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This book examines the origins of the US Navy’s 2007 Maritime Strategy, the formation of the US government’s “Pivot to Asia” strategy, and the most recent revisions to this strategy that focus more specifically on China. Besides examining the details of this strategy formulation, the book explores the internal and external repercussions on the US Navy of the Pivot to Asia. It discusses the “Fat Leonard” scandal, which involved bribery and corruption in contracts for the maintenance of the US fleets in the region, and considers the sharp decrease in training and readiness of the Pacific fleet to support the pivot, which in turn led to serious maritime collisions. It also assesses the impact of the pivot on other countries in the region, engaging in the debate as to whether the pivot was necessary in order to convince the countries of the region that the United States had not lost its staying power, or whether the pivot managed to make tensions in the Asia-Pacific worse even while allowing the strategic situation in the Middle East and Europe to worsen as a result of neglect.
This book provides a comprehensive history of the modern Chinese navy from 1840 to the present. Beginning with a survey of naval developments in earlier imperial times, the book goes on to show how China has since the mid-19th century four times built or rebuilt its navy: after the Opium Wars, a navy which was sunk or captured by the Japanese in the war of 1894-1895; during the 1920s and 1930s, a navy again sunk or lost to Japan, in the war of 1937-1945; in the 1950s, a navy built with Soviet help, which stagnated following the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s; and finally the present navy which absorbed its predecessor, but with the most modern sections dating from the 1990s-a navy which continues to grow and prosper. The book also shows how the underlying strategic imperative for the Chinese navy has been the defense of China's coasts and major rivers; how naval mutiny was a key factor in the overthrow of the Qing and the Nationalist regimes; and how successive Chinese governments, aware of the potent threat of naval mutiny, have restricted the growth, independence, and capabilities of the navy. Overall, the book provides-at a time when many people in the West view China and its navy as a threat-a rich, detailed, and realistic assessment of the true nature of the Chinese navy and the contemporary factors that affect its development.
This book provides a comprehensive history of the modern Chinese navy from 1840 to the present. Beginning with a survey of naval developments in earlier imperial times, the book goes on to show how China has since the mid-19th century four times built or rebuilt its navy: after the Opium Wars, a navy which was sunk or captured by the Japanese in the war of 1894-1895; during the 1920s and 1930s, a navy again sunk or lost to Japan, in the war of 1937-1945; in the 1950s, a navy built with Soviet help, which stagnated following the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s; and finally the present navy which absorbed its predecessor, but with the most modern sections dating from the 1990s-a navy which continues to grow and prosper. The book also shows how the underlying strategic imperative for the Chinese navy has been the defense of China's coasts and major rivers; how naval mutiny was a key factor in the overthrow of the Qing and the Nationalist regimes; and how successive Chinese governments, aware of the potent threat of naval mutiny, have restricted the growth, independence, and capabilities of the navy. Overall, the book provides-at a time when many people in the West view China and its navy as a threat-a rich, detailed, and realistic assessment of the true nature of the Chinese navy and the contemporary factors that affect its development.
China's recent economic reforms have opened its economy to the world. This policy, however, is not new: in the late nineteenth century, the United States put forward the Open Door Policy as a counter to European exclusive 'spheres of influence' in China. This book, based on extensive original archival research, examines and re-evaluates China's Open Door Policy. It considers the policy from its inception in 1899 right through to the post-1978 reforms. It relates these changes to the various shifts in China's international relations, discusses how decades of foreign invasion, civil war and revolution followed the destruction of the policy in the 1920s, and considers how the policy, when applied in Taiwan after 1949, and by Deng Xiaoping in mainland China after 1978, was instrumental in bringing about, respectively, Taiwan's 'economic miracle' and mainland China's recent economic boom. The book argues that, although the policy was characterised as United States 'economic imperialism' during the Cold War, in reality it helped China retain its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Open Door Policy in China was proposed by the U.S. government in 1899. Although adopted to stop the foreign partition of China, it was condemned as economic imperialism during the Cold-War period. With the People s Republic of China (PRC) embracing market reforms, encouraging foreign investment, and promoting capitalist growth in the 21st Century, this book examines and re-evaluates the former economically-based critiques of the Open Door Policy, from its inception in 1899 to its collapse in the 1920s. It offers new evidence suggesting the hitherto underestimated role of the Open Door Policy in protecting China s territorial integrity from Russian and Japanese encroachment. Using primary documents located in the Peking government s Foreign Ministry archives in Taipei, Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs archive in Tokyo, Japan, and the Trotsky archives at Harvard University, United States, it sheds light on how the destruction of the Open Door Policy during the 1920s cleared the way for a resurgence of Russian and Japanese expansionism in China, ushering in decades of foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution, until the 1949 establishment of the PRC once again shored up China s threatened territorial integrity. "
This book examines the nature and character of naval expeditionary warfare, in particular in peripheral campaigns, and the contribution of such campaigns to the achievement of strategic victory. Naval powers, which can lack the massive ground forces to win in the main theatre, often choose a secondary theatre accessible to them by sea and difficult for their enemies to reach by land, giving the sea power and its expeditionary forces the advantage. The technical term for these theatres is 'peripheral operations.' The subject of peripheral campaigns in naval expeditionary warfare is central to the British, the US, and the Australian way of war in the past and in the future. All three are reluctant to engage large land forces because of the high human and economic costs. Instead, they rely as much as possible on sea and air power, and the latter is most often in the form of carrier-based aviation. In order to exert pressure on their enemies, they have often opened additional theaters in on-going, regional, and civil wars. This book contains thirteen case studies by some of the foremost naval historians from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia whose collected case studies examine the most important peripheral operations of the last two centuries. This book will be of much interest to students of naval warfare, military history, strategic studies and security studies.
This book examines the nature and character of naval expeditionary warfare, in particular in peripheral campaigns, and the contribution of such campaigns to the achievement of strategic victory. Naval powers, which can lack the massive ground forces to win in the main theatre, often choose a secondary theatre accessible to them by sea and difficult for their enemies to reach by land, giving the sea power and its expeditionary forces the advantage. The technical term for these theatres is 'peripheral operations.' The subject of peripheral campaigns in naval expeditionary warfare is central to the British, the US, and the Australian way of war in the past and in the future. All three are reluctant to engage large land forces because of the high human and economic costs. Instead, they rely as much as possible on sea and air power, and the latter is most often in the form of carrier-based aviation. In order to exert pressure on their enemies, they have often opened additional theaters in on-going, regional, and civil wars. This book contains thirteen case studies by some of the foremost naval historians from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia whose collected case studies examine the most important peripheral operations of the last two centuries. This book will be of much interest to students of naval warfare, military history, strategic studies and security studies.
This is the first scholarly book examining naval coalition warfare over the past two centuries from a multi-national perspective. Containing case studies by some of the foremost naval historians from the US, Great Britain, and Australia, it also examines the impact of international law on coalitions. Together these collected essays comprise a comprehensive examination of the most important naval coalitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with the Napoleonic Wars, and ending with the second Gulf War, and each makes use of new research and methodologies to address the creation of the coalition, its actions, and its short- and long-term repercussions. The editors draw contemporary lessons from the book's historical case studies. These findings are used to discuss the likelihood and character of future naval coalition; for example, the likelihood and possible outcome of an anti-PRC coalition in defence of Taiwan. Naval Coalition Warfare will be of great interest to students of naval history, strategic studies, international history and international relations in general.
This is the first scholarly book examining naval coalition warfare over the past two centuries from a multi-national perspective. Containing case studies by some of the foremost naval historians from the US, Great Britain, and Australia, it also examines the impact of international law on coalitions. Together these collected essays comprise a comprehensive examination of the most important naval coalitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with the Napoleonic Wars, and ending with the second Gulf War, and each makes use of new research and methodologies to address the creation of the coalition, its actions, and its short- and long-term repercussions. The editors draw contemporary lessons from the book's historical case studies. These findings are used to discuss the likelihood and character of future naval coalition; for example, the likelihood and possible outcome of an anti-PRC coalition in defence of Taiwan. Naval Coalition Warfare will be of great interest to students of naval history, strategic studies, international history and international relations in general.
This new collection of scholarly, readable, and up-to-date essays covers the most significant naval blockades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here the reader can find Napoleon's Continental Blockade of England, the Anglo-American War of 1812, the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the first Sino-Japanese War 1894-95, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the second Sino-Japanese War 1937-45, the Second World War in Europe and Asia, the Nationalist attempt to blockade the PRC, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the British blockade of Rhodesia, the Falklands War, the Persian Gulf interdiction program, the PRC "missile" blockade of Taiwan in 1996, and finally Australia's recent "reverse" blockade to keep illegal aliens out of the country. The authors of each chapter address the causes of the blockade in question, its long and short-term repercussions, and the course of the blockade itself. More generally, they address the state of the literature, taking advantage of new research and new methodologies to provide something of value to both the specialist and non-specialist reader. Taken as a whole, this volume presents fresh insights into issues such as what a blockade is, why countries might choose them, which navies can and cannot make use of them, what responses lead to satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusions, and how far-reaching their consequences tend to be. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of strategic studies, military history and maritime studies in particular.
This new collection of scholarly, readable, and up-to-date essays covers the most significant naval blockades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here the reader can find Napoleon's Continental Blockade of England, the Anglo-American War of 1812, the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the first Sino-Japanese War 1894-95, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the second Sino-Japanese War 1937-45, the Second World War in Europe and Asia, the Nationalist attempt to blockade the PRC, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the British blockade of Rhodesia, the Falklands War, the Persian Gulf interdiction program, the PRC "missile" blockade of Taiwan in 1996, and finally Australia's recent "reverse" blockade to keep illegal aliens out of the country. The authors of each chapter address the causes of the blockade in question, its long and short-term repercussions, and the course of the blockade itself. More generally, they address the state of the literature, taking advantage of new research and new methodologies to provide something of value to both the specialist and non-specialist reader. Taken as a whole, this volume presents fresh insights into issues such as what a blockade is, why countries might choose them, which navies can and cannot make use of them, what responses lead to satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusions, and how far-reaching their consequences tend to be. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of strategic studies, military history and maritime studies in particular.
Now in a fully updated edition, this accessible text provides a balanced history of modern China in a global context. Through years of living and research in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Russia, the authors are deeply qualified to understand China's internal dynamics as well as its foreign relations over centuries. Arguing that modern Chinese history cannot be understood without a deep appreciation of the outside factors that have influenced the country, the authors focus on China's near neighbors, especially Japan and Russia. They also emphasize the tragic role of almost endless warfare throughout Chinese history. Providing a unique comparative approach, the authors bridge the cultural divide separating Chinese history from Western readers trying to understand it. Specifically geared to the teaching requirements of the semester system, the book is divided into four parts and a total of twenty-eight chapters, corresponding either to two chapters per week in a fourteen-week semester or one chapter per week in a two-semester course.
Excerpt from the introduction: "In the late nineteenth century, the French Jeune Ecole, or "new school," of naval thinking promoted a commerce-raiding strategy for the weaker naval power to defeat the dominant naval power. France provided the vocabulary for the discussion-Jeune Ecole and guerre de course (war of the chase)-and embodied the geopolitical predicament addressed: France had been a dominant land power, known for its large and proficient army and resentful of British imperial dominance and commercial preeminence. But its navy had rarely matched the Royal Navy in either quantity or quality, and its economy could not support both a preeminent army and navy. So its naval thinkers thought of an economical way out of its predicament. They argued that a guerre de course allowed weaker maritime power, such as France, to impose disproportionate costs on the stronger sea power in order to achieve its objectives. Sadly for France, the strategy did not work as anticipated, and British naval dominance and imperial primacy endured. The case studies in this book reveal why this was so, and they shed light on the dynamic of rivalries between maritime and continental powers. This issue is an important one in that from the heyday of the British Empire to the present, maritime powers have set the global order, and continental powers have contested it. So the dynamic is still with us, and it is of vital national import to all countries that benefit from the present international order of freedom of navigation, free trade, and the rule of international law."
Excerpt from the introduction: "In the late nineteenth century, the French Jeune Ecole, or "new school," of naval thinking promoted a commerce-raiding strategy for the weaker naval power to defeat the dominant naval power. France provided the vocabulary for the discussion-Jeune Ecole and guerre de course (war of the chase)-and embodied the geopolitical predicament addressed: France had been a dominant land power, known for its large and proficient army and resentful of British imperial dominance and commercial preeminence. But its navy had rarely matched the Royal Navy in either quantity or quality, and its economy could not support both a preeminent army and navy. So its naval thinkers thought of an economical way out of its predicament. They argued that a guerre de course allowed weaker maritime power, such as France, to impose disproportionate costs on the stronger sea power in order to achieve its objectives. Sadly for France, the strategy did not work as anticipated, and British naval dominance and imperial primacy endured. The case studies in this book reveal why this was so, and they shed light on the dynamic of rivalries between maritime and continental powers. This issue is an important one in that from the heyday of the British Empire to the present, maritime powers have set the global order, and continental powers have contested it. So the dynamic is still with us, and it is of vital national import to all countries that benefit from the present international order of freedom of navigation, free trade, and the rule of international law."
The powerful underwater earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra on 26 December 2004 generated the most destructive tsunami ever recorded, drowning more than 150,000 people without warning in exposed littoral areas from Indonesia to South Africa. The destruction was particularly severe in the Aceh Province of Indonesia, at the northwestern tip of the island of Sumatra. There entire villages were destroyed within minutes as waves of thirty feet or more advanced far inland, while destruction of the main coastal highway made the entire region virtually inaccessible to Indonesian authorities ashore. In these extraordinary circumstances of human suffering, the U.S. Navy was able to play a key role in organizing what was to become a massive, multinational humanitarian relief operation, one based and executed virtually entirely "from the sea." Working closely with the Indonesian government and military, the Navy delivered, beginning within days of the disaster, vast quantities of emergency food and other supplies and provided on-the-spot emergency medical treatment to thousands of injured and displaced persons along the Aceh coast. Humanitarian relief has long been recognized as a mission of the American armed forces and of the U.S. Navy in particular. The scale and complexity of the tsunami's impact, however, posed particular and in some respects novel challenges to the Joint Task Force 536 (JTF 536) that was created to deal with the situation, not least of them the requirement imposed on it to operate exclusively from an improvised "sea base," to use a term that has gained some currency in recent discussions of naval missions and capabilities. In Newport Paper 28, Waves of Hope: The U.S. Navy's Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia, historian Bruce A. Elleman provides the first comprehensive history and analysis of what would become known as Operation UNIFIED ASSISTANCE. Elleman, a research professor in the Department of Maritime History at the Naval War College, has produced a valuable and indeed unique study, one that makes use of a variety of internal Navy documents, oral histories, and interviews with a number of senior naval officers, including the then Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark. It is to be hoped that it will prove of immediate benefit to planners in the naval and joint worlds of the U.S. military, as well as to those of other nations potentially interested in exploiting its lessons to improve their own capabilities in this frequently neglected yet vital-indeed, life-saving-military mission.
Piracy is a basic and fundamental concern for all navies. From almost the beginning of state-sponsored navies, piracy suppression has been one of their major responsibilities-when Julius Caesar was captured by pirates in 76 BCE, the first thing he did after paying the pirates' ransom and being released was to fit "out a squadron of ships to take his revenge." Despite piracy's importance and the continued frequency of piratical attacks, however, relatively few scholarly works have been written analyzing cases of modern piracy and piracy suppression in terms of varying strategic, policy, and operational decisions. This edited collection of case studies attempts to fill this gap. There have been a number of important historical studies that have dealt with the subjects of piracy and piracy suppression. Books written from the point of view of those wishing to end piracy have tended to focus on legal issues, including the rights of victims, the procedures and decisions of Admiralty courts in punishing pirates, and the capture of piracy ships as prizes. Others have looked at the existence of piracy in terms of one particular place or time period, with the Barbary Coast and the Caribbean Sea claiming disproportionate shares of attention. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy was primarily responsible for using force to suppress piracy. British privateers continued to roam the seas, preying on Spanish gold. However, several changes in British maritime legal practice made a renewed fight against piracy possible. On 13 October 1696, Sir Charles Hedges, judge of the High Court, revised Admiralty law so that pirates could be punished anywhere: "Now piracy is only a sea term for robbery, piracy being a robbery committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty. If any man be assaulted within that jurisdiction, and his ship or goods violently taken away without legal authority, this is robbery and piracy." Antipiracy reforms were not enacted rapidly, but by the 1720s the Royal Navy had made it easier for its officers to prosecute pirates anywhere in the world. During this period, Newport, R.I. (pictured on the front cover), was used by Thomas Tew to trade in pirate cargo, with one cargo alone valued at 100,000. The Royal Navy attacked pirates in the Caribbean, along the coast of North America, and as far away as the Indian Ocean.With the creation of new bases, such as at Antigua in the West Indies, the Royal Navy gradually extended its range as far as the northwest Pacific and Australia: "Naval stations and cruising areas gradually covered the shipping zones of the world and made possible the Pax Britannica." For many people, it appeared that piracy had been destroyed for good. Even fairly recent books focusing on the nineteenth century have included chapters entitled "An End to Piracy." However, piracy never entirely disappeared during the twentieth century, and during the last quarter of that century events turned out far differently than even the most pessimistic observer could have predicted. This monograph is intended as a contribution to both scholarship and professional naval thinking; it is an academic and comparative examination of twelve selected case studies from maritime history used to illuminate a range of concepts and uses of piracy suppression. The twelve case studies provide the basis for the conclusions, an approach that provides a more thorough understanding of the uses and limitations of naval antipiracy operations in the context of new maritime technologies and within a wider range of modern national policy goals than might otherwise be achievable. Above all, this collection provides a sound basis for comparative analysis of varying historical experiences that can stimulate new and original thinking about a basic but often overlooked naval duty.
Recent naval operations by the world's major navies show a clear revival of interest in piracy and piracy suppression. The present work of collaborative scholarship, completed as a project in the Maritime History Department at the U.S. Naval War College, demonstrates that historical insights from a selection of piracy case studies over the past two centuries have potential relevance to current and future thinking about antipiracy operations. This monograph is intended as a contribution to both scholarship and professional naval thinking; it is an academic and comparative examination of twelve selected case studies from maritime history used to illuminate a range of concepts and uses of piracy suppression. The twelve case studies provide the basis for the conclusions, an approach that provides a more thorough understanding of the uses and limitations of naval antipiracy operations in the context of new maritime technologies and within a wider range of modern national policy goals than might otherwise be achievable. Above all, this collection provides a sound basis for comparative analysis of varying historical experiences that can stimulate new and original thinking about a basic but often overlooked naval duty. The Newport Papers are extended research projects that the Director, the Dean of Naval Warfare Studies, and the President of the Naval War College consider of particular interest to policy makers, scholars, and analysts.
The U.S. Navy has had a long tradition of operating in East Asian waters. The first American warship to appear in those waters was the thirty-six-gun frigate USS Congress in late 1819, which called at Canton while providing protection to American merchant ships. In 1830, USS Vincennes, the first American warship to circumnavigate the globe, passed through the China seas and called at Macao. Two years later, in November 1832, the arrival of the sloop of war USS Peacock marked the beginning of a nearly constant presence of American warships in the Far East and the early beginnings of an American naval squadron cruising regularly to protect American shipping and business interests in the region. A dozen years later, in 1844, USS Brandywine brought the American envoy Caleb Cushing to Macao to negotiate the first treaty of peace, amity, and commerce between China and the United States, signed at the nearby village of Wanghai. Commodore James Biddle returned to China in the ship of the line USS Columbus in January 1846 to return America's formal ratification of that treaty. Among the officers in Columbus during this voyage was Midshipman Stephen B. Luce, who thus became the first in the long line of officers and faculty members at the Naval War College-the institution Luce founded nearly forty years later-to have had some direct experience of China. From that beginning, the College's body of expertise in and understanding of China, and of American experience in China, has grown exponentially. For over a century and a quarter, Naval War College students and faculty have had an interest in the subject. In the first part of the twentieth century, officers associated with the Naval War College served in-and even commanded-the Asiatic Fleet, the Yangtze Patrol, the Sino-American Cooperative Organization, and U.S. Naval Group China. Evidence of some of the College's past interests and connections in these areas may still be found and used in its archives and in its historical document and museum collections. Between 1950 and 1979, during the Cold War, much of the U.S. Navy's relationship with China centered around the Taiwan Patrol Force, whose duties included patrolling the international waters off mainland China's Fujian Province, which separates the mainland from the island of Taiwan. Based on Taiwan at Keelung in the north and at Kaohsiung in the south, U.S. Seventh Fleet sailors who were assigned to those patrol duties-mainly in destroyers and destroyer escorts-found on the island the only direct relationship available to them to interact with China and Chinese culture. Mainland China remained distant and obscure, sensed only by the distinctive smell of the land that many a sailor commented on in approaching the Chinese coast, even before it became distantly visible from the deck. American sailors in those years could get closer only during the occasional port visit to the British crown colony of Hong Kong, where they could take an opportunity to go to the far side of Hong Kong's New Territories to peer across the closed border into the People's Republic of China and to try to imagine what the mainland was really like. In this volume, Bruce Elleman, research professor in the Maritime History Department at the Naval War College, applies his expertise as one of the College's specialists in Chinese language and history to provide a pioneering history of American naval experience in the Taiwan Patrol. His focus reflects the Naval War College's interests in the policy, strategy, and operational levels and is designed to provide a historical complement to other work on current issues being done at the Naval War College-in the China Maritime Studies Institute and in other departments. |
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