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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations > General
This unique gem of a personal story of a Japanese soldier in the Russo-Japanese War of the Meiji Era in Japan which broke out in 1904 is of more than historical interest and fascination. The writer paints a moving picture of the lives and deaths, joys and sorrows of the men who took Port Arthur in the bloodiest battle of this short war. The tale is told vividly and simply and is a rare revelation of the innermost feelings of a Japanese soldier of remarkable intelligence, spirituality and powers of expression
A prevalent view among historians is that both horsed cavalry and the cavalry charge became obviously obsolete in the second half of the nineteenth century in the face of increased infantry and artillery firepower, and that officers of the cavalry clung to both for reasons of prestige and stupidity. It is this view, commonly held but rarely supported by sustained research, that this book challenges. It shows that the achievements of British and Empire cavalry in the First World War, although controversial, are sufficient to contradict the argument that belief in the cavalry was evidence of military incompetence. It offers a case study of how in reality a practical military doctrine for the cavalry was developed and modified over several decades, influenced by wider defence plans and spending, by the experience of combat, by Army politics, and by the rivalries of senior officers. Debate as to how the cavalry was to adjust its tactics in the face of increased infantry and artillery firepower began in the mid nineteenth century, when the increasing size of armies meant a greater need for mobile troops. The cavalry problem was how to deal with a gap in the evolution of warfare between the mass armies of the later nineteenth century and the motorised firepower of the mid twentieth century, an issue that is closely connected with the origins of the deadlock on the Western Front. Tracing this debate, this book shows how, despite serious attempts to 'learn from history', both European-style wars and colonial wars produced ambiguous or disputed evidence as to the future of cavalry, and doctrine was largely a matter of what appeared practical at the time.
This book provides the first comprehensive study of the evolution of the Iraqi military from the British mandate era to post-Baathist Iraq. Ethnic and sectarian turmoil is endemic to Iraq, and its armed forces have been intertwined with its political affairs since their creation. This study illustrates how the relationship between the military and the political centre in Iraq has evolved, with the military bringing about three regime changes in Iraqa (TM)s history before being brought under control by Saddam Hussein, up until the 2003 war. The instability that followed was partly due to the failure to create a new military that does not threaten the government, yet is still strong enough to deter rival factions from armed conflict. The reconstitution of the armed forces will be a prerequisite for an American withdrawal from Iraq, but this book argues that immense challenges lie ahead, despite the praise from the Bush administration for the progress of the new Iraqi army.
In The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order
After Iraq, Richard Falk, brings together some of his recent
essays, published and unpublished, examining the impact that the
Iraq War has had and will have on international law, human rights,
and democracy. A new introduction provides an overview as well as a sense of the current context and reflects on the internal prospects for Iraq and on the logic of an early U.S. military and political withdrawal. Having been revised and updated to take account of the march of events, the essays are organized into the following sections:
Falk demonstrates the dysfunctionality of war in relation to
either anti-terrorism or the pursuit of a global security system
based on military dominance; the historical potential of a
realistic Gandhiism as a positive alternative in the setting of
global policy in the twenty-first century. The Costs of War will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, media studies, and politics and international relations in general.
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.
The rising tide of threats, from financial cybercrime to asymmetric military conflicts, demands greater sophistication in tools and techniques of law enforcement, commercial and domestic security professionals, and terrorism prevention. Concentrating on computational solutions to determine or anticipate an adversary's intent, Adversarial Reasoning: Computational Approaches to Reading the Opponent's Mind discusses the technologies for opponent strategy prediction, plan recognition, deception discovery and planning, and strategy formulation that not only applies to security issues but also to game industry and business transactions. Addressing a broad range of practical problems, including military planning and command, military and foreign intelligence, antiterrorism, network security, as well as simulation and training systems, this reference presents an overview of each problem and then explores various approaches and applications to understand the minds and negate the actions of your opponents. The techniques discussed originate from a variety of disciplines such as stochastic processes, artificial intelligence planning, cognitive modeling, robotics and agent theory, robust control, game theory, and machine learning, among others. The beginning chapters outline the key concepts related to discovering the opponent's intent and plans while the later chapters journey into mathematical methods for counterdeception. The final chapters employ a range of techniques, including reinforcement learning within a stochastic dynamic games context to devise strategies that combat opponents. By answering specific questions on how to create practical applications that require elements of adversarialreasoning while also exploring theoretical developments, Adversarial Reasoning: Computational Approaches to Reading the Opponent's Mind is beneficial for practitioners as well as researchers.
This book charts comprehensively the various discoveries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific of Japanese soldiers still fighting the Second World War many years after it had ended. It explores their return to Japan and their impact on the Japanese people, revealing changing attitudes to war veterans and war casualties' families, as well as the ambivalence of memories of the war.
‘One of our very best writers on France.’ Antony Beevor After publishing an acclaimed biography of Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance, Patrick Marnham received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed to have worked for British Intelligence during the war. The ex-spy praised his book but insisted that he had missed the real ‘treasure’. The letter drew Marnham back to the early 1960s when he had been taught French by a mercurial woman – a former Resistance leader, whose SOE network was broken on the same day that Moulin was captured and who endured eighteen months in Ravensbrùˆck concentration camp. Could these two events have been connected? His anonymous correspondent offered a tantalising set of clues that seemed to implicate Churchill and British Intelligence in the catastrophe. Drawing on a deep knowledge of France and original research in British and French archives, War in the Shadows exposes the ruthless double-dealing of the Allied intelligence services and the Gestapo through one of the darkest periods of the Second World War. It is a story worthy of Le CarrĂ©, but with this difference – it is not fiction. ‘A melange of Le Grand Meaulnes and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It is unforgettable.’ Ferdinand Mount, TLS, Books of the Year ‘A masterly analysis, impeccably presented.’ Allan Mallinson, Spectator ‘Fascinating… Marnham has a vast and scholarly knowledge of this often treacherous world.’ Caroline Moorehead, Literary Review
This is an investigation of the role of the modern soldier/diplomat and the nature of military negotiation, in comparison with negotiation in other contexts. It is a detailed analysis of the role of the military in current operations as negotiators and liaison workers in the field. Very few in the academic world are writing on this specific role of the military and the nature of negotiation in this situation, and such a volatile context. This publication is a first in this context, and has a keen audience in light of the current world order. The book is breaking new ground in analysing the nature of military negotiation in relation to more generic forms of negotiation, and assessing the role of the modern soldier/diplomat in recent deployments around the world. The author is an academic working within the military environment, very few people have the same capacity and accessibility to firsthand evidence and observation. Whilst peacekeeping has grown in the last decade or so, no-one has successfully investigated the role of the military and their approach to non-violent conflict resolution on the ground as few have access to such work to make a viable detailed assessment of the nature of negotiation in a violent context, but Dr Goodwin is able to do so.
A war against Iraq will spur radical changes in the way the country is governed, how its people live, and its relationship to its neighbours and to the West. This book depicts the evolution of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and describes each side's battle plan and the war's likely aftermath.
This is an investigation of the role of the modern soldier/diplomat
and the nature of military negotiation, in comparison with
negotiation in other contexts. It is a detailed analysis of the
role of the military in current operations as negotiators and
liaison workers in the field.
This book shows how the threat of cruise-missile proliferation may unfold and examines its strategic consequences. It argues that, because the unfolding pattern of cruise-missile proliferation remains so unclear, more should be done by affected governments now to dissuade potential adversaries from acquiring cruise missiles or to delay the threat's emergence. The book offers a comprehensive set of policy prescriptions, which when combined, call for a much tighter link between military solution and more robust non-proliferation policies.
This publication considers the lessons to be gained for Britain, the British armed forces, and for NATO as a whole, from the Yugoslav wars of dissolution (1991-1999), with particular emphasis on the Kosovo crisis. The papers come from a diverse and high quality mixture of analysts, practitioners and policy-makers. The issues developed here represent a significant advance in the emerging debate on the lessons to be learnt from the Balkan experience, which will shape thinking on defence and international security far into the new millennium.
This publication considers the lessons to be gained for Britain, the British armed forces, and for NATO as a whole, from the Yugoslav wars of dissolution (1991-1999), with particular emphasis on the Kosovo crisis. The papers come from a diverse and high quality mixture of analysts, practitioners and policy-makers. The issues developed here represent a significant advance in the emerging debate on the lessons to be learnt from the Balkan experience, which will shape thinking on defence and international security far into the new millennium.
Media, War and Terrorism analyses, for the first time, responses to
the events of 9/11 and it's repercussions from the point of view of
Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Perhaps controversially, the
contributors argue that while the US, and to an extent European,
media seems largely unified in their coverage and silence in public
debate of the events surrounding the attacks on the World Trade
Centre, there exists open, critical debate in other parts of the
world.
This collection of essays covers the media and public debate dimension of the events of 9/11, and beyond, from the point of view of Middle Eastern and Asian countries. The first part of the book deals with the use of the media as an instrument of warfare, the growing significance of religion, the emergence of transnational media and a transnational public sphere and the relationship between the West and the rest of the world. The second part of the book contains nine case studies relating to different parts of the Middle East and Asian world, all with a strong empirical focus, while at the same time elaborating the book's theoretical concerns.
The Habsburg Monarchy has received much historiographical attention since 1945. Yet the military aspects of Austria’s emergence as a European great power in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have remained obscure. This book shows that force of arms and the instruments of the early modern state were just as important as its marriage policy in creating and holding together the Habsburg Monarchy. Drawing on an impressive up-to-date bibliography as well as on original archival research, this survey is the first to put Vienna’s military back at the centre stage of early modern Austrian history. |
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