Since World War II, the United States has been engaged in near-constant military conflict abroad, often with ill-defined objectives, ineffectual strategy, and uncertain benefits. In this era of limited congressional oversight and wars of choice, the executive and the armed services have shared the primary responsibility for making war. The negotiations between presidents and their generals thus grow ever more significant, and understanding them becomes essential.

Matthew Moten traces a sweeping history of the evolving roles of civilian and military leaders in conducting war, demonstrating how war strategy and national security policy shifted as political and military institutions developed, and how they were shaped by leaders personalities. Early presidents established the principle of military subordination to civil government, and from the Civil War to World War II the president s role as commander-in-chief solidified, with an increasingly professionalized military offering its counsel. But General Douglas MacArthur s insubordination to President Harry Truman during the Korean War put political-military tensions on public view. Subsequent presidents selected generals who would ally themselves with administration priorities. Military commanders in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan did just that and the results were poorly conceived policy and badly executed strategy.

The most effective historical collaborations between presidents and their generals were built on mutual respect for military expertise and civilian authority, and a willingness to negotiate with candor and competence. Upon these foundations, future soldiers and statesmen can ensure effective decision-making in the event of war and bring us closer to the possibility of peace."

This book challenges the unacceptable gap between the positive rules of the international law governing armed hostilities and actual state practice. It discusses reducing the human suffering caused by this reality. The current law does not seem to be optimal in balancing the different interests of states' militaries and the humanitarian agenda. In response to this challenge, this book offers a new paradigm based on reality that may elevate the humanitarian threshold by replacing the currently problematic imperatives imposed upon militaries with professionally-based, therefore attainable, requirements. The aims of the suggested paradigm are to create an environment in which full abidance by the law becomes a realistic norm, thus facilitating a second, more important aim of reducing human suffering. Militaries function in a professional manner; they develop and respect their doctrine, operational principles, fighting techniques and values. Their performances are not random or incidental. The suggested paradigm calls for leveraging the constraining elements that are latent in military professionalism. Talking professional language and adopting the professional way of thinking that underlies militaries' conduct makes it possible to identify and focus upon the core interests of a military in any given lawful war - those that ought to be taken into consideration - alongside those that can be sacrificed for the sake of the humanitarian concerns, while still allowing the military mission to be achieved. Indeed, leveraging professional standards and norms would establish a reasonable modus vivendi for a military, while allowing substantial new space for the humanitarian mission of the law.

Wars throughout history have been fought in the name of ideology, religion and the pursuit of peace. Our thinking about war - when it is justified, how it should be fought and how it is perceived - has changed dramatically over time. Whereas in the past war has been seen as a battle of wills, this provocative and illuminating new book shows how war has evolved into an exercise in risk management.
In a rare blend of political science, sociology, history and cultural thought, Christopher Coker peels away the layers of meaning shrouding our current understanding of war and warfare. Using the ideas of writers such as Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Frank Furedi, he shows that risk has become the language of business, politics and public policy and so we should not be surprised that it has now become the language of war. The book highlights the increasing difference between homeland security and national security in the modern world, arguing that the defense of the citizen is often now more challenging than the defense of the state. By demonstrating the changing character and complexity of conflict from World War I to the current the current fight against terrorism, the book provides a powerful and highly distinctive account of the re-branding of war in an age of risk.
This book is set to ignite debate amongst students and scholars of international politics as well as appealing to anyone interested in war and its place in contemporary society.

This book offers an engaging and historically informed account of the moral challenge of radically asymmetric violence - warfare conducted by one party in the near-complete absence of physical risk, across the full scope of a conflict zone. What role does physical risk and material threat play in the justifications for killing in war? And crucially, is there a point at which battlefield violence becomes so one-directional as to undermine the moral basis for its use? In order to answers these questions, Asymmetric Killing delves into the morally contested terrain of the warrior ethos and Just War Tradition, locating the historical and contemporary role of reciprocal risk within both. This book also engages two historical episodes of battlefield asymmetry, military sniping and manned aerial bombing. Both modes of violence generated an imbalance of risk between opponents so profound as to call into question their permissibility. These now-resolved controversies will then be contrasted with the UAV-exclusive violence of the United States, robotic killing conducted in the absence of a significant military ground presence in conflict theatres such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. As will be revealed, the radical asymmetry of this latter case is distinct, undermining reciprocal risk at the structural level of war. Beyond its more resolvable tension with the warrior ethos, UAV-exclusive violence represents a fundamental challenge to the very coherence of the moral justifications for killing in war.

The Lightning Warfare that changed history foreverIf Hitler had failed in his invasion of Western Europe in 1940 he could well have been assassinated by a group of his senior officers. But he decisively defeated the combined efforts of the British, French, Dutch and Belgian armies in a matter of days. The technique employed was known as Blitzkrieg or Lightning War. Nothing would be the same again. Although strands were clearly apparent by 1918, it was perfected through the interwar years before being deployed with terrifying effect by the Nazis at the outbreak of the Second World War. Eventually, other combatants would employ similar methods and the tide would turn. As well as discussing the developing nature of tactics, fighting vehicles and aircraft from 1918 onwards, the author examines the potent workings of Blitzkrieg in-depth, describing not only its obvious triumphs but also its fatal flaws. This is explosive military history from bestseller Bryan Perrett, perfect for readers of Antony Beevor or Damien Lewis.

Builds a revisionary theoretical framework for researching intelligence knowledge and applies it to the Swedish Military and Security Directorate Gunilla Eriksson revises our perception of intelligence as carefully collected data and objective truth, arguing that there are hidden aspects to intelligence analysis that need to be uncovered and critically examined. This twofold study investigates the character of intelligence knowledge and the social context in which it is produced, using the Swedish Military and Security Directorate (MUST) as a case study. Eriksson argues that there is an implicit framework that continuously influences knowledge production: what kind of data is considered relevant, how this data is interpreted and the specific social and linguistic context of the organisation, surrounded by unarticulated norms and specific procedures. She asks whether these conventions hamper or obstruct intelligence assessments; an essential analysis, given that history has shown us the grave consequences basing policy on intelligence's wrong conclusions. Sources include: The annual Swedish Armed Forces Strategic Intelligence Estimates from 1998-2010 Lengthy and highly valuable interviews with the analysts, including managers, working at MUST, giving insights into everyday life at the institution and leading to many important results Participant observation carried out by the author at MUST working meetings and seminars during the production process of the 2010 estimate, and drawing on her experience from her years working as an active analyst

The goal of war is to defeat the enemy's will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. "Nothing Less than Victory" provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy's ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat.

Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian's wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes' army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal's attack against Italy--as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius's policy of delay, McClellan's retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace.

Recognizing the human motivations behind military conflicts, "Nothing Less than Victory" makes a powerful case for offensive actions in pursuit of peace.

Still in the early stages of development, conflict theory presents a growing interest in understanding the economic costs and benefits of conflicts. In this book, Mehrdad Vahabi analyses one type of conflict in particular: manhunting, or predation, in which a dominant power hunts down its prey and the goal of the prey is to escape and thus survive. This contrasts with traditional warfare, in which two (or more) powers enter into a conflict and the goal is to fight to win domination. The economics of escape casts light on costs and benefits of predatory activities, and explores the impact of violence as an impediment to developing countries with respect to assets structure. This book is unprecedented in its research and thought, and develops a new theory of predation in economics that makes a significant contribution to the field.

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.
Machiavelli scholar Christopher Lynch offers a sensitive and entirely new translation of the "Art of War," faithful to the original but rendered in modern, idiomatic English. Lynch's fluid translation helps readers appreciate anew Machiavelli's brilliant treatments of the relationships between war and politics, civilians and the military, and technology and tactics. Clearly laying out the fundamentals of military organization and strategy, Machiavelli marshals a veritable armory of precepts, prescriptions, and examples about such topics as how to motivate your soldiers and demoralize the enemy's, avoid ambushes, and gain the tactical and strategic advantage in countless circumstances.
To help readers better appreciate the "Art of War," Lynch provides an insightful introduction that covers its historical and political context, sources, influence, and contemporary relevance. He also includes a substantial interpretive essay discussing the military, political, and philosophical aspects of the work, as well as maps, an index of names, and a glossary.

This work defines the laws of counterinsurgency warfare. It is a new edition of a classic work, which outlines lessons from the 1950s and 60s that are relevant to today's conflicts. It is part of the PSI Classics in the Counterinsurgency Era series. This book provides an analysis of how to countermine insurgency, and of the elements that might hinder its defeat. Inspired by his military experiences as a French military officer and attache in China, Greece, Southeast Asia, and Algeria, the author realized the need for a compass in the suppression of insurgency, and he set out to define the laws of counterinsurgency warfare, to deduce from them its principles, and to outline the corresponding strategy and tactics. Written in 1964, the book in its new printing is as relevant now as it was forty years ago. Counterinsurgency Warfare provides the template for the defeat of today's insurgents and terrorists.

A new translation for the 21st century. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is one of the most influential political and business books of our era. This gateway edition for the 21st century reader rediscovers the essential clarity of the ancient masterpiece, cited by generals from a dozen Chinese dynasties, international business leaders, and modern military field manuals. This edition also contains a full commentary on Sun Tzu, the man and his ideas, contemporary of Confucius and Buddha; and a critical guide to further reading. This is the perfect introduction to one of the world's best-known classics.

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.

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.

The unmarked mass graves left by war and acts of terror are lasting traces of violence in communities traumatized by fear, conflict, and unfinished mourning. Like silent testimonies to the wounds of history, these graves continue to inflict harm on communities and families that wish to bury or memorialize their lost kin. Changing political circumstances can reveal the location of mass graves or facilitate their exhumation, but the challenge of identifying and recovering the dead is only the beginning of a complex process that brings the rights and wishes of a bereaved society onto a transnational stage. Necropolitics: Mass Graves and Exhumations in the Age of Human Rights examines the political and social implications of this sensitive undertaking in specific local and national contexts. International forensic methods, local-level claims, national political developments, and transnational human rights discourse converge in detailed case studies from the United States, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Korea. Contributors analyze the role of exhumations in transitional justice from the steps of interviewing eyewitnesses and survivors to the painstaking forensic recovery and comparison of DNA profiles. This innovative volume demonstrates that contemporary exhumations are as much a source of personal, historical, and criminal evidence as instruments of redress for victims through legal accountability and memory politics. Contributors: Zoe Crossland, Francisco Ferrandiz, Luis Fondebrider, Iosif Kovras, Heonik Kwon, Isaias Rojas-Perez, Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Elena Lesley, Katerina Stefatos, Francesc Torres, Sarah Wagner, Richard Ashby Wilson.

Retrieving the older but surprisingly neglected language of household governance, Economy of Force offers a radical new account of the historical rise of the social realm and distinctly social theory as modern forms of oikonomikos - the art and science of household rule. The techniques and domestic ideologies of household administration are highly portable and play a remarkably central role in international and imperial relations. In two late-colonial British 'emergencies' in Malaya and Kenya, and US counterinsurgencies in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, armed social work was the continuation of oikonomia - not politics - by other means. This is a provocative new history of counterinsurgency with major implications for social, political and international theory. Historically rich and theoretically innovative, this book will interest scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences, especially politics and international relations, history of social and political thought, history of war, social theory and sociology.

Arising from renewed engagement with Charles Tilly's canonical work on the relationship between war and state formation, this volume situates Tilly's work in a broader theoretical landscape and brings it into contemporary debates on state formation theory. Starting with Tilly's famous dictum 'war made the state, and the state made war', the book takes his claim further, examining it from a philosophical, theoretical and conceptual view, and asking whether it is applicable to non-European regions such as the Middle East, South America and China. The authors question Tilly's narrow view of the causal relationship between warfare and state-making, and use a positive yet critical approach to suggest alternative ways to explain how the state is formed. Readers will gain a comprehensive view of the most recent developments in the literature on state formation, as well as a more nuanced view of Charles Tilly's work.

Joshua M. Epstein argues that prevailing assumptions about the East- West balance of power rest on erroneous measures of military strength. He develops a method for analyzing military capabilities and applies that general procedure to the Soviet tactical air threat to NATO. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Understanding Modern Warfare has established itself as the leading introduction to the issues, ideas, concepts and context necessary to understand the theory and conduct of warfare in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is an invaluable text for military professionals and students of military history. Key features include: incisive coverage of the debates surrounding contemporary and future warfare; accessible, yet sophisticated, discussion across the land, sea, and air environments; and coverage of contemporary topics such as drones, cyber warfare, and hybrid warfare. The book makes extensive use of text boxes to explain key concepts and to reference extended examples, and it includes annotated guides to further reading and key questions to promote the reader's further thinking. This second edition has been fully revised and updated to take into account new debates and recent events in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, and it has also been restructured to further improve its usefulness as a teaching tool.

For as long as there have been wars there have been fears about the next war. Where are the new dangers? What is the best defence? How might peace come about? This is the history of how over the last 150 years we have tried - rightly and wrongly - to predict war's future. 'Britain's leading academic strategist ... read this book' Economist 'Insightful and opinionated ... expertly covers centuries of evolving mayhem' Gary J. Bass, The New York Times 'A bonfire of predictions ... Freedman's purpose in this wise book is to discern patterns in the way we have thought about war's future' Shashank Joshi, Financial Times 'It reflects the author's immense knowledge and wisdom. It should feed our humility, because it reminds us of mankind's unlimited capacity for folly' Max Hastings, The Times

Originally published in 1919, this book argues that the origins of the First World War were fundamentally rooted in 'the defective moral standards and moral education of the civilised world'. Walston argues for the importance of truth in public life, domestic politics and in the press, and demonstrates the importance of truth in giving rise to charity and justice in social relationships. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in modern morality in the wake of war.

Widely recognized as one of the most important theorists of warfare, important strands of Carl von Clausewitz's thinking on the subject are not widely known. In the English-speaking world, few are familiar with anything other than his major, though unfinished and posthumously published, opus On War, which is available in numerous translations. Although the corpus of Clausewitz's writings on the topic of warfare is far greater, most of these texts have never been translated. In Clausewitz on Small War, Christopher Daase and James W. Davis begin to redress this unfortunate state of affairs. In this volume they have assembled and translated Clausewitz's most important texts devoted to the analysis of asymmetric, unconventional, guerrilla, and small unit warfare, including Clausewitz's Lectures on Small War, held at the Prussian War Academy in 1810 and 1811. Augmenting our understanding of Clausewitz with his early writings on Small War leads to the conclusion that asymmetric warfare is not an historical development that can be termed pre- or post-Clausewitzian as many contemporary scholars of war and military strategy argue. Rather, Clausewitz himself emerges as an early theorist of insurgency and asymmetric warfare with insights that are relevant today. The book is a must read for soldiers, military strategists, historians of war, and students of international security.

The United States needs airpower, but does it need an air force? In Grounded, Robert M. Farley persuasively argues that America should end the independence of the United States Air Force (USAF) and divide its assets and missions between the United States Army and the United States Navy. In the wake of World War I, advocates of the Air Force argued that an organizationally independent air force would render other military branches obsolete. These boosters promised clean, easy wars: airpower would destroy cities beyond the reach of the armies and would sink navies before they could reach the coast. However, as Farley demonstrates, independent air forces failed to deliver on these promises in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, and the War on Terror. They have also had perverse effects on foreign and security policy, as politicians have been tempted by the vision of devastating airpower to initiate otherwise ill-considered conflicts. The existence of the USAF also produces turf wars with the Navy and the Army, leading to redundant expenditures, nonsensical restrictions on equipment use, and bad tactical decisions. Farley does not challenge the idea that aircraft represent a critical component of America's defenses; nor does he dispute that -- especially now, with the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles -- airpower is necessary to modern warfare. Rather, he demonstrates that the efficient and wise use of airpower does not require the USAF as presently constituted. An intriguing scholarly polemic, Grounded employs a wide variety of primary and secondary source materials to build its case that the United States should now correct its 1947 mistake of having created an independent air force.

No modern intervention is intended to endure indefinitely; indeed some fashion of exit is always envisioned from the outset. This commitment to an exit is normally informed by an exit strategy. Whilst strategies of closure have been scrutinised recently, not least in light of charges of defective intentions and planning, the relations between the strategies, operations and tactics of exit have not been contextualised. Focus on the local, specific and bottom-up manifestations of transitions offers significant enhances to historical, theoretical and applied understandings. This book is an introduction not just to the issues of transition, handover and withdrawal, but to exit as a package of theoretical concepts and how these have been understood, shaped and employed in historic and contemporary perspective. Drawing on a wide range of post-1945 examples derived from a variety of regions and periods, At the End of Military Intervention provides researchers and practitioners with a source book on what forms a crucial and often overlooked element of past and present interventions.