|
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Theory of warfare & military science
This Book Set consists of: *9781848558908 - Advances in Military
Sociology: Essays in Honor of Charles C. Moskos (Part A)
*9781848558922 - Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honor of
Charles C. Moskos (Part B) There could be no better homage to
recently deceased sociologist Charles C. Moskos than dedicating to
him this selection of the papers presented at RC01's international
conference in Seoul (July 2008). It offers an up-to-date view of
the panorama of social studies on armed forces and conflict
resolution in a context of fast-moving change that renders many
preceding theoretical previsions obsolete. Just to cite two aspects
of this change, one can point first of all to how the presented
studies move beyond the very concept of globalization, after which
the conference had been named. It in fact emerged with clarity that
the new dimensions of the context in which militaries and military
policy must move are those of a constant, diffuse interaction of
the 'local' and the 'global', so-called globalization. A second
aspect, in the international area, is the shift towards a
multipolar global order with the United States, the European Union,
China, Russia, Latin America, Japan and India all manoeuvring for
position, a shift that has significant consequences on military
action as well.
Timely and pathbreaking, "Securing the Peace" is the first book
to explore the complete spectrum of civil war terminations,
including negotiated settlements, military victories by governments
and rebels, and stalemates and ceasefires. Examining the outcomes
of all civil war terminations since 1940, Monica Toft develops a
general theory of postwar stability, showing how third-party
guarantees may not be the best option. She demonstrates that
thorough security-sector reform plays a critical role in
establishing peace over the long term.
Much of the thinking in this area has centered on third parties
presiding over the maintenance of negotiated settlements, but the
problem with this focus is that fewer than a quarter of recent
civil wars have ended this way. Furthermore, these settlements have
been precarious, often resulting in a recurrence of war. Toft finds
that military victory, especially victory by rebels, lends itself
to a more durable peace. She argues for the importance of the
security sector--the police and military--and explains that
victories are more stable when governments can maintain order. Toft
presents statistical evaluations and in-depth case studies that
include El Salvador, Sudan, and Uganda to reveal that where the
security sector remains robust, stability and democracy are likely
to follow.
An original and thoughtful reassessment of civil war
terminations, "Securing the Peace" will interest all those
concerned about resolving our world's most pressing conflicts.
A rich and suggestive analysis of military ways of seeing,
revealing the convergence of perception and destruction in the
parallel technologies of warfare and cinema.
Do some technologies provoke war? Do others promote peace?
Offense-defense theory contends that technological change is an
important cause of conflict: leaders will be tempted to launch wars
when they believe innovation favors attackers over defenders.
Offense-defense theory is perhaps best known from the passionate
and intricate debates about first-strike capability and deterrence
stability during the cold war, but it has deeper historical roots,
remains a staple in international relations theorizing, and drives
modern arms control policymaking.In War and the Engineers, the
first book systematically to test the logical and empirical
validity of offense-defense theory, Keir A. Lieber examines the
relationships among politics, technology, and the causes of war.
Lieber's cases explore the military and political implications of
the spread of railroads, the emergence of rifled small arms and
artillery, the introduction of battle tanks, and the nuclear
revolution. Lieber incorporates the new historiography of World War
I, which draws on archival materials that only recently became
available, to challenge many common beliefs about the conflict. The
author's central conclusion is that technology is neither a cause
of international conflict nor a panacea; instead, power politics
remains paramount.
This title draws upon information derived primarily from interviews
with and interrogations of senior Iraqi military and civilian
officials to examine why the Iraqi resistance in March and April
2003 was so weak. It focuses on two questions: Why did the Iraqi
Regular Army and Republican Guard forces do so little fighting? and
Why did Iraqi leaders fail to adopt certain defensive measures that
would have made the Coalition's task more difficult?
"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."
Current U.S. forces have little experience with urban warfare. This
report identifies shortfalls in urban combat ground reconnaissance
and assists in the creation of urban reconnaissance tactics,
techniques, and procedures for the Marine Corps. The authors
discuss four challenges: the constant adaptation demanded by the
environment, the complexity of ground reconnaissance, the demands
of urban operations on military personnel, and the demands of these
operations on equipment and technology. The analysts' purpose is to
narrow the gap between these challenges and the solutions
immediately at hand.
This title addresses the new challenges for defense policy in a
world transformed by the end of the Cold War and the n the war on
terrorism, and sketches new analytic techniques for framing
particular defense issues.
A metamodel approximates the behavior of a more complex model. A
common and superficially attractive way to develop a metamodel is
to generate large-model data and use off-the-shelf statistical
methods without attempting to understand the model's internal
workings. This report describes research illuminating why it can be
important to improve the quality of metamodels by using even modest
phenomenological knowledge to help structure them. The work helps
to understand multiresolution, multiperspective modeling.
The Powell Principles details the decision-making habits, success strategies, and leadership philosophies of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Filled with insights that are as refreshingly honest as they are grittily real, this concise, no-nonsense book reveals the keys to Powells unprecedented success, keys that include:
- Walk the talk
- Be a dis-organizer
- Let change lead growth
- Be prepared to piss people off
- Check your ego at the door
- Push the envelope
- Let situation dictate strategy
- Challenge the pros
- Trust those in the trenches
- Prepare to be lonely
Colin Powell rose from the hardscrabble streets of the Bronx to become the man Newsweek calls ...the most respected figure in American public life. Let The Powell Principles introduce you to the principles that drove him to the top and provide you with a blueprint for inspiring anyone--including yourself--to achieve extraordinary levels of professional success.
A survey of insights gained from wargames conducted by the U.S.
Army's Training and Doctrine Command, as they relate to current
studies and analyses of homeland security. RAND Arroyo Center has
analyzed U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command's program of
homeland security games, seminars, and workshops. The insights and
issues raised here highlight new and emerging threats and
vulnerabilities to the physical security of the United States.
In the post Cold War era does the withdrawal of armies from direct
rule in most countries herald an end to their role as actors in
domestic politics? Is it indeed sensible to assume that political
intervention by the military has been more or less permanently
superceded? Drawing on the 20th century experience of a dozen
important countries this book examines a number of closely related
issues: What generalizations can be made about the causes and
enduring consequences of military rule for nation building and
economic development? How have the passing of the Cold War, the
rise of globalization and other changes in the 1990s affected the
political role of the military? How can we assess the role of
political armies in relation to the problems of consolidating civil
politics and democratic governance? Are there lessons for policy
makers to be learned from a comparative analysis of political
armies in such fields as global governance and post-conflict
reconstruction? This stimulating set of explorations and
investigations builds on previous theories about the role of the
military in politics and looks to the future - the possible
proliferation of armed actors, new perversions in the domestic
roles of the armed forces, and the much more prominent emergence of
privatized forces of law and order.
When is the use of military force by a nation morally justified?
Why has the long accepted moral requirement to protect civilians
from intentional attack eroded in recent years? How can the
tendency toward unrestrained warfare between parties with major
cultural differences be controlled? In this thought-provoking book,
James Turner Johnson refocuses the moral analysis of war on the
real problems of today's armed conflicts. Moral debates about
nuclear war and annihilation fail to address the problems of actual
contemporary uses of military force, Johnson argues. We must
address the type of armed conflict that has emerged at the end of
the twentieth century: local wars--often inflamed by historical,
ethnic, or religious animosities and usually fought with
conventional weapons that can be carried by individual fighters.
Johnson sets out a moral basis for understanding when armed force
can be justified. He analyzes specific problems posed by
contemporary warfare: the question of military intervention to
ameliorate or end conflicts, the question of warfare against
noncombatants, the problem of cultural differences inflaming
conflict, and the tension between those who would punish war crimes
and those hoping to reconcile adversaries. The author concludes
with a discussion of how to reshape and renew an international
consensus on the proper purposes and limits to war.
We have seen recent massive intervention by the United States and
its allies in Europe in internal conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo. In
"Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict," Patrick Regan
systematically answers the question about the conditions under
which third parties intervene in civil conflicts to stop the
fighting. It uses data on all civil conflicts since 1945 to
identify those conflicts that are amenable to outside interventions
and the types of interventions that are more likely to be
successful.
"Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict" is a book about how
governments can help facilitate the end of civil conflicts. In a
time when internal conflicts appear to be increasing in number, and
increasingly destabilizing, governments need to know what policies
work and when. Interventions are generally of two
sorts--unilateral, or when one state takes action, and
multilateral, such as UN or NATO action. This book examines the
conditions under which each form of intervention is most likely and
most effective. The analysis suggests that three conditions
associated with multi-lateral interventions will increase the
likelihood of success: mutual consent of the parties involved;
impartiality on the part of the intervenors; and the existence of a
coherent intervention strategy. The questions are posed from the
perspective of the decision maker and the answers offered are
framed in a language familiar to the decision-making community. The
book mixes descriptive case material with systematic statistical
analysis of a unique data set of all civil conflicts since World
War II, providing contemporary examples to illustrate overall
trends in the data. Beyond the policy implicationsthis work is also
rich in theoretical development about issues of conflict and
conflict management.
This book will appeal to students of international conflict, civil
war, ethnic conflict, and those who are concerned with developing
policy in the post-cold war world to deal with intrastate
conflict.
Patrick M. Regan is Assistant Professor of Political Science,
Binghamton University.
|
|