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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Theory of warfare & military science
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.
Laura Sjoberg positions gender and gender subordination as key factors in the making and fighting of global conflict. Through the lens ofgender, she examines the meaning, causes, practices, and experiences of war, building a more inclusive approach to the analysis of violent conflict between states. Considering war at the international, state, substate, and individual levels, Sjoberg's feminist perspective elevates a number of causal variables in war decision-making. These include structural gender inequality, cycles of gendered violence, state masculine posturing, the often overlooked role of emotion in political interactions, gendered understandings of power, and states' mistaken perception of their own autonomy and unitary nature. "Gendering Global Conflict" also calls attention to understudied spaces that can be sites of war, such as the workplace, the household, and even the bedroom. Her findings show gender to be a linchpin of even the most tedious and seemingly bland tactical and logistical decisions in violent conflict. Armed with that information, Sjoberg undertakes the task of redefining and reintroducing critical readings of war's political, economic, and humanitarian dimensions, developing the beginnings of a feminist theory of war.
Wars and conflicts have become a near constant presence today, brought to us on a real-time basis on myriad communication devices. A cursory scan of recent conflicts reveals the blurring lines between war and peace, state versus non-state, regular and irregular, and conventional vis-Ã -vis unconventional. Over the past decade or so, the prevailing security environment in many regions has changed radically. Simultaneously the probability of conventional conflict between states or groups of states has steadily declined while sub-conventional conflict has gained prominence. These small, niggling wars have been termed as hybrid, non-linear, grey zone, or unrestricted, among others. It thus becomes necessary to enquire ontologically and epistemologically into these terms to understand if they allude to the same phenomenon through different frames. Furthermore, are these an aberration or, increasingly, the convention? This book tries to address this crucial research gap related to the changing character of conflicts in the strategic discourse in India.
This title summarizes discussions with over 450 Army officers (lieutenants through colonels) about leader development in Army units. These discussions revealed that the type and extent of leader development activities vary greatly across units, but that they are generally informal and most heavily influenced by the unit commander. The authors conclude with suggestions on how the Army school system can improve leader development.
What role does ethics play in modern-day warfare? Is it possible for ethics and militarism to exist hand-in-hand? James Eastwood examines the Israeli military and its claim to be 'the most moral army in the world'. This claim has been strongly contested by human rights bodies and international institutions in their analysis of recent military engagements in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Yet at the same time, many in Israel believe this claim, including the general public, military personnel and politicians. Compiled from extensive research including interviews with soldiers, Eastwood unpacks the ethical pedagogy of the Israeli military, as well as soldier-led activism which voices a moral critique, and argues that the belief in moral warfare doesn't exist separately from the growing violence of Israel's occupation. This book is ideal for those interested in military ethics and Israeli politics, and provides crucial in-depth analysis for students and researchers alike.
Review: This brilliant work cannot fail to stimulate debate and advance understanding. It is gloriously replete with arguments from and about philosophy, biology, sociology and the course of our all too human history. The reasons for the grim longevity of war have rarely been more cogently explained or better illustrated by telling anecdote. Colin Gray, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Reading A wide-ranging meditation on the embeddedness of war- in our cultures, our minds and our expectations - and its evolution by one of the subject's most erudite, informed and reflective scholars. Philip Bobbitt, author of The Shield of Achilles Christopher Coker's new book is a masterpiece of erudite concision in which I learned something new on every page. He is not only Britain's leading philosopher of warfare, but a prolific historian who puts the competition to shame. Michael Burleigh, author of Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and The Making of the Modern World From pre-modern city-state to post-modern cyberspace, Christopher Coker reminds us that war is a natural part of our human condition. Both idealists and realists will benefit from reading this small gem of a book from an outstanding scholar of the role of war in the history of ideas. Michael Evans, General Sir Francis Hassett Chair of Military Studies, Australian Defence College With searingly elegant prose, Professor Coker brings a vast array of ideas and events to bear on one of the most pressing issues of this or any other time. A must-read book. Steven Metz, Director of Research, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.
Written over two thousand years ago, The Art of War contains penetrating insights into the nature of power, inter-state rivalry, realpolitik and military success, relevant to any age. It was first translated into English in the early 20th century. Sun Tzu's short lines of argument and pithy aphorisms are highly accessible to modern readers, and his text has almost achieved cult status. He is quoted everywhere 'from divorce courts to Facebook', and has something to offer anyone interested in honing leadership skills and achieving in any competitive environment 'from the boardroom to the bedroom'. Sun Tzu's advice is shrewd and pragmatic - he does not glory in slaughter and prefers to win battles off the battlefield if possible; he is a strong supporter of the use of deception, of varying your shots and above all, of doing your research: knowing your enemy is key; but of little use if you do not also 'know yourself'. Features a brilliant new translation by Peter Harris. The iconic text in its original 13 short chapters printed unencumbered by notes The text repeated, this time interspersed with selected extracts from the canon of traditional Chinese commentators who have explained Sun Tzu's wisdom over the centuries; each chapter ending with an explanatory note from Peter Harris
Coup d'Etat astonished readers when it first appeared in 1968 because it showed, step by step, how governments could be overthrown. Translated into sixteen languages, it has inspired anti-coup precautions by regimes around the world. In addition to these detailed instructions, Edward Luttwak's revised handbook offers an altogether new way of looking at political power-one that considers, for example, the vulnerability to coups of even the most stable democracies in the event of prolonged economic distress. The world has changed dramatically in the past half century, but not the essence of the coup d'etat. It still requires the secret recruitment of military officers who command the loyalty of units well placed to seize important headquarters and key hubs in the capital city. The support of the armed forces as a whole is needed only in the aftermath, to avoid countercoups. And mass support is largely irrelevant, although passive acceptance is essential. To ensure it, violence must be kept to a minimum. The ideal coup is swift and bloodless. Very violent coups rarely succeed, and if they trigger a bloody civil war they fail utterly. Luttwak identifies conditions that make countries vulnerable to a coup, and he outlines the necessary stages of planning, from recruitment of coconspirators to postcoup promises of progress and stability. But much more broadly, his investigation of coups-updated for the twenty-first century-uncovers important truths about the nature of political power.
"The collapse of the Red Army was one of the most spectacular in human history, and also one of the most mysterious. Neither Soviet nor Russian armed forces suffered catastrophic losses on the battlefield, while Russian soldiers became more involved, not less, in politics in post-Soviet Russia. Through a sophisticated application of institutional theory to a rich collection of data, Zoltan Barany unravels this mystery in a compelling and masterful way. This book will become a classic on Russian civil-military relations, while also adding much to our understanding of Russian politics more generally."--Michael McFaul, Stanford University "Zoltan Barany is one of the most wide-ranging and thoughtful scholars writing on postcommunist politics today. Here, he provides a fascinating look at one of the most important issues in contemporary Russia. The link Barany makes between the condition of the military and the character of the postcommunist political regime is especially interesting. This book will appeal to policymakers and observers of Russian politics both inside and outside academia."--M. Steven Fish, University of California, Berkeley, and author of "Democracy Derailed in Russia" "This book marks a new approach to the study of civil-military relations in Russia. It does something no one has done to date--it explains why Russian civil-military relations are not only not democratic, but are moving in the opposite direction. It also highlights the incredibly important roles that Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin have played in the evolution of such relations."--Dale Herspring, Kansas State University "This is political science at its best: a lucid explanation of an important puzzle, systematically approached but mindful of the crucial role of human interaction. Barany makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Russian military, the state of Russian democracy, and to the larger issue of civil-military relations and democracy in general."--Thomas Nichols, United States Naval War College
This book, the first of its kind, provides a sweeping critical history of social theories about war and peace from Hobbes to the present. Distinguished social theorists Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knobl present both a broad intellectual history and an original argument as they trace the development of thinking about war over more than 350 years--from the premodern era to the period of German idealism and the Scottish and French enlightenments, and then from the birth of sociology in the nineteenth century through the twentieth century. While focusing on social thought, the book draws on many disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, and political science. Joas and Knobl demonstrate the profound difficulties most social thinkers--including liberals, socialists, and those intellectuals who could be regarded as the first sociologists--had in coming to terms with the phenomenon of war, the most obvious form of large-scale social violence. With only a few exceptions, these thinkers, who believed deeply in social progress, were unable to account for war because they regarded it as marginal or archaic, and on the verge of disappearing. This overly optimistic picture of the modern world persisted in social theory even in the twentieth century, as most sociologists and social theorists either ignored war and violence in their theoretical work or tried to explain it away. The failure of the social sciences and especially sociology to understand war, Joas and Knobl argue, must be seen as one of the greatest weaknesses of disciplines that claim to give a convincing diagnosis of our times."
Systematically analyses the impact of external military crises on Japanese security policy expansion in the post-Cold War period. Focuses on the widening of Japan's security posture in external security affairs and investigates the causes of this critical change Identifies the external military crisis as a critical determinant of change in Japanese security policy Unpacks the deep structures within the Japanese decision-making processes, especially during and after military crises Examines five key military crises in detail: the 1990-1 Persian Gulf War; the 1994 North Korean Nuclear Crisis; the 1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis, the 1998 Taepodong Crisis; and 2001 September 11 attacks that led to the US-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq Draws on over 70 interviews the author has conducted with officials, former officials, and academics in universities and think tanks in Japan, the United States, South Korea and Singapore, including officials who were directly involved in the crisis decision-making process This book is a detailed study of the role that external military crises played in the development and growth of Japanese security policies in the period following the end of the Cold War. This evolution can be seen in the widened role of the Self-Defence Force (SDF) in shaping Japan's security priorities, as well as its proactive contribution to regional/ international security. Focusing on four key case studies - international peacekeeping in 1992, regional defence in 1997-99, global missions in 2003-05, and collective self-defence in 2014-15 - the author argues that the Japanese security policymaking elite achieved security policy expansion by utilizing external military crises as policy windows, inflating and deflating threat elements to circumvent the constraints and justify the implementation of security policy initiatives.
Carl von Clausewitz has long been interpreted as the paradigmatic thinker of major interstate war. This book challenges this assumption by showing that Clausewitz was an ardent analyst of small war and integrated many aspects of his early writings on partisan warfare and people's war into his magnum opus, On War. It reconstructs Clausewitz's intellectual development by placing it in the context of his engagement with the political and philosophical currents of his own times - German Idealism, Romanticism, and Humanism. The central question that Clausewitz and his contemporaries faced was how to defend Prussia and Europe against Napoleon's expansionist strategy. On the one hand, the nationalization of war that had occurred as a result of the French Revolution could only be countered by drawing the people into the defence of their own countries. On the other, this risked a descent into anarchy and unchecked terror, as the years 1793 and 1794 in France had shown. Throughout his life Clausewitz remained optimistic that the institution of the Prussian Landwehr could achieve both an effective defence of Prussia and a social and political integration of its citizens. Far from leaving behind his early advocacy of people's war, Clausewitz integrated it systematically into his mature theory of war. People's war was war in its existential form; it risked escalating into 'absolute war'. However, if the threat of defensive people's war had become a standard option of last resort in early-nineteenth century Europe, it could also function as a safeguard of the balance of power.
On 26 August 1914 the world-famous university library in the
Belgian town of Louvain was looted and destroyed by German troops.
The international community reacted in horror and the behavior of
the Germans at Louvain came to be seen as the beginning of a
different style of war, without the rules that had governed
military conflict up to that point--a more total war, in which
enemy civilians and their entire culture were now legitimate
targets.
The risks of arms control and disarmament, how they can be reduced or eliminated, and the political implications of drastic disarmament are analyzed by eleven experts. Emphasis is placed on the development of techniques for disarming that are politically feasible and give reasonable assurance to each side that the other is not violating its obligations for any serious reason. Three major aspects of the problem are considered: how to get the disarmament process started, and once started to continue it how to retain the freedom of diplomatic action that might be needed to defend national interests; and how to approach the problems of political security in a fully disarmed world. Originally published in 1965. 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.
Terrorism, the use of military force in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and the fatal police shootings of unarmed persons have all contributed to renewed interest in the ethics of police and military use of lethal force and its moral justification. In this book, philosopher Seumas Miller analyzes the various moral justifications and moral responsibilities involved in the use of lethal force by police and military combatants, relying on a distinctive normative teleological account of institutional roles. His conception constitutes a novel alternative to prevailing reductive individualist and collectivist accounts. As Miller argues, police and military uses of lethal force are morally justified in part by recourse to fundamental natural moral rights and obligations, especially the right to personal self-defense and the moral obligation to defend the lives of innocent others. Yet the moral justification for police and military use of lethal force is to some extent role-specific. Both police officers and military combatants evidently have an institutionally-based moral duty to put themselves in harm's way to protect others. Under some circumstances, however, police have an institutionally based moral duty to use lethal force to uphold the law; and military combatants have an institutionally based moral duty to use lethal force to win wars. Two key notions in play are joint action and the natural right to self-defense. Miller uses a relational individualist theory of joint actions to construct the notion of multi-layered structures of joint action in order to explicate organizational action. He also provides a novel theory of justifiable killing in self-defense. Over the course of his book, Miller covers a variety of urgent topics, such as police shootings of armed offenders, police shooting of suicide-bombers, targeted killing, autonomous weapons, humanitarian armed intervention, and civilian immunity.
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.
In this comprehensive study, 12 experts describe and analyse the military budgetary processes and degree of oversight and control in eight African countries-Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa-spanning the continent's sub-regions. Each country study addresses a wide range of questions, such as the roles of the finance and defence ministries, budget offices, audit departments and external actors in the military budgetary processes; the extent of compliance with standard public expenditure management procedures; and how well official military expenditure figures reflect the true economic resources devoted to military activities in these countries. The framework for the country studies is provided by a detailed model for good practice in budgeting for the military sector. The individual studies are tied together by a synthesis chapter, which provides a comparative analysis of the studies, classifies the eight countries according to their adherence to the principles of public expenditure management and explains why individual countries find themselves with a certain classification. The book draws on the results of the country studies and their analysis by making concrete recommendations to the governments of African countries and the international community. While the military sector in many African states is believed to be favoured in terms of resource allocation and degree of political autonomy, it is not subject to the same rules and procedures as other sectors. Because of the unique role of the armed forces as the guarantor of national security, and their demand for a high degree of confidentiality in certain activities, the military sector receives a significant proportion of state resources and is not subject to public scrutiny. The book argues that while the military sector requires some confidentiality it should be subject to the same standard procedures and rules followed by other state sectors.
The threat to the survival of humankind posed by nuclear weapons has been a frightening and essential focus of public debate for the last four decades and must continue to be so if we are to avoid destroying ourselves and the natural world around us. One unfortunate result of preoccupation with the nuclear threat, however, has been a new kind of "respectability" accorded to conventional war. In this radical and cogent argument for pacifism, Robert Holmes asserts that all war--not just nuclear war--has become morally impermissible in the modern world. Addressing a wide audience of informed and concerned readers, he raises dramatic questions about the concepts of "political realism" and nuclear deterrence, makes a number of persuasive suggestions for nonviolent alternatives to war, and presents a rich panorama of thinking about war from St. Augustine to Reinhold Niebuhr and Herman Kahn. Holmes's positions are compellingly presented and will provoke discussion both among convinced pacifists and among those whom he calls "militarists." "Militarists," we realize after reading this book, include the majority of us who live a friendly and peaceful personal life while supporting a system which, if Holmes is correct, guarantees war and risks eventual human extinction. Originally published in 1989. 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.
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.
Professor Peterson examines these questions in relation to Hitler's government with its reputedly unlimited internal power; he traces the flow of power throughout the Nazi state from 1933 to 1945, from Hitler to his ministers to provincial governments. Through a detailed analysis of the province of Bavaria the author shows that Hitler did not have the absolute power often assumed; that power in a totalitarian state is far more complex than many historians have conjectured; that Hitler dealt with a vast bureaucratic structure complicated by constant internecine fighting, and that only rarely did he command complete obedience. Originally published in 1969. 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 volume examines the social and political role of the armed forces in the emergent countries of Latin America, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. The contributors include such distinguished historians and political scientists as Belmont Brice, James S. Coleman, and Lucian W. Pye. They offer here some searching observations on the political structure of the new states, on the relationship between the needs of internal order and those of external defense, and on the curious fact that military regimes, while they have promoted national development, social change, and free political practices in some countries, have hampered similar growth in others. Originally published in 1962. 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.
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.
Rapid turnover of ROTC officers, the decline in ROTC enrollment, inadequate training for the specialized techniques of modem warfare, and the quick obsolescence of technical training have created an acute problem in the development of a body of highly-trained professional career officers. This book takes a fresh view of this vital problem and provides a starting point for a revision of our methods for providing the military leadership that our nation requires. Originally published in 1959. 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.
In this closely reasoned analysis of the various elements which constitute the latent military strength of nations the author takes up economic capacity, "the will to fight," and the administrative skill of government, and shows how they may be developed and evaluated in the contemporary setting. He has drawn on a wealth of historical material for various countries and relevant research in political science, economics, sociology, and psychology. Originally published in 1956. 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. |
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