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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Other warfare & defence issues
Finding the manpower to defend democracy has been a recurring problem. Russell Weigley writes: The historic preoccupation of the Army's thought in peacetime has been the manpower question: how, in an unmilitary nation, to muster adequate numbers of capable soldiers quickly should war occur. When the nature of modern warfare made an all-volunteer army inadequate, the major Western democracies confronted the dilemma of involuntary military service in a free society. The core of this manuscript concerns methods by which France, Great Britain, and the United States solved the problem and why some solutions were more lasting and effective than others. Flynn challenges conventional wisdom that suggests that conscription was inefficient and that it promoted inequality of sacrifice. Sharing similar but not identical diplomatic outlooks, the three countries discussed here were allies in world wars and in the Cold War, and they also confronted the problem of using conscripts to defend colonial interests in an age of decolonization. These societies rest upon democratic principles, and operating a draft in a democracy raises several unique problems. A particular tension develops as a result of adopting forced military service in a polity based on concepts of individual rights and freedoms. Despite the protest and inconsistencies, the criticism and waste, Flynn reveals that conscription served the three Western democracies well in an historical context, proving effective in gathering fighting men and allowing a flexibility to cope and change as problems arose.
One of the oldest living Holocaust survivors recounts her family’s imprisonment at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen in this moving memoir of love, loss, courage, and hope. When German soldiers invaded Poland in September 1939, it began a six year journey for then-ten-year-old Renee Salt and her mother Sala. Until their liberation in 1945, Renee and Sala were imprisoned in ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. The only light in the darkness and brutality for Renee was the unwavering grasp of her mother’s hand in hers–enduring, against all odds. It was this unbreakable bond, along with a few miracles, that kept Renee alive. Sala’s staggering courage to defy the will of SS guards saved both her and her daughter from the gas chambers, and the pair survived the deadliest days in Auschwitz’s history. After suffering the nightmarish conditions at Bergen-Belsen, Renee and her mother were liberated in April 1945–but Sala died soon after they were saved. To this day, Renee attributes her survival to the love and bravery of her beloved mother. Do Not Cry When I Die is an incredibly moving and deeply crucial book that tells the shocking story of one of the oldest Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen survivors–and the mother’s love that saved her life.
This scholarly legal work focuses on the dilemma of prosecuting gender-based crimes under the statutes of the international criminal tribunals with reference to the principle of fair labelling. In this book Hilmi M. Zawati explains how the abstractness and lack of accurate description of gender-based crimes in the statutory laws of the international criminal tribunals and courts infringe the principle of fair labelling, lead to inconsistent verdicts and punishments, and cause inadequate prosecution of these crimes. This inquiry deals with gender-based crimes as a case study, within the legal principle and theoretical framework of fair labelling. Critical and timely, this study contributes to existing scholarship in many different ways. It is the first legal analysis to focus on the dilemma of prosecuting and punishing wartime gender-based crimes in the statutory laws of the international criminal tribunals and the ICC in the context of fair labelling. Moreover, it emphasizes that applying fair labelling to wartime gender-based crimes would enable the tribunals and the ICC to deliver fair judgments, eliminate inconsistent prosecution, overcome shortcomings in addressing gender-based crimes within their jurisprudence, while breaking the cycle of impunity for these crimes. Consisting of two parts, this work begins by outlining the central focus and theoretical legal framework of the study. It concentrates on fair labelling as an imperative legal principle and a legal framework, and examines its intellectual development, scope and justification, illustrating its applicability to gender-based crimes. The second part addresses the dilemma of prosecuting gender-based crimes in the international criminal tribunals.
From 1991 to 1999, Slobodan Milosevic launched and ultimately lost four Balkan wars, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions. He saw himself as a modern day Abe Lincoln, employing force in a valiant effort to hold his crumbling Yugoslavia together. But the ruthless Serb leader's tactics included systematic war crimes and ethnic cleansing, ultimately prompting the U. S. and its NATO allies to launch a controversial military intervention in the spring of 1999 to halt the bloodshed.Now Milosevic is on trial in The Hague before the United Nations-created International War Crimes Tribunal. He is the first former head of state ever to face international justice. The televised trial of Slobodan Milosevic is expected to last for two years and could well prove to be the most watched criminal proceedings since the trial of O. J. Simpson.There is much the public will want to know about this historic and complex trial. Written in a lively, journalistic style by two of the leading experts on the International War Crimes Tribunal, Slobodan Milosevic on Trial: A Companion is designed to inform the reader about what to watch for, who the players are, what the rules are, who has won in the past, and who is likely to win this time. Complete with maps, photos, and a glossary of legal terms, this comprehensive guide to the Milosevic trial will help the public understand the important and complex proceedings taking place in The Hague.
Positioning itself within significant developments in genocide studies arising from misgivings about two noteworthy observers, Arendt and Milgram, this book asks what lies 'beyond the banality of evil'? And suggests the answer lies within criminology. Offering the author's reflections about how to interpret genocide as a crime, Beyond the Banality of Evil: Criminology and Genocide endeavours to understand how the theories of criminal motivation might shed light on these stunning events and make them comprehensible. While a great deal has been written about the shortcomings of the obedience paradigm and 'desk murderers' when discussing the Holocaust, little has been said of what results when investigations are taken beyond these limitations. Through examination and analysis of the literature surrounding genocide studies, Brannigan frames the events within a general theoretical approach to crime before applying his own revised model, specifically to Rwanda and drawn from field-work in 2004 and 2005. This provides a new and compelling account of the dynamics of the 1994 genocide and its distinctive attributes of speed, popularity, totality and emotional indifference. With a focus on the disarticulation of personal culpability among ordinary perpetrators, Beyond the Banality of Evil questions the effectiveness of individual-level guilt imputation in these politically based, collectively orchestrated crimes, and raises doubts about the utility of criminal indictments that have evolved in the context of models of individual misconduct.
British documentary filmmaker Asad Qureshi works in the world's most dangerous places. When he set off to film secret interviews with Taliban commanders, the award-winning filmmaker found himself on the wrong end of the camera lens, with a gun at his temple and a price of 10 million US dollars on his head. Asad would spend 165 days in captivity before his family was able to pay his ransom and secure his release. The negotiations and eventual release were coordinated by Al Qaeda intermediaries. Throughout his time as a hostage, Qureshi was tortured and humiliated, as were his fellow prisoners, several of whom would not return. This is a true, first-person account of Taliban captivity in Waziristan, the dangerous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Above all, it provides a stark reminder of the privilege of freedom.
Written in a lively and readable style by the world's leading authority on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and US-European relations, Defense of the West is the history of a transatlantic security relationship that has endured for over seventy years. This latest edition of a classic work looks at how developments inside NATO and European Union member states affect their ability to defend against external threats while preserving Western values, in the era of Trump and Brexit. Sloan frankly addresses the failures and shortcomings of Western institutions and member states. But the book emphasizes the continuing importance of value-based transatlantic security cooperation as a vital element of the defense and foreign policies of NATO and EU member states. At a time of heightened tension and political turmoil, at home and abroad, Stan Sloan's lucid and far-sighted analysis is more necessary than ever. -- .
At the time of drafting the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), the drafters were hopeful that the document will be the response needed to ensure that the world would never again witness such atrocities as committed by the Nazi regime. While, arguably, there has been no such great loss of human lives as during WWII, genocidal incidents have and still take place. After WWII, we have witnessed the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, to name only a few. The responses to these atrocities have always been inadequate. Every time the world leaders would come together to renew their promise of 'Never Again'. However, the promise has never materialised. In 2014, Daesh unleashed genocide against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq. Before the world managed to shake off from the atrocities, in 2016, the Burmese military launched a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. This was followed by reports of ever-growing atrocities against Christian minorities in Nigeria. Without waiting too long, in 2018, China proceeded with its genocidal campaign against the Uyghur Muslims. In 2020, the Tigrayans became the victims of ethnic targeting. Five cases of mass atrocities that, in the space of just five years, all easily meet the legal definition of genocide. Again, the response that followed each case has been inadequate and unable to make a difference to the targeted communities. This legacy does not give much hope for the future. The question that this books hopes to address is what needs to change to ensure that we are better equipped to address genocide and prevent the crime in the future.
This handbook provides critical analyses of the theory and practices of small arms proliferation and its impact on conflicts and organized violence in Africa. It examines the terrains, institutions, factors and actors that drive armed conflict and arms proliferation, and further explores the nature, scope, and dynamics of conflicts across the continent, as well as the extent to which these conflicts are exacerbated by the proliferation of small arms. The volume features rich analyses by contributors who are acquainted with, and widely experienced in, the formal and informal structures of arms proliferation and control, and their repercussions on violence, instability and insecurity across Africa. The chapters dissect the challenges of small arms and light weapons in Africa with a view to understanding roots causes and drivers, and generating a fresh body of analyses that adds value to the existing conversation on conflict management and peacebuilding in Africa. With contributions from scholars, development practitioners, defence and security professionals and civil society activists, the handbook seeks to serve as a reference for students, researchers, and policy makers on small arms proliferation, control and regulation; defence and security practitioners; and those involved in countering violence and managing conflicts in Africa.
What do we know about war crimes and justice? What are the discursive practices through which the dominant images of war crimes, atrocity and justice are understood? In this wide ranging text, Michael J. Shapiro contrasts the justice-related imagery of the war crimes trial (for example the solitary, headphone-wearing defendant at the Hague listening with intent to a catalogue of charges) with ?literary justice?: representations in literature, film, and biographical testimony, raising questions about atrocities and justice that juridical proceedings exclude. By engaging with the ambiguities exposed by the artistic and experiential genres, reading them alongside policy and archival documentation and critical theoretical discourses, Shapiro?s War Crimes, Atrocity, and Justice challenges traditional notions of ?responsibility? in juridical settings. His comparative readings instead encourage a focus on the conditions of possibility for war crimes as they arise from the actions of states, non-state agencies and individuals involved in arms trading, peace keeping, sex trafficking, and law enforcement and adjudication. Theory springs to life as Shapiro draws on examples from legal discourse, literature, media, film, and television, to build a nuanced picture of politics and the problem of justice. It will be of great interest to students of film and media, literature, cultural studies, contemporary philosophy and political science
In The Trial of Hissein Habre: The International Crimes of a Former Head of State, Emmanuel Guematcha recounts the trial of Hissein Habre, the former Head of State of Chad. Accused of committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture while he ruled Chad between 1982 and 1990, he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 and 2017 by the African Extraordinary Chambers. Guematcha examines the process that led to this achievement in Africa, including the failed attempts to try Hissein Habre in the Senegalese, Chadian, and Belgian courts. Guematcha discusses the mobilization of victims and the involvement of non-governmental and international organizations. He describes the particularities of the Extraordinary African Chambers, discusses the establishment of Hissein Habre's criminal responsibility, and presents the trial through the testimonies of several victims, witnesses, and experts. These testimonies shed light on what it means for individuals to be subjected to international crimes. The author also questions the impact and significance of the trial in Africa and beyond.
Most cultural and legal codes agree that the intentional killing of civilians, whether in peacetime or war, is prohibited. This is the norm of civilian immunity, widely considered to be a fundamental moral and legal principle. Yet despite this fact, the deliberate killing of large numbers of civilians remains a persistent feature of global political life. What is more, the perpetrators have often avoided criticism and punishment. Examining dozens of episodes of mass killing perpetrated by states since the French Revolution late eighteenth century, this book attempts to explain this paradox. It studies the role that civilian immunity has played in shaping the behaviour of perpetrators and how international society has responded to mass killing. The book argues that although the world has made impressive progress in legislating against the intentional killing of civilians and in constructing institutions to give meaning to that prohibition, the norm's history in practice suggests that the ascendancy of civilian immunity is both more recent and more fragile than might otherwise be thought. In practice, decisions to violate a norm are shaped by factors relating to the norm and the situation at hand, so too is the manner in which international society and individual states respond to norm violations. Responses to norm violations are not simply matters of normative obligation or calculations of self-interest but are instead guided by a combination of these logics as well as perceptions about the situation at hand, existing relations with the actors involved, and power relations between actors holding different accounts of the situation. Thus, whilst civilian immunity has for the time being prevailed over 'anti-civilian ideologies' which seek to justify mass killing, it remains challenged by these ideologies and its implementation shaped by individual circumstances. As a result, whilst it has become much more difficult for states to get away with mass murder, it is still not entirely impossible for them to do so.
The mass killing of Ottoman Armenians is today widely recognized, both within and outside scholarly circles, as an act of genocide. What is less well known, however, is that it took place within a broader context of Ottoman violence against minority groups during and after the First World War. Among those populations decimated were the indigenous Christian Assyrians (also known as Syriacs or Chaldeans) who lived in the borderlands of present-day Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. This volume is the first scholarly edited collection focused on the Assyrian genocide, or "Sayfo" (literally, "sword" in Aramaic), presenting historical, psychological, anthropological, and political perspectives that shed much-needed light on a neglected historical atrocity.
***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba - which translates to 'disaster' or 'catastrophe' - lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight. Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it. The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has
a unique role in post-war peace activism. It is the
longest-surviving international women's peace organization and one
of the oldest peace organizations in the West. Founded in 1915,
when a group of women from neutral and belligerent nations in World
War I met at The Hague to formulate proposals for ending the war,
WILPF sent delegations of women to several countries to plead for
peace, and their final resolutions are often credited with
influencing Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points. Today, the organization
counts several thousand members in 36 countries, on five
continents. Since 1948, it has enjoyed consultative status with the
UN, and it was instrumental in bringing about recent United Nations
Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security.
This book offers a radically new and definitive reappraisal of
Allied responses to Nazi human experiments and the origins of
informed consent. It places the victims and Allied medical
intelligence officers at center stage, while providing a full
reconstruction of policies on war crimes and trials related to Nazi
medical atrocities and genocide. The analysis of the Medical Trial
considers the prosecution, defense, judges and observers to present
a rounded picture of the court and its context, and the aftermath
in terms of Cold War politics, compensation and research
ethics.
Who owns the street? Interwar Berliners faced this question with great hope yet devastating consequences. In Germany, the First World War and 1918 Revolution transformed the city streets into the most important media for politics and commerce. There, partisans and entrepreneurs fought for the attention of crowds with posters, illuminated advertisements, parades, traffic jams, and violence. The Nazi Party relied on how people already experienced the city to stage aggressive political theater, including the April Boycott and Kristallnacht. Observers in Germany and abroad looked to Berlin's streets to predict the future. They saw dazzling window displays that radiated optimism. They also witnessed crime waves, antisemitic rioting, and failed policing that pointed toward societal collapse. Recognizing the power of urban space, officials pursued increasingly radical policies to 'revitalize' the city, culminating in Albert Speer's plan to eradicate the heart of Berlin and build Germania.
The history of Pakistan's nuclear program is the history of Pakistan. Fascinated with the new nuclear science, the young nation's leaders launched a nuclear energy program in 1956 and consciously interwove nuclear developments into the broader narrative of Pakistani nationalism. Then, impelled first by the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan Wars, and more urgently by India's first nuclear weapon test in 1974, Pakistani senior officials tapped into the country's pool of young nuclear scientists and engineers and molded them into a motivated cadre committed to building the 'ultimate weapon.' The tenacity of this group and the central place of its mission in Pakistan's national identity allowed the program to outlast the perennial political crises of the next 20 years, culminating in the test of a nuclear device in 1998. Written by a 30-year professional in the Pakistani Army who played a senior role formulating and advocating Pakistan's security policy on nuclear and conventional arms control, this book tells the compelling story of how and why Pakistan's government, scientists, and military, persevered in the face of a wide array of obstacles to acquire nuclear weapons. It lays out the conditions that sparked the shift from a peaceful quest to acquire nuclear energy into a full-fledged weapons program, details how the nuclear program was organized, reveals the role played by outside powers in nuclear decisions, and explains how Pakistani scientists overcome the many technical hurdles they encountered. Thanks to General Khan's unique insider perspective, it unveils and unravels the fascinating and turbulent interplay of personalities and organizations that took place and reveals how international opposition to the program only made it an even more significant issue of national resolve. Listen to a podcast of a related presentation by Feroz Khan at the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation.
Two of our most celebrated intellectuals grapple with the uncertain aftermath of the American collapse in Afghanistan "Through the structure of a deeply engaging conversation between two of our most important contemporary public intellectuals, we are urged to defy the inattention of the media to the disastrous damage inflicted in Afghanistan on life, land, and resources in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal and the connections to the equally avoidable and unnecessary wars on Iraq and Libya."-from the foreword by Angela Y. Davis Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden vacuum in our foreign policy-not only of authority, but also of explanations of what happened, and what the future holds. Few analysts are better poised to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, intellectuals and critics whose work spans generations and continents. Called "the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet" by the New York Times Book Review, Noam Chomsky is the guiding light of dissidents around the world. In The Withdrawal, Chomsky joins with noted scholar Vijay Prashad-who "helps to uncover the shining worlds hidden under official history and dominant media" (Eduardo Galeano)-to get at the roots of this unprecedented time of peril and change. Chomsky and Prashad interrogate key inflection points in America's downward spiral: from the disastrous Iraq War to the failed Libyan intervention to the descent into chaos in Afghanistan. As the final moments of American power in Afghanistan fade from view, this crucial book argues that we must not take our eyes off the wreckage-and that we need, above all, an unsentimental view of the new world we must build together.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) was established in 1993 and is due to complete its trials by
2011. Easily the most credible and prodigious of the international
tribunals established in this period, the ICTY is by far the most
important source of case law on international criminal law. This is
reflected in the citations it receives by other courts and by
learned commentators. Long after its dissolution, the ICTY will
most likely serve as an important frame of reference for the
International Criminal Court and other courts dealing with
international crimes, including national courts.
Written by Chinese Jurist Mei Ju-ao, this significant book considers both the process and the impact of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, otherwise known as the Tokyo Trial, which was convened in 1946 to try political military leaders accused of involvement in war crimes. Offering valuable research material on the establishment of the tribunal, it examines the background to the establishment of the International Military Tribunal and the lessons learned from earlier trials of World War One War Criminals. Written from the perspective of a Chinese prosecutor who was both jurist and witness, this unique text engages with the Tokyo Trial from an interdisciplinary perspective bringing in both international law and international relations, measuring over 7 decades later the significance and ongoing legacy of the Tokyo Trial for contemporary international criminal justice in Asia and beyond..
This book examines the origins of genocide and mass murder in the everyday conflicts of ordinary people, exacerbated by special interests. We examine cases harming people simply because they are considered unworthy and undeserving-for instance, if they are dehumanized. We confine our attention to genocide, mass murder, large-scale killing motivated by hate or desire for gain, and fascism as an ideology since it usually advocates and leads to such killing. The book draws on social psychology, especially recent work on the psychology of prejudice. Much new information on the psychology of fear, hate, intolerance, and violence has appeared in recent years. The world has also learned more on the funding of dehumanization by giant corporations via "dark money," and on the psychology of genocidal leaders. This allows us to construct a much more detailed back story of why people erupt into mass killing of minorities and vulnerable populations. We thus go on to deal with the whole "problem of evil" (or at least apparently irrational killing) in general, broadening the perspective to include politics, economics, and society at large. We draw on psychology, sociology, economics, political science, public health, anthropology, and biology in a uniquely cross-disciplinary work. |
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