Author: Lawrence Sondhaus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135989753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161
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Book Description
A much-needed survey and synopsis of literature on strategic culture and ways of war. It clearly shows how national strategies and approaches to warfare are, to a significant extent, culturally determined. The concept of national ‘ways of war’ dates from the 1930s, when Basil H. Liddell Hart theorized that there was a ‘British Way in Warfare’. The concept of "strategic culture" dates from the 1970s, when Jack Snyder introduced it to explain why leaders of the Soviet Union did not behave according to rational choice theory. These ideas have gained wide acceptance among historians of international politics and warfare, and remain controversial for political scientists seeking general or universal theoretical understanding of such subjects. Because political scientists have focused on strategic culture and historians on ways of war, this work will greatly benefit both audiences and provide each with valuable exposure to the ideas of the other.
Author: Lawrence Sondhaus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135989745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
A much-needed survey and synopsis of literature on strategic culture and ways of war. It clearly shows how national strategies and approaches to warfare are, to a significant extent, culturally determined. The concept of national ‘ways of war’ dates from the 1930s, when Basil H. Liddell Hart theorized that there was a ‘British Way in Warfare’. The concept of "strategic culture" dates from the 1970s, when Jack Snyder introduced it to explain why leaders of the Soviet Union did not behave according to rational choice theory. These ideas have gained wide acceptance among historians of international politics and warfare, and remain controversial for political scientists seeking general or universal theoretical understanding of such subjects. Because political scientists have focused on strategic culture and historians on ways of war, this work will greatly benefit both audiences and provide each with valuable exposure to the ideas of the other.
Author: Hew Strachan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107047854
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
A major contribution to our understanding of contemporary warfare and strategy by one of the world's leading military historians.
Author: Antulio J. Echevarria II
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1626160686
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Challenging several longstanding notions about the American way of war, this book examines US strategic and operational practice from 1775 to 2014. It surveys all major US wars from the War of Independence to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as most smaller US conflicts to determine what patterns, if any, existed in American uses of force. Contrary to many popular sentiments, Echevarria finds that the American way of war is not astrategic, apolitical, or defined by the use of overwhelming force. Instead, the American way of war was driven more by political considerations than military ones, and the amount of force employed was rarely overwhelming or decisive. As a scholar of Clausewitz, Echevarria borrows explicitly from the Prussian to describe the American way of war not only as an extension of US policy by other means, but also the continuation of US politics by those means. The book’s focus on strategic and operational practice closes the gap between critiques of American strategic thinking and analyses of US campaigns. Echevarria discovers that most conceptions of American strategic culture fail to hold up to scrutiny, and that US operational practice has been closer to military science than to military art. Providing a fresh look at how America’s leaders have used military force historically and what that may mean for the future, this book should be of interest to military practitioners and policymakers, students and scholars of military history and security studies, and general readers interested in military history and the future of military power.
Author: Harry R. Yarger
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428916229
Category : Military doctrine
Languages : en
Pages : 93
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Book Description
Author: Peter R. Mansoor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108485731
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 485
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Book Description
Examines how military culture forms and changes, as well as its impact on the effectiveness of military organizations.
Author: Antulio J. Echevarria II
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107091977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
Surveys how American strategic theorists have understood the nature and character of war in the twentieth century.
Author: Niccolò Petrelli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351709313
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
This book offers a comprehensive overview of the impact of ‘strategic culture’ on Israeli military operations against Hamas between 1987 and 2014. It has often been argued that Israeli policies and military operations against Hamas have proven tactically effective, but strategically disastrous, allowing the Islamic Resistance Movement to grow from a small spin-off of the Muslim Brotherhood into a powerful military and political actor in the Palestinian arena. This book argues, contrary to this opinion, that Israel was effective in its struggle against the Islamic Resistance Movement between 1987 and 2014, as the Jewish state ultimately managed to deny the majority of Hamas' strategic aims and to preserve a position of relative strength. By relying on a synthesis of primary sources, interviews, memoirs, scholarly and professional military studies and information gathered from the media, the study delivers a careful and comprehensive analysis of the conflict. It provides an historical outline of the development of the Israeli ‘strategic culture’ and analyzes its impact on the process of military adaptation during the First Intifada, the Oslo Peace Process, the al-Aqsa Intifada and the Gaza wars. Finally, the book illuminates how the Israeli strategic culture moulded a distinctive ‘way of war’ that, though marked by successes and failures, ultimately proved effective against Hamas. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and security studies in general.
Author: Ben Buley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134086415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
This book explores the cultural history and future prospects of the so-callednew American way of war. In recent decades, American military culture has become increasingly dominated by a vision ofimmaculate destruction which reached its apogee with the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom was hailed as the triumphant validati
Author: Dima Adamsky
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804773807
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
This book studies the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations. One would expect that countries accustomed to similar technologies would undergo analogous changes in their perception of and approach to warfare. However, the intellectual history of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia, the US, and Israel indicates the opposite. The US developed technology and weaponry for about a decade without reconceptualizing the existing paradigm about the nature of warfare. Soviet 'new theory of victory' represented a conceptualization which chronologically preceded technological procurement. Israel was the first to utilize the weaponry on the battlefield, but was the last to develop a conceptual framework that acknowledged its revolutionary implications. Utilizing primary sources that had previously been completely inaccessible, and borrowing methods of analysis from political science, history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, this book suggests a cultural explanation for this puzzling transformation in warfare. The Culture of Military Innovation offers a systematic, thorough, and unique analytical approach that may well be applicable in other perplexing strategic situations. Though framed in the context of specific historical experience, the insights of this book reveal important implications related to conventional, subconventional, and nonconventional security issues. It is therefore an ideal reference work for practitioners, scholars, teachers, and students of security studies.
