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The Korean War: An International History
by William StueckThis first truly international history of the Korean War argues that by its timing, its course, and its outcome it functioned as a substitute for World War III. Stueck draws on recently available materials from seven countries, plus the archives of the United Nations, presenting a detailed narrative of the diplomacy of the conflict and a broad assessment of its critical role in the Cold War. He emphasizes the contribution of the United Nations, which at several key points in the conflict provided an important institutional framework within which less powerful nations were able to restrain the aggressive tendencies of the United States. In Stueck's view, contributors to the U.N. cause in Korea provided support not out of any abstract commitment to a universal system of collective security but because they saw an opportunity to influence U.S. policy. Chinese intervention in Korea in the fall of 1950 brought with it the threat of world war, but at that time and in other instances prior to the armistice in July 1953, America's NATO allies and Third World neutrals succeeded in curbing American adventurism. While conceding the tragic and brutal nature of the war, Stueck suggests that it helped to prevent the occurrence of an even more destructive conflict in Europe.
The Korean War: An International History
by William StueckThis first truly international history of the Korean War argues that by its timing, its course, and its outcome it functioned as a substitute for World War III. Stueck draws on recently available materials from seven countries, plus the archives of the United Nations, presenting a detailed narrative of the diplomacy of the conflict and a broad assessment of its critical role in the Cold War. He emphasizes the contribution of the United Nations, which at several key points in the conflict provided an important institutional framework within which less powerful nations were able to restrain the aggressive tendencies of the United States. In Stueck's view, contributors to the U.N. cause in Korea provided support not out of any abstract commitment to a universal system of collective security but because they saw an opportunity to influence U.S. policy. Chinese intervention in Korea in the fall of 1950 brought with it the threat of world war, but at that time and in other instances prior to the armistice in July 1953, America's NATO allies and Third World neutrals succeeded in curbing American adventurism. While conceding the tragic and brutal nature of the war, Stueck suggests that it helped to prevent the occurrence of an even more destructive conflict in Europe.
The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War II
by Ron Theodore RobinFrom Stalag 17 to The Manchurian Candidate, the American media have long been fascinated with stories of American prisoners of war. But few Americans are aware that enemy prisoners of war were incarcerated on our own soil during World War II. In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin tells the extraordinary story of the 380,000 German prisoners who filled camps from Rhode Island to Wisconsin, Missouri to New Jersey. Using personal narratives, camp newspapers, and military records, Robin re-creates in arresting detail the attempts of prison officials to mold the daily lives and minds of their prisoners.From 1943 onward, and in spite of the Geneva Convention, prisoners were subjected to an ambitious reeducation program designed to turn them into American-style democrats. Under the direction of the Pentagon, liberal arts professors entered over 500 camps nationwide. Deaf to the advice of their professional rivals, the behavioral scientists, these instructors pushed through a program of arts and humanities that stressed only the positive aspects of American society. Aided by German POW collaborators, American educators censored popular books and films in order to promote democratic humanism and downplay class and race issues, materialism, and wartime heroics. Red-baiting Pentagon officials added their contribution to the program, as well; by the war's end, the curriculum was more concerned with combating the appeals of communism than with eradicating the evils of National Socialism.The reeducation officials neglected to account for one factor: an entrenched German military subculture in the camps, complete with a rigid chain of command and a propensity for murdering "traitors." The result of their neglect was utter failure for the reeducation program. By telling the story of the program's rocky existence, however, Ron Robin shows how this intriguing chapter of military history was tied to two crucial episodes of twentieth- century American history: the battle over the future of American education and the McCarthy-era hysterics that awaited postwar America.
Alexander the Great and His Empire: A Short Introduction (PDF)
by Pierre Briant Amélie KuhrtThis is the first publication in English of Pierre Briant's classic short history of Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire, from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. Eschewing a conventional biographical focus, this is the only book in any language that sets the rise of Alexander's short-lived empire within the broad context of ancient Near Eastern history under Achaemenid Persian rule, as well as against Alexander's Macedonian background. As a renowned historian of both the Macedonians and the Persians, Briant is uniquely able to assess Alexander's significance from the viewpoint of both the conquerors and the conquered, and to trace what changed and what stayed the same as Alexander and the Hellenistic world gained ascendancy over Darius's Persia. After a short account of Alexander's life before his landing in Asia Minor, the book gives a brief overview of the major stages of his conquest. This background sets the stage for a series of concise thematic chapters that explore the origins and objectives of the conquest; the nature and significance of the resistance it met; the administration, defense, and exploitation of the conquered lands; the varying nature of Alexander's relations with the Macedonians, Greeks, and Persians; and the problems of succession following Alexander's death. For this translation, Briant has written a new foreword and conclusion, updated the main text and the thematic annotated bibliography, and added a substantial appendix in which he assesses the current state of scholarship on Alexander and suggests some directions for future research. More than ever, this masterful work provides an original and important perspective on Alexander and his empire.
Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present
by Daniel R. HeadrickFor six hundred years, the nations of Europe and North America have periodically attempted to coerce, invade, or conquer other societies. They have relied on their superior technology to do so, yet these technologies have not always guaranteed success. Power over Peoples examines Western imperialism's complex relationship with technology, from the first Portuguese ships that ventured down the coast of Africa in the 1430s to America's conflicts in the Middle East today. Why did the sailing vessels that gave the Portuguese a century-long advantage in the Indian Ocean fail to overcome Muslim galleys in the Red Sea? Why were the same weapons and methods that the Spanish used to conquer Mexico and Peru ineffective in Chile and Africa? Why didn't America's overwhelming air power assure success in Iraq and Afghanistan? In Power over Peoples, Daniel Headrick traces the evolution of Western technologies--from muskets and galleons to jet planes and smart bombs--and sheds light on the environmental and social factors that have brought victory in some cases and unforeseen defeat in others. He shows how superior technology translates into greater power over nature and sometimes even other peoples, yet how technological superiority is no guarantee of success in imperialist ventures--because the technology only delivers results in a specific environment, or because the society being attacked responds in unexpected ways. Breathtaking in scope, Power over Peoples is a revealing history of technological innovation, its promise and limitations, and its central role in the rise and fall of empire.
Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference
by Jane Burbank Frederick CooperEmpires--vast states of territories and peoples united by force and ambition--have dominated the political landscape for more than two millennia. Empires in World History departs from conventional European and nation-centered perspectives to take a remarkable look at how empires relied on diversity to shape the global order. Beginning with ancient Rome and China and continuing across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper examine empires' conquests, rivalries, and strategies of domination--with an emphasis on how empires accommodated, created, and manipulated differences among populations. Burbank and Cooper examine Rome and China from the third century BCE, empires that sustained state power for centuries. They delve into the militant monotheism of Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates, and the short-lived Carolingians, as well as the pragmatically tolerant rule of the Mongols and Ottomans, who combined religious protection with the politics of loyalty. Burbank and Cooper discuss the influence of empire on capitalism and popular sovereignty, the limitations and instability of Europe's colonial projects, Russia's repertoire of exploitation and differentiation, as well as the "empire of liberty"--devised by American revolutionaries and later extended across a continent and beyond. With its investigation into the relationship between diversity and imperial states, Empires in World History offers a fresh approach to understanding the impact of empires on the past and present.
Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany
by Frank BiessThis book focuses on one of the most visible and important consequences of total defeat in postwar Germany: the return to East and West Germany of the two million German soldiers and POWs who spent an extended period in Soviet captivity. These former prisoners made up a unique segment of German society. They were both soldiers in the war of racial annihilation on the Eastern front and then suffered extensive hardship and deprivation themselves as prisoners of war. The book examines the lingering consequences of the soldiers' return and explores returnees' own responses to a radically changed and divided homeland. Historian Frank Biess traces the origins of the postwar period to the last years of the war, when ordinary Germans began to face the prospect of impending defeat. He then demonstrates parallel East and West German efforts to overcome the German loss by transforming returning POWs into ideal post-totalitarian or antifascist citizens. By exploring returnees' troubled adjustment to the more private spheres of the workplace and the family, the book stresses the limitations of these East and West German attempts to move beyond the war. Based on a wide array of primary and secondary sources, Homecomings combines the political history of reconstruction with the social history of returnees and the cultural history of war memories and gender identities. It unearths important structural and functional similarities between German postwar societies, which remained infused with the aftereffects of unprecedented violence, loss, and mass death long after the war was over.
Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment
by Risa BrooksGood strategic assessment does not guarantee success in international relations, but bad strategic assessment dramatically increases the risk of disastrous failure. The most glaring example of this reality is playing out in Iraq today. But what explains why states and their leaders are sometimes so good at strategic assessment--and why they are sometimes so bad at it? Part of the explanation has to do with a state's civil-military relations. In Shaping Strategy, Risa Brooks develops a novel theory of how states' civil-military relations affect strategic assessment during international conflicts. And her conclusions have broad practical importance: to anticipate when states are prone to strategic failure abroad, we must look at how civil-military relations affect the analysis of those strategies at home. Drawing insights from both international relations and comparative politics, Shaping Strategy shows that good strategic assessment depends on civil-military relations that encourage an easy exchange of information and a rigorous analysis of a state's own relative capabilities and strategic environment. Among the diverse case studies the book illuminates, Brooks explains why strategic assessment in Egypt was so poor under Gamal Abdel Nasser prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and why it improved under Anwar Sadat. The book also offers a new perspective on the devastating failure of U.S. planning for the second Iraq war. Brooks argues that this failure, far from being unique, is an example of an assessment pathology to which states commonly succumb.
Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (PDF)
by Peter ParetOriginally published in 1976, Clausewitz and the State presents a comprehensive analysis of one of the significant thinkers of modern Europe. Peter Paret combines social and military history and psychological interpretation with a study of Clausewitz's military theories and of his unduly neglected historical and political writing. This timely new edition includes a preface which allows Paret to recount the past thirty years of discussion on Clausewitz and respond to critics. A companion volume to Clausewitz's On War, this book is indispensable to anyone interested in Clausewitz and his theories, and their proper historical context.
Defending America: Military Culture and the Cold War Court-Martial (PDF)
by Elizabeth Lutes HillmanFrom going AWOL to collaborating with communists, assaulting fellow servicemen to marrying without permission, military crime during the Cold War offers a telling glimpse into a military undergoing a demographic and legal transformation. The post-World War II American military, newly permanent, populated by draftees as well as volunteers, and asked to fight communism around the world, was also the subject of a major criminal justice reform. By examining the Cold War court-martial, Defending America opens a new window on conflicts that divided America at the time, such as the competing demands of work and family and the tension between individual rights and social conformity. Using military justice records, Elizabeth Lutes Hillman demonstrates the criminal consequences of the military's violent mission, ideological goals, fear of homosexuality, and attitude toward racial, gender, and class difference. The records also show that only the most inept, unfortunate, and impolitic of misbehaving service members were likely to be prosecuted. Young, poor, low-ranking, and nonwhite servicemen bore a disproportionate burden in the military's enforcement of crime, and gay men and lesbians paid the price for the armed forces' official hostility toward homosexuality. While the U.S. military fought to defend the Constitution, the Cold War court-martial punished those who wavered from accepted political convictions, sexual behavior, and social conventions, threatening the very rights of due process and free expression the Constitution promised.
History and Strategy
by Marc TrachtenbergThis work is a powerful demonstration of how historical analysis can be brought to bear on the study of strategic issues, and, conversely, how strategic thinking can help drive historical research. Based largely on newly released American archives, History and Strategy focuses on the twenty years following World War II. By bridging the sizable gap between the intellectual world of historians and that of strategists and political scientists, the essays here present a fresh and unified view of how to explore international politics in the nuclear era. The book begins with an overview of strategic thought in America from 1952 through 1966 and ends with a discussion of "making sense" of the nuclear age. Trachtenberg reevaluates the immediate causes of World War I, studies the impact of the shifting nuclear balance on American strategy in the early 1950s, examines the relationship between the nuclearization of NATO and U.S.-West European relations, and looks at the Berlin and the Cuban crises. He shows throughout that there are startling discoveries to be made about events that seem to have been thoroughly investigated.
The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons
by Scott Douglas SaganEnvironmental tragedies such as Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez remind us that catastrophic accidents are always possible in a world full of hazardous technologies. Yet, the apparently excellent safety record with nuclear weapons has led scholars, policy-makers, and the public alike to believe that nuclear arsenals can serve as a secure deterrent for the foreseeable future. In this provocative book, Scott Sagan challenges such optimism. Sagan's research into formerly classified archives penetrates the veil of safety that has surrounded U.S. nuclear weapons and reveals a hidden history of frightening "close calls" to disaster.
Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945
by Charles SydnorCharles Sydnor relates the political and military experience of the SS Totenkopfdivision to the institutional development of the SS and the ideological objectives of Nazi Germany.
The Decline of Bismarck's European Order: Franco-Russian Relations 1875-1890
by George Frost KennanIn an attempt to discover some of the underlying origins of World War I, the eminent diplomat and writer George Kennan focuses on a small sector of offstage events to show how they affected the drama at large long before the war even began. In the introduction to his book George Kennan tells us, "I came to see World War I . . . as the great seminal catastrophe of this century--the event which . . . lay at the heart of the failure and decline of this Western civilization." But, he asks, who could help being struck by the contrast between this apocalyptic result and the "delirious euphoria" of the crowds on the streets of Europe at the outbreak of war in 1914! "Were we not," he suggests, "in the face of some monstrous miscalculation--some pervasive failure to read correctly the outward indicators of one's own situation?" It is from this perspective that Mr. Kennan launches a "micro-history" of the Franco-Russian relationship as far back as the 1870s in an effort to determine the motives that led people "to wander so blindly" into the horrors of the First World War.
Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power
by Peter ParetThese essays provide an authoritative introduction to Carl von Clausewitz and enlarge the history of war by joining it to the history of ideas and institutions and linking it with intellectual biography.
War And Empire: The Expansion Of Britain, 1790-1830 (PDF)
by B. Collins'This is an admirable survey - comprehensive, clear and readable. ' Brian Holden Reid, Kings College London The years 1790 to 1830 saw Britain engage in an extensive period of war-waging and empire-building which transformed its position as an imperial state, established its reputation as a distinctive military power and secured naval preeminence. Despite this apparent success, Britain did not become a world super power in the conventional sense. Instead, as Professor Collins demonstrates, it operated as an enclave power, influencing or dominating many regions of the world without ever asserting global hegemony. Even in the 1820s, Britain still had to fight to maintain influence, and sometimes struggled to assert dominance on the borderlands of the empire. By locating naval and military power at the heart of Britain's relationship with the wider world, Bruce Collins offers an insightful reinterpretation of the interaction between military and naval war-making, the expansion of the empire, and the nature of the British regime. Using examples of conflicts ranging from continental Europe and Ireland to North America, Africa and India, he argues that the state's effectiveness in war was crucial to its imperial expansion and gives new significance to British military conduct in an age of revolution and war. Bruce Collins is Professor of Modern History at Sheffield Hallam University.
The Empire’s Patriotic Fund: Public Benevolence and the Boer War in an Australian Colony
by John McquiltonThis book examines the Empire’s Patriotic Fund, established in Victoria, Australia, in 1901 to assist the dependants of the men serving in the Boer War and the men invalided home because of wounds or illness. Acting as an autonomous body and drawing on funds raised through a public appeal, its work marked one of the first attempts in Australia to deal with the consequences of Australian participation in a sustained war. This is the first full study of an Australian fund established to support those affected by a sustained war being fought for Empire by Australians. Rather than casting those affected by war as victims, John McQuilton examines how a body of middle class men attempted to come to grips with an experience that lay outside prevailing notions of social welfare. Based on applications submitted to the Empire’s Patriotic Fund where both class and gender played their roles, this book opens up further study of such funds and the question of antecedents in the history of repatriation in Australia in the early twentieth century.
The Empire’s Patriotic Fund: Public Benevolence and the Boer War in an Australian Colony
by John McquiltonThis book examines the Empire’s Patriotic Fund, established in Victoria, Australia, in 1901 to assist the dependants of the men serving in the Boer War and the men invalided home because of wounds or illness. Acting as an autonomous body and drawing on funds raised through a public appeal, its work marked one of the first attempts in Australia to deal with the consequences of Australian participation in a sustained war. This is the first full study of an Australian fund established to support those affected by a sustained war being fought for Empire by Australians. Rather than casting those affected by war as victims, John McQuilton examines how a body of middle class men attempted to come to grips with an experience that lay outside prevailing notions of social welfare. Based on applications submitted to the Empire’s Patriotic Fund where both class and gender played their roles, this book opens up further study of such funds and the question of antecedents in the history of repatriation in Australia in the early twentieth century.
The Carrera Revolt and 'Hybrid Warfare' in Nineteenth-Century Central America
by Gilmar Visoni-AlonzoThis book provides a novel analysis of the military campaign of Rafael Carrera during the popular insurrection of 1837-1840 in Guatemala. Over the course of three years Carrera, a semi-literate farmer, and his army of peasants established Conservative control over Guatemala and accelerated the disintegration of the Central American Federation. Although Carrera’s rise has been analyzed from a political and socio-economic perspective, the present work shows that Carrera’s vertiginous success is the product of a peculiar and misunderstood approach to warfare that combines guerrilla recruiting practices and rural insurgency logistics with conventional combat tactics and operations. Gilmar Visoni-Alonzo argues that Carrera’s hybrid warfare was made possible because of the conditions created by the militarization of Latin American society following the administrative reforms of the Bourbon monarchy in the late eighteenth century. The concept of hybrid warfare is offered as an alternative model to understand the success of other insurgencies.
The Carrera Revolt and 'Hybrid Warfare' in Nineteenth-Century Central America
by Gilmar Visoni-AlonzoThis book provides a novel analysis of the military campaign of Rafael Carrera during the popular insurrection of 1837-1840 in Guatemala. Over the course of three years Carrera, a semi-literate farmer, and his army of peasants established Conservative control over Guatemala and accelerated the disintegration of the Central American Federation. Although Carrera’s rise has been analyzed from a political and socio-economic perspective, the present work shows that Carrera’s vertiginous success is the product of a peculiar and misunderstood approach to warfare that combines guerrilla recruiting practices and rural insurgency logistics with conventional combat tactics and operations. Gilmar Visoni-Alonzo argues that Carrera’s hybrid warfare was made possible because of the conditions created by the militarization of Latin American society following the administrative reforms of the Bourbon monarchy in the late eighteenth century. The concept of hybrid warfare is offered as an alternative model to understand the success of other insurgencies.
Tactics and Procurement in the Habsburg Military, 1866-1918: Offensive Spending
by John A. DredgerThis book reveals the primary causes of Habsburg defeat both in the Austro-Prussian War and the First World War. The choice of offensive strategy and tactics against an enemy possessing superior weaponry in the Austro-Prussian War, and opponents with superior numbers and weapons in the Great War, resulted in catastrophe. The inferiority of the Habsburg forces in both conflicts stemmed from imprudent spending decisions during peacetime, rather than conservatism or parliamentary stinginess. The desire to restore the sunken prestige of Austria-Hungary and prove Habsburg’s great power status drove the military to waste money on an expensive fleet, and choose offensive tactics to win great victories. This study shows the civil-military interaction in regard to funding and procurement decisions as well as the deep intellectual debates within the army, which refute the idea that the Habsburg military remained opposed to technology or progress
Tactics and Procurement in the Habsburg Military, 1866-1918: Offensive Spending
by John A. DredgerThis book reveals the primary causes of Habsburg defeat both in the Austro-Prussian War and the First World War. The choice of offensive strategy and tactics against an enemy possessing superior weaponry in the Austro-Prussian War, and opponents with superior numbers and weapons in the Great War, resulted in catastrophe. The inferiority of the Habsburg forces in both conflicts stemmed from imprudent spending decisions during peacetime, rather than conservatism or parliamentary stinginess. The desire to restore the sunken prestige of Austria-Hungary and prove Habsburg’s great power status drove the military to waste money on an expensive fleet, and choose offensive tactics to win great victories. This study shows the civil-military interaction in regard to funding and procurement decisions as well as the deep intellectual debates within the army, which refute the idea that the Habsburg military remained opposed to technology or progress
The Bulgarian-Byzantine Wars for Early Medieval Balkan Hegemony: Silver-Lined Skulls and Blinded Armies
by Dennis P. HupchickThis book provides an interpretive narrative of the wars fought by Bulgaria against the Byzantine Empire for dominant control of the Balkan Peninsula during the early medieval era. Over a span of two centuries, from the early ninth through the early eleventh, and under the leadership of the Bulgarian rulers Krum, Simeon I, and Samuil, those conflicts evolved from simple confrontations for territorial possession into a life-or-death struggle for imperial precedence within the Orthodox world then emerging in Eastern Europe—a struggle that the Bulgarians ultimately lost. The primary focus is on Bulgaria, rather than Byzantium, and an effort is made to provide a historically reliable chronology of the assorted campaigns. The various belligerents’ military organizations, defensive technologies, armaments, and tactics are surveyed in an introduction to the main narrative. A prelude chapter sets the stage for the hegemonic conflict, which was divided into three distinct phases by interludes of relative peace between the contending parties, during which Bulgaria’s domestic, foreign, and cultural developments shaped the nature and conduct of the fighting in each successive phase.
The Bulgarian-Byzantine Wars for Early Medieval Balkan Hegemony: Silver-Lined Skulls and Blinded Armies
by Dennis P. HupchickThis book provides an interpretive narrative of the wars fought by Bulgaria against the Byzantine Empire for dominant control of the Balkan Peninsula during the early medieval era. Over a span of two centuries, from the early ninth through the early eleventh, and under the leadership of the Bulgarian rulers Krum, Simeon I, and Samuil, those conflicts evolved from simple confrontations for territorial possession into a life-or-death struggle for imperial precedence within the Orthodox world then emerging in Eastern Europe—a struggle that the Bulgarians ultimately lost. The primary focus is on Bulgaria, rather than Byzantium, and an effort is made to provide a historically reliable chronology of the assorted campaigns. The various belligerents’ military organizations, defensive technologies, armaments, and tactics are surveyed in an introduction to the main narrative. A prelude chapter sets the stage for the hegemonic conflict, which was divided into three distinct phases by interludes of relative peace between the contending parties, during which Bulgaria’s domestic, foreign, and cultural developments shaped the nature and conduct of the fighting in each successive phase.
Crisis, Agency, and Law in US Civil-Military Relations
by Daniel MaurerThis book develops a responsible and practical method for evaluating the success, failure, or “crisis” of American civil-military relations among its political and uniformed elite. The author’s premise is that currently there is no objectively fair way for the public at large or the strategic-level elites to assess whether the critical and often obscured relationships between Generals, Admirals, and Statesmen function as they ought to under the US constitutional system. By treating these relationships—in form and practice—as part of a wider principal (civilian)-agency (military) dynamic, the book tracks the “duties”—care, competence, diligence, confidentiality, scope of responsibility—and perceived shortcomings in the interactions between US civilian political authorities and their military advisors in both peacetime and in war.