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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Theory of warfare & military science
Since the end of the Cold War, competition among states has been
waged along economic rather than ideological or military lines. In
Canada, as elsewhere, this shift has forced a rethinking of the
role of intelligence services in protecting and promoting national
economic security. The scholars and practitioners featured here
explore the aim, existing mandate, and practical applications of
economic espionage from a Canadian and comparative perspective, and
present a range of options for policy-makers. Economic Intelligence
& National Security examines the laws in place to thwart
economic spying, and the challenges and ethical problems faced by
agencies working clandestinely to support their national private
sectors.
Common and destructive, limited wars are significant international
events that pose a number of challenges to the states involved
beyond simple victory or defeat. Chief among these challenges is
the risk of escalation - be it in the scale, scope, cost, or
duration of the conflict. In this book, Spencer D. Bakich
investigates a crucial and heretofore ignored factor in determining
the nature and direction of limited war: information institutions.
Traditional assessments of wartime strategy focus on the
relationship between the military and civilians, but Bakich argues
that we must also take into account the information flow patterns
among top policy makers and all national security organizations. By
examining the fate of American military and diplomatic strategy in
four limited wars, Bakich demonstrates how not only the
availability and quality of information, but also the ways in which
information is gathered, managed, analyzed, and used, shape a
state's ability to wield power effectively in dynamic and complex
international systems. Utilizing a range of primary and secondary
source materials, Success and Failure in Limited War makes a timely
case for the power of information in war, with crucial implications
for international relations theory and statecraft.
How do people decide which country came out ahead in a war or a
crisis? Why, for instance, was the Mayaguez Incident in May
1975--where 41 U.S. soldiers were killed and dozens more wounded in
a botched hostage rescue mission--perceived as a triumph and the
1992-94 U.S. humanitarian intervention in Somalia, which saved
thousands of lives, viewed as a disaster? In "Failing to Win,"
Dominic Johnson and Dominic Tierney dissect the psychological
factors that predispose leaders, media, and the public to perceive
outcomes as victories or defeats--often creating wide gaps between
perceptions and reality.
To make their case, Johnson and Tierney employ two frameworks:
"Scorekeeping," which focuses on actual material gains and losses;
and "Match-fixing," where evaluations become skewed by mindsets,
symbolic events, and media and elite spin. In case studies ranging
from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the current War on Terror,
the authors show that much of what we accept about international
politics and world history is not what it seems--and why, in a time
when citizens offer or withdraw support based on an imagined view
of the outcome rather than the result on the ground, perceptions of
success or failure can shape the results of wars, the fate of
leaders, and the "lessons" we draw from history.
John Spencer was a new second lieutenant in 2003 when he parachuted
into Iraq leading a platoon of infantry soldiers into battle.
During that combat tour, he learned how important unit cohesion was
to surviving a war, both physically and mentally. He observed that
this cohesion developed as the soldiers experienced the horrors of
combat as a group, spending their downtime together and processing
their shared experiences. When Spencer returned to Iraq five years
later to take command of a troubled company, he found that his
lessons on how to build unit cohesion were no longer as applicable.
Rather than bonding and processing trauma as a group, soldiers now
spent their downtime separately, on computers communicating with
family back home. Spencer came to see the internet as a threat to
unit cohesion, but when he returned home and his wife was deployed,
the internet connected him and his children to his wife on a daily
basis. In Connected Soldiers Spencer delivers lessons learned about
effective methods for building teams in a way that overcomes the
distractions of home and the outside world, without reducing the
benefits gained from connections to family.
Raymond Aron made major investigations into the dialectic between
war and peace, and also developed a sophisticated theory of
international relations. Despite this, his body of work has been
overlooked compared to that of his more famous contemporaries. This
book shines a light on both the man and his work on ideological
critique, the philosophy of history, international relations and
political economy. The book also discusses Aron's political legacy
and argues that a number of his critiques and theories can help us
address many of the problems and conflicts of the 21st century.
What essential leadership lessons do we learn by distilling the
actions and ideas of great military commanders such as George
Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Colin Powell? The Art of
Command demonstrates that great leaders become great through a
commitment not only to develop vital skills but also to surmount
personal shortcomings. In the second edition of this classic
resource, Harry S. Laver, Jeffrey J. Matthews, and the other
contributing authors identify eleven core characteristics of highly
effective leaders, such as integrity, determination, vision, and
charisma, and eleven significant figures in American military
history who embody those qualities. Featuring new chapters on
transitional leadership, innovative leadership, and authentic
leadership, this insightful book offers valuable perspectives on
the art of military command in American history.
This broad-ranging new text introduces a wide range of theoretical
perspectives with a central focus on their application to
understanding key issues in global, state and human security in the
contemporary world.
Warrior Geeks examines how technology is transforming the way we
think about and fight war, taking three major changes that are
driving this process: cybernetic technologies that are folding
soldiers into a cybernetic system that will allow the military to
read their thoughts and emotions and mould them accordingly; the
coexistence of men and robots in the battle-spaces of tomorrow; and
the extent to which we may be able to re-engineer warriors through
pharmacological manipulation. By referring back to the Greeks who
defined the contours of war for us, Coker shows how we are in
danger of losing touch with our humanity - the name we give not
only to a species but the virtues we deem it to embody. The journey
from Greeks to Geeks may be a painful one. War can only be rendered
more humane if we stay in touch with the ancestors, yet
unfortunately we are planning to subcontract our ethical choices to
machines. In revaluing technology, are we devaluing our humanity,
or the post-human condition, changing our subjectivity and thus the
existential dimension of war by changing our relationship with
technology both functionally and performatively?
After World War II, the United States military increasingly found
itself involved in operations that have been described variously as
limited wars, small wars, low intensity conflicts, operations other
than war, support and stability operations, and the like. The name
common for such operations throughout much of the 1990s was
""operations other than war"" (OOTW). During this period there was
an explosion of doctrinal material on the subject, including an
official field manual, FM 100-5, which appeared in 1993 and listed
six principles of OOTW: objective, unity of effort, legitimacy,
perseverance, restraint and security. The author of the present
work examines four successful OOTWs (the Greek Civil War, Lebanon,
the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua/Honduras) and four failed
ones (Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, and Haiti) and concludes that there
is a positive correlation between adherence to the principles and
the operation's outcome. Furthermore, the author suggests that some
of the principles serve as ""necessary conditions"" for others.
From Angola and Liberia to Iraq and the Congo, wars have taken
place in resource rich countries full of poor people. In Wars of
Plunder Philippe Le Billon explores how resources have shaped
recent conflicts, and what the international community has tried to
do about it. Focusing on key resources-oil, diamonds, and timber-he
argues that resources and wars are linked in three main ways.
First, resource revenues finance belligerents, a trend that has
become all the more conspicuous since the withdrawal of Cold War
foreign sponsorship in the late 1980s. Although the 'War on Terror'
has redefined military assistance and the internationalisation of
war, many belligerents continue to rely on and profit from
'conflict resources'. Second, resource exploitation generates
conflict. As global demand for raw materials has sharply increased,
competition over critical resources such as oil has resulted in a
flurry of 'resource conflicts', from local community struggles
against mining multinationals to regional and international
tensions. Third, economic shocks and poor governance sharply
increase the risk of war (the 'resource curse'). While today's
resource boom is a major economic opportunity for resource rich but
poor countries, reliance on resource exports often implies sharp
economic downturns. Not all resources are the same, however, and
effective responses are at hand. Sanctions, military interventions
and wealth sharing have helped bring an end to conflicts, yet only
deeper domestic and international reforms in resource governance
can stop the plunder.
Colin Gray presents an inventive treatise on the nature of
strategy, war, and peace, organized around forty maxims. This
collection of mini essays will forearm politicians, soldiers, and
the attentive general public against many-probably most- fallacies
that abound in contemporary debates about war, peace, and security.
While one can never guarantee strategic success, which depends on
policy, military prowess, and the quality of the dialogue between
the two, a strategic education led by the judgments in these maxims
increases the chances that one's errors will be small rather than
catastrophic. The maxims are grouped according to five
clusters."War and Peace" tackles the larger issues of strategic
history that drive the demand for the services of strategic thought
and practice. "Strategy" presses further, into the realm of
strategic behavior, and serves as a bridge between the political
focus of part one and the military concerns that follow. "Military
Power and Warfare" turns to the pragmatic business of military
performance: operations, tactics, and logistics. Part four,
"Security and Insecurity," examines why strategy is important,
including a discussion of the nature, dynamic character, and
functioning of world politics. Finally, "History and the Future" is
meant to help strategists better understand the processes of
historical change.
Will international wars where energy resources play a central role
continue to hold sway over life and death for industrialized
nations, or is this a transient phase in the evolution of
industrial societies? This book answers this question by tracing
the history of energy and conflict from antiquity, through the epic
hot and cold wars of the twentieth century, to expected outcome of
the war in Iraq. It points the way to the end of wars over control
of fossil fuels, and demonstrates why these may be the last major
international wars over other resources as well.This book is a
must-read for anyone interested in the future of energy use or
international conflict. Readers will find in it an illuminating
overview of the sweep of historical events. The book further
provides a compelling explanation of how a thorough understanding
of the evolutionary direction of these events challenges the
conventional wisdom that resource wars are endemic to the nature of
industrial society, thus offering a fresh view on one of the most
important challenges of our time.
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 prompted unprecedented public
interest in the ethics of war, a debate that has raged furiously in
the media, in politics and in the public consciousness ever since.
In this fascinating and informative book, Nicholas Fotion, an
expert on the ethics of military action, explores the notion of
developing an ethical theory that guides the behaviour of those who
are at war. Fotion gives a clear account of just war theory,
presenting it as a useful device in helping us make decisions about
what we should do when war appears on the horizon. Examining
conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Israel, the Falklands and
Afghanistan, the book interrogates the roles of the various parties
involved in military action - the military, government officials,
and the side-line judges (journalists, citizens, scholars, neutral
nations) - and the role just war theory should play as a direct
guide to behaviour. Articulate, provocative and stimulating, War
and Ethics is an ideal introduction to this hugely important
debate.
On the major European and Russian fronts throughout World War II,
the challenge of crossing rivers under fire was absolutely central
to any advance. The Panzers that crossed the Meuse at Sedan in May
1940 cut the French Army in two. The Wehrmacht's ability to cross
the great rivers of the western USSR was vital to the lightning
advances of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and in 1943-45 the Red
Army had to drive the Germans back from a succession of river lines
during their advance to the Reich, culminating in the Vistula and
Oder lines. With World War II armies dependent on heavy mechanized
equipment, the function which rivers played became essential for
soldiers in all sides of the war. World War II River Assault
Tactics details the methods, means and analysis of specific
successes and failures. Featuring a wealth of wartime photos,
particularly from German sources, and full-colour plates
illustrating tactical scenarios, the subject is brought to life.
In the post 9/11 world, the emotionally charged concepts of
identity and ideology, enmity and political violence have once
again become household words. Contrary to the serene assumptions of
the early 1990s, history did not end. Civilisations are busy
clashing against one another, and the self-proclaimed pacified
humanity is once again showing its barbaric roots.Religion mixes
with politics to produce governments that abuse even their own
citizens, and victorious insurgents too often fail to carry out the
promised reforms. Terrorists blow up unsuspecting pedestrians, and
allegedly democratic nations threaten to bomb allegedly less
democratic ones back to the Stone Age. Mass demonstrations
materialise like flash mobs out of nowhere, prepared to hold their
ground until the bitter end.Where does all this passionate
intensity come from? To better understand how the ideological
enmity of today is moulded, spread and managed, this book
investigates the propaganda operations of the past. Its topics
range from the ruthless portrayal of female enemy soldiers in an
early-20th-century civil war setting to the multiple enemy images
cherished by Adolf Hitler, and onwards, to the WWII Soviet Russians
as a subtype of a more ancient notion of the Eastern Hordes. Of
more recent events, the book covers the Rwandan genocide of 1994
and the still ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. The closing
chapter on cyber warfare introduces the reader to the invisible
enemies of the future.
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