For much of its 2,000-year history, the Roman Catholic Church was a formidable political and military power, in contrast to its pacifist origins and its present concentration on spiritual matters. The period of political and military activism can be dated to roughly between 410, when Pope Innocent I vainly tried to avert the sack of Rome by the Visigoths, and about 1870, when Pope Pius IX was abandoned by his protectors, the French Army, and forced to submit to the new Italian state by surrendering any political power the Vatican had left. During those centuries, the popes employed every means at their disposal, including direct military action, to maintain their domains centred on Rome. Some pontiffs, such as Alexander VI, Julius II (15th century), plus the energetic Borgia popes later, built the Papal States into a power in their own right. In the following century and a half, Europe's destructive religious wars almost always had a papal component, with the Lateran and later Vatican fielding their own armies. Climaxing the story are the little-known yet bitter late-nineteenth century battles between the papal volunteers from all over Europe and America, and the Italian nationalists who ultimately prevailed. John Carr narrates the story of Papal military clout with engaging verve.

It is, of course, no secret that undercover Special Forces and intelligence agencies operated in Northern Ireland and the Republic throughout the 'troubles', from 1969 to 2001 and beyond. What is less well known is how these units were recruited, how they operated, what their mandate was and what they actually did. This is the first account to reveal much of this hitherto unpublished information, providing a truly unique record of surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, collusion and undercover combat. An astonishing number of agencies were active to combat the IRA murder squads ('the Provos'), among others the Military Reaction Force (MRF) and the Special Reconnaissance Unit, also known as the 14 Field Security and Intelligence Company ('The Det'), as well as MI5, Special Branch, the RUC, the UDR and the Force Research Unit (FRU), later the Joint Support Group (JSG)). It deals with still contentious and challenging issues as shoot-to-kill, murder squads, the Disappeared, and collusion with loyalists. It examines the findings of the Stevens, Cassel and De Silva reports and looks at operations Loughgall, Andersonstown, Gibraltar and others.

Following World War II, Americans expected that the United States would wage another major war against a superpower. Instead, the nation has fought limited wars against much weaker states, such as North Korea, North Vietnam, and Iraq. This revised and updated edition of "Presidential Decisions for War" analyzes the means by which four presidents have taken the nation to war and assesses the effectiveness of each president's leadership during those conflicts.

Gary Hess recreates the unfolding crises in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq to probe the reasons why Presidents Truman, Johnson, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush and their advisors decided in favor of war. He compares the performance of the commanders-in-chief and evaluates how effectively each understood U.S. interests, explored alternatives to war, adhered to constitutional processes, and built congressional, popular, and international support. A new conclusion points out, that unlike the administrations of Truman, Johnson, and the elder Bush, George W. Bush's White House actively sought to change the international order through preemptive war and aggressive democracy building.

Fully revised and featuring an examination of how each of the presidents learned from history and juggled the demands on diplomacy, this comparative study of presidential war-making elucidates how effective executive leadership--or its absence--directly affects the outcome of wars.

Architecture and Armed Conflict is the first multi-authored scholarly book to address this theme from a comparative, interdisciplinary perspective. By bringing together specialists from a range of relevant fields, and with knowledge of case studies across time and space, it provides the first synthetic body of research on the complex, multifaceted subject of architectural destruction in the context of conflict. The book addresses several specific research questions: How has the destruction of buildings and landscapes figured in recent historical conflicts, and how have people and states responded to it? How has the destruction of architecture been represented in different historical periods, and to what ends? What are the relationships between the destruction of architecture and the destruction of art, particularly iconoclasm? If architectural destruction is a salient feature of many armed conflicts, how does it feature in post-conflict environments? What are the relationships between architectural destruction and processes of restoration, recreation or replacement? Considering multiple conflicts, multiple time periods, and multiple locations allows this international cohort of authors to provide an essential primer for this crucial topic.

The American Military: A Narrative History presents a comprehensive introduction to more than four centuries of American military history. * Presents a chronological account of American military history from clashes between militias and Native Americans to 21st-century operations in Afghanistan and Iraq * Features personal vignettes to put a human face on armed conflict * Addresses patterns of national service, the evolution of civil-military relations, and the advent of all-volunteer forces * Puts events in historical context, and considers cultural, social, political, economic, and technological developments

The 44th edition of the SIPRI Yearbook analyses developments in 2012 in Security and conflicts Military spending and armaments Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament The SIPRI Yearbook contains extensive annexes on the implementation of arms control and disarmament agreements and a chronology of events during the year in the area of security and arms control. Purchasers of the print edition will also be able to access the Yearbook online.

How do small groups of combat soldiers maintain their cohesion under fire? This question has long intrigued social scientists, military historians, and philosophers. Based on extensive research and drawing on graphic analysis of close quarter combat from the Somme to Sangin, the book puts forward a novel and challenging answer to this question. Against the common presumption of the virtues of the citizen soldier, this book claims that, in fact, the infantry platoon of the mass twentieth century army typically performed poorly and demonstrated low levels of cohesion in combat. With inadequate time and resources to train their troops for the industrial battlefield, citizen armies typically relied on appeals to masculinity, nationalism and ethnicity to unite their troops and to encourage them to fight. By contrast, cohesion among today's professional soldiers is generated and sustained quite differently. While concepts of masculinity and patriotism are not wholly irrelevant, the combat performance of professional soldiers is based primarily on drills which are inculcated through intense training regimes. Consequently, the infantry platoon has become a highly skilled team capable of collective virtuosity in combat. The increasing importance of training, competence and drills to the professional infantry soldier has not only changed the character of cohesion in the twenty-first century platoon but it has also allowed for a wider social membership of this group. Soldiers are no longer included or excluded into the platoon on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity, social background, sexuality or even sex (women are increasingly being included in the infantry) but their professional competence alone: can they do the job? In this way, the book traces a profound transformation in the western way of warfare to shed light on wider processes of transformation in civilian society. This book is a project of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War.

In recent years, the south-western border of the United States has come under increasing pressure from the activities of Mexican narco-insurgents. These insurgents have developed rapidly from beginnings as nebulous gangs into networked cartels that have exposed the porosity of the border. These cartels declare no allegiance to any nation and are engaging in asymmetrical warfare against sovereign states throughout Mexico and in Central America. Within such states, de facto political control is shifting to the cartels in the 'areas of impunity' that have emerged. This book addresses these concerns and focuses on the criminal insurgencies being waged by the gangs and cartels. It is divided into sections on theory, Mexico, and the Americas and contains a number of introductory essays pertaining to this premier security threat to the United States and her allies in the region. Topics covered include criminal and spiritual insurgency, cartel weapons, corruption, feral cities, Los Zetas, politicized gangs, and threat analysis in Central America. This book will be a valuable resource to scholars in the fields of regional security, criminal justice and American Studies. It will be of great benefit to military and civil policymakers and practitioners in the areas of law enforcement and counternarcotics. This book was published as a special issue of Small Wars and Insurgencies.

Surprisingly little known, the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20 was to change the course of twentieth-century history. In White Eagle, Red Star, Norman Davies gives a full account of the War, with its dramatic climax in August 1920 when the Red Army - sure of victory and pledged to carry the Revolution across Europe to 'water our horses on the Rhine' - was crushed by a devastating Polish attack. Since known as the 'miracle on the Vistula', it remains one of the most decisive battles of the Western world. Drawing on both Polish and Russian sources, Norman Davies illustrates the narrative with documentary material which hitherto has not been readily available and shows how the War was far more an 'episode' in East European affairs, but largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more.

Did Japan surrender in 1945 because of the death and devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or because of the crushing defeat inflicted on their armies by the Soviet Union in Manchukuo, the puppet state they set up in north-east China? Indeed, the Red Army's rapid and total victory in Manchukuo has been relatively neglected by historians. Charles Stephenson, in this scholarly and highly readable new study, describes the political, diplomatic and military build-up to the Soviet offensive and its decisive outcome. He also considers to what extent Japan's capitulation is attributable to the atomic bomb or the stunningly successful entry of the Soviet Union into the conflict. The military side of the story is explored in fascinating detail - the invasion of Manchukuo itself where the Soviet 'Deep Battle' concept was employed with shattering results, and secondary actions in Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. But equally absorbing is the account of the decision-making that gave rise to the offensive and the political and diplomatic background to it, and in particular the Yalta conference. There, Stalin allowed the Americans to persuade him to join the war in the east; a conflict he was determined on entering anyway. Charles Stephenson's engrossing narrative throws new light on the last act of the Second World War.

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." History would prove him correct; the events of that day--when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor--ended the Great Depression, changed the course of FDR's presidency, and swept America into World War II. In "Pearl Harbor," acclaimed historian Steven M. Gillon provides a vivid, minute-by-minute account of Roosevelt's skillful leadership in the wake of the most devastating military assault in American history. FDR proved both decisive and deceptive, inspiring the nation while keeping the real facts of the attack a secret from congressional leaders and the public.

"Pearl Harbor" explores the anxious and emotional events surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor, showing how the president and the American public responded in the pivotal twenty-four hours that followed, a period in which America burst from precarious peace into total war.

The 43rd edition of the SIPRI Yearbook analyses developments in 2011 in Security and conflicts Military spending and armaments Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament The SIPRI Yearbook contains extensive annexes on the implementation of arms control and disarmament agreements and a chronology of events during the year in the area of security and arms control. Individual purchasers of the print edition will also be able to access the Yearbook online.

The Allied invasion of Northern France was the greatest combined operation in the history of warfare. Up until now it has been recorded from the attackers' point of view whereas the defenders' angle has been largely ignored. While the Germans knew an invasion was inevitable, no-one knew where or when it would fall. Those manning Hitler's mighty Atlantic Wall may have felt secure in their bunkers but they had no conception of the fury and fire that was about to break. After the initial assaults of June established an Allied bridgehead, a state of stale-mate prevailed. The Germans fought with great courage hindered by lack of supplies and overwhelming Allied control of the air. When the Allies finally broke out the collapse was catastrophic with Patton's army in the East sweeping round and Monty's in the West putting remorseless pressure on the hard pressed defenders. The Falaise Gap became a graveyard of German men and equipment. To read the war from the losing side is a sobering and informative experience.

The 42nd edition of the SIPRI Yearbook analyses developments in 2010 in Security and conflicts Military spending and armaments Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament The SIPRI Yearbook contains extensive annexes on the implementation of arms control and disarmament agreements and a chronology of events during the year in the area of security and arms control. Individual purchasers of the print edition will also be able to access the Yearbook online. The activation code for online access is provided inside the book.

After the end of the Cold War, the world has experienced a more mono-polar power structure. In contrast to promises of a peaceful 'one' world, this seems not to have provided more international justice and security, nor reduced international conflict. Defense-related issues, long given minor attention in economics, have surfaced rather as a central mechanism in the current stage of globalization. Increase in military expenditures, the multiplication of wars, new generations of sophisticated weapons, and increased interest for defense stocks at the financial markets, indicate that a new type of relation between defense and economy has set in. The papers presented here investigate on what economics has to say on conflict, war, and terrorism today, a selection of sophisticated economic analyses of the theoretical and applied industrial, macroeconomic, fiscal-policy, financial market, regional, and alternative policies dimensions. Here, modern economics has a considerable and critical contribution to make.

This book consists of extracts from key documents, along with commentary and further reading, on the 'Great Patriotic War' of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, 1941-45.

Despite the historical significance of the war, few Soviet documents have been published in English. This work provides translations of a range of extracts from Soviet documents relating to the titanic struggle on the Eastern Front during World War II, with commentary. This is the only single-volume work in English to use documentary evidence to look at the Soviet war effort from military, political, economic and diplomatic perspectives. The book should not only facilitate a deeper study of the Soviet war effort, but also allow more balanced study of what is widely known in the West as the 'Eastern Front'.

This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of military history, Soviet history, and World War II history.

Since September 2001, the United States has waged what the government initially called the "global war on terrorism (GWOT)." Beginning in late 2005 and early 2006, the term Long War began to appear in U.S. security documents such as the National Security Council's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq and in statements by the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the JCS. The description Long War--unlimited in time and space and continuing for decades--is closer to reality and more useful than GWOT.
Colonel Robert Cassidy argues that this protracted struggle is more correctly viewed as a global insurgency and counterinsurgency. Al Qaeda and its affiliates, he maintains, comprise a novel and evolving form of networked insurgents who operate globally, harnessing the advantages of globalization and the information age. They employ terrorism as a tactic, subsuming terror within their overarching aim of undermining the Western-dominated system of states. Placing the war against al Qaeda and its allied groups and organizations in the context of a global insurgency has vital implications for doctrine, interagency coordination, and military cultural change--all reviewed in this important work.
He first offers a distilled analysis of al Qaeda and its associated networks, with a particular focus on ideology and culture. In subsequent chapters, he elucidates the challenges big powers face when they prosecute counterinsurgencies, using historical examples from Russian, American, British, and French counterinsurgent wars before 2001. The book concludes with recommendations for the integration and command and control of indigenous forces and other agencies.

Counterinsurgency, the violent suppression of armed insurrection, is among the dominant kinds of war in contemporary world politics. Often linked to protecting populations and reconstructing legitimate political orders, it has appeared in other times and places in very different forms - and has taken on a range of politics in doing so. How did it arrive at its present form, and what generated these others, along the way? Spanning several centuries and four detailed case studies, The Counterinsurgent Imagination unpacks and explores this intellectual history through counterinsurgency manuals. These military theoretical and instructional texts, and the practitioners who produced them, made counterinsurgency possible in practice. By interrogating these processes, this book explains how counter-insurrectionary war eventually took on its late twentieth and early twenty-first century forms. It shows how and why counterinsurgent ideas persist, despite recurring failures.

Artificial Intelligence and Global Security: Future Trends, Threats and Considerations brings a much-needed perspective on the impact of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in military affairs. Experts forecast that AI will shape future military operations in ways that will revolutionize warfare. That is why there is an urgent need to consider the potential ethical and moral consequences related to enabling AI to make decisions that will shape the future world. This book masterfully presents a vision of a future that is replete with integrated networks of artificial intelligence that are designed to both defend and attack nations. Artificial Intelligence and Global Security: Future Trends, Threats and Considerations has rendered a major service to those interested in the impact of artificial intelligence technologies and its contribution to the evolution and revolution in military warfare. It also explores the implications of AI for the individual, for personal identity, for society, and for global security; it examines the impact of AI on Just War Theory; and it offers diverse perspectives on the consequences of the integration of AI in our daily lives and society.

Once the Union Army gained control of the upper rivers of the Mississippi Valley during the first half of 1862, slow and heavy ironclads proved ineffective in patrolling the waters. Hastily outfitted steamboats were covered with thin armor and pressed into duty. These "tinclads" fought Confederate forces attacking from the riverbanks, provided convoy for merchant steamers, enforced revenue measures, and offered tow, dispatch, and other fleet support services. This history documents the service records and duties of these little-known vessels of the Union fleet.

If there is one thing we can be sure of concerning the Saxons, Vikings and Normans who inhabited the medieval world, it is that they were a good deal more advanced than some writings would have us believe. This fascinating book by Terence Wise explores the history, organization, clothing, equipment and weapons of Saxon, Viking and Norman peoples, covering wide-ranging topics such as Anglo-Saxon shields, Viking raiding ships and the organization of Norman armies.The absorbing and readable text is enriched by numerous illustrations and museum photographs with commentaries, plus eight superbly drawn full page colour plates by renowned military artist Gerry Embleton.

After the destructive decades following the fall of the Safavid Empire, the Qajar dynasty inherited a weakened state and the growing threat of European imperial powers, culminating in two wars with Russia. In this book, Maziar Behrooz provides a history of the Qajar dynasty’s navigation of this difficult period, beginning with the reign of Aqa Muhammad Shah and ending with that of Fath Ali Shah. Examining the key decisions taken by Qajar, Russian, British and other actors, the book argues that a reevaluation of the early-Qajar period is required, one which acknowledges the failures of its rulers, while recognising the external constraints they were under, and their successes in reuniting a formerly fragmented state in the face of overwhelming technological, economic and military firepower.

In Killer Apps Jeremy Packer and Joshua Reeves provide a detailed account of the rise of automation in warfare, showing how media systems are central to building weapons systems with artificial intelligence in order to more efficiently select and eliminate military targets. Drawing on the insights of a wide range of political and media theorists, Packer and Reeves develop a new theory for understanding how the intersection of media and military strategy drives today's AI arms race. They address the use of media to search for enemies in their analyses of the history of automated radar systems, the search for extraterrestrial life, and the development of military climate science, which treats the changing earth as an enemy. As the authors demonstrate, contemporary military strategy demands perfect communication in an evolving battlespace that is increasingly inhospitable to human frailties, necessitating humans' replacement by advanced robotics, machine intelligence, and media systems.

Japan is emerging as a more prominent global and regional military power, defying traditional categorisations of a minimalist contribution to the US-Japan alliance, maintaining anti-militarism, seeking an internationalist role, or carving out more strategic autonomy. Instead, this Element argues that Japan has fundamentally shifted its military posture over the last three decades and traversed into a new categorisation of a more capable military power and integrated US ally. This results from Japan's recognition of its fundamentally changing strategic environment that requires a new grand strategy and military doctrines. The shift is traced across the national security strategy components of Japan Self-Defence Forces' capabilities, US-Japan alliance integration, and international security cooperation. The Element argues that all these components are subordinated inevitably to the objectives of homeland security and re-strengthening the US-Japan alliance, and thus Japan's development as international security partner outside the ambit of the bilateral alliance remains stunted. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

In contrast to the many books that use military, diplomatic, and historic language in analyzing the Korean War, this book takes a cultural approach that emphasizes the human dimension of the war, an approach that especially features Korean voices. There are chapters on Korean art on the war, translations into English of Korean poetry by Korean soldiers, and American soldier poetry on the war. There is a photographic essay on the war by combat journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Max Desfor. Another chapter includes and analyzes songs on the Korean War - Korean, American, and Chinese - that illuminate the many complex memories of the war. There is a discussion of Korean films on the war and a chapter on Korean War POWs and their contested memories. More than any other nonfiction book on the war, this one shows us the human face of tragedy for Americans, Chinese, and most especially Koreans. June 2000 was the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War; this moving volume is intended as a commemoration of it.