This book is a comparative study of military operations conducted my modern states between the French Revolution and World War I. It examines the complex relationship between political purpose and strategy on the one hand, and the challenge of realizing strategic goals through military operations on the other. It argues further that following the experience of the Napoleonic Wars military strength was awarded a primary status in determining the comparative modernity of all the Great Powers; that military goals came progressively to distort a sober understanding of the national interest; that a genuinely political and diplomatic understanding of national strategy was lost; and that these developments collectively rendered the military and political catastrophe of 1914 not inevitable yet probable.

This collection of essays cuts to the quick of the most pressing moral issues facing decision-makers today, from the actions of ordinary soldiers in a combat zone to presidents deciding when and where to use force. Ethics lie at the heart of human and therefore also international affairs, compelling nations to get involved "over there" and dedicate resources to intervention or to justify detachment. The politics and rhetoric of ethics constrain decision-makers, greatly complicating international situations. This third edition of Ethics and Statecraft addresses the moral reasoning behind the art of peacemaking as well as the ethics and statecraft of conducting war. The coverage ranges from historical transformations of whole eras of diplomatic and international history to issues of ethics of bombing and the laws of war. Specific attention is paid to emerging issues such as armed humanitarian intervention and sanctions, drone wars, war crimes, and economic justice. The work is ideally suited for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, history, political science, and ethics. It will also be useful for NGO officials and military officers struggling with these issues in the field. General readers will find illumination of highly relevant historical issues—including Allied bombing of civilians during World War II—that set precedents for both expansion and limitations on the laws of war. They will also encounter pressing modern-day quandaries, such as the conditions that permit or even require military or humanitarian intervention, and the impact of new technologies on old moral problems.

This is the first study of the interaction between warfare and national religious practice during the British Civil Wars. Using hundreds of neglected local documents, this work explores the manner in which civil conflict, invasion and military occupation affected religious practice. As Churches elsewhere in Britain and Ireland were dismantled and the country was invaded by a foreign English army, mid-seventeenth-century Scotland provides an important, yet neglected, point of entry in exploring the intersection between early modern warfare and religious practice. The book establishes a fresh way of looking at the conflicts of the mid-seventeenth century. No other study has explored how soldiers were quartered or marched in close proximity to parish worship, how their presence affected worship patterns and how the very idea of conflict in the mid-seventeenth century impacted upon the day-to-day lives of worshippers. Using the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 as its starting point, this perspective emphasises flexibility in religious practice and the dialogue between local communities, religious leaders and troops as a critical element in the experience of war.

Philip Skippon was the third-most senior general in parliament’s New Model Army during the British Civil Wars. A veteran of European Protestant armies during the period of the Thirty Years’ War and long-serving commander of the London Trained Bands, no other high-ranking parliamentarian enjoyed such a long military career as Skippon. He was an author of religious books, an MP and a senior political figure in the republican and Cromwellian regimes. This is the first book to examine Skippon’s career, which is used to shed new light on historical debates surrounding the Civil Wars and understand how military events of this period impacted upon broader political, social and cultural themes.

During the decolonization wars in East and Southern Africa, tracking became increasingly valuable as a military tactic. Drawing on archival research and interviews, Stapleton presents a comparative study of the role of tracking in insurgency and counter-insurgency across Kenya, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

The remit of this study is to encourage further studies that make an honest and successful effort to achieve synergy between social science and history when analysing the impact of revolutions in military affairs (RMAs).

The first twenty years of post-Cold War US defense and diplomatic policies toward Asia have looked a good deal like the previous 50, namely: continued deterrence based upon overwhelming, offensive military predominance. In East Asia, all powers harbor common and divergent interests based on fragmented nationalist identities and complex economic interdependence. In this multipolar Asian system, new Chinese military capabilities could support both the wish to secure its own interests as well as a more expansive vision for regional leadership, which might harbor a destabilizing geopolitical agenda. How the United States addresses this reality via military procurements and employment concepts for the Asian theater could either detract from or enhance crisis stability. The US defense establishment must reorient its force posture to save money, manage conflicts of interest, and prevent future interstate crises. This analysis provides a framework for how the United States should ideally structure and use military power so as to best support the diplomatic resolution of conflicting interests without resorting to full-scale warfare. It also critiques the usual Western military focus on offensive strategic predominance in force postures, itself often fuelled by the unrealistic pursuit of the opponent’s complete submission via victory in decisive battles.

Intended for the professional academic and graduate student, this book is the first to utilize the methodology of a oeNew Streama legal scholarship in an extended critical a oeexegesisa of Hugo Grotiusa (TM) "De Indis" (c.1604-6). "De Indis" is predicated upon a two-fold discursive strategy: (i) investing a oeprivatea Trading Companies with a oepublica international legal personality, and (ii) collapsing the distinction between a oeprivatea and a oepublica warfare. Governing the operation of textual interpretation is "De Indis"a (TM) status as a republican treatise juridically legitimating an early modern Trans-National corporation (the VOC) that served as an agent of a a oeprimitivea system of global governance, the early Capitalist World-Economy. The application of New Stream scholarship reveals that the republican signature of "De Indis" consists of a discursive a oemicro-oscillationa between the a oethicka ontology of Late Scholasticism (a oeUtopiaa ) and the a oethina ontology of Civic Humanism (a oeApologya ) wholly appropriate to the governance requirements of the embryonic Modern World-System.

A vital part of daily life in the nineteenth century, games and play were so familiar and so ubiquitous that their presence over time became almost invisible. Technological advances during the century allowed for easier manufacturing and distribution of board games and books about games, and the changing economic conditions created a larger market for them as well as more time in which to play them. These changing conditions not only made games more profitable, but they also increased the influence of games on many facets of culture. Playing Games in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America focuses on the material and visual culture of both American and British games, examining how cultures of play intersect with evolving gender norms, economic structures, scientific discourses, social movements, and nationalist sentiments.

Innovation shapes wars, and twelve studies by former faculty members of West Point’s United States Military Academy examine specific cases of past and present military innovation. The complex, competitive, and dynamic environment that defines war drives combatants to seek solutions to potentially lethal problems. As some solutions prove effective, gain traction, and win emulation, they follow a path of innovation. The chapters address a broad array of innovations, including in weapon technology, strategy, research and development philosophy, organization of the military instrument, and leveraging maps for strategic goals. Geographically, the examples in this volume span four continents and the Mediterranean Sea, and chronologically they proceed from the twelfth century to the twenty first. Collectively, the studies point to the interconnected value of pursuing constructive solutions to challenges, networking interdisciplinary forms of knowledge, appropriately balancing expectations and capabilities, and understanding an innovation as a journey rather than as an episodic event.