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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Theory of warfare & military science
Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.
While espionage among nations is a long-standing practice, the emergence of the Internet has challenged the traditional legal framework and has resulted in the intensification of intelligence activities. With the emergence of cyber-espionage, agents may collect intelligence from within their own jurisdictions, with a great deal of secrecy and less risk. This book argues that - save some exceptions - this activity has been subject to normative avoidance, meaning that it is neither prohibited, nor authorized or permitted. States are aware of such status of law, and are not interested in any further regulation, leaving them free to pursue cyber-espionage themselves at the same time as they adopt measures to prevent and falling victim to it. This book resorts to a first-class sample of state practice and analyses several rules and treaties, and demonstrates that no specific customary law has emerged in the field. -- .
This book offers a renewed defense of traditional just war theory and considers its application to certain contemporary cases, particularly in the Middle East. The first part of the book addresses and responds to the central theoretical criticisms levelled at traditional just war theory. It offers a detailed defense of civilian immunity, the moral equality of soldiers and the related dichotomy between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and argues that these principles taken together amount to a morally coherent ethics of war. In this sense this project is traditional (or "orthodox"). In another sense, however, it is highly relevant to the modern world. While the first part of the book defends the just war tradition against its revisionist critics, the second part applies it to an array of timely issues: civil war, economic warfare, excessive harm to civilians, pre-emptive military strikes, and state-sponsored assassination, which require applying just war theory in practice. This book sets out to reaffirm the basic tenets of the traditional ethics of war and to lend them further moral support, subsequently applying them to a variety of practical issues. This book will be of great interest to students of just war theory, ethics, security studies, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.
About the Allies' victory in the Pacific in WWII, it goes almost without question that Japan's defeat was inevitable in the face of overwhelming American military might and economic power. But the outcome, Michael W. Myers contends, was actually anything but inevitable. This book is Myers's thorough and deeply informed explanation of how contingent the "foregone conclusion" of the war in the Pacific really was. However disproportionate their respective resources, both Japan and the Allied forces confronted significant obstacles to ultimate victory. One the two sides shared, Myers shows, was the lack of a single individual with the knowledge, vision, and authority to formulate and implement effective strategy. Both exercised leadership by committee, and Myers cogently explains how this contributed to the contingent nature of the conflict. A remarkable exercise in logical methods of strategic thinking, his book analyzes decisive campaigns in the Pacific War, examining the economic and strategic challenges that both sides faced and had to overcome to achieve victory. Japan, for instance, had two goals going into the war: to expand the boundaries of what they termed the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and to end their long and frustrating war in China. These goals, as Myers shows us, had unforeseen and devastating logistical and strategic consequences. But the United States faced similar problems-as well as other hurdles specific to a nation not yet on full war footing. Overturning conventional historiography, The Pacific War and Contingent Victory clarifies the proper relationship between freedom and determinism in historical thinking. A compelling retelling of the Pacific war that might easily have been, the book offers historical lessons in thinking about contemporary American foreign policy and American exceptionalism-most saliently about the dangers of the presumption of American ascendancy.
What does it mean to be secure? In the global news, we hear stories daily about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about domestic-level conflicts around the world, about the challenges of cybersecurity and social security. This broad list highlights the fact that security is an idea with multiple meanings, but do we all experience security issues in the same way? In this book, Nicole Detraz explores the broad terrain of security studies through a gender lens. Assumptions about masculinity and femininity play important roles in how we understand and react to security threats. By examining issues of militarization, peacekeeping, terrorism, human security, and environmental security, the book considers how the gender-security nexus pushes us to ask different questions and broaden our sphere of analysis. Including gender in our analysis of security challenges the primacy of some traditional security concepts and shifts the focus to be more inclusive. Without a full understanding of the vulnerabilities and threats associated with security, we may miss opportunities to address pressing global problems. Our society often expects men and women to play different roles, and this is no less true in the realm of security. This book demonstrates that security debates exhibit gendered understandings of key concepts, and whilst these gendered assumptions may benefit specific people, they are often detrimental to others, particularly in the key realm of policy-making.
Autonomous weapons systems seem to be on the path to becoming accepted technologies of warfare. The weaponization of artificial intelligence raises questions about whether human beings will maintain control of the use of force. The notion of meaningful human control has become a focus of international debate on lethal autonomous weapons systems among members of the United Nations: many states have diverging ideas about various complex forms of human-machine interaction and the point at which human control stops being meaningful. In Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss present an innovative study of how testing, developing, and using weapons systems with autonomous features shapes ethical and legal norms, and how standards manifest and change in practice. Autonomous weapons systems are not a matter for the distant future - some autonomous features, such as in air defence systems, have been in use for decades. They have already incrementally changed use-of-force norms by setting emerging standards for what counts as meaningful human control. As UN discussions drag on with minimal progress, the trend towards autonomizing weapons systems continues. A thought-provoking and urgent book, Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms provides an in-depth analysis of the normative repercussions of weaponizing artificial intelligence.
The 'Taktika', ascribed to the hand of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI 'the Wise' (886-912), is perhaps one of the best-known middle Byzantine texts of an official of semi-official genre. Presented in the form of a book of guidance for provincial generals, it served as both a statement of imperial authority and power, as well as a reminder of earlier 'good practice' and the centrality of the values of a Christian society in the struggle against its enemies. Here, John Haldon offers a critical commentary which addresses in detail the many varied subjects touched on in the treatise and examines the context, sources, language, structure, and content of the text, as well as the military administration of the empire in Leo's time.
Philosophers have wrestled over the morality and ethics of war for nearly as long as human beings have been waging it. The death and destruction that unmanned warfare entails magnifies the moral and ethical challenges we face in conventional warfare and everyday society. Intrinsically linked are questions and perennial problems concerning what justifies the initial resort to war, who may be legitimately targeted in warfare, who should be permitted to serve the military, the collateral effects of military weaponry and the methods of determining and dealing with violations of the laws of war. This book provides a comprehensive and unifying analysis of the moral, political and social questions concerning the rise of drone warfare.
Any effective modern land-based armed force is comprised of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, mechanized infantry, and specialist heliborne and amphibious equipment. These components are all studied in this pictorial series of journals via full clour photographs and an explanatory text. Each 48 page journal is comprised of 3 or 5 separate articles, boasting more than 120 photos, as well as a centrefold 1:35 colour scale drawing depicting camouflage and markings of a specific vehicle. This volume includes: Leopard 2A6 54th Engineer`Dagger Battalion' M1 Panther II French Armor Urban Camouflage
Any effective modern land-based armed force is comprised of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, mechanized infantry, and specialist heliborne and amphibious equipment. These components are all studied in this pictorial series of journals via full clour photographs and an explanatory text. Each 48 page journal is comprised of 3 or 5 separate articles, boasting more than 120 photos, as well as a centrefold 1:35 colour scale drawing depicting camouflage and markings of a specific vehicle. This volume includes: 1-77 Armor Regiment'Steel Tigers' Panzer Battalion Combat Maneuver Hungarian Quick Reaction Force
The violent use of armed, unmanned aircraft ('drones') is increasing worldwide, but uncertainty persists about the moral status of remote-control killing and why it should be restrained. Practitioners, observers and potential victims of such violence often struggle to reconcile it with traditional expectations about the nature of war and the risk to combatants. Addressing the ongoing policy concern that state use of drone violence is sometimes poorly understood and inadequately governed, the book's ethical assessments are not restricted to the application of traditional Just War principles, but also consider the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), virtue ethics, and guiding principles for forceful law-enforcement. This edited collection brings together nine original contributions by established and emerging scholars, incorporating expertise in military ethics, critical military studies, gender, history, international law and international relations, in order to better assess the multi-faceted relationship between drone violence and justice.
'A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought...but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.' When Machiavelli's brief treatise on Renaissance statecraft and princely power was posthumously published in 1532, it generated a debate that has raged unabated until the present day. Based upon Machiavelli's first-hand experience as an emissary of the Florentine Republic to the courts of Europe, The Prince analyses the usually violent means by which men seize, retain, and lose political power. Machiavelli added a dimension of incisive realism to one of the major philosophical and political issues of his time, especially the relationship between public deeds and private morality. His book provides a remarkably uncompromising picture of the true nature of power, no matter in what era or by whom it is exercised. This fluent new translation is accompanied by comprehensive notes and an introduction that considers the true purpose of The Prince and dispels some of the myths associated with it. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
This book contributes important new insights into how deployment on international military missions affects soldiers and their lives. Using both quantitative data and in-depth interviews, the authors provide a longitudinal perspective covering the participants in these missions before, during, and after deployment on a large range of life outcomes. The research centres around four key themes; who are the men and women who choose to be deployed; why do they choose to be deployed; what challenges do these soldiers face before, during, and after returning home from a mission; and what are the consequences of deployment for the soldiers' individual lives? Danish soldiers provide an illustrative study and data is drawn from administrative registries and is supplemented with broader surveys of present and former soldiers, in-depth interviews of parents and other relatives, and support group professionals. Using specifically constructed datasets and comparing these soldiers with relevant control groups, this book offers a unique analysis of the impact of deployment on important issues such as personal finances, the labour market, criminal activity, smoking and drinking, and overall health. Mapping a full portrait of the men and women who choose to be deployed, and explaining both their initial motivations, this book highlights the challenges they face before and during deployment and upon returning home.
Winner of the Jefferson Davis Award Winner of the Johns Family Book Award Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award "A work of deep intellectual seriousness, sweeping and yet also delicately measured, this book promises to resolve longstanding debates about the nature of the Civil War." -Gregory P. Downs, author of After Appomattox Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg-tens of thousands of soldiers died on these iconic Civil War battlefields, and throughout the South civilians suffered terrible cruelty. At least three-quarters of a million lives were lost during the American Civil War. Given its seemingly indiscriminate mass destruction, this conflict is often thought of as the first "total war." But Aaron Sheehan-Dean argues for another interpretation. The Calculus of Violence demonstrates that this notoriously bloody war could have been much worse. Military forces on both sides sought to contain casualties inflicted on soldiers and civilians. In Congress, in church pews, and in letters home, Americans debated the conditions under which lethal violence was legitimate, and their arguments differentiated carefully among victims-women and men, black and white, enslaved and free. Sometimes, as Sheehan-Dean shows, these well-meaning restraints led to more carnage by implicitly justifying the killing of people who were not protected by the laws of war. As the Civil War raged on, the Union's confrontations with guerrillas and the Confederacy's confrontations with black soldiers forced a new reckoning with traditional categories of lawful combatants and raised legal disputes that still hang over military operations around the world today. In examining the agonizing debates about the meaning of a just war in the Civil War era, Sheehan-Dean discards conventional abstractions-total, soft, limited-as too tidy to contain what actually happened on the ground.
In The Dictator's Army, Caitlin Talmadge presents a compelling new argument to help us understand why authoritarian militaries sometimes fight very well—and sometimes very poorly. Talmadge's framework for understanding battlefield effectiveness focuses on four key sets of military organizational practices: promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management. Different regimes face different domestic and international threat environments, leading their militaries to adopt different policies in these key areas of organizational behavior.Authoritarian regimes facing significant coup threats are likely to adopt practices that squander the state's military power, while regimes lacking such threats and possessing ambitious foreign policy goals are likely to adopt the effective practices often associated with democracies. Talmadge shows the importance of threat conditions and military organizational practices for battlefield performance in two paired comparisons of states at war: North and South Vietnam (1963–1975) and Iran and Iraq (1980–1988). Drawing on extensive documentary sources, her analysis demonstrates that threats and practices can vary not only between authoritarian regimes but also within them, either over time or across different military units. The result is a persuasive explanation of otherwise puzzling behavior by authoritarian militaries. The Dictator's Army offers a vital practical tool for those seeking to assess the likely course, costs, and outcomes of future conflicts involving nondemocratic adversaries, allies, or coalition partners.
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.
Niccolo Machiavelli's" Art of War" is one of the world's great
classics of military and political theory. Praised by the finest
military minds in history and said to have influenced no lesser
lights than Frederick the Great and Napoleon, the "Art of War" is
essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history
and theory of war in the West--and for readers of "The Prince and
Discourse on Livy" who seek to explore more fully the connection
between war and politics in Machiavelli's thought.
This important new book deals with the changing nature of war in
the post-Cold War era and the emergence of new forms of warfare in
which warlords, mercenaries and terrorists play an increasingly
important role.
In the modern era, warfare came to play a crucial role in the
formation of states, whereas the new wars emerging at the beginning
of the 21st century have mostly gone together with the failure or
collapse of states. The author draws out the key shifts involved in
this process: from symmetrical conflicts between states to
asymmetrical global relationships of force; from national armies to
increasingly private or commercial bands of warlords, child
soldiers and mercenaries; from pitched battles to protracted
conflicts in which there is often little fighting and most of the
violence is directed against civilians. Changes in weapons
technology have combined with complex economic factors to make the
prospect of endlessly simmering wars a real danger in the years to
come.
Against this background, the author outlines the rise of a novel
form of international terrorism, conceived more as a political
method of communication than as an element in a military strategy.
The resulting challenges faced by Western governments, and the
costs and benefits associated with any response, are taken up in a
concluding section that contrasts the characteristic European and
American approaches and examines the implications for the future of
international law. This book will be of important to students of political science, international relations, war and peace studies, conflict studies and peace studies. It will also appeal to the general reader with an interest inthis topical subject.
Since 1979, few rivalries have affected Middle Eastern politics as much as the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, too often the rivalry has been framed purely in terms of 'proxy wars', sectarian difference or the associated conflicts that have broken out in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen. In this book, Simon Mabon presents a more nuanced assessment of the rivalry, outlining its history and demonstrating its impact across the Middle East. Highlighting the significance of local groups, Mabon shows how regional politics have shaped and been shaped by the rivalry. The book draws from social theory and the work of Pierre Bourdieu to challenge problematic assumptions about 'proxy wars', the role of religion, and sectarianism. Exploring the changing political landscape of the Middle East as a whole and the implications for regional and international security, Mabon paints a complex picture of this frequently discussed but oft-misunderstood rivalry.
This book develops a new approach in explaining how a nation's Grand Strategy is constituted, how to assess its merits, and how grand strategies may be comparatively evaluated within a broader framework. The volume responds to three key problems common to both academia and policymaking. First, the literature on the concept of grand strategy generally focuses on the United States, offering no framework for comparative analysis. Indeed, many proponents of US grand strategy suggest that the concept can only be applied, at most, to a very few great powers such as China and Russia. Second, characteristically it remains prescriptive rather than explanatory, ignoring the central conundrum of why differing countries respond in contrasting ways to similar pressures. Third, it often understates the significance of domestic politics and policymaking in the formulation of grand strategies - emphasizing mainly systemic pressures. This book addresses these problems. It seeks to analyze and explain grand strategies through the intersection of domestic and international politics in ten countries grouped distinctively as great powers (The G5), regional powers (Brazil and India) and pivotal powers hostile to each other who are able to destabilize the global system (Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia). The book thus employs a comparative framework that describes and explains why and how domestic actors and mechanisms, coupled with external pressures, create specific national strategies. Overall, the book aims to fashion a valid, cross-contextual framework for an emerging research program on grand strategic analysis.
Despite the strong influence of just war theory in military law and practice, warfare is commonly considered devoid of morality. Yet even in the most horrific of human activities, there is frequent communication and cooperation between enemies. One remarkable example is the Christmas truce-unofficial ceasefires between German and English trenches in December 1914 in which soldiers even mingled in No Man's Land. In Conspiring with the Enemy, Yvonne Chiu offers a new understanding of why and how enemies work together to constrain violence in warfare. Chiu argues that what she calls an ethic of cooperation is found in modern warfare to such an extent that it is often taken for granted. The importance of cooperation becomes especially clear when wartime ethics reach a gray area: To whom should the laws of war apply? Who qualifies as a combatant? Should guerrillas or terrorists receive protections? Fundamentally, Chiu shows, the norms of war rely on consensus on the existence and content of the laws of war. In a wide-ranging consideration of pivotal instances of cooperation, Chiu examines weapons bans, treatment of prisoners of war, and the Geneva Conventions, as well as the tensions between the ethic of cooperation and the pillars of just war theory. An original exploration of a crucial but overlooked phenomenon, Conspiring with the Enemy is a significant contribution to military ethics and political philosophy.
Millions marched and protested against the military invasion of Iraq. Millions more have protested against the military occupation of Afghanistan. These antiwar sentiments publicly expressed are a reflection of a deeply rooted anti-militarism. Yet wars and militarism abound. War, according to Karl Liebknecht, "is for profit between the capitalist classes of the world powers," and the maintenance of an army ensures their retention of power. In this book, which is one of the great classics of anti-militarism, Liebknecht examines the ways in which militarism is promoted and maintained; reviews the harsh punishments meted out to soldiers, anti-militarists, and war resisters; and surveys the activities of anti-militarists, both specific tactics and the underlying philosophy. The Duluth Herald (Minnesota) predicted there "will come a time in Germany when Karl Liebknecht, pilloried and imprisoned today for daring to speak the truth, will rank higher in the list of German heroes than the Kaiser." It was an accurate prediction, says Professor Philip Foner, historian at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who went on to add, "unfortunately his classic book is out of print." Militarism and Anti-Militarism is now available again, important in these times. Karl Liebknecht (1871 Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 -1919) was a member of the Reichstag who was imprisoned during World War I as an anti-militarist Social Democrat. He was a founding member, with Rosa Luxemburg, of the German Communist Party (KPD) in 1918, and he led an unsuccessful revolt in Berlin in January 1919. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered by the German right wing immediately thereafter.
In this controversial book, Britain's most distinguished and widely-read military historian provides not merely a history of warfare but an analysis of world history, and the role that man's impulse to war has played in it. After thirty years of reading, research, teaching and commentating on military affairs, ?A History of Warfare? brings together in a single volume the themes explored in such earlier best-selling books of his as ?The Face of Battle? and ?The Mask of Command? and adds to them the insights gained in his visits to many of the world's major battlefields, a lifetime's friendship with soldiers of different armies and experience as a war correspondent in the Lebanon and the Gulf. John Keegan believes that the history of warfare has for too long been written either as specialist study of 'war as the continuation of politics' or as a horror story. Its place at the heart of human cultures and the enormous variety of forms it takes in different societies has too often been ignored. The narrative of the book moves from the strangely ritualistic combat of the Stone Age peoples to the nihilistic destructiveness of mass warfare in the modern age, in an historical sweep which co
Soldier and intellectual Carl von Clausewitz first entered combat at the tender age of thirteen. He later rose to the rank of Major General, married into the Prussian nobility and wrote a book which was to become one of the most influential works on military strategy ever published. On War is one of the first books on modern military strategy. Writing mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, von Clausewitz never lived to see it published. He had a theory that it was the integration of political, societal and economic issues that was the most important factor in deciding the outcome of a war. This new theory made On War one of the most important texts on strategy ever written. On War has been translated into practically every major language and remains a source of inspiration for modern strategic thinkers. In this fascinating new interpretation, Andrew Holmes illustrates how von Clausewitz's ideas can be applied to contemporary business. Readers will discover: * Why business, like war, is neither an art nor a science; * How to 'fortify' their business; * The importance of a strong commander; * The secrets of being ruthless; * Why they should bypass their smart phones and open up the lines of communication. By re-interpreting von Clausewitz's original theories, Holmes demonstrates that On War is not just about the battlefield. This clear, concise and waffle-free book shows how you can treat life like a military operation and steer your troops in the right direction in the world of business. Andrew Holmes' Carl von Clausewitz's On War illustrates the timeless nature of von Clausewitz's insights by bringing them to life with modern examples and business case studies. This brilliant interpretation of On War is an entertaining accompaniment to one of the most famous strategy books ever written. |
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