Author: Carnes Lord
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107009618
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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The first systematic analysis of American proconsular leadership from the Spanish-American War to the present.

Author: Carnes Lord
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139423809
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book is a study of proconsulship, a form of delegated political-military leadership historically associated with the governance of large empires. Opening with a conceptual and historical analysis of proconsulship as an aspect of imperial or quasi-imperial rule generally, it surveys its origins and development in the late Roman Republic and its manifestations in the British Empire. The main focus is proconsulship in American history. Beginning with the occupation of Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, it discusses the role of General Douglas MacArthur in East Asia during and after World War II, the occupation of Germany (focusing on General Lucius Clay), and proconsular leadership during the Vietnam War and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan at the turn of the twenty-first century. An additional chapter provides an assessment of the evolution of American political-military command and control and decision making after the end of the Cold War.

Author: Robert Wolfe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
The unprecedented influence of United States military governments in Germany and Japan makes this volume a funda­mental contribution to several basic fields: history, political science, eco­nomics, archival administration, mil­itary studies, civil affairs, and inter­national law and criminal justice. Although the speeches and discussions of the 1977 "Americans as Proconsuls" Conference were often piquant, enter­taining, nostalgic, each addressed the core issues of the topic, often setting the historical record straight. The chief vir­tue of these essays, however, may be, as Edward N. Peterson states in his own piece, that "The scholar's history of the occupation could still assist the public and the politician to avoid the pitfalls of impossible dreams and illusions created by an American isolation from the rest of suffering humanity."

Author: Timothy A. Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military government
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
In an era of U.S. military dominance, rogue, failed, and failing states present a challenge to American national power that can not be met by force alone. As America is discovering in Afghanistan and Iraq, the burden of victory lies in building an enduring peace, a task suited more to the statesman than the warrior. While somewhat at odds with our national values of military subservience to governmental rule, historically, it has been the American soldier's responsibility to gain the fruits of victory by continuing the military operation beyond the battle, following battlefield victory with military government to achieve the stability and conditions necessary to build a successful society in a conquered country. This paper examines America's previous applications of military government from the war with Mexico in 1846 through Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as recent governmental initiatives, to conclude that the military and the nation would do well to relearn the role of military government and the military proconsul.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Political and media pundits have labeled the current period of post Cold-War world order the Pax Americana, reminiscent of the Pax Romana that occurred from 27 to 180 AD, during the zenith of the Roman Empire. It is the view of many that since the U.S. is the sole superpower in the world, the next few decades or years will be a time of great growth and tranquility, under the leadership and protection of the United States of America. While the U.S. has a unique role and opportunity within the world, it does not possess the same ways and means of the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries. Many other parallels to the Roman Empire have again made their way in to the modern political lexicon. Dana Priest, a staff writer for the Washington Post, recently wrote a three article series in September 2000, declaring the U.S. Theater Commander-in-Chiefs (CINCs) to be the equivalent of Roman Proconsuls during the Roman Empire. Roman Proconsuls served as the Roman governor and commander-in-chief of the military forces within his designated province. The functions of the office underwent changes during the Republic and Imperial eras of Rome, but one thing never changed. Success meant that Roman influence and expansion would continue throughout the world, but his failure meant the diminishing of Roman power. The position of the modern-day U.S. Theater CINC seems to be similar to the Roman Proconsul. Given America's position in the post Cold-War world, these men are America's military, and sometimes, pseudo-political representatives to the world. Their success or failure could have significant consequences for America's position in the world. The ways and means today however, are much different than in the days of the Roman Empire. The purpose of this monograph is to examine the evolution of the Roman Proconsuls and compare them to modern-era U.S. Theater CINCs.

Author: Robert J. Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had acquired a vast empire that included territories in Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe that numbered more than a quarter of the earth's population. Britain also possessed the largest army that the state had ever fielded, employing nearly 250,000 troops on station throughout this empire and on fighting fronts in Spain, southern France, the Low Countries, and North America. However, the peace of 1815 and the end of nearly twenty-five years of war with France brought with it significant problems for Britain. Years of war had saddled the state with a massive debt of nearly £745,000; a threefold increase from its total debt in 1793, the year war with the French began. Furthermore, the rapid economic changes brought on by a the state that had transitioned from a wartime economy to one of peacetime caused widespread unemployment and financial dislocation among the British population including the thousands of officers and soldiers who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars and were now demobilized and back into the civilian sector. Lastly, the significant imperial growth had stretched the colonial administrative and bureaucratic infrastructure to the breaking point prompting the Colonial Office and the ruling elites to adopt short-term measures in running its empire. The solution adopted by the Colonial Office in the twenty-five years that followed the Napoleonic Wars was the employment of proconsular despotism. Proconsular despotism is the practice of governing distant territories and provinces by politically safe individuals, most often military men, who identified with and were sympathetic to the aims of the parent state and the ruling elites. The employment of this form of colonial governance helped to alleviate a number of problems that plagued the Crown and Parliament. First, the practice found suitable employment for deserving military officers during a period of army demobilization and sizeable reduction of armed forces. The appointment of military officers to high colonial administrative positions was viewed by Parliament as a reward for distinguished service to the state. Second, the practice enabled Colonial Office to employ officials who had both previous administrative and military experience and who were accustomed to make critical decisions that they believed coincided with British strategic and national interests. Third, the employment of knowledgeable and experienced army officers in colonial posts fulfilled the Parliamentary mandates of curtailing military spending while maintaining security for the colonies. Military officers of all ranks clamored for the opportunities of serving in the colonies. General and field grade officers viewed service in the colonies as a means of maintaining their status and financially supporting their lifestyles. Company grade officers, who primarily came from the emerging middle class, saw colonial service as a means of swift promotion in a peacetime army and of rising socially. Competition for overseas administrative positions was intense and officers frequently employed an intricate and complex pattern of patronage networking. The proconsular system of governing Britain's vast network of colonies flourished in the quarter century following the Battle of Waterloo. In the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars the British officer corps contributed men who became the principal source for trained colonial administrators enabling Britain to effectively manage its immense empire.

Author: Montgomery McFate
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190934948
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
In almost every military intervention in its history, the US has made cultural mistakes that hindered attainment of its policy goals. From the strategic bombing of Vietnam to the accidental burning of the Koran in Afghanistan, it has blundered around with little consideration of local cultural beliefs and for the long-term effects on the host nation's society. Cultural anthropology--the so-called "handmaiden of colonialism"--has historically served as an intellectual bridge between Western powers and local nationals. What light can it shed on the intersection of the US military and foreign societies today? This book tells the story of anthropologists who worked directly for the military, such as Ursula Graham Bower, the only woman to hold a British combat command during WWII. Each faced challenges including the negative outcomes of exporting Western political models and errors of perception. Ranging from the British colonial era in Africa to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Military Anthropology illustrates the conceptual, cultural and practical barriers encountered by military organisations operating in societies vastly different from their own.

Author: Fred K. Drogula
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469621274
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
In this work, Fred Drogula studies the development of Roman provincial command using the terms and concepts of the Romans themselves as reference points. Beginning in the earliest years of the republic, Drogula argues, provincial command was not a uniform concept fixed in positive law but rather a dynamic set of ideas shaped by traditional practice. Therefore, as the Roman state grew, concepts of authority, control over territory, and military power underwent continual transformation. This adaptability was a tremendous resource for the Romans since it enabled them to respond to new military challenges in effective ways. But it was also a source of conflict over the roles and definitions of power. The rise of popular politics in the late republic enabled men like Pompey and Caesar to use their considerable influence to manipulate the flexible traditions of military command for their own advantage. Later, Augustus used nominal provincial commands to appease the senate even as he concentrated military and governing power under his own control by claiming supreme rule. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the early empire's rules of command.

Author: Thijs Brocades Zaalberg
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9053567925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
Since the Cold War, peace operations have become the core focus of many Western armed forces. In these operations, the division between civil and military responsibilities often rapidly blurs. Among policy makers and in military circles, a debate has erupted regarding the scope of the military in stabilizing and reconstructing war torn societies. Should soldiers, who primarily prepare for combat duties, observe a strict segregation between the "military sphere" and the "civilian sphere" or become involved in "nation building"? Should soldiers be allowed to venture into the murky arena of public security, civil administration, humanitarian relief, and political and social reconstruction? In Soldiers and Civil Power, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg draws on military records and in-depth interviews with key players to examine international operations in the 1990's in Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Focusing his historical analysis on the experiences of various battalions in the field, he reveals large gaps between this tactical level of operations, political-strategic decision making and military doctrine. By comparing peace operations to examples of counterinsurgency operations in the colonial era and military governance in World War II, he exposes the controversial, but inescapable role of the Western military in supporting and even substituting civil authorities during military interventions. At a time when US forces and its allies struggle to restore order in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brocades Zaalberg’s in-depth study is an invaluable resource not only for military historians, but anyone interested in the evolving global mission of armed forces in the twenty-first century.

Author: Harry Lewis Coles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military government
Languages : en
Pages : 932

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Book Description