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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Theory of warfare & military science
Proving Grounds brings together a wide range of scholars across disciplines and geographical borders to deepen our understanding of the environmental impact that the U.S. military presence has had at home and abroad. The essays in this collection survey the environmental damage caused by weapons testing and military bases to local residents, animal populations, and landscapes, and they examine the military's efforts to close and repurpose bases-often as wildlife reserves. Together they present a complex and nuanced view that embraces the ironies, contradictions, and unintended consequences of U.S. militarism around the world. In complicating our understanding of the American military's worldwide presence, the essayists also reveal the rare cases when the military is actually ahead of the curve on environmental regulation compared to the private sector. The result is the most comprehensive examination to date of the U.S. military's environmental footprint-for better or worse-across the globe.
Eve of Destruction The Coming Age of Preventive War Thomas M. Nichols "Thomas Nichols transcends sterile debates about Iraq and the Bush Doctrine and points instead to the fundamental erosion in two long-standing international norms: the inviolability of state sovereignty and the unacceptability of preventive war. These profound changes are driven by the very real threat of mass casualty suicide terrorism as well as humanitarian disasters and the problem of failed states. This is a smart, incisive, and important book."--Robert J. Lieber, Georgetown University "Preventive war is here to stay. The question isn't whether but when and how force will be used preventively. That is the important message of this excellent book. Nichols provides the critical answers clearly and convincingly."--Ivo Daalder, Brookings Institution "Nichols provides a lively guide to the development of this issue after the Cold War."--"Foreign Affairs" In an age of new threats to international security, the old rules of war are rapidly being discarded. The great powers are moving toward norms less restrictive of intervention, preemption, and preventive war. This evolution is taking place not only in the United States but also in many of the world's most powerful nations, including Russia, France, and Japan, among others. As centuries of tradition and law are overturned, will preventive warfare push the world into chaos? "Eve of Destruction" is a provocative contribution to a growing international debate over the acceptance of preventive military action. In the first work to identify the trends that have led to a coming age of preventive war, Thomas M. Nichols uses historical analysis as well as interviews with military officials from around the world to trace the anticipatory use of force from the early 1990s--when the international community responded to a string of humanitarian crises in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo--to today's current and potential actions against rogue states and terrorists. He makes a case for a bold reform of U.S. foreign policy, and of the United Nations Security Council itself, in order to avert outright anarchy. Thomas M. Nichols is Professor of Strategy and Forrest Sherman Chair of Public Diplomacy at the United States Naval War College. His previous books include "The Russian Presidency" and "Winning the World: Lessons for America's Future from the Cold War." 2008 192 pages 6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-8122-4066-5 Cloth $45.00s 29.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0294-6 Ebook $45.00s 29.50 World Rights Political Science, Public Policy Short copy: In an age of new threats to international security, the old rules of war are rapidly being discarded by the great powers. This study explores how and why states will exercise the preventive use of force in the twenty-first century, and how this violence might be contained and controlled.
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.
Clausewitz is often quoted but more often misunderstood. "On
Clausewitz" presents his central ideas about war and politics--such
as war as an instrument of policy, the concept of Absolute War,
friction and the fog of war--in a clear and systematic fashion. It
also presents the man, his life and the military and intellectual
environment in which he produced his great work "On War." A final
section considers Clausewitz's relevance to the rapidly changing
nature of war today.
The world responded with horror to ISIS's campaign of destruction of cultural heritage across the Middle East, including with calls for an international response to prevent such damage. At the same time, newspapers and screens were filled with images of human destruction, devastated cities, and thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict. This juxtaposition caused a backlash against those voicing their concerns about the destruction of ancient ruins, popularly framed as dispute about 'stone versus lives'. In the face of so much human suffering, it can seem inappropriate to worry about anything but the urgent, basic needs of people. Heritage and War addresses this issue within the context of a wider debate, amidst a range of moral questions. Eleven original essays investigate a variety of philosophical and moral questions arising from the phenomenon of heritage destruction in war, such how we ought to respond to heritage that is damaged in war, the nature of the harm caused by such damage, and the morally appropriate treatment of sites of war and conflict that have themselves become heritage sites. Such issues are philosophically rich, and yet they have been largely neglected by academic philosophers. This book makes a substantial contribution to developing this new philosophical territory and identifying the role that philosophers have to play in developing our understanding of and responses to these important issues.
In this innovative theoretical book, Elizabeth Kier uses a cultural approach to take issue with the conventional wisdom that military organizations inherently prefer offensive doctrines. Kier argues instead that a military's culture affects its choices between offensive and defensive military doctrines. Drawing on organizational theory, she demonstrates that military organizations differ in their worldview and the proper conduct of their mission. It is this organizational culture that shapes how the military responds to constraints, such as terms of conscription set by civilian policymakers. In richly detailed case studies, Kier examines doctrinal developments in France and Great Britain during the interwar period. She tests her cultural argument against the two most powerful alternative explanations and illustrates that neither the functional needs of military organizations nor the structural demands of the international system can explain doctrinal choice. She also reveals as a myth the argument that the lessons of World War I explain the defensive doctrines in World War II. Imagining War addresses two important debates. It tackles a central debate in security studies: the origins of military doctrine. And by showing the power of a cultural approach, it offers an alternative to the prevailing rationalist explanations of international politics. Originally published in 1999. 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.
This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe. As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods. Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.
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.
Islam in the Balance: Ideational Threats in Arab Politics is an analysis of how ideas, or political ideology, can threaten states and how states react to ideational threats. It examines the threat perception and policies of two Arab Muslim majority states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in response to the rise and activities of two revolutionary "Islamic states," established in Iran (1979) and Sudan (1989). Using these comparative case studies, the book provides important insight about the role of religious ideology for the international and domestic politics of the Middle East and, in doing so, advances our understanding of how, why, and when ideology affects threat perception and state policy. Rubin makes clear that transnational ideologies may present a greater and more immediate national security threat than shifts in the military balance of power: first because ideology, or ideational power, triggers threat perception and affects state policy; second because states engage in ideational balancing in response to an ideological threat. The book has significant implications for international relations theory and engages important debates in comparative politics about authoritarianism and Islamic activism. Its findings about how an Islamist regime or state behaves will provide vital insight for policy creation by the US and its Middle East allies should another such regime or state emerge.
These essays from the journal International Security assess the technical feasibility and the strategic desirability of defense against ballistic missiles. Originally published in 1986. 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.
'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.
The U.S. military is one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world. How it spends its money, chooses tactics, and allocates its resources have enormous implications for national defense and the economy. "The Science of War" is the only comprehensive textbook on how to analyze and understand these and other essential problems in modern defense policy. Michael O'Hanlon provides undergraduate and graduate students with an accessible yet rigorous introduction to the subject. Drawing on a broad range of sources and his own considerable expertise as a defense analyst and teacher, he describes the analytic techniques the military uses in every crucial area of military science. O'Hanlon explains how the military budget works, how the military assesses and deploys new technology, develops strategy and fights wars, handles the logistics of stationing and moving troops and equipment around the world, and models and evaluates battlefield outcomes. His modeling techniques have been tested in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the methods he used to predict higher-than-anticipated troop fatalities in Iraq--controversial predictions that have since been vindicated. "The Science of War" is the definitive resource on warfare in the twenty-first century.Gives the best introduction to defense analysis available Covers defense budgeting Shows how to model and predict outcomes in war Explains military logistics, including overseas basing Examines key issues in military technology, including missile defense, space warfare, and nuclear-weapons testing Based on the author's graduate-level courses at Princeton, Columbia, and Georgetown universities
Professor Knorr examines bends in the values which nations derive in their international relationships from the possession and use of both nuclear and non-nuclear military forces, and suggests that territorial conquest and the furtherance of economic benefits by military means have generally diminished in appeal. He inquires into the costs and disadvantages of military power-the greatly reduced security obtainable even by the major nuclear powers and the noticeable diminution in the legitimacy of international violence in its several forms. Originally published in 1966. 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.
If pacifists are correct in thinking that war is always unjust, then it follows that we ought to eliminate the possibility and temptation of ever engaging in it; we should not build war-making capacity, and if we already have, then demilitarization-or military abolition-would seem to be the appropriate course to take. On the other hand, if war is sometimes justified, as many believe, then it must be permissible to prepare for it by creating and maintaining a military establishment. Yet this view that the justifiability of war-making is also sufficient to justify war-building is mistaken. This book addresses questions of jus ante bellum, or justice before war. Under what circumstances is it justifiable for a polity to prepare for war by militarizing? When (if ever) and why (if at all) is it morally permissible to create and maintain the potential to wage war? In doing so it highlights the ways in which a civilian population compromises its own security in maintaining a permanent military establishment, explores the moral and social costs of militarization, and evaluates whether or not these costs are worth bearing.
The first edition of The Morality of War was one of the most widely-read and successful books ever written on the topic. In this second edition, Brian Orend builds on the substantial strengths of the first, adding important new material on: cyber-warfare; drone attacks; the wrap-up of Iraq and Afghanistan; conflicts in Libya and Syria; and protracted struggles (like the Arab-Israeli conflict). Updated and streamlined throughout, the book offers new research tools and case studies, while keeping the winning blend of theory and history featured in the first edition. This book remains an engaging and comprehensive examination of the ethics, and practice, of war and peace in today's world.
Founded in 1927, the Society of Friends of Defense and Aviation- Chemical Construction, or "Osoaviakhim," became the largest mass voluntary association in the Soviet Union before World War II. Conceived in Bolshevik rhetoric about the creativity of the toiling masses, this novel organizational scheme gradually acquired bureaucratic substance and played a significant role in making the civilian masses administratively accessible for elementary programs in military training and chemical and aviation technology. William E. Odom's study of Osoaviakhim in its first decade seeks not only to recount the history of its development, but, more importantly, to demonstrate that the Soviet experience can be analyzed using the language and concepts of Western social science. In particular, the author argues that concepts from organization theory offer promising opportunities to relate Soviet area studies to the broader concerns of comparative politics, and that middle range generalizations about politics within bureaucracies may prove very helpful in explaining "who gets what, when, and how" in the Soviet polity. Originally published in 1974. 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.
Proving Grounds brings together a wide range of scholars across disciplines and geographical borders to deepen our understanding of the environmental impact that the U.S. military presence has had at home and abroad. The essays in this collection survey the environmental damage caused by weapons testing and military bases to local residents, animal populations, and landscapes, and they examine the military's efforts to close and repurpose bases-often as wildlife reserves. Together they present a complex and nuanced view that embraces the ironies, contradictions, and unintended consequences of U.S. militarism around the world. In complicating our understanding of the American military's worldwide presence, the essayists also reveal the rare cases when the military is actually ahead of the curve on environmental regulation compared to the private sector. The result is the most comprehensive examination to date of the U.S. military's environmental footprint-for better or worse-across the globe.
Strategic Illusions, 1936-1941. Using Japanese as well as British official, private, and published sources, Professor Marder is the first scholar to have studied this subject from both sides and to give a rounded account of an extraordinary story.
These essays from the journal International Security assess the technical feasibility and the strategic desirability of defense against ballistic missiles. Originally published in 1986. 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 paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback 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.
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.
This book challenges the way that the relationship of ""democracy"", ""liberalism"" and ""war"" has been framed in terms of (outdated) assumptions about the state and the international system. The authors place these key concepts in historical and social context and interrogate the claim that liberal democratic states do not go to war with each other. Rejecting simple causal connections, they reveal instead the multiple and changing relations among systems of government, liberal ideology and the use of force. Their critique opens up new space for the analysis of the roles of democracy, liberalism and war in the making of the international system.
Will tomorrow's wars be dominated by autonomous drones, land robots and warriors wired into a cybernetic network which can read their thoughts? Will war be fought with greater or lesser humanity? Will it be played out in cyberspace and further afield in Low Earth Orbit? Or will it be fought more intensely still in the sprawling cities of the developing world, the grim black holes of social exclusion on our increasingly unequal planet? Will the Great Powers reinvent conflict between themselves or is war destined to become much 'smaller' both in terms of its actors and the beliefs for which they will be willing to kill? In this illuminating new book Christopher Coker takes us on an incredible journey into the future of warfare. Focusing on contemporary trends that are changing the nature and dynamics of armed conflict, he shows how conflict will continue to evolve in ways that are unlikely to render our century any less bloody than the last. With insights from philosophy, cutting-edge scientific research and popular culture, Future War is a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the shape of war to come.
Limited force is different than war: different in scope, strategic purpose, and ethical permissions and restraints. No-fly zones, limited strikes, Special Forces raids, and drone strikes outside 'hot' battlefield have been at the nexus of the moral and strategic debates about just war since the fall of the Berlin Wall but, with the exception of drones, these aspects of the modern arsenal have remained largely undertheorized. Just and Unjust Uses of Limited Force fills that gap by revisiting the major wars animating contemporary just war scholarship (Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, the drone 'wars', and Libya) through the lens of limited force and drawing insights from the just war tradition. Looking at these contemporary examples, the book teases out an ethical account of force-short-of-war. It covers the deliberation about whether to use limited force (jus ad vim), restraints that govern its use (jus in vi), when to stop (jus ex vi), and the after-use context (jus post vim). While these moral categories parallel to some extent their just war counterparts of jus ad bellum, jus in bello, jus post bellum, and jus ex bello, the book illustrates how they can be reimagined and recalibrated in a limited force context, while also introducing new principles specific to the dilemmas associated with escalation and risk. As the argument unfolds, the reader will be presented with a view of limited force as a moral alternative to war, exposed to a series of dilemmas regarding when and how limited force is used, and provided with a more precise and morally enriched vocabulary to talk about limited force and the responsibilities its use entails.
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.
Why did President John F. Kennedy choose a strategy of confrontation during the Cuban missile crisis even though his secretary of defense stated that the presence of missiles in Cuba made no difference? Why did large numbers of Iraqi troops surrender during the Gulf War even though they had been ordered to fight and were capable of doing so? Why did Hitler declare war on the United States knowing full well the power of that country? "War and Human Nature" argues that new findings about the way humans are shaped by their inherited biology may help provide answers to such questions. This seminal work by former Defense Department official Stephen Peter Rosen contends that human evolutionary history has affected the way we process the information we use to make decisions. The result is that human choices and calculations may be very different from those predicted by standard models of rational behavior. This notion is particularly true in the area of war and peace, Rosen contends. Human emotional arousal affects how people learn the lessons of history. For example, stress and distress influence people's views of the future, and testosterone levels play a role in human social conflict. This thought-provoking and timely work explores the mind that has emerged from the biological sciences over the last generation. In doing so, it helps shed new light on many persistent puzzles in the study of war. |
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