Kategoria BISAC: Technology & Engineering >> Military Science

Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew investigate the history and politics of modern asymmetrical warfare. By focusing on four specific hotbeds of instability--Somalia,...

In this companion volume to Western Warfare, 1775-1882, Jeremy Black takes his analysis of modern warfare into the 20th century. A distinctive feature of the author's approach is the coverage of both land and naval warfare as well as conflict within the West and between Western and non-Western powers. Beginning with the British conquest of Egypt in 1882, Black goes on to examine the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Boer War, and the Balkan conflicts leading to world war in 1914. A revisionist account of the First World War is followed by a discussion of Western expansionism in the period...

Soviet military policy has been one of the most important and perplexing issues confronting the United States since 1945. Mikhail Gorbachev's foreign policy innovations have focused renewed attention on these vital questions. In this timely reader, ten experts on the Soviet Union offer their perspectives on Soviet military strategy and defense policy, covering the foreign policy context, nuclear weapons, conventional forces, and force and Soviet diplomacy.

Contributors Jack Snyder, Franklyn Griffiths, Stephen M. Meyer, Raymond L. Garthoff, Fritz W. Ermarth, Dimitri K. Simes,...

The Navy in the Post-Cold War World is the first book to invite the reader to think strategically--that is, in means-ends terms--about the navy in the new post-Soviet era. It provides a unique synthesis of strategic theory, defense analysis, and history. Colin Gray first explains how sea power "works"; explores the strategic relationship among sea, land, and air power, with particular attention to the course of a conflict viewed as a whole; and ventures boldly into the region of the meaning of space strategy for maritime power and the relevance of that power in the still emerging...

War is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon that cannot be understood merely by isolating its underlying principles. The elements that compose the vast mosaic of our conceptions of war must be identified and examined in light of their philosophical origins. Michael Gelven not only identifies what the fundamental principles are, but he also extracts from the history of philosophy the arguments and analyses of the concepts that explain how we think about it.

War and Existence is primarily concerned with what war is or what the truth about war is rather than the moral question...

Shalit draws on the research he conducted as field psychologist in the Israeli military to offer an original behavioral model of combat that accounts for the fighting potential of an individual or group. His model is based on the appraisal process that the individual undertakes in combat conditions to assess a situation, whether it concerns him or not and regardless of his role. It is through this process that the individual makes a judgment, taking into consideration his past experience, knowledge, and expectations, that in turn leads to a course of action. Shalit pinpoints and describes...

This volume explores the essence of German military professionalism as exemplified by the nineteenth century Prussian German Staff. The study focuses on the most important Prussian military reformer--Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, who in 1801 founded the Militarische Gesellschaft (Military Society) in Berlin. The Gesellschaft became the focal point for the transformation of the Prussian army from a robotic war machine into a modern fighting force that was instrumental in defeating Napolean in 1813 and in 1815. The author examines the following elements of this military society: its...

Military Civic Action--U.S. troops working on nation-building tasks with troops of another country--is traced from its formal beginning under President Eisenhower and enthusiastic reception under President Kennedy, through its successes and failures during the Vietnam years, to its present status as a strategic tool. Contributing authors debate the future role of Military Civic Action as a way to retain a U.S. military presence around the world, bolster emergent democracies, assist other militaries in their transition to democratic military professionalism, reinforce the humanitarian...

This book is the history of the highly trained officers and men who went by the cover name Beach Jumpers. Their top-secret mission was to create and sustain the illusion that a military landing was imminent at Beach A when in fact U.S. allied troops would hit the beaches 100 miles away at Beach X. During World War II, their tactics were extremely successful in Sicily, Salerno, Southern France, and the Philippines. Beach Jumpers later served ashore and afloat in Vietnam. Their descendants, called Fleet Tactical Deception Groups, continue their important, highly classified work today. This...

This is the only current book on maritime Djibouti, and the only one available in English since 1968. It describes the geography, naval history, and present strategic role of this small country, and indicates its possible future. Naval Strategy East of Suez includes previously little-known facts of French covert action in "Italian East Africa, 1938-1941"; and of "Operation Toreador "(1956), which served to aid Operation Musketeer. It also turns a spotlight on the Allied blockade of Djibouti in 1940-1942. In a sense, this book is a more readable, and less technical, treatment of what...

This study argues that guerrilla insurgencies will be a major feature of the post-Cold War international scene, and that the advisability of intervention in some of them will become a serious issue in American politics. Americans therefore need to refine their understanding of insurgency. Anthony James Joes analyzes several major insurgencies of this century, all of which the United States became involved in to one degree or another. While approaching each guerrilla insurgency as a primarily political phenomenon within a definite historical and cultural context, Joes also provides the...

The history of the Scouts & Raiders of World War II is the story of the original ancestors of today's elite SEAL teams. As the Navy's first special warfare commandos these highly trained and skilled officer/enlisted boat crews conducted pre-assault recons of landing beaches, hydrographic recons, marked assault beaches, and guided in assault waves from 36-foot Scout boats, rubber boats, and kayaks at North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Southern France, and Normandy, earning numerous decorations for heroism, including 8 Navy Crosses. In the Mediterranean, S&Rs trained elite units such as...

Regan argues that the militarization of a society is a complex political and sociological phenomenon, that can generate a life of its own and that feeds upon itself. Regan combines a statistical and a historical approach with an empirical analysis to serve as the basis for the development of a theory of the power of political symbolism. He examines the extent to which a violent foreign policy and societal militarization are part of a self-amplifying feedback cycle. At a time when permanent and substantial demilitarization are possible, his study reveals the factors that serve to sustain...

Gudmundsson tells the story of field artillery in the 20th century and its impact on the major conflicts of our time. Its purpose is to provide the reader--whether artilleryman or not--with hitherto unavailable insights on the role that artillery plays in the larger battle and how that has helped shape the world that we live in today. Unique aspects of the book include the treatment of technical issues in non-technical language, the extensive use of German and French sources generally unavailable to the English-speaking reader, the shattering of some long-cherished myths, and the...

This book describes the creation of a new economy in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1945. The Red Army defeated the Germans in World War II with equipment produced by that economy and not with masses of untrained men as has been often argued. The Soviet weapons were produced in factories designed and built under the direction of American engineers in the 1930s. Also, the Weimar Republic played a part in the creation of the Red Army by providing aviation and tank training schools and technical assistance to the developing armaments industry. Dunn argues that if France had been invaded by the...