were far more influential over this entire period than is commonly understood.
In light of the intertwining logics of military competition and economic interdependence at play in US-China relations, Trading with the Enemy examines how the United States has balanced its potentially conflicting national security and economic interests in its relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC). To do so, Hugo Meijer investigates a strategically sensitive yet under-explored facet of US-China relations: the making of American export control policy on military-related technology transfers to China since 1979. Trading with the Enemy is the first monograph on this dimension of the US-China relationship in the post-Cold War. Based on 199 interviews, declassified documents, and diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks, two major findings emerge from this book. First, the US is no longer able to apply a strategy of military/technology containment of China in the same way it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This is because of the erosion of its capacity to restrict the transfer of military-related technology to the PRC. Secondly, a growing number of actors in Washington have reassessed the nexus between national security and economic interests at stake in the US-China relationship - by moving beyond the Cold War trade-off between the two - in order to maintain American military preeminence vis-a-vis its strategic rivals. By focusing on how states manage the heterogeneous and potentially competing security and economic interests at stake in a bilateral relationship, this book seeks to shed light on the evolving character of interstate rivalry in a globalized economy, where rivals in the military realm are also economically interdependent.
The Security Governance of Regional Organizations assesses the effectiveness of regional organizations as regional or global security providers, and examines how policy preferences, resources, capabilities, institutional mechanisms and economic and political cohesion link with collective action behaviour in four security policy functions. It investigates how regional organizations meet the new security threats or respond to strategic geopolitical changes and what adaptations they make in the process. Divided into three parts and using a common analytical framework, the book explains the changing security agenda in ten key regional organizations, each organizational chapter:
This collection contributes to the ongoing reconceptualization of security and definition of security governance, and explores whether regional security governance processes are unique or similar and whether some organizational experiences can be seen as models for others to follow. It combines a coherent theoretical framework with strong comparative case studies, making it ideal reading for all students of security studies.
Military coalitions are ubiquitous. The United States builds them regularly, yet they are associated with the largest, most destructive, and consequential wars in history. When do states build them, and what partners do they choose? Are coalitions a recipe for war, or can they facilitate peace? Finally, when do coalitions affect the expansion of conflict beyond its original participants? The Politics of Military Coalitions introduces newly collected data designed to answer these very questions, showing that coalitions - expensive to build but attractive from a military standpoint - are very often more (if sometimes less) than the sum of their parts, at times encouraging war while discouraging it at others, at times touching off wider wars while at others keeping their targets isolated. The combination of new data, new formal theories, and new quantitative analysis will be of interest to scholars, students, and policymakers alike.
A strategically important natural harbor in the Orkney Islands,
Scapa Flow served as Britain's main fleet anchorage during World
Wars I and II. It held Jellicoe's Grand Fleet from 1914-18, and it
was from here that it sailed out to do battle with the Germans at
Jutland in 1916. In 1914 the British began building a comprehensive
defensive network by fortifying the entrances to Scapa Flow and
then extending these defenses to cover most of Orkney. These static
defenses were augmented with boom nets, naval patrols and
minefields, creating the largest fortified naval base in the world.
" This revised and updated edition identifies the cultural factors and specific administrative agendas that have shaped the way we view ballistic missile technology. Three new sections connect our recent, sudden shifts in foreign policy to ongoing historical patterns. Whether cautioning against the "almost neurotic pursuit of absolute security" or examining the powerful influence of religion on military buildup, Ernest J.Yanarella uncovers the deeply ingrained attitudes that will determine the future of American missile defense.
Originally published in 1936, this book presents the content of an inaugural lecture delivered by the renowned British legal expert Arnold McNair (1885-1975), upon taking up the position of Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge. McNair was also a judge of the International Court of Justice and was the first President of the European Court of Human Rights. The text presents a discussion of the role of collective security and 'the true place of force in a system of international law'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in legal history, international relations and the works of McNair.
Originally published in 1940, this book was written by the British legal academic and educationalist Sir William Ivor Jennings (1903-65). The text presents a discussion regarding the possible nature of a federal Western Europe and the means through which this outcome might be achieved, putting forward the view that 'The desirability of replacing international anarchy by international government is so generally recognised in Great Britain that it needs no demonstration'. Legal, constitutional and economic elements of a possible European government are discussed, along with foreign policy and defence. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in European history and the development of the European Union.
The essays in this volume analyze war, its strategic characterisitics and its political and social functions, over the past five centuries. The diversity of its themes and the broad perspectives applied to them make the book a work of general history as much as a history of the theory and practice of war from the Renaissance to the present. "Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age" takes the first part of its title from an earlier collection of essays, published by Princeton University Press in 1943, which became a classic of historical scholarship. Three essays are repinted from the earlier book; four others have been extensively revised. The rest--twenty-two essays--are new. The subjects addressed range from major theorists and political and military leaders to impersonal forces. Machiavelli, Clausewitz, and Marx and Engels are discussed, as are Napoleon, Churchill, and Mao. Other essays trace the interaction of theory and experience over generations--the evolution of American strategy, for instance, or the emergence of revolutionary war in the modern world. Still others analyze the strategy of particular conflicts--the First and Second World Wars--or the relationship between technology, policy, and war in the nuclear age. Whatever its theme, each essay places the specifics of military thought and action in their political, social, and economic environment. Together the contributors have produced a book that reinterprets and illuminates war, one of the most powerful forces in history and one that cannot be controlled in the future without an understanding of its past.
On April 4, 1945, United States Army units from the 89th Infantry Division and the 4th Armored Division seized Ohrdruf, the first of many Nazi concentration camps to be liberated in Germany. In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler's Germany. These men discovered the very depths of human - imposed cruelty and depravity: rail road cars stacked with emaciated, lifeless bodies; ovens full of incinerated human remains; warehouses filled with stolen shoes, clothes, luggage, and even eyeglasses; prison yards littered with implements of torture and dead bodies; and-perhaps most disturbing of all - the half-dead survivors of the camps. For the American soldiers of all ranks who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen, horrified that humans from ostensibly civilized societies were capable of such crimes. Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often overlooked aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of first hand accounts-including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections - Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history.
This analysis of collective security covers its institutional, operational and legal parameters along with the United Nations system, presenting it as a global public order institution for maintaining peace. The authors study its constitutional premises as they are shaped by the forces of law and politics. After an historical account of initiatives and projects for global peace, the authors explain the morphology of collective security as a global public order institution and outline its triggers, institutions, actors, components and tools. They go on to analyse its legal properties and the processes of political, legal and criminal accountability. The analysis and assessment are informed throughout by practice drawn from examples including Korea, Iraq and Libya, and by a wealth of cases from national and international jurisdictions.
Alliances have shaped grand strategy and warfare since the dawn of civilization. Indeed, it is doubtful that the United States of America would have gained its independence without its Revolutionary War alliance with France. Such alliances may prove even more important to international security in the twenty-first century. Economic and financial difficulties alone will ensure that policy makers attempt to spread the burden of securing vital interests onto other nations through alliances, both formal organizations such as NATO and informal alliances of convenience as developed to wage the Gulf War in 1991. A team of leading historians examine the problems inherent in alliance politics and relationships in the framework of grand strategy through the lens of history. Aimed at not just the military aspects of alliances, the book uncovers the myriad factors that have made such coalitions succeed or fail in the past.
Japan is the third-largest economy in the world and a key ally of the United States. Yet the determinants of Japanese security policy are not well understood. The question of why Japan never sought the independent military capabilities that would be commensurate with its economic power has puzzled scholars of international relations for decades. Applying new tools for the quantitative analysis of text to a new collection of 7,497 Japanese-language election manifestos used in elections between 1986 and 2009, this book argues that the electoral strategies politicians in the ruling party were forced to adopt under Japan's old electoral system made it extraordinarily difficult for them to focus on security issues and to change security policy. It was only when their electoral strategies shifted after electoral reform in 1994 that these same politicians became able to pay attention and change security policy.
Why do nations break into one another's most important computer networks? There is an obvious answer: to steal valuable information or to attack. But this isn't the full story. This book draws on often-overlooked documents leaked by Edward Snowden, real-world case studies of cyber operations, and policymaker perspectives to show that intruding into other countries' networks has enormous defensive value as well. Two nations, neither of which seeks to harm the other but neither of which trusts the other, will often find it prudent to launch intrusions. This general problem, in which a nation's means of securing itself threatens the security of others and risks escalating tension, is a bedrock concept in international relations and is called the 'security dilemma'. This book shows not only that the security dilemma applies to cyber operations, but also that the particular characteristics of the digital domain mean that the effects are deeply pronounced. The cybersecurity dilemma is both a vital concern of modern statecraft and a means of accessibly understanding the essential components of cyber operations.
This book continues to tell the story of the U.S. Marine Corps' involvement in what were called ""Small Wars"" beginning after World War II with their advisory efforts with the Netherlands Marine Korps (1943-1946); The book is a detailed look at the Marine Corps' Counterinsurgency efforts during the Korean War (1950-1953); the development of vertical assault in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s in Vietnam; Marine Corps Counterinsurgency in Southeast Asia, 1962 thru 1975; involvement in Central America 1983-1989; and the current conflicts including the War on Terror, Operations Iraqi Freedom and 'Enduring Freedom', Libya; U.S. marine Corps force structure, 1980-2015, and a special chapter on marines and War Dogs in combat operations. Based on extensive research and analysis, the book illustrates the Marine Corps' contribution to the current, on-going efforts in the Middle East and Africa in combatting global terrorism.
This book examines the evolution, impact, and future prospects of the Security Sector Reform (SSR) model in conflict-affected countries in the context of the wider debate over the liberal peace project. Since its emergence as a concept in the late 1990s, SSR has represented a paradigm shift in security assistance, from the realist, regime-centric, train-and-equip approach of the Cold War to a new liberal, holistic and people-centred model. The rapid rise of this model, however, belied its rather meagre impact on the ground. This book critically examines the concept and its record of achievement over the past two decades, putting it into the broader context of peace-building and state-building theory and practice. It focuses attention on the most common, celebrated and complex setting for SSR, conflict-affected environments, and comparatively examines the application and impacts of donor-supported SSR programing in a series of conflict-affected countries over the past two decades, including Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The broader aim of the book is to better understand how the contemporary SSR model has coalesced over the past two decades and become mainstreamed in international development and security policy and practice. This provides a solid foundation to investigate the reasons for the poor performance of the model and to assess its prospects for the future. This book will be of much interest to students of international security, peacebuilding, statebuilding, development studies and IR in general.
Strategic minerals are a major element of resource geopolitics. The US has always provided the ‘umbrella’ for the West and is now the ‘global policeman’ on strategic mineral supply. As the global economic system has developed it has become increasingly clear that the geopolitical balance in global mineral supply is focused on the countries of the former Soviet Union, China and South Africa. The entire import list of US non-fuel minerals is examined in the context of import dependence, the criticality of end-use and the vulnerability of sources. This analysis builds up a complete picture of the varying levels of vulnerability for each mineral, allowing lists of both key and marginal strategic minerals to be compiled. The major sources of these minerals and their relative potential problems of supply are considered. These problems range from geopolitical concerns to the monopolistic agency of multinationals and cartels to the mechanistics of sea-line communications. The book concludes with an assessment of present and future scenarios based on shifting geopolitical influence at the global level, outlining countermeasures, both actual and potential. |
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