Today's protracted asymmetrical conflicts confuse efforts to measure progress, often inviting politics and wishful thinking to replace objective evaluation. In Assessing War, military historians, social scientists, and military officers explore how observers have analyzed the trajectory of war in American conflicts from the Seven Years' War through the war in Afghanistan. Drawing on decades of acquired expertise, the contributors examine wartime assessment in both theory and practice and, through alternative dimensions of assessment such as justice and proportionality, the war of ideas and economics. This group of distinguished authors grapples with both conventional and irregular wars and emerging aspects of conflict-such as cyberwar and nation building-that add to the complexities of the modern threat environment. The volume ends with recommendations for practitioners on best approaches while offering sobering conclusions about the challenges of assessing war without politicization or self-delusion. Covering conflicts from the eighteenth century to today, Assessing War blends focused advice and a uniquely broad set of case studies to ponder vital questions about warfare's past-and its future. The book includes a foreword by Gen. George W. Casey Jr. (USA, Ret.), former chief of staff of the US Army and former commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq.

This book deals with the processes and theories involved in managing military organisations in both peacetime and crisis conditions.

Examining the challenges faced by policymakers and military commanders in conducting military operations, this book considers the benefits of conventional management and organisation theory for the military. At the same time, these essays recognise that the military should be considered as a highly individual organisation, operating in exceptional circumstances. This awareness of the differences between the military and other organisations generates important lessons not only for the military but also for general organisations as it teaches them how to cope in exceptional, 'hyper' conditions. These theoretical lessons are illustrated by case studies and experiences from recent military operations, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This book will be of great interest to students of military studies, security studies and organizational studies.

Joseph Soeters chairs the department of management and organization studies and defence economy at the Netherlands Defense Academy and he is a professor in organizational sociology at Tilburg University.

Paul. C. van Fenema is an associate professor of organization studies at the Netherlands Defence Academy and Tilburg University.

Robert Beeres is an associate professor in the field of defence accounting and control (business administration) at the Netherlands Defence Academy and at Nyenrode Business School.

Andrew Dorman introduces Sierra Leone as Blair's second great military adventure after Kosovo and the first he undertook on his own. It is tied to Blair's 1999 Chicago speech on the 'Doctrine of the International Community', his move towards humanitarianism and the impact of the Kosovo experience. The book links this move with the rise of cosmopolitan militaries and the increasing involvement of Western forces in humanitarian operations and their impact on the international system. Furthermore, it places it within the context of defence transformation and the emerging Western expeditionary capabilities, in particular the European Union's new battle group concept and developments in concepts such as Network Centric Warfare and Networked Enabled Capability. Examining the whole campaign and considering the impact on the Blair Government, this book will prove to be a key reader on the topic.

The drastically altered European security context has forced Western defence planners and analysts to reassess core assumptions, including the future role of NATO. As the organization goes through what may be its most profound restructuring to date, one of the critical issues to be resolved is the stationing of Allied troops in Germany, the Allian

Today's protracted asymmetrical conflicts confuse efforts to measure progress, often inviting politics and wishful thinking to replace objective evaluation. In Assessing War, military historians, social scientists, and military officers explore how observers have analyzed the trajectory of war in American conflicts from the Seven Years' War through the war in Afghanistan. Drawing on decades of acquired expertise, the contributors examine wartime assessment in both theory and practice and, through alternative dimensions of assessment such as justice and proportionality, the war of ideas and economics. This group of distinguished authors grapples with both conventional and irregular wars and emerging aspects of conflict-such as cyberwar and nation building-that add to the complexities of the modern threat environment. The volume ends with recommendations for practitioners on best approaches while offering sobering conclusions about the challenges of assessing war without politicization or self-delusion. Covering conflicts from the eighteenth century to today, Assessing War blends focused advice and a uniquely broad set of case studies to ponder vital questions about warfare's past-and its future. The book includes a foreword by Gen. George W. Casey Jr. (USA, Ret.), former chief of staff of the US Army and former commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq.

Prominent military historian Victor Davis Hanson explores the nature of leadership with his usual depth and vivid prose in "The Savior Generals," a set of brilliantly executed pocket biographies of five generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus)who single-handedly saved their nations from defeat in war. War is rarely a predictable enterprise--it is a mess of luck, chance, and incalculable variables. Today's sure winner can easily become tomorrow's doomed loser. Sudden, sharp changes in fortune can reverse the course of war.These intractable circumstances are sometimes mastered by leaders of genius--asked at the eleventh hour to save a hopeless conflict, one created by others and frequently unpopular politically and with the public. The savior generals often come from outside the established power structure, employ radical strategies, and flame out quickly. Their careers regularly end in controversy. But their dramatic feats of leadership are vital slices of history--not merely as stirring military narrative, but as lessons on the dynamic nature of consensus, leadership, and destiny.

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 Iraq'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.

The changed strategic landscape of the 21st century has driven a shift to more flexible, adaptable capabilities across the spectrum of conflict. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the validity of team warfare between air and land forces during open hostilities with an enemy. The time has come for innovative counter-air and counter-land concepts focused on medium- to large-scale conventional combat operations that will merge air and ground forces even more effectively into a single potent fighting force. Such is the focus of AirLandBattle21. A basic assumption in this study is that, during major combat operations, a relevant number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) will conduct distributed operations in a non-linear, non-contiguous and geographically separated fashion. The study introduces a flexible counter-air framework that allows for the most efficient use of limited air assets and advocates only the necessary levels of air control in different areas across the theatre. The study also offers alternative views of strategic attack and explores the critical role tactical airlift will play in employing and sustaining the brigade combat team.

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

This is the first in-depth study to address the financing of the American-Mexican War of 1846-48. Floating the Mexican War loans was the greatest single endeavour of the American financial community during the 1840s. Under President Polk, the Treasury issued three loans totalling $49 000 000. Investment bankers enthusiastically marketed these treasury notes and bonds directly to the international investing public. Cummings argues that the successful financing of the American-Mexican War had a long-term beneficial effect on American financial institutions and markets. At home, the stability of the Independent Treasury was assured, and abroad, America's international credit standing was restored. Most importantly, the dealing of government issue by investment bankers was a decisive step towards modern public finance.

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:

• Part 1 addresses the effects of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq on the current dimensions of world order
• Part 2 provides a normative inquiry into the larger intentions and consequences of the Iraq War
• Part 3 considers the more fundamental implications of the Iraq War, especially on our understanding of war as an instrument for the solution of conflict.

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.

This book investigates, and explains, the extent to which different liberal democracies have resorted to the use of force since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The responses of democratic states throughout the world to the September 2001 terrorist attacks have varied greatly. This book analyses the various factors that had an impact on decisions on the use of force by governments of liberal democratic states. It seeks to explain differences in the security policies and practices of Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the UK regarding the war in Afghanistan, domestic counterterrorism measures and the Iraq War. To this end, the book combines the concepts of strategic culture and securitisation into a theoretical model that disentangles the individual structural and agential causes of the use of force by the state and sequentially analyses the impact of each causal component on the other. It argues that the norms of a strategic culture shape securitisation processes of different expressions, which then bring about distinct modes of the use of force in individual security policy decisions. While governments can also deviate from the constraints of a strategic culture, this is likely to encounter a strong reaction from large parts of the population which in turn can lead to a long-term change in strategic culture. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic culture, securitisation, European politics, security studies and IR in general.

For many years historians of the Cuban missile crisis have concentrated on those thirteen days in October 1962 when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. Mark White s study adds an equally intense scrutiny of the causes and consequences of the crisis. "Missiles in Cuba" is based on up-to-date scholarship as well as Mr. White s own findings in National Security Archive materials, Kennedy Library tapes of ExComm meetings, and correspondence between Soviet officials in Washington and Havana all newly released. His more rounded picture gives us a much clearer understanding of the policy strategies pursued by the United States and the Soviet Union (and, to a lesser extent, Cuba) that brought on the crisis. His almost hour-by-hour account of the confrontation itself also destroys some venerable myths, such as the unique initiatives attributed to Robert Kennedy. And his assessment of the consequences of the crisis points to salutary effects on Soviet-American relation and on U.S. nuclear defense strategy, but questionable influences on Soviet defense spending and on Washington s perception of its talents for "crisis management," later tested in Vietnam.

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 governance of post-conflict territories embodies a central contradiction: how does one help a population prepare for democratic governance and the rule of law by imposing a form of benevolent autocracy?
Transitional administrations represent the most complex operations attempted by the United Nations. The operations in East Timor and Kosovo are commonly seen as unique in the history of the UN--perhaps never to be repeated. But they may also be seen as the latest in a series of operations that have involved the United Nations in 'state-building' activities, where it has attempted to develop the institutions of government by assuming some or all of those sovereign powers on a temporary basis. The circumstances that have demanded such interventions certainly will be repeated.
Seen in the context of earlier UN operations, such as those in Namibia, Cambodia, and Eastern Slavonia, the view that these exceptional circumstances may not recur is somewhat disingenuous. Moreover, the need for such policy research has been brought into sharp focus by the weighty but ambiguous role assigned to the UN in Afghanistan and the possibility of a comparable role in Iraq.
This book fills that gap. Aimed at policy-makers, diplomats, and a wide academic audience (including international relations, political science, international law, and war studies), the book provides a concise history of UN state-building operations and a treatment of the five key issues confronting such an operation on the ground: peace and security, the role of the UN as government, judicial reconstruction, economic reconstruction, and exit strategies.

This is a military history of the two Persian invasions of Greece, the first of which came to grief at Marathon, the second at Salamis and Plataia. The conflicts are largely examined in terms of the fifth century BC, avioding modern conceptions, and from the Persian as well as the Greek point of view. The author believes Herodotus should remain central to any attempt to explain the conflicts, and reassesses his skill and insight as a military historian.

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.

How were the Crusades made possible? There have been studies of ancient, medieval and early modern warfare, as well as work on the finances and planning of Crusades, but this volume is the first specifically to address the logistics of Crusading. Building on previous work, it brings together experts from the fields of medieval Western, Byzantine and Middle Eastern studies to examine how the marches and voyages were actually made. Questions of manpower, types and means of transportation by land and sea, supplies, financial resources, roads and natural land routes, sea lanes and natural sailing routes - all these topics and more are covered here. Of particular importance is the attention given to the horses and other animals on which transport of supplies and the movement of armies depended.

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.

Few analysts of U.S. involvement in Vietnam would agree with the provocative conclusion of this book. The thesis of most postmortems is that the United States lost the war because of the failure of its foreign policy decisionmaking system. According to Gelb and Betts, however, the foreign policy failed, but the decisionmaking system worked. They attribute this paradox to the efficiency of the system in sustaining an increasingly heavy commitment based on the shared conviction of six administrations that the United States must prevent the loss of Vietnam to communism. However questionable the conviction, and thus the commitment, may have been, the authors stress that the latter "was made and kept for twenty-five years. That is what the system -the shared values, the political and bureaucratic pressures -was designed to do, and it did it." The comprehensive analysis that supports this contention reflects the widest use thus fare of available sources, including recently declassified portions of negotiations documents and files in presidential libraries. The frequently quoted statement of the principals themselves contradict the commonly held view that U.S. leaders were unaware of the consequences of their decisions and deluded by false expectations of easy victory. With few exceptions, the record reveals that these leaders were both realistic and pessimistic about the chances for success in Vietnam. Whey they persisted nonetheless is explained in this thorough account of their decisionmaking from 1946 to 1968, and how their mistakes might be avoided by policymakers in the future is considered in the final chapter.

More than 300,000 people visit the site of George Armstrong Custer's Last Stand each year; however the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn is only part of Custer's story on the Great Plains. The famed general and his Seventh Cavalry spent 10 years on the plains prior to Little Bighorn, participating in campaigns from Texas to North Dakota and leaving behind a colourful, controversial and enduring legacy. The Great Plains Guide to Custer is the first book that directs readers to all of the sites Custer visited west of the Mississippi River. Featured are more than 80 locations in 10 states that the general is confirmed to have visited, as well dozens of related places of interest to Western, Plains Indian, and army historians. Also included is all-new information on Custer's 1872 Great Buffalo Hunt with the Russian grand duke Alexis, an expedition that featured many of the most famous figures of the nineteenth-century American West sure to appeal to the many Custer aficionados. About the Author Jeff Barnes is a freelance writer who lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a former newspaper editor and past chairman of the Nebraska Hall of Fame commission.

Bringing together the latest developments in the realm of international military expenditure and nuclear weapons, this twenty-third edition also reviews nuclear explosions, arms production and trade, chemical and biological weapons, as well as military use of outer space, proliferation of ballistic missile technology, armed conflicts in 1991, nuclear arms control of the United States and the Soviet Union, and conventional arms control in Europe.

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.