Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) have constituted a perennial feature of the security landscape. Yet, it is their involvement in and conduct during the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have transformed the outsourcing of security services into such a pressing public policy and world-order issue. The PMSCs' ubiquitous presence in armed conflict situations, as well as in post-conflict reconstruction, their diverse list of clients (governments in the developed and developing world, non-state armed groups, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and international corporations) and, in the context of armed conflict situations, involvement in instances of gross misconduct, have raised serious accountability issues. The prominence of PMSCs in conflict zones has generated critical questions concerning the very concept of security and the role of private force, a rethinking of "essential governmental functions," a rearticulation of the distinction between public/private and global/local in the context of the creation of new forms of "security governance," and a consideration of the relevance, as well as limitations, of existing regulatory frameworks that include domestic and international law (in particular international human rights law and international humanitarian law). This book critically examines the growing role of PMSCs in conflict and post-conflict situations, as part of a broader trend towards the outsourcing of security functions. Particular emphasis is placed on key moral, legal, and political considerations involved in the privatization of such functions, on the impact of outsourcing on security governance, and on the main challenges confronting efforts to hold PMSCs accountable through a combination of formal and informal, domestic as well as international, regulatory mechanisms and processes. It will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, practitioners and advocates for a more transparent and humane security order. This book was published as a special issue of Criminal Justice Ethics.

Elmar Dinter addresses the question of why some men fight well in war and others do not. He examines the factors and draws conclusions involving recommendations for new methods of personnel selection and new tactics, training and military education.

Elmar Dinter addresses the question of why some men fight well in war and others do not. He examines the factors and draws conclusions involving recommendations for new methods of personnel selection and new tactics, training and military education.

Scottish Lion on Patrol was first published in 1950, the record of the 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiments formation, training ands service in the campaign that took them from Normandy to the Baltic. They played a key role in the liberation of Europe and the Regiment was unique in that it was in the forefront of the crossings of the Rivers Seine, Rhine and Elbe. The troops who landed in Normandy were highly trained but most of them had not experienced actual combat; however they very quickly learned the skills necessary to survive and defeat a cunning and resourceful foe. Full of eye-witness accounts, this is a true story of a real Band of Brothers, the original work being faithfully reproduced and significant new material from personal recollections which are graphic, moving and occasionally humorous.

Victory on the battlefield is sometimes achieved against the odds - victory snatched from the jaws of apparently inevitable defeat. A daring counter attack, an unexpected manoeuvre, a stubborn refusal to be beaten and the impossible victory is won. In the ten dramatic episodes in this book, military historian Bryan Perrett revisits battles from the Peninsula War of 1811 to Vietnam in 1967, via colonial action in two world wars...an excellent book, informative, fascinating in detail, and above all an easy and enjoyable read - The Royal Tank Regiment Journal

This book explores changes in emotional cultures of the early modern battlefield. Military action involves extraordinary modes of emotional experience and affective control of the soldier, and it evokes strong emotional reactions in society at large. While emotional experiences of actors and observers may differ radically, they can also be tightly connected through social interaction, cultural representations and mediatisation. The book integrates psychological, social and cultural perspectives on the battlefield, looking at emotional behaviour, expression and representation in a great variety of primary source material. In three steps it discusses the emotional practices in the army, the emotional experiences of the individual combatant and the emotions of the mediated battlefield in the visual arts.

Written by experts in the field, this book addresses the serious and increasingly public concern over the mental health of veterans after military deployment. It examines the intersection of criminal and civil legal issues with mental problems in the veteran population and describes various effective programs that have been developed to address these issues. It includes a wide range of useful topics examining the particular criminal justice problems faced by vets, such as sexual abuse and violence as well as the legal institutions that have been established to handle these problems, such as veterans courts, family courts, and the Veterans Justice Outreach program. The book also provides coverage of special groups such as women and homeless veterans. It is a concise but comprehensive view of this salient topic that is useful for students, practitioners, and policy makers.

This book sets itself apart from much of the burgeoning literature on war commemoration within human geography and the social sciences more generally by analysing how the Second World War (1941-45) is remembered within Singapore, unique for its potential to shed light on the manifold politics associated with the commemoration of wars not only within an Asian, but also a multiracial and multi-religious postcolonial context. By adopting a historical materialist approach, it traces the genealogy of war commemoration in Singapore, from the initial disavowal of the war by the postcolonial government since independence in 1965 to it being embraced as part of national historiography in the early 1990s apparent in the emergence since then of various memoryscapes dedicated to the event. Also, through a critical analysis of a wide selection of these memoryscapes, the book interrogates how memories of the war have been spatially and discursively appropriated today by state (and non-state) agencies as a means of achieving multiple objectives, including (but not limited to) commemoration, tourism, mourning and nation-building. And finally, the book examines the perspectives of those who engage with or use these memoryscapes in order to reveal their contested nature as fractured by social divisions of race, gender, ideology and nationality. The substantive book chapters will be based on archival and empirical data drawn from case studies in Singapore themed along different conceptual lenses including ethnicity; gender; postcoloniality, tourism and postmodernity; personal mourning; transnational remembrances and politics; and the preservation of original sites, stories and artefacts of war. Collectively, they speak to and work towards shedding insights to the one overarching question: 'How is the Second World War commemorated in postcolonial Singapore and what are some of the issues, politics and contestations which have accompanied these efforts to presence the war today, particularly as they are spatially and materially played out via different types of memoryscapes?' The book also distinguishes itself from previous works written on war commemoration in Singapore, mainly by social and military historians, particularly through its adoption of a geographical agenda that gives attention to issues of politics of space as it relates to remembrance and representations of memory.

Historian Chris Bray (a former soldier) tells the sweeping story of military justice from the institution of the American court martial in the earliest days of the Republic to contemporary arguments over how to use military courts to try foreign terrorists or soldiers accused of sexual assault.

Between 1950 and 1955, thousands of veterans from the notorious German-led, Ukrainian 14th Waffen-SS Galicia Division emigrated to North America with the full consent of the governments despite immigration regulations in force at the time that forbade entry to all who served in any branch of the SS. The Jewish community fought a brief, but futile, battle to persuade those governments to deny them entry, denouncing them as a "sinister legion" of "bloodthirsty murderers"--war criminals who had engaged in the mass murder of thousands of innocent civilians.

On the other hand, a well-organized body of Division supporters insisted there was nothing "sinister" or "murderous" about the young men who had volunteered to serve in its ranks. They declared them exceptional soldiers who obeyed the international rules of war, praised them for being dedicated soldiers who harbored no hatred for Jews, guarded no concentration camps, and committed no crimes against humanity.

At issue then was the nature of the Division and its war record. Were they "pure soldiers" as many of their supporters contended, or were they, to use Daniel Goldhagen's phrase, among Hitler's willing executioners?

"Pure Soldiers or Bloodthirsty Murderers "traces the 14th Waffen-SS Galicia Division's fortunes from its formation in April 1943, to its surrender to the British in May 1946, from immigrant farm workers in Britain, Canada and the USA, to Cold War CIA assassins. Along the way, it attempts to shed some light on this acrimonious dispute that has continued to the present day.

Sol Littman is former Canadian Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, author of "War Criminal on Trial," founding editor of "The Canadian Jewish News," the First Director of B'nai Brith Canada's "League for Human Rights," and also served with the Anti-Defamation League in the United States.

An examination of the Royal Navy's Victualling Board, the body responsible for supplying the fleet. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy increased its manpower from fewer than 20,000 to more than 147,000 men, with a concomitant increase in the quantities of food and drink required to sustain them.The organisation responsible for this, the Victualling Board, performed its tasks using techniques and systems which it had developed over the previous 110 years. In terms of actually delivering supplies to warships, troopships and army garrisons abroad, the Victualling Board performed well given the constraints of long-distance communications and intermittent difficulties in obtaining supplies. However, its other areas of responsibility showed poor performance, as evidenced by the reports of several Parliamentary enquiries. This book examines in detail the processes by which the Victualling Board performed its core and non-core tasks, identifying the areas of competence and incompetence, and establishing the underlying causes of the incompetencies. JANET MACDONALD, author of the highly acclaimed Feeding Nelson's Navy (Chatham, 2004), has recently completed a thesis at King's College London. After a business career, and running an equestrian organisation, she spent ten years as a freelance writer, publishing more than thirty books.

This book, originally published in 1981, tells the story of the regular soldiers and reservists of the British Expeditionary Force (B. E. F.) who fought in the first six months of the First World War on the Western Front. This photographic history of the B. E. F. is unique in that the photographs were taken not by official war photographers, but either by the few press photographers who were able to get near the Front or by members of the B. E. F themselves. Complementing the photographs are many first-hand accounts of their experiences by 'Old Contemptibles' and an authoritative text by Keith Simpson.

First published in 1978. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The study provides an in-depth, up-to-date, and scholarly analysis of the liberation war and the Sheikh Mujib Regime of Bangladesh. Situating the emergence of Bangladesh in the broader historical context of the partition of British India in 1947, the study re-examines: a) how Mujib successfully galvanized the legitimate grievances of Bangladeshi people during the united Pakistan period (1947-71) and how a highly successful guerilla warfare of Bangladeshi people led to dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 with crucial military and political support from neighboring India; (b) how in the post-liberation Bangladesh the Mujib regime toyed with contradictory political ideologies of democracy and socialism, and eventually ended up with a one-party monolithic rule; (c) how in the economic sphere the Mujib regime vacillated between petty bourgeoisie and socialist inclinations by half-heartedly pursuing socialization of agriculture and nationalization of industries, which resulted in plundering of the economy and plunging of millions of people in famine and near-famine situations; (d) how in 1975 the assassination of Mujib and collapse of his ill-fated regime, that failed to deliver both economically and politically, evoked little sympathy from the masses; and (e) how the trial of the killers of Mujib after 21 years of his death, and the trial of the collaborators of the liberation war after four decades of the country's liberation war, orchestrated by Sheikh Hasina government, keep the nation's political discourse still sharply divided.

Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) have constituted a perennial feature of the security landscape. Yet, it is their involvement in and conduct during the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have transformed the outsourcing of security services into such a pressing public policy and world-order issue. The PMSCs' ubiquitous presence in armed conflict situations, as well as in post-conflict reconstruction, their diverse list of clients (governments in the developed and developing world, non-state armed groups, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and international corporations) and, in the context of armed conflict situations, involvement in instances of gross misconduct, have raised serious accountability issues. The prominence of PMSCs in conflict zones has generated critical questions concerning the very concept of security and the role of private force, a rethinking of "essential governmental functions," a rearticulation of the distinction between public/private and global/local in the context of the creation of new forms of "security governance," and a consideration of the relevance, as well as limitations, of existing regulatory frameworks that include domestic and international law (in particular international human rights law and international humanitarian law). This book critically examines the growing role of PMSCs in conflict and post-conflict situations, as part of a broader trend towards the outsourcing of security functions. Particular emphasis is placed on key moral, legal, and political considerations involved in the privatization of such functions, on the impact of outsourcing on security governance, and on the main challenges confronting efforts to hold PMSCs accountable through a combination of formal and informal, domestic as well as international, regulatory mechanisms and processes. It will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, practitioners and advocates for a more transparent and humane security order. This book was published as a special issue of Criminal Justice Ethics.

Although the military has historically played a pivotal role in Latin American politics and society, until now little attention has been paid to the complex set of civilian-military relations in each country. This collection of essays, the product of a long-term research program organized by a group of prominent Latin American scholars, compares current linkages among the armed forces and local social and political structures and institutions. Within each nation studied, the contributing author found increasing military autonomy vis-a-vis the state. They show that this institutional autonomy has allowed the military to develop as independent political entities within the various countries, a process that seems to be common to all Latin American societies. Their research also demonstrates how the military diversifies itself when acquiring higher degrees of institutional autonomy. Collectively, the contributors contend that although civilian democratic forces will play a much larger role in political decisionmaking in this decade as compared to the last, it is evident that armed forces will retain a considerable share of political power. Regardless of the institutional arrangement, the military will continue to exercise significant veto power over civilian political forces. The independent military that has emerged is a new variable that must be taken into account in future analyses of Latin America's secular political crisis. By compiling the first complete analysis of Latin American military forces and their role in contemporary domestic politics, editor Augusto Varas has made a significant contribution to the study of Latin American politics. This first examination of the role of the armed forces during a period of relative political stability will be welcomed by historians and political scientists alike.

Hobson's The Evolution of Modern Capitalism was first published in 1894, although this reissue is of the fourth edition, published in 1926. The work traces the developments in trade and industry which characterised the first decades of the twentieth century. In the first part, Hobson deals with the origins and structure of modern capitalism, including the development of the machine industry, the changing structure of trades and markets, and the effects of these on workers and consumers. The final supplementary chapter considers the impact of World War I on this changing economy, and the 'disturbance, recovery and readjustments' which the war necessitated. This is a classic work of importance to economic historians and those with a particular interest in the history of capitalism.

Thailand remains important by virtue of its location at the centre of the Asia–Pacific region, an area playing a vital role in world affairs. And yet, although Thailand has a comparatively large population and has powerful military forces performing significant roles in state and society, the country itself is seen as having little military power; it is a minor player. Why is this? Using strategic culture as an analytical framework, this book produces a portrait of the Thai state as an accommodative actor. During the period of Western imperial dominance in Asia, Thailand `bent in the wind’ to preserve its independence by a limited trading of territory and sovereignty. This accommodative policy continues to the present day in different forms. A key feature is that military organisational culture reinforces a state ideology of royalist nationalism that in turn reinforces the national strategic culture. Significant here is internal political acceptance of not just military domination in civil–military relations but also of the Thai military’s limitations in state-on-state combat. The author finds such `underbalancing’ – not responding to threat, or responding to it inadequately – elsewhere in Southeast Asia, too, especially in Indonesia. Although ASEAN’s two largest economies, and despite the challenges presented by a rising China, neither country is acting to significantly build alliances or rapidly strengthen their military forces. Pointing as well to other Southeast Asian nations with weak civil control of their militaries, including Myanmar, the Philippines and Cambodia, the book sets out a case that the interplay of civil–military relations and military organisational culture retards the development of strong external defence postures.

A fascinating account of Russia's Five-Day War against Georgia in 2008, notable for its strategic mistakes which prompted President Putin to undertake major military reforms. After Georgia's independence from Russia in 1991, President Saakashvili invited NATO advisers to assist in military reforms. Separatist groups in Georgia's border provinces rebelled which led to fighting in South Ossetia during August 2008. The Russian Army invaded Georgia alongside these forces, stripped it of these rebellious provinces, and garrisoned them to maintain a threat over Georgia. But despite the inevitable outcome of this hugely unbalanced conflict, it revealed serious Russian military weaknesses and incompetence, and the NATO-trained and partly Western-equipped Georgian Army put up a much more successful local resistance than Russia had expected. The conflict also demonstrated the first use of Russian cyber-warfare, and its so-called 'hybrid warfare' doctrine. Author Mark Galeotti is an expert in the field of international relations and a former Foreign Office adviser on Russian security affairs. In this book, he provides a vivid snapshot of the Russian, Georgian, Abkhazian and South Ossetian forces and gives an in-depth analysis of the conflict. Using meticulous color artwork for uniforms, insignia and equipment, rare photographs and detailed 'fact-boxes' for significant units and individuals, this book is a compelling guide to Russia's Five-Day War in Georgia.

A memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, Junger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict but--more importantly--as a unique personal struggle. Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, Junger kept testing himself, braced for the death that will mark his failure.

Published shortly after the war's end, Storm of Steel was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.First time in Penguin ClassicsAcclaimed new translation based on a new authoritative textWidely viewed as the best account ever written of fighting in World War I

"Veterans Journeys Home" is a vivid portrayal of military life and its aftermath for U.S. troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hearing the voices of those who have experienced combat and trauma, the reader journeys with women and men from basic training to active duty and return to civilian life. Highlighting the challenges our veterans face in today s complex and changing military culture, the book depicts the sometimes haunting and visceral memories of returning soldiers, reveals conversations with mental health providers, and offers an alternative approach to healing the emotional wounds of war. Sociologist and activist Holyfield lets the voices of combat tell the story of war. For any reader seeking a deeper understanding of the special human challenges of the recent wars, her book is valuable to veterans of all wars, their families, and mental health communities, policymakers, and any reader invested in seeing that our nation s veterans receive a true welcome home. "

"Veterans Journeys Home" is a vivid portrayal of military life and its aftermath for U.S. troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hearing the voices of those who have experienced combat and trauma, the reader journeys with women and men from basic training to active duty and return to civilian life. Highlighting the challenges our veterans face in today 's complex and changing military culture, the book depicts the sometimes haunting and visceral memories of returning soldiers, reveals conversations with mental health providers, and offers an alternative approach to healing the emotional wounds of war. Sociologist and activist Holyfield lets the voices of combat tell the story of war. For any reader seeking a deeper understanding of the special human challenges of the recent wars, her book is valuable to veterans of all wars, their families, and mental health communities, policymakers, and any reader invested in seeing that our nation 's veterans receive a true welcome home.

Contemporary historians have transformed our understanding of the German military in World War II, debunking the "clean Wehrmacht" myth that held most soldiers innocent of wartime atrocities. Considerably less attention has been paid to those soldiers at the end of hostilities. In Postwar Soldiers, Joerg Echternkamp analyzes three themes in the early history of West Germany: interpretations of the war during its conclusion and the occupation period; military veteran communities' self-perceptions; and the public rehabilitation of the image of the German soldier. As Echternkamp shows, public controversies around these topics helped to drive the social processes that legitimized the democratic postwar order.

This book fundamentally revises our notion of why soldiers of the eighteenth century enlisted, served and fought. In contrast to traditional views of the brutal conditions supposedly prevailing in old-regime armies, Ilya Berkovich reveals that soldiers did not regard military discipline as illegitimate or unnecessarily cruel, nor did they perceive themselves as submissive military automatons. Instead he shows how these men embraced a unique corporate identity based on military professionalism, forceful masculinity and hostility toward civilians. These values fostered the notion of individual and collective soldierly honour which helped to create the bonding effect which contributed toward greater combat cohesion. Utilising research on military psychology and combat theory, and employing the letters, diaries and memoirs of around 250 private soldiers and non-commissioned officers from over a dozen different European armies, Motivation in War transforms our understanding of life of the common soldier in early modern Europe.