Transformation Of War

Author : Martin Van Creveld
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439188890
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Transformation of War written by Martin Van Creveld and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-11-24 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when unprecedented change in international affairs is forcing governments, citizens, and armed forces everywhere to re-assess the question of whether military solutions to political problems are possible any longer, Martin van Creveld has written an audacious searching examination of the nature of war and of its radical transformation in our own time. For 200 years, military theory and strategy have been guided by the Clausewitzian assumption that war is rational - a reflection of national interest and an extension of politics by other means. However, van Creveld argues, the overwhelming pattern of conflict in the post-1945 world no longer yields fully to rational analysis. In fact, strategic planning based on such calculations is, and will continue to be, unrelated to current realities. Small-scale military eruptions around the globe have demonstrated new forms of warfare with a different cast of characters - guerilla armies, terrorists, and bandits - pursuing diverse goals by violent means with the most primitive to the most sophisticated weapons. Although these warriors and their tactics testify to the end of conventional war as we've known it, the public and the military in the developed world continue to contemplate organized violence as conflict between the super powers. At this moment, armed conflicts of the type van Creveld describes are occurring throughout the world. From Lebanon to Cambodia, from Sri Lanka and the Philippines to El Salvador, the Persian Gulf, and the strife-torn nations of Eastern Europe, violent confrontations confirm a new model of warfare in which tribal, ethnic, and religious factions do battle without high-tech weapons or state-supported armies and resources. This low-intensity conflict challenges existing distinctions between civilian and solder, individual crime and organized violence, terrorism and war. In the present global atmosphere, practices that for three centuries have been considered uncivilized, such as capturing civilians or even entire communities for ransom, have begun to reappear. Pursuing bold and provocative paths of inquiry, van Creveld posits the inadequacies of our most basic ideas as to who fights wars and why and broaches the inevitability of man's need to "play" at war. In turn brilliant and infuriating, this challenge to our thinking and planning current and future military encounters is one of the most important books on war we are likely to read in our lifetime.

Author : Andreas Krieg
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 1626166781
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Surrogate Warfare written by Andreas Krieg and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surrogate Warfare explores the emerging phenomenon of “surrogate warfare” in twenty-first century conflict. The popular notion of war is that it is fought en masse by the people of one side versus the other. But the reality today is that both state and non-state actors are increasingly looking to shift the burdens of war to surrogates. Surrogate warfare describes a patron's outsourcing of the strategic, operational, or tactical burdens of warfare, in whole or in part, to human and/or technological substitutes in order to minimize the costs of war. This phenomenon ranges from arming rebel groups, to the use of armed drones, to cyber propaganda. Krieg and Rickli bring old, related practices such as war by mercenary or proxy under this new overarching concept. Apart from analyzing the underlying sociopolitical drivers that trigger patrons to substitute or supplement military action, this book looks at the intrinsic trade-offs between substitutions and control that shapes the relationship between patron and surrogate. Surrogate Warfare will be essential reading for anyone studying contemporary conflict.

Author : Jack S. Levy
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226476278
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Arc of War written by Jack S. Levy and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-08-26 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this far-reaching exploration of the evolution of warfare in human history, Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson provide insight into the perennial questions of why and how humans fight. Beginning with the origins of warfare among foraging groups, The Arc of War draws on a wealth of empirical data to enhance our understanding of how war began and how it has changed over time. The authors point to the complex interaction of political economy, political and military organization, military technology, and the threat environment—all of which create changing incentives for states and other actors. They conclude that those actors that adapt survive, and those that do not are eliminated. In modern times, warfare between major powers has become exceedingly costly and therefore quite rare, while lesser powers are too weak to fight sustained and decisive wars or to prevent internal rebellions. Conceptually innovative and historically sweeping, The Arc of War represents a significant contribution to the existing literature on warfare.

Author : Martin Van Creveld
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198788177
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book More on War written by Martin Van Creveld and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "War is the most important thing in the world', writes Martin van Creveld, one of the world's best-known experts on military history and strategy.The survival of every country, government, and individual is ultimately dependent on war - or the ability to wage it in self-defence. That is why, though it may come but once in a hundred years, it must be prepared for every day. When it is too late - when the bodies lie stiff and people weep overthem - those in charge have failed in their duty.Nevertheless, in spite of the centrality of war to human history and culture, there has for long been no modern attempt to provide a replacement for the classics on war and strategy, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, dating from the 5th or 6th century BC, and Carl von Clausewitz's On War, written in theaftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.What is needed is a modern, comprehensive, easy to read and understand theory of war for the 21st century that could serve as a replacement for these classic texts. The purpose of the present book is to provide just such a theory.

Author : Mara Kozelsky
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190644710
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Crimea in War and Transformation written by Mara Kozelsky and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crimean War, or the Eastern War, as the Russians called it, razed the countryside and cities of Crimea, leaving a devastated nation in its wake. The most costly war fought on Russian soil, losses exceeded even those of the Napoleonic War nearly half a century before. Sustained bycivilians, the conflict collapsed only when the violence had finally exhausted Crimean land and labor. Crimea in War and Transformation is the first exploration of the civilian experience during the Crimean War to appear in English.With limited options, the people of Crimea shaped their own destinies during the war. Whereas some chose to donate or to sell their agricultural produce to Russian and Allied armies, others resisted requisition. Many families welcomed soldiers into their homes, and in Sevastopol, locals helped buildcritical batteries, parapets and other defenses. Local Russian and Greek nationalists turned to religious patriotism and enlisted in community militias to fight a holy war for tsar and country. Some Crimean Tartars actively collaborated with the enemy, while others remained steadfastly loyal to thetsar. At the apex of violence, hungry soldiers and desperate officials scapegoated Crimea's native Muslim population, leading to a deadly population transfer. Unable to eke out survival in a hostile and war torn land, nearly 200,000 Crimean Tartars were driven from their homeland to the OttomanEmpire. Those inhabitants who remained--Tartars, Russians, Greeks, Bulgarians, German colonists, Jews, and others--participated in the largest war recovery program yet sponsored by the Russian government.Drawing from a wide body of published and unpublished material, including untapped archives, testimonies, and secret police files from Russia, Ukraine and Crimea, Mara Kozelsky details in readable and vivid prose the toll of war on the Crimean people from mobilization through recovery.

Author : Mark D. Mandeles
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313083665
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Military Transformation Past and Present written by Mark D. Mandeles and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-09-30 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transformation has become a buzz word in today's military, but what are its historical precursors—those large scale changes that were once called Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA)? Who has gotten it right, and who has not? The Department of Defense must learn from history. Most studies of innovation focus on the actions, choices, and problems faced by individuals in a particular organization. Few place these individuals and organizations within the complex context where they operate. Yet, it is this very context that is a powerful determinant of how actions are conceived, examined, and implemented, and of how errors are identified and corrected. The historical cases that Mandeles examines reveal how different military services organized to learn, accumulate, and retrieve knowledge; and how their particular organization affected everything from the equipment they acquired to the quality of doctrine and concepts used in combat. In cases where more than one community of experts was responsible for weighing in on decisionmaking, the service benefited from enhanced application of evidence, sound inference, and logic. These cases demonstrate that, for senior leadership, participating in such a system should be a strategic and deliberate choice. In each of the cases featured in this book, no such deliberate choice was made. The interwar U.S. Navy (USN) aviation community and the U.S. Marine Corps amphibious operation community were lucky that, in a time of rapid technological advance and strategic risk, their decisions in framing and solving technological and operational problems were made within a functioning multi-organizational system. The Army Air Corps and the Royal Marines were unfortunate, with corresponding results. It is characteristic of 20th-century military history that no senior civilian or military leader suggested a policy to handle overlapping responsibilities by multiple departments. Today's policymakers have not learned this lesson. In the present time, while a great deal of thought is devoted to proper organizational design and the numbers of persons required to perform necessary functions, there is still no overarching framework guiding these designs.

Author : Harry M. Ward
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135361924
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society written by Harry M. Ward and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The War fo Independence had a substantial impact on the lives of all Americans, establishing a nation and confirming American identity. The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society focuses on a conflict which was both civil war and revolution and assesses how Americans met the challenges of adapting to the ideals of Independence and Republicanism. The war effected political reconstruction and brought economic self sufficiency and expansion, but it also brought oppression of dissenting and ethnic minorities, broadened the divide between the affluent and the poor and strengthened the institution of slavery. Focusing on the climate of war itself and its effects on the lives of those who lived through it, this book includes discussion of: *Recruitment and Society *The Home Front *Constraints on Liberty *Women and family during the war years *African Americans and Native Americans The War for Independence is a fascinating account of the wider dimension to the meaning of the American Revolution.

Author : Martin Van Creveld
Publisher : History Press Limited
ISBN 13 : 9780752452722
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Culture of War written by Martin Van Creveld and published by History Press Limited. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A respected scholar of military history and an expert on strategy, Martin van Creveld argues in "The Culture of War" that there is much more to war than just soldiers killing one another. War has always been a deeply fascinating subject. Fighting itself can be a source of great, perhaps even the greatest, joy - and out of this joy and fascination an entire culture has grown - from the war paint of tribal warriors to today's 'tiger suits', from Julius Caesar's red cloak to Douglas McArthur's pipe, from the decorative shields of ancient Greece to aircraft nose art, and from the invention of chess around AD 600 to cyber era combat simulators. The culture of war has had its own traditions, laws, rituals, music, art, literature, and monuments since the beginning of civilisation. Through the ages, the culture of war has usually been highly esteemed. Not so in many countries today, which tend either to mock it ('military intelligence is to intelligence what military music is to music') or to denounce it as 'militaristic'. This provocative book sets out to show how wrongheaded, and even dangerous, such attitudes are. "The Culture of War" argues that men and women today, contrary to the hopes of some, are just as fascinated by war as they have been in the past. A military that has lost touch with the culture of war is doomed not merely to defeat but to disintegration. Innovative, authoritative, and riveting, "The Culture of War" is a major work done by one of the world's greatest and most insightful military historians.

Author : Frederick W. Kagan
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN 13 : 1458771911
Total Pages : 666 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Finding the Target written by Frederick W. Kagan and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-05-14 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Finding the Target, Frederick W. Kagan describes the three basic transformations within the U.S. military since Vietnam. First was the move to an all-volunteer force and a new generation of weapons systems in the 1970s. Second was the emergence of stealth technology and precision-guided munitions in the 1980s. Third was the information technology that followed the fall of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War. This last could have insured the U.S. continuing military preeminence, but this goal was compromised by Clinton's drawing down of our armed forces in the 1990s and Bush's response to 9/11 and the global war on terror. The issue of transformation leads Kagan to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vision of a ''new ''military; the conduct of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; and the disconnect between grand strategic visions such as the Bush Doctrine's idea of ''preemption ''and the underfunding of military force structures that are supposed to achieve such goals.

Author : David Jacobson
Publisher : Temple University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781439913123
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Transformations of Warfare in the Contemporary World written by David Jacobson and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today’s warfare has moved away from being an event between massed national populations and toward small numbers of combatants using high-tech weaponry. The editors of and contributors to the timely collection Transformations of Warfare in the Contemporary World show that this shift reflects changes in the technological, strategic, ideological, and ethical realms. The essays in this volume discuss: ·the waning connection between citizenship and soldiering; ·the shift toward more reconstructive than destructive activities by militaries; ·the ethics of irregular or asymmetrical warfare; ·the role of novel techniques of identification in military settings; ·the stress on precision associated with targeted killings and kidnappings; ·the uses of the social sciences in contemporary warfare. In his concluding remarks, David Jacobson explores the extent to which the contemporary transformation of warfare is a product of a shift in the character of the combatants themselves. Contributors include: Ariel Colonomos, Roberto J. González, Travis R. Hall, Saskia Hooiveld, Rob Johnson, Colonel C. Anthony Pfaff, Ian Roxborough, and the editors