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Europe is a continent weighed down by the shadows of its past, its
wars, the traditional enmities, the suspicions of neighbours
fuelled by historical memories. This has immediate consequences for
the understanding and representation of the past: journalists,
politicians, historians often apply simplistic, pre-conceived
patterns, i.e., myths, to current events, resulting in distorted
and misleading analyses. This volume exposes the way some
historical myths, such as Balance of Power, Rapallo, the Special
Relationship, the Franco-German Couple, the Peril of Islam, are
used to blur, not to clarify our understanding of international
affairs, even to manipulate contemporary politics. Cyrill Buffet is
Research Fellow at the Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin and Beatrice
Heuser is Lecturer in War Studies at King's College, London.
In early modern times, warfare in Europe took on many diverse and
overlapping forms. Our modern notions of 'regular' and 'irregular'
warfare, of 'major war' and 'small war', have their roots in much
greater diversity than such binary notions allow for. While
insurgencies go back to time immemorial, they have become
conceptually fused with 'small wars'. This is a term first used to
denote special operations, often carried out by military companies
formed from special ethnic groups and then recruited into larger
armies. In its Spanish form, guerrilla, the term 'small war' came
to stand for an ideologically-motivated insurgency against the
state authorities or occupying forces of another power. There is
much overlap between the phenomena of irregular warfare in the
sense of special operations alongside regular operations, and
irregular warfare of insurgents against the regular forces of a
state. This book demonstrates how long the two phenomena were in
flux and fed on each other, from the raiding operations of the 16th
century to the 'small wars' or special operations conducted by
special units in the 19th century, which existed alongside and
could merge with a popular insurgency. This book is based on a
special issue of the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies.
As European security structures are undergoing transformation in
the 1990s it is crucial to examine their origins and rationale:
NATO secured peace and facilitated economic and political
co-operation, while also becoming the vehicle of national rivalry.
This book examines why and how NATO came into existence, and what
its strengths and weaknesses were during its formative years. It
draws conclusions from these experiences relevant to the reforms of
Western security structures in the 1990s.
Contents: 1. Introduction: methodology of this project Beatrice Heuser and Anja V. Hartmann 2. History and International Relations theory Andreas Osiander Part I - War and peace in classical antiquity Introduction Hans van Wees and John Rich 3. War and peace in ancient Greece Hans van Wees 4. Greeks and Persians: West against East Simon Hornblower 5. Warfare and external relations in the middle Roman Republic John Rich 6. Roman-Carthaginian Relations: From co-operation to annihilation Ruth Stepper Part II - War, peace and faith in the Middle Ages Introduction Julian Chrysostomides and Beatrice Heuser 7. Byzantine concepts of war and peace Julian Chrysostomides 8. Collective identities, war and integration in the Early Middle Ages Berhnard Zeller 9. Warfare in the Middle Ages Jan Willem Honig 10. The crusading movement Jonathan Riley-Smith 11. War, peace and national identity in the Hundred Years' War Anne Curry Part III - War and peace in early modern Europe Introduction Anja V. Hartmann 12. Wars of religion: The examples of France, Spain and the Low Countries in the sixteenth century Aline Goosens 13. Identities and mentalities in the Thirty Years' War Anja V. Hartmann 14. Interstate war and peace in Early Modern Europe Heinz Duchhardt Part IV - The era of ideological wars Introduction Beatrice Heuser 1 5. The revolutionary period, 1789 - 1802 Marc Belissa and Patrice Leclercq 16. From Volkskrieg to Vernichtungskrieg: German concepts of warfare, 1871-1935 Robert T. Foley 17. Enemy image and identity in the Warsaw Pact Michael Ploetz 18. Conclusions Anja V. Hartmann and Beatrice Heuser
This book explores a new way for students of International Relations to look at war, peace and world orders throughout European history. Its specialist historians argue that the predominant 'realist' paradigm that focuses on states and their self-interest is not applicable to the largest period of European history because states either did not exist or were only in the making. Instead, they argue, we have to look through the eyes of historical entities to see how they understood the world in which they lived, The authors use a wide range of case studies, focusing in subjects as diverse as the ancient Greek concept of honour, the persecution under Communist regimes during the Cold War to explore the ways in which people in different societies at different times perceived and felt about war and peace in the world around them.
This tightly argued and profoundly thought provoking book tackles a
huge subject: the coming of the nuclear age with bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the ways in which it has
changed our lives since. Dr Heuser sets these events in their
historical context and tackles key issues about the effect of
nuclear weapons on modern attitudes to conflict, and on the ethics
of warfare. Ducking nothing, she demystifies the subject, seeing
`the bomb' not as something unique and paralysing, but as an
integral part of the strategic and moral context of our time. For a
wide multidisciplinary and general readership.
This book reintroduces readers to the lives and writings of the
greatest military minds of the modern era, writers whose ideas and
teachings continue to shape the conduct of war in the 21st century.
The word "strategy" only came into usage in West European languages
after the work of a Byzantine emperor was translated around the
time of the French Revolution. Nevertheless, there was writing on
strategy – relating political aims to the use of the military –
also in Western Europe, well before this. This book surveys and
analyzes the existing literature. It presents commented excerpts of
the work of the Elizabethan writer Matthew Sutcliffe (who wrote the
first modern comprehensive strategic concept) and translations into
English of excerpts from the writing of the Machiavelli-admirer the
Seigneur de Fourquevaux (1548) and his French compatriot Bertrand
de Loque, who also went by the name of François de Saillans
(1589); the Spanish diplomats and military officers Don Bernardino
de Mendoza (1595) and the Third Marques of Santa Cruz de Marcenado
(1724-1730); the Frenchmen Paul Hay du Chastelet (1668) and Count
Guibert (1770); and the Prussian contemporary of Clausewitz, Rühle
von Lilienstern (1816). Key concepts such as preventive war, the
fight for the hearts and minds of the population to combat
insurgents, the "democratic peace theory," and debates such as the
preference for defense or the offensive, the desirability of
battle, the purpose and function of war, the advantages of
conscript or professional soldiers, can thus be shown to go back
far longer than generally assumed and appear in a new light.
This book is a major new study of the extent to which national
mentalities, or 'ways of war', are responsible for 'national
styles' of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Leading scholars
examine the ways of war of particular insurgent movements, and the
standard operational procedures of states and occupation forces to
suppress them. Through case studies ranging from British, American
and French counterinsurgency to the IRA and the Taliban, they show
how 'national styles' evolve, influenced by transnational trends,
ideas and practices. They examine whether we can identify a
tendency to resort to a particular pattern of fighting and, if so,
whether this is dictated by constants such as geography and
climate, or by the available options, or else whether there exists
a particular 'strategic culture' or 'national style'. Their
findings show that 'national style' is not eternal but can undergo
fundamental transformations.
Is there a Western way of war' which pursues battles of
annihilation and single-minded military victory? Is warfare on a
path to ever greater destructive force? This magisterial new
account answers these questions by tracing the history of Western
thinking about strategy the employment of military force as a
political instrument from antiquity to the present day. Assessing
sources from Vegetius to contemporary America, and with a
particular focus on strategy since the Napoleonic Wars, Beatrice
Heuser explores the evolution of strategic thought, the social
institutions, norms and patterns of behaviour within which it
operates, the policies that guide it and the cultures that
influence it. Ranging across technology and warfare, total warfare
and small wars as well as land, sea, air and nuclear warfare, she
demonstrates that warfare and strategic thinking have fluctuated
wildly in their aims, intensity, limitations and excesses over the
past two millennia."
This collection of essays combines historical research with
cutting-edge strategic analysis and makes a significant
contribution to the study of the early history of strategic
thinking. There is a debate as to whether strategy in its modern
definition existed before Napoleon and Clausewitz. The case studies
featured in this book show that strategic thinking did indeed exist
before the last century, and that there was strategy making, even
if there was no commonly agreed word for it. The volume uses a
variety of approaches. First, it explores the strategy making of
three monarchs whose biographers have claimed to have identified
strategic reasoning in their warfare: Edward III of England, Philip
II of Spain and Louis XIV of France. The book then analyses a
number of famous strategic thinkers and practitioners, including
Christine de Pizan, Lazarus Schwendi, Matthew Sutcliffe, Raimondo
Montecuccoli and Count Guibert, concluding with the ideas that
Clausewitz derived from other authors. Several chapters deal with
reflections on naval strategy long thought not to have existed
before the nineteenth century. Combining in-depth historical
documentary research with strategic analysis, the book illustrates
that despite social, economic, political, cultural and linguistic
differences, our forebears connected warfare and the aims and
considerations of statecraft just as we do today. This book will be
of great interest to students of strategic history and theory,
military history and IR in general.
As European security structures are undergoing transformation in
the 1990s it is crucial to examine their origins and rationale:
NATO secured peace and facilitated economic and political
co-operation, while also becoming the vehicle of national rivalry.
This book examines why and how NATO came into existence, and what
its strengths and weaknesses were during its formative years. It
draws conclusions from these experiences relevant to the reforms of
Western security structures in the 1990s.
This collection of essays combines historical research with
cutting-edge strategic analysis and makes a significant
contribution to the study of the early history of strategic
thinking. There is a debate as to whether strategy in its modern
definition existed before Napoleon and Clausewitz. The case studies
featured in this book show that strategic thinking did indeed exist
before the last century, and that there was strategy making, even
if there was no commonly agreed word for it. The volume uses a
variety of approaches. First, it explores the strategy making of
three monarchs whose biographers have claimed to have identified
strategic reasoning in their warfare: Edward III of England, Philip
II of Spain and Louis XIV of France. The book then analyses a
number of famous strategic thinkers and practitioners, including
Christine de Pizan, Lazarus Schwendi, Matthew Sutcliffe, Raimondo
Montecuccoli and Count Guibert, concluding with the ideas that
Clausewitz derived from other authors. Several chapters deal with
reflections on naval strategy long thought not to have existed
before the nineteenth century. Combining in-depth historical
documentary research with strategic analysis, the book illustrates
that despite social, economic, political, cultural and linguistic
differences, our forebears connected warfare and the aims and
considerations of statecraft just as we do today. This book will be
of great interest to students of strategic history and theory,
military history and IR in general.
In early modern times, warfare in Europe took on many diverse and
overlapping forms. Our modern notions of 'regular' and 'irregular'
warfare, of 'major war' and 'small war', have their roots in much
greater diversity than such binary notions allow for. While
insurgencies go back to time immemorial, they have become
conceptually fused with 'small wars'. This is a term first used to
denote special operations, often carried out by military companies
formed from special ethnic groups and then recruited into larger
armies. In its Spanish form, guerrilla, the term 'small war' came
to stand for an ideologically-motivated insurgency against the
state authorities or occupying forces of another power. There is
much overlap between the phenomena of irregular warfare in the
sense of special operations alongside regular operations, and
irregular warfare of insurgents against the regular forces of a
state. This book demonstrates how long the two phenomena were in
flux and fed on each other, from the raiding operations of the 16th
century to the 'small wars' or special operations conducted by
special units in the 19th century, which existed alongside and
could merge with a popular insurgency. This book is based on a
special issue of the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies.
Is there a Western way of war' which pursues battles of
annihilation and single-minded military victory? Is warfare on a
path to ever greater destructive force? This magisterial new
account answers these questions by tracing the history of Western
thinking about strategy the employment of military force as a
political instrument from antiquity to the present day. Assessing
sources from Vegetius to contemporary America, and with a
particular focus on strategy since the Napoleonic Wars, Beatrice
Heuser explores the evolution of strategic thought, the social
institutions, norms and patterns of behaviour within which it
operates, the policies that guide it and the cultures that
influence it. Ranging across technology and warfare, total warfare
and small wars as well as land, sea, air and nuclear warfare, she
demonstrates that warfare and strategic thinking have fluctuated
wildly in their aims, intensity, limitations and excesses over the
past two millennia."
This book is a major new study of the extent to which national
mentalities, or 'ways of war', are responsible for 'national
styles' of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Leading scholars
examine the ways of war of particular insurgent movements, and the
standard operational procedures of states and occupation forces to
suppress them. Through case studies ranging from British, American
and French counterinsurgency to the IRA and the Taliban, they show
how 'national styles' evolve, influenced by transnational trends,
ideas and practices. They examine whether we can identify a
tendency to resort to a particular pattern of fighting and, if so,
whether this is dictated by constants such as geography and
climate, or by the available options, or else whether there exists
a particular 'strategic culture' or 'national style'. Their
findings show that 'national style' is not eternal but can undergo
fundamental transformations.
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On War (Paperback, Abridged Ed)
Carl Von Clausewitz; Abridged by Beatrice Heuser; Translated by Michael Howard, Peter Paret
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R299
R244
Discovery Miles 2 440
Save R55 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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'War is merely the continuation of policy by other means' On War is
one of the most important books ever written on the subject of war.
Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against the French during
the Napoleonic Wars, sought to understand and analyse the
phenomenon of war so that future leaders could conduct and win
conflicts more effectively. He studied the human and social factors
that affect outcomes, as well as the tactical and technological
ones. He understood that war was a weapon of government, and that
political purpose, chance, and enmity combine to shape its
dynamics. On War continues to be read by military strategists,
politicians, and others for its timeless insights. This abridged
edition by Beatrice Heuser, using the acclaimed translation by
Michael Howard and Peter Paret, selects the central books in which
Clausewitz's views on the nature and theory of war are developed.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the widest range of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
War has been conceptualised from a military perspective, but also
from ethical, legal, and philosophical viewpoints. These different
analytical perspectives are all necessary to understand the many
dimensions war, the continua on which war is situated - from
small-scale to large-scale, from limited in time or long, from less
to extremely destructive, with varying aims, and degrees of
involvement of populations. Western civilisations have
conceptualised war in binary ways denying the variety of
manifestations of war along these continua. While binary
definitions are necessary to capture different conditions legally,
they hamper analysis. The binaries include inter-State and
intestine war, just war and unjust war (the latter including
insurgencies), citizen-soldiers and professionals, civilians and
combatants. Yet realities have mostly straddled such demarcations.
Even citizen-armies have usually included professionals, civilians
have been treated as enemies and sometimes even formally defined as
enemies, and rules have not conformed with binary distinctions, if
they were respected at all. While customary rules governing the
conduct of war have been turned into International Law, this is the
only aspect of war that has developed in a fairly linear way, while
the rise, disappearance, and renaissance of the just war tradition
has been anything but linear. This non-linearity also applies to
the brutality with which war has been fought, especially towards
civilians, who for long stretches of European history must have
been the main victims of war, notwithstanding increasing protection
they were afforded in theory by customary law. To understand war,
we must shed some of these binaries.
Clausewitz's On War, first published in 1832, remains the most
famous study of the nature and conditions of warfare.
Contemporaries found him 'endearing' or 'totally unpalatable',
while later generations called him 'the father of modern
strategical study', whose tenets have 'eternal relevance', or
dismissed him as outdated. Was it really he who made the discovery
that warfare is a continuation of politics? Was he the 'Mahdi of
mass and mutual massacre', in part responsible for the mass
slaughter of the First World War, as Liddell Hart contended? Can
the idea of total war be traced back to him? Complex and often
misunderstood, Clausewitz has fascinated and influenced generations
of politicians and strategic thinkers. Beatrice Heuser's study is
the first book, not only on how to read Clausewitz, but also on how
others have read him - from the Prussian and German masters of
warfare of the late nineteenth century through to the military
commanders of the First World War, through Lenin and Mao Zedong to
strategists in the nuclear age and of guerrilla warfare. The result
is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the work and
influence of the greatest classic on the art of war.
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