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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Theory of warfare & military science

Warfare and Violence in the Iron Age of Southern France (Paperback, New): Mags McCartney Warfare and Violence in the Iron Age of Southern France (Paperback, New)
Mags McCartney
R1,525 Discovery Miles 15 250 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This study aims to identify patterns of warfare in the southern French Iron Age through examination of the documentary, settlement, iconographic and osteological evidence for warfare in this region, each within its chronological context and in tandem with one another. The Iron Age of southern France remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking archaeological world. The best known aspects of the archaeological material suggest a society in which warfare was an overriding preoccupation. Major, fortified centres, such as Entremont and Saint-Blaise, and the tradition of 'warrior statues' like those from Entremont and Roquepertuse, suggest that conflict was a recurrent theme. Literary sources, such as Poseidonius have described the indigenous populations of this area as a volatile and warlike people who took the heads of their enemies from the battlefield and displayed or preserved them in their settlements. Finds of skulls, some with nails still embedded in the bone, appear to verify such reports. The pattern of warfare which emerges from this analysis is then discussed within some of the more prominent models of social-anthropological study. This case study offers a more nuanced and contextual interpretation of warfare in the southern French Iron Age and demonstrates how, if treated as a form of social interaction, rather than a breakdown in social norms, might be integrated into wider archaeological interpretations of social and political change.

Military Application of Space - The Indian Perspectives (Hardcover): R.K. Singh Military Application of Space - The Indian Perspectives (Hardcover)
R.K. Singh
R1,216 Discovery Miles 12 160 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This book focuses on the relevance of space as a new domain towards enhancing war fighting capabilities. The Cold War saw rapid development of space technologies, which in turn spurred the growth of satellites. Slowly the traditional military capabilities for C4ISR were transferred to the space, the 'Ultimate High Ground.' The use of navigation and communication satellites in direct support to the US war efforts was visible during Gulf War I, which is aptly referred as "First Space War." The book delves at length about the Chinese Space Programme and their military exploits. Apart from militarization, the Chinese went ahead with weaponization of space, in order to gain asymmetric advantages over the much stronger and technologically advance US capabilities. The existing and futuristic military exploits of space assets by India has also been discussed in this book. A case for an "Indian Space Security Architecture" has been proposed, which shall secure the Indian space assets and provide comprehensive National Security. This book also highlights the necessity and urgency of Indian ASAT, as a strategic deterrence, to counter the threat to our space assets from the Chinese ASATs.

War - A Simple Guide to a Complex Phenomenon (Paperback): John Plant War - A Simple Guide to a Complex Phenomenon (Paperback)
John Plant
R470 Discovery Miles 4 700 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

This book is the result of its author's determination to understand the phenomenon of war, a determination which has been one of the driving forces of his life for over half a century. It has taken well over ten years to write.
In this book two basic types of conflict are defined, primary and secondary warfare. The study mostly covers secondary warfare which is considered in terms of the army/government/people triad, both in the context of conventional war between countries, and guerrilla insurrections within countries.
Each aspect of warfare is illustrated, and each conclusion is backed up, with copious examples.
The final conclusion of the endemic nature of warfare will not please many people who read it, but if it has the effect of causing them to be much more critical of various government policies then this book can be regarded as a success.

Understanding Cyber Warfare and its Implications for Indian Armed Forces (Hardcover): R K. Tyagi Understanding Cyber Warfare and its Implications for Indian Armed Forces (Hardcover)
R K. Tyagi
R1,606 Discovery Miles 16 060 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 deals with cyber warfare in general bringing out the unique characteristics of cyber space, the recent cyber attack on Estonia and the Stuxnet attack on Iranian Nuclear facilities, how the established Principles of War can be applied in cyberspace, cyber strategy of US and China, offensive and defensive aspects of cyber warfare cyber deterrence and the new challenge facing the militaries the world over- leadership in cyber domain. Part 2 is devoted to the Indian context. It discusses in detail the impact of ICT on the life of an ordinary Indian citizen, the cyber challenges facing the country and the implications for the Indian Armed Forces. A few recommendations have been summarised in the end.

Insurgent Intellectual - Essays in Honour of Professor Desmond Ball (Paperback): Taylor Insurgent Intellectual - Essays in Honour of Professor Desmond Ball (Paperback)
Taylor
R718 R635 Discovery Miles 6 350 Save R83 (12%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

With a distinguished career spanning more than four decades, Professor Desmond Ball is one of the world's greatest scholars of strategy and defence, Australia's home-grown giant. In this collection of essays, leading political, media and academic figures, including former United States President Jimmy Carter, pay tribute to his remarkable contributions. From a base at the Australian National University in Canberra, Professor Ball has unflinchingly researched topics from Cold War nuclear strategy and the defence of Australia to spy scandals and Southeast Asian paramilitaries. His roaming intellect, appetite for getting the facts and commitment to publishing on sensitive topics ensure he is a towering figure who has provided impeccable service to Strategic Studies, the Asia-Pacific region and the Australian community.

What Rebels Want - Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime (Hardcover): Jennifer M. Hazen What Rebels Want - Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime (Hardcover)
Jennifer M. Hazen
R1,207 Discovery Miles 12 070 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

How easy is it for rebel groups to purchase weapons and ammunition in the middle of a war? How quickly can commodities such as diamonds and cocoa be converted into cash to buy war supplies? And why does answering these questions matter for understanding civil wars? In What Rebels Want, Jennifer M. Hazen challenges the commonly held view that rebel groups can get what they want, when they want it, and when they most need it. Hazen's assessments of resource availability in the wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire lead to a better understanding of rebel group capacity and options for war and war termination.

Resources entail more than just cash; they include various other economic, military, and political goods, including natural resources, arms and ammunition, safe haven, and diplomatic support. However, rebel groups rarely enjoy continuous access to resources throughout a conflict. Understanding fluctuations in fortune is central to identifying the options available to rebel groups and the reasons why a rebel group chooses to pursue war or peace. The stronger the group's capacity, the more options it possesses with respect to fighting a war. The chances for successful negotiations and the implementation of a peace agreement increase as the options of the rebel group narrow. Sustainable negotiated solutions are most likely, Hazen finds, when a rebel group views negotiations not as one of the solutions for obtaining what it wants, but as the only solution."

The Dragon Extends its Reach - Chinese Military Power Goes Global (Hardcover): Larry M. Wortzel The Dragon Extends its Reach - Chinese Military Power Goes Global (Hardcover)
Larry M. Wortzel
R736 Discovery Miles 7 360 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

China has evolved from a nation with local and regional security interests to a major economic and political power with global interests, investments, and political commitments. It now requires a military that can project itself around the globe, albeit on a limited scale, to secure its interests. Therefore, as Larry M. Wortzel explains, the Chinese Communist Party leadership has charged the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with new and challenging missions that require global capabilities. Advances in technology and the development of indigenous weapons platforms in China, combined with reactions to modern conflicts, have produced a military force very different from that which China has fielded in the past. Wortzel presents a clear and sobering picture of the PLA's modernization effort as it expands into space and cyberspace, and as it integrates operations in the traditional domains of war. This book will appeal to the specialist in security and foreign policy issues in Asia as well as to the person interested in arms control, future warfare, and global military strategies. The book puts China's military growth into historical context for readers of recent military and diplomatic history. About the Author Larry M. Wortzel, spent much of his thirty-two-year military career in the Asia-Pacific region, including two tours of duty as a military attachein China. He served as director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College and, after retirement, as Asian studies director and vice president at the Heritage Foundation. For a decade he was a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the author or editor of ten previously published books about China. He lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.

War Games - A History of War on Paper (Paperback): Philipp von Hilgers War Games - A History of War on Paper (Paperback)
Philipp von Hilgers; Translated by Ross Benjamin
R1,153 Discovery Miles 11 530 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

The convergence of military strategy and mathematics in war games, from medieval to modern times. For centuries, both mathematical and military thinkers have used game-like scenarios to test their visions of mastering a complex world through symbolic operations. By the end of World War I, mathematical and military discourse in Germany simultaneously discovered the game as a productive concept. Mathematics and military strategy converged in World War II when mathematicians designed fields of operation. In this book, Philipp von Hilgers examines the theory and practice of war games through history, from the medieval game boards, captured on parchment, to the paper map exercises of the Third Reich. Von Hilgers considers how and why war games came to exist: why mathematical and military thinkers created simulations of one of the most unpredictable human activities on earth. Von Hilgers begins with the medieval rythmomachia, or Battle of Numbers, then reconstructs the ideas about war and games in the baroque period. He investigates the role of George Leopold von Reiswitz's tactical war game in nineteenth-century Prussia and describes the artifact itself: a game board-topped table with drawers for game implements. He explains Clausewitz's emphasis on the "fog of war" and the accompanying element of incalculability, examines the contributions of such thinkers as Clausewitz, Leibniz, Wittgenstein, and von Neumann, and investigates the war games of the German military between the two World Wars. Baudrillard declared this to be the age of simulacra; war games stand contrariwise as simulations that have not been subsumed in absolute virtuality.

The Culture of Military Innovation - The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US,... The Culture of Military Innovation - The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel. (Hardcover)
Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky
R2,395 Discovery Miles 23 950 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book studies the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations. One would expect that countries accustomed to similar technologies would undergo analogous changes in their perception of and approach to warfare. However, the intellectual history of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia, the US, and Israel indicates the opposite. The US developed technology and weaponry for about a decade without reconceptualizing the existing paradigm about the nature of warfare. Soviet 'new theory of victory' represented a conceptualization which chronologically preceded technological procurement. Israel was the first to utilize the weaponry on the battlefield, but was the last to develop a conceptual framework that acknowledged its revolutionary implications.
Utilizing primary sources that had previously been completely inaccessible, and borrowing methods of analysis from political science, history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, this book suggests a cultural explanation for this puzzling transformation in warfare.
"The Culture of Military Innovation" offers a systematic, thorough, and unique analytical approach that may well be applicable in other perplexing strategic situations. Though framed in the context of specific historical experience, the insights of this book reveal important implications related to conventional, subconventional, and nonconventional security issues. It is therefore an ideal reference work for practitioners, scholars, teachers, and students of security studies.

First Do No Harm - Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Hardcover): David N. Gibbs First Do No Harm - Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Hardcover)
David N. Gibbs
R2,744 Discovery Miles 27 440 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

In "First Do No Harm," David Gibbs raises basic questions about the humanitarian interventions that have played a key role in U.S. foreign policy for the past twenty years. Using a wide range of sources, including government documents, transcripts of international war crimes trials, and memoirs, Gibbs shows how these interventions often heightened violence and increased human suffering.

The book focuses on the 1991--99 breakup of Yugoslavia, which helped forge the idea that the United States and its allies could stage humanitarian interventions that would end ethnic strife. It is widely believed that NATO bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo played a vital role in stopping Serb-directed aggression, and thus resolving the conflict.

Gibbs challenges this view, offering an extended critique of Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide." He shows that intervention contributed to the initial breakup of Yugoslavia, and then helped spread the violence and destruction. Gibbs also explains how the motives for U.S. intervention were rooted in its struggle for continued hegemony in Europe.

"First Do No Harm" argues for a new, noninterventionist model for U.S. foreign policy, one that deploys nonmilitary methods for addressing ethnic violence.

Beating Goliath - Why Insurgencies Win (Paperback): Jeffrey Record Beating Goliath - Why Insurgencies Win (Paperback)
Jeffrey Record
R457 R427 Discovery Miles 4 270 Save R30 (7%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

"Beating Goliath" examines the phenomenon of victories by the weak over the strong more specifically, insurgencies that succeeded against great powers. Jeffrey Record reviews eleven insurgent wars from 1775 to the present and determines why the seemingly weaker side won. He concludes that external assistance correlates more consistently with insurgent success than any other explanation. He does not disparage the critical importance of will, strategy, and strong-side regime type or suggest that external assistance guarantees success. Indeed, in all cases, some combination of these factors is usually present. But Record finds few if any cases of unassisted insurgent victories except against the most decrepit regimes. Having identified the ingredients of insurgent success, Record examines the present insurgency in Iraq and whether the United States can win. In so doing, Record employs a comparative analysis of the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. He also identifies and assesses the influence of distinctive features of the American way of war on the U.S. forces performance against the Iraqi insurgency. Make no mistake: insurgent victories are the exception, not the rule. But when David does beat Goliath, the consequences can be earth shattering and change the course of history. Jeffrey Record s persuasive logic and clear writing make this timely book a must read for scholars, policymakers, military strategists, and anyone interested in the Iraq War s outcome.

The New Order of War (Paperback): Bob Brecher The New Order of War (Paperback)
Bob Brecher
R2,345 Discovery Miles 23 450 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Far from heralding a time of unprecedented peace, the end of "actually existing communism" served to usher in new conflicts, new wars and new reasons for war. That much goes without saying. What is controversial, however, is how we might understand and respond to these new wars. This book offers a new approach. Its distinctive and multidisciplinary range of perspectives, offering quite different views, is based on the conviction that if we are to begin to get to grips with this central feature of our 21st Century lives, we have to go beyond an unhelpful moralism on the one hand and a defeatist appeal to "human nature" on the other.

Darwin and International Relations - On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict (Paperback): Bradley A Thayer Darwin and International Relations - On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict (Paperback)
Bradley A Thayer
R914 Discovery Miles 9 140 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Pathbreaking and controversial, Darwin and International Relations offers the first comprehensive analysis of international affairs of state through the lens of evolutionary theory. Bradley A. Thayer provides a new method for investigating and explaining human and state behavior while generating insights into the origins of human and animal warfare, ethnic conflict, and the influence of disease on international relations. Using ethnological and statistical studies of warfare among tribal societies, Thayer argues that humans wage war for reasons predicted by evolutionary theory -- to gain and protect vital resources but also for the physically and emotionally stimulating effects of combat. Thayer demonstrates that an evolutionary understanding of disease will become a more important part of the study of international relations as new strains of diseases emerge and advances in genetics make biological warfare a more effective weapon for states and terrorists. He also explains the deep causes of ethnic conflict by illuminating how xenophobia and ethnocentrism evolved in humans. He notes that these behaviors once contributed to our ancestors' success in radically different environments, but they remain a part of us. Darwin and International Relations makes a major contribution to our understanding of human history and the future of international relations.

First Do No Harm - Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Paperback): David N. Gibbs First Do No Harm - Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Paperback)
David N. Gibbs
R1,204 Discovery Miles 12 040 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

In "First Do No Harm," David Gibbs raises basic questions about the humanitarian interventions that have played a key role in U.S. foreign policy for the past twenty years. Using a wide range of sources, including government documents, transcripts of international war crimes trials, and memoirs, Gibbs shows how these interventions often heightened violence and increased human suffering.

The book focuses on the 1991--99 breakup of Yugoslavia, which helped forge the idea that the United States and its allies could stage humanitarian interventions that would end ethnic strife. It is widely believed that NATO bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo played a vital role in stopping Serb-directed aggression, and thus resolving the conflict.

Gibbs challenges this view, offering an extended critique of Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide." He shows that intervention contributed to the initial breakup of Yugoslavia, and then helped spread the violence and destruction. Gibbs also explains how the motives for U.S. intervention were rooted in its struggle for continued hegemony in Europe.

"First Do No Harm" argues for a new, noninterventionist model for U.S. foreign policy, one that deploys nonmilitary methods for addressing ethnic violence.

International Humanitarian Law (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition): Emily Crawford, Alison Pert International Humanitarian Law (Paperback, 2nd Revised edition)
Emily Crawford, Alison Pert
R1,524 Discovery Miles 15 240 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The law that regulates armed conflicts is one of the oldest branches of international law, and yet continues to be one of the most dynamic areas of law today. This book provides an accessible, scholarly, and up-to-date examination of international humanitarian law, offering a comprehensive and logical discussion and analysis of the law. The book contains detailed examples, extracts from relevant cases, useful discussion questions, and a recommended reading list for every chapter. Emerging trends in theory and practice of international humanitarian law are also explored, allowing for readers to build on their knowledge, and grapple with some of the biggest challenges facing the law of armed conflict in the twenty-first century. This second edition offers new sections on issues like detention in non-international armed conflict, characterisation of non-international armed conflicts, expanded chapters on occupation and the protection of civilians, means and methods of warfare, and implementation, enforcement and accountability.

Piercing the Fog of War - The Theory and Practice of Command in the British and German Armies, 1918-1940 (Hardcover): Martin... Piercing the Fog of War - The Theory and Practice of Command in the British and German Armies, 1918-1940 (Hardcover)
Martin Samuels
R995 R832 Discovery Miles 8 320 Save R163 (16%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

Since the late 1970s, anglophone and German military literature has been fascinated by the Wehrmacht's command system, especially the practice of Auftragstaktik. There have been many descriptions of the doctrine, and examinations of its historical origins, as well as unflattering comparisons with the approaches of the British and American armies prior to their adoption of Mission Command in the late 1980s. Almost none of these, however, have sought to understand the different approaches to command in the context of a fundamental characteristic of warfare - friction. This would be like trying to understand flight, without any reference to aerodynamics. Inherently flawed, yet this is the norm in the military literature. This book seeks to address that gap. First, the nature of friction, and the potential command responses to it, are considered. This allows the development of a typology of eight command approaches, each approach then being tested to identify its relative effectiveness and requirements for success. Second, the British and German armies' doctrines of command during the period are examined, in order to reveal similarities and differences in relation to their perspective on the nature of warfare and the most appropriate responses. The experience of Erwin Rommel, both as a young subaltern fighting the Italians in 1917, and then as a newly-appointed divisional commander against the French in 1940, is used to test the expression of the German doctrine in practice. Third, the interaction of these different command doctrines is explored in case studies of two key armoured battles, Amiens in August 1918 and Arras in May 1940, allowing the strengths and weaknesses of each to be highlighted and the typology to be tested. The result is intended to offer a new and deeper understanding of both the nature of command as a response to friction, and the factors that need to be in place in order to allow a given command approach to achieve success. The book therefore in two ways represents a sequel to my earlier work, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (London: Cass, 1995), in that it both takes the conceptual model of command developed there to a deeper level, and also takes the story from the climax of 1918 up to the end of the first phase of the Second World War.

Fresh Perspectives on the 'War on Terror' (Paperback): Miriam Gani, Penelope Mathew Fresh Perspectives on the 'War on Terror' (Paperback)
Miriam Gani, Penelope Mathew
R776 Discovery Miles 7 760 Ships in 18 - 22 working days
The Remnants of War (Paperback): John Mueller The Remnants of War (Paperback)
John Mueller
R575 R529 Discovery Miles 5 290 Save R46 (8%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

"War . . . is merely an idea, an institution, like dueling or slavery, that has been grafted onto human existence. It is not a trick of fate, a thunderbolt from hell, a natural calamity, or a desperate plot contrivance dreamed up by some sadistic puppeteer on high. And it seems to me that the institution is in pronounced decline, abandoned as attitudes toward it have changed, roughly following the pattern by which the ancient and formidable institution of slavery became discredited and then mostly obsolete." from the Introduction

War is one of the great themes of human history and now, John Mueller believes, it is clearly declining. Developed nations have generally abandoned it as a way for conducting their relations with other countries, and most current warfare (though not all) is opportunistic predation waged by packs often remarkably small ones of criminals and bullies. Thus, argues Mueller, war has been substantially reduced to its remnants or dregs and thugs are the residual combatants.

Mueller is sensitive to the policy implications of this view. When developed states commit disciplined troops to peacekeeping, the result is usually a rapid cessation of murderous disorder. The Remnants of War thus reinvigorates our sense of the moral responsibility bound up in peacekeeping. In Mueller's view, capable domestic policing and military forces can also be effective in reestablishing civic order, and the building of competent governments is key to eliminating most of what remains of warfare."

On War (Paperback): Carl Von Clausewitz On War (Paperback)
Carl Von Clausewitz
R744 Discovery Miles 7 440 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

If, in the next place, we keep once more to the pure conception of War, then we must say that the political object properly lies out of its province, for if War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfil our will, then in every case all depends on our overthrowing the enemy, that is, disarming him, and on that alone.

How to Go to War (Paperback): Andrew Blick How to Go to War (Paperback)
Andrew Blick; Foreword by Peter Hennessy
R299 Discovery Miles 2 990 Ships in 2 - 4 working days

Once the fog of war had cleared, the conflict in Iraq became the subject of intense and often heated debate about the constitutional and legal underpinning of Tony Blair's decision to stand shoulder to shoulder in the desert with George Bush, culminating in the attempt to impeach Tony Blair. In How To Go To War one of Britain's best young constitutional experts examines all the issues from both a domestic and an international point of view, and assesses how far the arguments of the dissenters stand up.

The Japanese Art of War - Understanding the Culture of Strategy (Paperback, New Ed): Thomas Cleary The Japanese Art of War - Understanding the Culture of Strategy (Paperback, New Ed)
Thomas Cleary
R471 Discovery Miles 4 710 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Military rule and the martial tradition of the samurai dominated Japanese culture for more than eight hundred years. According to Thomas Cleary--translator of more than thirty-five classics of Asian philosophy--the Japanese people have been so steeped in the way of the warrior that some of the manners and mentality of this outlook remain embedded in their individual and collective consciousness. Cleary shows how well-known attributes such as the reserve and mystery of formal Japanese behavior are deeply rooted in the ancient strategies of the traditional arts of war. Citing original Japanese sources that are popular among Japanese readers today, he reveals the hidden forces behind Japanese attitudes and conduct in political, business, social, and personal life.

Constant Battles - Why We Fight (Paperback, 1st St. Martin's Griffin ed): Steven A LeBlanc, Katherine Register Constant Battles - Why We Fight (Paperback, 1st St. Martin's Griffin ed)
Steven A LeBlanc, Katherine Register
R459 R429 Discovery Miles 4 290 Save R30 (7%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days

With armed conflict in the Persian Gulf now upon us, Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc takes a long-term view of the nature and roots of war, presenting a controversial thesis: The notion of the "noble savage" living in peace with one another and in harmony with nature is a fantasy. In "Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage," LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history, and that humans have never lived in ecological balance with nature.
The start of the second major U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf, combined with regular headlines about spiraling environmental destruction, would tempt anyone to conclude that humankind is fast approaching a catastrophic end. But as LeBlanc brilliantly argues, the archaeological record shows that the warfare and ecological destruction we find today fit into patterns of human behavior that have gone on for millions of years.
"Constant Battles" surveys human history in terms of social organization-from hunter gatherers, to tribal agriculturalists, to more complex societies. LeBlanc takes the reader on his own digs around the world -- from New Guinea to the Southwestern U.S. to Turkey -- to show how he has come to discover warfare everywhere at every time. His own fieldwork combined with his archaeological, ethnographic, and historical research, presents a riveting account of how, throughout human history, people always have outgrown the carrying capacity of their environment, which has led to war.
Ultimately, though, LeBlanc's point of view is reassuring and optimistic. As he explains the roots of warfare in human history, he also demonstrates that warfare today has far less impact than it did in the past. He also argues that, as awareness of these patterns and the advantages of modern technology increase, so does our ability to avoid war in the future.

Artificial War: Multiagent-based Simulation Of Combat (Hardcover): Andrew Ilachinski Artificial War: Multiagent-based Simulation Of Combat (Hardcover)
Andrew Ilachinski
R5,004 Discovery Miles 50 040 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Military conflicts, particularly land combat, possess all of the key attributes of complex adaptive systems: combat forces are composed of many nonlinearly interacting parts and are organized in a dynamic command-and-control hierarchy; local action, which often appears disordered, self-organizes into long-range order; military conflicts, by their nature, proceed far from equilibrium; military forces adapt to a changing combat environment; and there is no master "voice" that dictates the actions of every soldier (i.e., battlefield action is decentralized). Nonetheless, most modern "state of the art" military simulations ignore the self-organizing properties of combat. This book develops the proposition that combat is more like an interpenetration of two living, coevolving fluids rather than an elastic collision between two hard billiard balls. Artificial-life techniques--specifically, multiagent-based models coupled with evolutionary learning algorithms--provide a powerful new approach to understanding the fundamental processes of war. The book introduces an artificial-life model of combat called EINSTein. Recently developed at the Center for Naval Analyses, USA by the author, EINSTein is one of the first systematic attempts to simulate combat on a small-to-medium scale by using autonomous agents to model individual behaviors and personalities rather than hardware. EINSTein shows that many aspects of land combat may be understood as self-organized, emergent phenomena resulting from the dynamic web of interactions among coevolving agents. Thus, its bottom-up, synthesist approach to modeling combat stands in vivid contrast to the current top-down, reductionist approach taken byconventional models. EINSTein is the first step toward a complex-systems-theoretic toolbox for identifying, exploring, and exploiting self-organized emergent patterns of behavior on the real battlefield.

Command Failure in War - Psychology and Leadership (Hardcover): Philip Langer, Robert Pois Command Failure in War - Psychology and Leadership (Hardcover)
Philip Langer, Robert Pois
R694 Discovery Miles 6 940 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Why do military commanders, most of them usually quite capable, fail at crucial moments of their careers? Robert Pois and Philip Langer one a historian, the other an educational psychologist study seven cases of military command failures, from Frederick the Great at Kunersdorf to Hitler s invasion of Russia. While the authors recognize the value of psychological theorizing, they do not believe that one method can cover all the individuals, battles, or campaigns under examination. Instead, they judiciously take a number of psycho-historical approaches in hope of shedding light on the behaviors of commanders during war. The other battles and commanders studied here are Napoleon in Russia, George B. McClellan s Peninsular Campaign, Robert E. Lee and Pickett s Charge at Gettysburg, John Bell Hood at the Battle of Franklin, Douglas Haig and the British command during World War I, "Bomber" Harris and the Strategic Bombing of Germany, and Stalingrad."

Vegetius: Epitoma rei militaris (Hardcover): M.D. Reeve Vegetius: Epitoma rei militaris (Hardcover)
M.D. Reeve
R1,106 Discovery Miles 11 060 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The first modern critical edition (based on a comprehensive investigation of over 200 surviving manuscripts) of the fullest ancient manual of Roman warfare. Few secular authors of antiquity were as popular in the Middle Ages as Vegetius (AD 379-95). In addition to the Latin text and apparatus there is also a wide-ranging introduction in English.

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