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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Other warfare & defence issues > General
Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser, who have both served in the military, examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way. Robillard and Strawser offer an original normative theory of 'moral exploitation'-the notion that persons or groups can be wrongfully exploited by being made to shoulder an excessive amount of moral weight. They make the case that this exploitation accurately describes the relationship between the United States and the members of its military, and offer a thorough and in-depth analysis of some of the exploitative and misleading elements of present-day military recruitment, the moral burdens soldiers often bear, and the stifling effect that a 'Thank You for Your Service' and 'I support the troops' culture has had on serious public engagement about America's ongoing wars. Robillard and Strawser offer a piercing critique of the pernicious divide between military members and the civilians who direct them. They conclude by arguing for several normative and prudential prescriptions to help close this ever-widening fissure between the U.S. and its military, and within the U.S. itself. In so doing, their work gives a much needed and urgent voice to America's soldiers, the other 1%.
In 1966 a group of highly respected aerospace engineers revealed that US scientists were perfecting ways to control gravity. They predicted a breakthrough would come by the end of the decade, ushering in an era of limitless, clean propulsion for a new breed of fuelless transport systems - and weapons beyond our imagination. Of course it never happened. Or did it? Forty years on a chance encounter with one of the engineers who made that prediction forces a highly sceptical aerospace and defence journalist, Nick Cook, to consider the possibility that America did indeed crack the gravity code - and has covered up ever since. His investigations moved from the corridors of NASA to the dark heartland of America's classified weapons establishment, where it became clear that a half century ago, in the dying days of the Third Reich, Nazi scientists were racing to perfect a Pandora's Box of high technology that would deliver Germany from defeat. History says that they failed. But the trail that takes Cook deep into the once-impenetrable empire of SS General Hans Kammler - the man charged by Adolf Hitler with perfecting German secret weapons technology - says otherwise. In his pursuit of Kammler, Cook finally establishes the truth: America is determined to hang onto its secrets, but the stakes are enormous and others are now in the race to acquire a suppressed technology.
Between 1940 and 1945, more than 100,000 airmen were shot down over Europe, a few thousand of whom survived and avoided being arrested. When Men Fell from the Sky is a comparative history of the treatment of these airmen by civilians in France, Germany and Britain. By studying the situation on the ground, Claire Andrieu shows how these encounters reshaped societies at a local level. She reveals how the fall of France in 1940 may have concealed an insurrection nipped in the bud, that the 'People's War' in Britain was not merely a myth, and that in Germany, the 'racial community of the people' had in fact become a social reality with Allied airmen increasingly subjected to lynching from 1943 onwards. By considering why the treatment of these airmen contrasted so strongly in these countries, Andrieu sheds new light on how civilians reacted when confronted with the war 'at home'.
Wars in the industrial age kill large numbers of people. What do societies involved in these conflicts do with all the corpses? How do they show them respect? How do they dispose of them? What is their attitude to the bodies of the enemies? In the 19th century, those who died on the battlefield were pushed into mass graves, their identities unknown. Today, their remains are held in such high esteem that they are tracked down in order that last respects might be paid. As a historical account of the way in which war and death intersect, this book describes the complex attitude societies have towards death. Lured by the concept of eternal youth, tempted to deny death as well as physical decay, faced with longer life expectancy, we retain the hope of going off to war without loss of life. But does not our own expectation of zero death" imply "more deaths" for the other side?"
In Mei 1985 land 'n nege-man-span van die Suid-Afrikaanse Spesiale
Magte op 'n strand in die olieryke Cabinda-provinsie van Angola.
Hul uitsluitlike doel is die vernietiging van ses massiewe
olie-opgaartenks. Die daaropvolgende skietgeveg lei tot die dood
van twee soldate en die gevangeneming van kaptein Wynand du Toit.
Dit alles dui op een ding: Verraad!
Civil-Military Relations in Southeast Asia reviews the historical origins, contemporary patterns, and emerging changes in civil-military relations in Southeast Asia from colonial times until today. It analyzes what types of military organizations emerged in the late colonial period and the impact of colonial legacies and the Japanese occupation in World War II on the formation of national armies and their role in processes of achieving independence. It analyzes the long term trajectories and recent changes of professional, revolutionary, praetorian and neo-patrimonial civil-military relations in the region. Finally, it analyzes military roles in state- and nation-building; political domination; revolutions and regime transitions; and military entrepreneurship.
The tragic slaughter of the trenches is imprinted on modern memory; but it is more difficult to grasp the wider extent and significance of the First World War. This book gives a clear chronological account of the campaigns on the Western and Eastern Fronts and then moves on to investigate areas that many studies ignore - the war poets, the diplomacy of war aims and peace moves, logistics, and 'the experience of the war'. It was soon seen that `war has nothing to do with chivalry any more', but it was harder to say what the First World War was fought for, or what the combatants gained. Professor Robbins approaches this problem from two angles: he analyses the complex political and diplomatic background to the alliances between the Great Powers; he also explores the mood of Europe between 1914 and 1918 by examining the experience of war from the different standpoints of the nations and individuals caught up in it.
The international community can creatively and aggressively address deadly conflict through mediation, arbitration, and the development of international institutions to promote reconciliation. The editors of this book designed a systematic framework with which contributors compare third party intervention in twelve conflicts of the post Cold War period. They examine the role of international organizations the United Nations, international development banks, and international law institutions and they analyze the tools and forms of leverage in successful and unsuccessful mediations. Based on the case studies, the editors identify the most effective institutions, make recommendations for improving interventions, and elucidate several important insights into the mediation process and the role of the international community in dispute resolution.
The question of how to constrain states that commit severe abuses against their own citizens is as persistent as it is vexing. States are imperfect political forms that in theory possess both a monopoly on coercive power and final jurisdictional authority over their territory. These twin elements of sovereignty and authority can be used by state leaders and political representatives in ways that stray significantly from the interests of citizens. In the most extreme cases, when citizens become inconvenient obstacles in the pursuit of the self-serving ambitions of their leaders, state power turns against them. Genocide, torture, displacement, and rape are often the means of choice by which the inconvenient are made to suffer or vanish. In Divided Sovereignty, Carmen Pavel explores new institutional solutions to this abiding problem. She argues that coercive international institutions can stop these abuses and act as an insurance scheme against the possibility of states failing to fulfill their most basic sovereign responsibilities. She thus challenges the longstanding assumption that collective grants of authority from the citizens of a state should be made exclusively for institutions within the borders of that state. Despite worries that international institutions such as the International Criminal Court could undermine domestic democratic control, citizens can divide sovereign authority between state and international institutions consistent with their right of democratic self-governance. Pavel defends universal, principled limits on state authority based on jus cogens norms, a special category of norms in international law that prohibit violations of basic human rights. Thoughtfully conceived and forcefully argued, Divided Sovereignty will challenge what we think we know about the relationship between international institutions and the pursuit of the fundamental requirements of justice.
The second sensational volume of 'One of the biggest intelligence coups in recent years' (The Times) When Vasili Mitrokhin revealed his archive of Russian intelligence material to the world it caused an international sensation. The Mitrokhin Archive II reveals in full the secrets of this remarkable cache, showing for the first time the astonishing extent of the KGB's global power and influence. 'The long-awaited second tranche from the KGB archive ... co-authored by our leading authority on the secret machinations of the Evil Empire' Sunday Times 'Stunning ... the stuff of legend ... a unique insight into KGB activities on a global scale' Spectator 'Headline news ... as great a credit to the scholarship of its author as to the dedication and courage of its originator' Sunday Telegraph 'There are gems on every page' Financial Times
Most people believe that killing someone, while generally morally wrong, can in some cases be a permissible act. Most people similarly believe that war, while awful, can be justified. Bradley Jay Strawser examines a set of related moral issues in war: when it is permissible to kill in defense of others; what moral responsibility would be required to be liable for such defensive killing; how that permission can extend to whole groups of people; and, lastly, what values undergird the permissibility of that defense, such as individual autonomy. Strawser argues for a rights-based account of permissible defensive harm and an 'evidence-relative' basis for the holding those responsible. His view is that in order to be properly responsible for an unjust harm to be justifiably killed, one must act wrongly according to the evidence available to them. Extending this view, Strawser explores how such a rights-based model can make sense of the wide-spread destructive harms of war. He endorses a revisionist approach to just war theory and argues in its defense; and he also shows how his evidence-relative account supports revisionist just war theory by better grounding it in the real world of modern warfare. Lastly, he offers a new proposal for how targeting in war could better align with respect for the rights of individual persons, and demonstrate how revisionist just war theory-and any rights-respecting just war account more broadly-could conceivably work in practical ways.
The classic story of the Bravo Two Zero Mission.
The international reporting of military expenditure data for African states is poor in many respects. Figures that are published are often at variance with the socio-economic realities of the countries. This study examines the availability and reliability of official military expenditure data for six countries in West, Central and East Africa, using a combination of interviews with key actors in the military budgeting process and analysis of official documents in the countries selected. The author concludes that data are indeed available in many of these countries but that the quality of the data varies from country to country. Two main factors account for this - the influence of the donors of economic aid, whose insistence that artain certain maximum level of expenditure on defence should not be exceeded has encouraged the manipulation of data by the countries concerned; and the general loss of capacity in several countries to compile the necessary statistics.
This book will captivate readers interested in the legacy of the Civil War, the role of military veterans after they return to civilian life, and the fight against racism in America. Steven A. Goldman looks at the contentious post-Civil War era from the perspective of that special breed, Union soldiers who lived by the bayonet and survived to carry on the fight for equality in the decades to come. He explores the root causes of this historic contest, the changing attitudes of northern servicemen with respect to the Civil War’s purpose, and the psychological effect of involvement in what, from hindsight, was an unfinished work in the cause of freedom and equality for all Americans. Relying on unpublished letters and other primary sources, Goldman uses the veterans’ words and actions to depict their steadfast struggle to preserve the memory and understanding of why the war was fought, and to confront the implications of remembrance, commemoration and reconciliation for America's future.
Insecure Gulf examines how the concept of Arabian/Persian Gulf 'security' is evolving in response to new challenges that are increasingly non-military and longer-term. Food, water and energy security, managing and mitigating the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, addressing demographic pressures and the youth bulge and reformulating structural economic deficiencies, in addition to dealing with the fallout from progressive state failure in Yemen, require a broad, global and multi-dimensional approach to Gulf security. While 'traditional' threats from Iraq, Iran, nuclear proliferation and trans-national terrorism remain robust, these new challenges to Gulf security have the potential to strike at the heart of the social contract and redistributive mechanisms that bind state and society in the Arab oil monarchies. Consequently, Insecure Gulf explores the relationship between 'traditional' and 'new' security challenges and situates it within the changing political economy of the GCC states as they move at varying speeds toward post-oil structures of governance. It describes how regimes are anticipating and reacting to the shifting security paradigm, and contextualises these changes within the broader political, economic, social and demographic framework. It also argues that a holistic approach to security is necessary for regimes to renew their sources of legitimacy in a globalising world.
Human progress and prosperity depend on a peaceful environment, and most people have always sought to live in peace, yet our perception of the past is dominated too often not by stories of peace but by tales of war. In this path-breaking study, former Guardian East Asia Editor John Gittings demolishes the myth that peace is dull and that war is in our genes, and opens an alternative window on history to show the strength of the case for peace which has been argued from ancient times onwards. Beginning with a new analysis of the treatment of peace in Homer's Iliad, he explores the powerful arguments against war made by classical Chinese and Greek thinkers, and by the early Christians. Gittings urges us to pay more attention to Erasmus on the Art of Peace, and less to Machiavelli on the Art of War. The significant shift in Shakespeare's later plays towards a more peace-oriented view is also explored. Gittings traces the growth of the international movement for peace from the Enlightenment to the present day, and assesses the inspirational role of Tolstoy and Gandhi in advocating non-violence. Bringing the story up to date, he shows how the League of Nations in spite of its "failure" led to high hopes for a stronger United Nations, but that real chances for peace were missed in the early years of the cold war. And today, Gittings argues that, instead of being obsessed by a new "war on terror" we should be seeking peaceful solutions to the challenges of nuclear proliferation, conflict and extremism, poverty and inequality, and climate change. This paperback edition includes a new preface, in which Gittings looks at how the world is confronted with new dangers to peace, as the election of President Trump highlights the continuing unpredictability and irrational nature of a system of international relations which could lead to new wars and even nuclear disaster.
Initially, the author intended to write a book entitled "Alleviating Stress of the Soldier". However, after going through the extensive literature and recalling his childhood memories of war times, he decided to write "Alleviating Stress of the Soldier and Civilian". Sufficient historical evidence indicates that both soldiers as well as civilians have faced the war and tolerated its deleterious consequences simultaneously. However, a soldier and his/her family face unexpected and unpredictable stresses requiring: physical and mental fitness, character, dedication, commitment, communication, mutual understanding, adjustment, discipline, tolerance, patience, isolation, resilience, hyper-vigilance, minimum vulnerability, sanitation, nutritional stress, sleep deprivation, patriotism, and sacrifice. This book (i) confers basic knowledge of diversified stresses; (ii) prepares readers to face stresses with patience, endurance, and resilience; (iii) and presents novel strategies of alleviating physical, psychological, and physiological stresses of war-wounded soldiers, prisoners of war (POWs), and veterans. The book guides the soldiers of the Army, Navy, Air Force, SEALS (sea, air, and land), POWs, and civilians to handle their professional and family stresses without having to suffer from Combat Stress Reaction (CSR) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) before, during, and/or after the war or conflict. It also guides those who experienced early childhood neglect, physical and/or sexual abuse, and other stresses of diversified origin. It is envisaged that this timely released book will be particularly of great interest to the soldier's family members, their spouses, children, parents, relatives, and friends because of its motivational messages, immediate demand, and versatility. The author hopes that this unique manuscript will encourage, motivate, excite, and guide young soldiers, civilians, and their families to tackle stresses with courage, patience, and resilience to successfully accomplish their trainings, adventurous professional career, and married life.
In 1965, the first incidents of armed resistance occurred in South
West Africa. The military wing of SWAPO, called the People's
Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), established a base at
Ongulumbashe, in northern South West Africa, from where they
intended to launch their armed struggle. However, the South African
Police were quick to attack the base successfully.
This is the history of colonialism as seen though the architecture of Israel/Palestine. Tel Aviv is the 'White City', said to have risen from the sands of the desert, acclaimed worldwide for its architectural heritage and gleaming Bauhaus-inspired Modernism. Jaffa is the 'Black City', the Palestinian city that was largely obliterated to make way for a new European-style architecture at the heart of a newly-formed Israel. Both a gripping narrative and a unique architectural record, this book shows how any city in the world is made not only of stones and concrete but also of stories and histories - victors and losers, predator and prey. In this way, the legend of the Black City and the White City, architecture and war, is our story too. |
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