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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research > General
This edited volume addresses one of the most significant issues
in international strategic studies today: how to meet the challenge
of a rising China? The contributors take a global view of the topic, offering unique and often controversial perspectives on the nature of the China challenge. The book approaches the subject from a variety of angles, including realist, offensive realist, institutional, power transition, interdependence, and constructivist perspectives. Chapters explore such issues as the US response to the China challenge, Japan's shifting strategy toward a rising China, EU-China relations, China's strategic partnership with Russia and India, and the implications of unipolarity for China, the US and the world. In doing so, the volume offers insights into some of the key questions surrounding China's grand strategy and its potential effects on to the existing international order.
This book assesses the evolution of the Soviet approach toward European security policy since the mid-1980s, as seen from the prism of assessments of and policy toward the Federal Republic of Germany, examining basic Soviet analyses of West Germany in the period prior to unification.
A much-needed exploration of when, and under what conditions, could a conflict transform to a level of almost indefinite protraction. Saira Khan argues that with the acquisition of nuclear weapons by states in a conflict, the situation is transformed to a level of indefinite protraction. She maintains that such crises are embedded in each protracted conflict and that their escalation to war depends on the nuclear status of the adversaries. Khan also shows how pre-nuclear states have a tendency to manage serious crises with full-scale wars, while nuclear adversaries tend to use violent clashes or low-to-medium intensity violence as crises management tools. The occurrence of frequent crises and continuance of low-to-medium intensity violence - functions of the absence of wars - generate a situation where the life of a protracted conflict changes direction. It is this change that transforms the conflict and has a propensity of keeping the conflict alive indefinitely. This book will appeal to all students of strategic studies, international relations and security.
This original and detailed collection explores how regional actors deal with uncertainties that are inherent to the current geopolitical situation in East Asia. The contributors collectively demonstrate that strategic uncertainty has become a major factor in the shaping of the security order in East Asia.
This book analyses the American way of war within the context of Clausewitzian theory. In doing so, it draws conclusions about the origins, viability, and technical feasibility of America's current strategic approach. The author argues that the situation in which America has found itself in Iraq is the direct result of a culturally predisposed inclination to substitute technology for strategy. This habit manifests most extremely in the form of the Network-Centric Warfare/Effects-Based Operations (NCW/EBO) construct, which by and large has failed to deliver on its many promises. This book argues that the fundamental problem with the NCW/EBO - and with US defence transformation, generally - is that it centres on technology at the expense of other dynamics, notably the human one. Taking a fresh perspective on US strategic cultural predispositions in an era of persistent military conflict, the author argues for the necessity of America's revising its strategic paradigm in favour of a more holistic brand of strategy. This book will be of much interest to students of Clausewitz, Strategic Studies, International Security and US foreign policy.
This collection of essays rethinks the security paradigm in the context of the War on Terror, providing a broad and systematic analysis of the long-term sources of political, military and cultural insecurity from the local to the global. The authors present an analysis of the contemporary state of violence that moves beyond identifying the immediate threats. They explore the interconnections between globalization, conflict and the threats to human security, including ecological and gender insecurities, and examine the deeper sources of insecurity in order to provide a stronger basis for mitigating violence and other forms of insecurity in the world today, and thus to orient policy decisions in relation to local, regional and global security problems. The volume is divided into four sections:
All of the chapters work to challenge the kinds of conceptions of insecurity that are dominated by traditional discourses of war and conflict, problematizing and rewriting sets of assumptions that reflect significant contemporary shifts in debates on insecurity. Rethinking Security and Violence will be of strong importance to students and scholars of international relations, security studies, gender studies and globalization studies.
This collection of essays rethinks the security paradigm in the context of the War on Terror, providing a broad and systematic analysis of the long-term sources of political, military and cultural insecurity from the local to the global. The authors present an analysis of the contemporary state of violence that moves beyond identifying the immediate threats. They explore the interconnections between globalization, conflict and the threats to human security, including ecological and gender insecurities, and examine the deeper sources of insecurity in order to provide a stronger basis for mitigating violence and other forms of insecurity in the world today, and thus to orient policy decisions in relation to local, regional and global security problems. The volume is divided into four sections:
All of the chapters work to challenge the kinds of conceptions of insecurity that are dominated by traditional discourses of war and conflict, problematizing and rewriting sets of assumptions that reflect significant contemporary shifts in debates on insecurity. Rethinking Security and Violence will be of strong importance to students and scholars of international relations, security studies, gender studies and globalization studies.
A comparison of Singapore and Taiwan presents an interesting case study for those wishing to understand how small states struggle to overcome their strategic disadvantage. Since their independence, Singapore and Taiwan have faced numerous challenges resulting from their relative strategic disadvantage. They have struggled to overcome vulnerable bases, an unformed conception of state, and weak governmental institutes for defence. While territorial borders are difficult to change, both states have focused on nation building, economic growth, and military build-up in order to overcome their predicaments. During the Cold War, both states employed similarly authoritarian policies to preserve their survival. However, in the post-Cold War era, Taiwan has experienced political and economic weakness in the face of the rising China, while Singapore, with its polity of one-party domination, has continued to strengthen its hard and soft power. This book examines the unique context for each case, drawing comparisons and offering analysis of their distinct approaches.
This book brings together leading academic specialists and policy
practitioners to explore and develop cooperative approaches for
managing critical contemporary and emerging security challenges for
South East Europe and the wider international community.
Demilitarization of conflict and society is crucial to building sustainable peace in countries emerging from the scourge of civil war. As longstanding conflicts come to an end, processes which facilitate the potentially volatile transition from formal peace to social peace are critically important. At the heart of the exercise is the necessity of transforming the culture and the instruments of war - demilitarization - including disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating (DDR) former combatants into society. This volume represents the first in-depth and comprehensive discussion of reintegration of former combatants in war to peace transitions. In addition to a systematic reflection and review of existing literature on DDR, the authors devised and applied a field research methodology to studying the reintegration of former combatants in Angola with potentially significant implications on the design and implementation of DDR programmes. The volume is written for academics, students and practitioners focusing on war to peace transitions and post-conflict issues.
China's war on terror is among its most prominent and least understood of campaigns. With links to the global jihad, an indigenous insurgency threatens the government's grip on a massive region of north- western China known as Xinjiang. Riots, bombings, ambushes, and assassinations have rocked the region under separatist and Islamist banners. China acted early and forcefully, and although brutal, their efforts represent one of the few successes in the global struggle against Islamist terrorism. The effectiveness of this campaign has raised questions regarding whether China genuinely confronts a terrorist threat. In this book, based on extensive fieldwork, Martin Wayne investigates China's counter insurgency effort, highlighting the success of an approach centred on reshaping local society and government institutions. At the same time, he raises the question of what the United States may be able to learn from China's approach, and argues that as important a case as Xinjiang needs to be fully examined in order for terrorism to be defeated. This book will be of interest to students of China, Asian politics, terrorism and security studies in general.
The United States in the Vietnam War, 1954-1975 is an invaluable reference guide to the costly and controversial war the U.S. waged in Vietnam, over the course of five presidential administrations. Focusing not only on the conflict in Southeast Asia, but also on the tumult the war inspired on the domestic front, Louis Peake provides an authoritative guide to the wide range of media available on the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. From collections of art work and poetry about the soldiering experience, to journalistic accounts of battles, and military training films, the entries consistently provide clear and concise descriptions, allowing the reader to easily identify the value of any particular resource. With revised and updated annotations, and over 150 new entries, this second edition of The United States in the Vietnam War, 1954-1975 is an invaluable reference tool for researchers and students of the Vietnam War. Routledge Research Guides to American Military Studies provide concise, annotated bibliographies to the major areas and events in American military history. With the inclusion of brief critical annotations after each entry, the student and researcher can easily assess the utility of each bibliographic source and evaluate the abundance of resources available with ease and efficiency. Comprehensive, concise, and current???Routledge Research Guides to American Military Studies are an essential research tool for any historian.
The Instant New York Times Bestseller "I could not put this extraordinary book down. Three Days at the Brink is a masterpiece: elegantly written, brilliantly conceived, and impeccably researched. This book not only sparkles but is destined to be a classic!" -Jay Winik, bestselling author From the #1 bestselling author and award-winning anchor of Special Report with Bret Baier, comes the gripping lost history of the Tehran Conference, where FDR, Churchill, and Stalin plotted D-Day and the Second World War's endgame. With the fate of World War II in doubt and rumors of a Nazi assassination plot swirling, Franklin Roosevelt risked everything at a clandestine meeting that would change the course of history. November 1943: The Nazis and their Axis allies controlled nearly the entire European continent. Japan dominated the Pacific. Allied successes at Sicily and Guadalcanal had gained them modest ground but at an extraordinary cost. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Red Army had been bled white. The path of history walked a knife's edge. That same month a daring gambit was hatched that would alter everything. The "Big Three"-Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin-secretly met for the first time to chart a strategy for defeating Adolf Hitler. Over three days in Tehran, Iran, this trio-strange bedfellows united by their mutual responsibility as heads of the Allied powers-made essential decisions that would direct the final years of the war and its aftermath. Meanwhile, looming over the covert meeting was the possible threat of a Nazi assassination plot, code-named Operation Long Jump. Before they left Tehran, the three leaders agreed to open a second front in the West, spearheaded by Operation Overload and the D-Day invasion of France at Normandy the following June. They also discussed what might come after the war, including dividing Germany and establishing the United Nations-plans that laid the groundwork for the postwar world order and the Cold War. Bestselling author and Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier's new epic history, Three Days at the Brink, centers on these crucial days in Tehran, the medieval Persian city on the edge of the desert. Baier makes clear the importance of Roosevelt, who stood apart as the sole leader of a democracy, recognizing him as the lead strategist for the globe's future-the one man who could ultimately allow or deny the others their place in history. With new details discovered in rarely seen transcripts, oral histories, and declassified State Department and presidential documents from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Baier illuminates the complex character of Roosevelt, revealing a man who grew into his role and accepted the greatest challenge any American president since Lincoln had faced.
China's emergence as a great power is a global concern that can potentially alter the structure of world politics. Its rise is multidimensional, affecting the political, security, and economic affairs of all states that comprise the world's fastest developing region of the Asia-Pacific. Most of the recently published studies on China's rise have focused on its relations with its immediate neighbours in Northeast Asia: Japan, the Koreas, Taiwan, and Russia. Less attention has been given to Southeast Asia's relations with China. To address these issues, this volume, with its wide range of perspectives, will make a valuable contribution to the ongoing policy and academic dialogue on a rising China. It examines a range of perspectives on the nature of China's rise and its implications for Southeast Asian states as well as US interests in the region. China, the United States and South-East Asia will be of great interest to students of Chinese politics, South-East Asian politics, regional security and international relations in general.
This book is a detailed examination of whether domestic security measures are striking an appropriate balance between homeland security and civil liberties in the post-9/11 era. Professor Paul Wilkinson and the other contributors assess the nature of UK responses to terrorism by key public and private-sector bodies, highlighting how these organizations can prevent, pre-empt, counter and manage terrorist attacks by using a matrix of factors such as types of terrorist networks, tactics and targets. The volume also compares and contrasts the UK's response with cognate states elsewhere in the EU and with the USA. While improved intelligence has helped prevent a major Al Qaeda attack, the authors conclude that there is still a 'major question mark' over whether the country is adequately resourced to deal with an emergency situation, particularly in major cities other than London. The book also confirms that while the UK faces a 'real and serious' threat of terrorist attack by Al Qaeda, it is better prepared for an attack than other EU member states. Homeland Security in the UK will be essential reading for all students of terrorism studies, security studies and politics, as well as by professional practitioners and well-informed general readers.
This is the first book to survey the evolution of the strategic basing systems of the great powers, covering an 800-year span of history, from the Mongol dynasty to the era of the US empire. Robert E. Harkavy details the progression of strategic basing systems and power projection, from its beginnings at a regional level to its current global reach, while emphasizing the interplay between political and international systemic factors (bipolar vs. multipolar systems), and technological factors. Analyzing the relationship between basing structures and national power, the book deals with such key questions as: the co-mingling of military and commercial functions for bases; sea power; geopolitical theory; imperial 'pick-off' during hegemonic wars; base acquisitions; continuity between basing structures; and long-term shifts in basing functions. Strategic Basing and the Great Powers, 1200-2000 will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, military history and international relations.
The aim of this book is to explore the implications stemming from the recent upgrading of Australia-Japan-US security interactions and the implications for Asia-Pacific regional security that these represent. While a fully functioning trilateral security alliance binding Australia, Japan and the United States is unlikely to materialise or supplant existing bilateral arrangements, the convergence of the strategic interests of these three states makes it imperative that the full-range of such interests and the policy ramifications flowing from them warrants extensive investigation. The need to do so is particularly compelling given that the 'Trilateral Security Dialogue' is one of several contending recent approaches to reshaping Asia-Pacific regional security architectures and mechanisms for confronting new strategic challenges in a post-Cold War and post-9/11 environment. Key issues to be considered in this volume include the theoretical and empirical context of 'trilateralism'; the evolving history of the Australia-Japan-United States trilateral security relationship; its connection to and impact on the U.S. bilateral alliance network in Asia; how domestic politics in each country relates to regional security politics; Sino-Australian and Sino-Japanese bilateral security ties; arms control, maritime security and the 'economic security nexus'. This book will be of much interest to all students of Asia-Pacific Security, US foreign policy, Asian politics and International Relations in general
Hezbollah and Hamas are major players in Middle Eastern politics and have a growing involvement in global events. Despite their strikingly different beginnings, they share a common denominator--an adversary in Israel. "Hezbollah and Hamas" draws from primary interviews and documents coupled with a thorough review of current scholarship. This is a portrait of the organizations' roots, histories, ideologies, relationships, tactics, political outlooks, and futures. Joshua L. Gleis and Benedetta Berti present organization charts, maps, and a case study of the TriBorder Area in South America, which frequently serves as an operational center for terrorist groups. Recognizing that these two groups are increasingly relevant to U.S. national security, Gleis and Berti provide a comparative analysis of their histories and political missions that moves beyond reductionist portrayals of the organizations' military operations.
The range and extent of the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC has led to it being described as a 'world war' in miniature. Within a narrative framework, this work concentrates on the fighting itself, and examining the way in which both strategy and tactics developed as the conflict spread.
This book provides an empirical understanding of how EU-level defence industrial cooperation functions in practice. Using the Liberal Intergovernmental theoretical model, the book argues that while national economic preferences are an essential factor of government interests they only explain part of the dynamic that leads to the development of defence industrial policy at EU level. Moving beyond a simple adumbration of economic preferences, it shows how the EU's institutional framework and corpus of law are used by governments to reaffirm their position as the ultimate arbiter and promoter of national economic preferences in the defence industrial sector. To this end, the work asks why and how EU member state governments, European defence firms, and EU institutions developed EU-level defence industrial policy between 2003 and 2009. The book also analyses significant policy developments, including the establishment of a European Defence Agency and two EU Directives on equipment transfers and defence procurement. This book will be of much interest to students of EU policy, defence studies, security studies and International Relations in general.
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.
The Cold War phrase "weapons of mass destruction" continues to be used despite significant changes in international political cultures, military concepts of operation, and technology advances. Today, the term "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) is used to address many things, from grams of ricin and barrels of industrial chemicals to megaton nuclear weapons. As a direct result of the decision to refer to all nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons as well as biological, chemical and radiological (CBR) hazards as "WMD," we have lost the ability to accurately develop, assess, and discuss policy concerns relating to the contemporary use of unconventional weapons on the battlefield and within the homeland. This book uses a public policy framework to examine how the U.S. government, and in particular the U.S. military, should address the potential use of unconventional weapons in the 21st century. It defines the problem, identifies the policy actors and reviews policy options. It discusses past policy efforts before offering a critical review of current strategies and how WMD issues are integrated into the current military Joint Operating Concepts (deterrence, cooperative security, major combat operations, irregular warfare, stability, and homeland security), and proposes new national framework for countering WMD. The aim is to answer such questions as what does counterproliferation mean and whether the U.S. government is adequately prepared to protect U.S. citizens and its armed forces from adversaries developing unconventional weapons.
The Strategic Survey is a journal of records that includes all relevant names and titles, chronologies and dates. But it is also much more: the hard facts are embossed in considered and nuanced analysis over 300 pages of text. The Strategic Survey opens with 'Perspectives', an assessment of the effect of major events and trends on the strategic landscape. Next, particular strategic policy issues, such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, missile defence and the future of peacekeeping, are examined in separate chapters. Another eighteen to twenty chapters of similar length, written along thematic rather than merely chronological lines, cover developments in particular regions or countries. The Strategic Survey concludes with 'Prospectives', an essay setting forth strategic priorities for the coming year. Also included are thirty-two pages of maps depicting strategically important activity and political change - such as piracy and Russia's new federal districts - globally, regionally and locally. The interplay of political developments and the actual or potential use of military force remains The Strategic Survey's chief concern. Nevertheless, since the end of the Cold War and of the first distinct post-Cold War period, the Institute has recognised that any survey of matters strategic needs to broaden its scope to embrace economic
A wide-ranging rethinking of the many factors that comprise the making of American Grand Strategy. What is grand strategy? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought-what, in other words, makes it "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand strategy" has become almost an equivalent of "military history." The traditional attention paid to military affairs is understandable, but in today's world it leaves out much else that could be considered political, and therefore strategic. It is in fact possible to consider, and even reach, a more capacious understanding of grand strategy, one that still includes the battlefield and the negotiating table while expanding beyond them. Just as contemporary world politics is driven by a wide range of non-military issues, the most thorough considerations of grand strategy must consider the bases of peace and security-including gender, race, the environment, and a wide range of cultural, social, political, and economic issues. Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters re-examine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies. |
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