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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 14
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Book Description
The military organizations of great powers embrace the big-war paradigm. They are large, hierarchical institutions that generally innovate incrementally. Great-power militaries do not innovate well, particularly when the required innovations and adaptations lie outside the scope of conventional war. Great powers do not win small wars because they are great powers; their militaries must maintain a central competence in symmetric warfare to preserve their great-power status vis-a-vis other great powers, and their militaries must be large organizations. These two characteristics combine to create a formidable competence on the plains of Europe or the deserts of Iraq. However, these two traits do not produce institutions and cultures that exhibit a propensity for counterguerrilla warfare. In addition to a big-war culture, there are some contradictions that derive from the logic that exists when a superior industrial or postindustrial power faces an inferior, semifeudal, semicolonial, or preindustrial adversary. On one hand, the great power intrinsically brings overwhelmingly superior resources and technology to this type of conflict. On the other hand, the seemingly inferior opponent generally demonstrates a willingness to accept higher costs and to persevere against many odds. Asymmetric conflict is the most probable form of conflict that the United States may face. Asymmetric conflict will therefore be the norm, not the exception. Even though the war in Afghanistan departs from the model of asymmetric conflict presented in this article, the asymmetric nature of the war there only underscores the salience of asymmetric conflicts. This article circumscribes the scope of asymmetric conflict to analyze conflicts in which either national or multinational superior external military forces confront inferior states or indigenous groups in the latter's territory. Insurgencies and small wars lie within this category, and this article uses both terms interchangeably.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 14
Get Book Here
Book Description
The military organizations of great powers embrace the big-war paradigm. They are large, hierarchical institutions that generally innovate incrementally. Great-power militaries do not innovate well, particularly when the required innovations and adaptations lie outside the scope of conventional war. Great powers do not win small wars because they are great powers; their militaries must maintain a central competence in symmetric warfare to preserve their great-power status vis-a-vis other great powers, and their militaries must be large organizations. These two characteristics combine to create a formidable competence on the plains of Europe or the deserts of Iraq. However, these two traits do not produce institutions and cultures that exhibit a propensity for counterguerrilla warfare. In addition to a big-war culture, there are some contradictions that derive from the logic that exists when a superior industrial or postindustrial power faces an inferior, semifeudal, semicolonial, or preindustrial adversary. On one hand, the great power intrinsically brings overwhelmingly superior resources and technology to this type of conflict. On the other hand, the seemingly inferior opponent generally demonstrates a willingness to accept higher costs and to persevere against many odds. Asymmetric conflict is the most probable form of conflict that the United States may face. Asymmetric conflict will therefore be the norm, not the exception. Even though the war in Afghanistan departs from the model of asymmetric conflict presented in this article, the asymmetric nature of the war there only underscores the salience of asymmetric conflicts. This article circumscribes the scope of asymmetric conflict to analyze conflicts in which either national or multinational superior external military forces confront inferior states or indigenous groups in the latter's territory. Insurgencies and small wars lie within this category, and this article uses both terms interchangeably.
Author: Larisa Deriglazova
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421414120
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
Case studies examine the economics, domestic politics, and international factors that ultimately shaped military events more than military capacity and strategy.
Author: A. Hamish Ion
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
This volume addresses a timely subject--the question of small wars and the limits of power from a historical perspective. The theme is developed through case studies of small wars that the Great Powers conducted in Africa and Asia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This historical overview clearly shows the dangers inherent for a metropolitan government and its armed forces once such military operations are undertaken. Importantly, these examples from the past stand as a warning against current and future misapplication of military strength and the misuse of military forces. While continuing diplomatic efforts at limiting nuclear weapons, at reducing stockpiles of conventional arms, and the ongoing political change in Eastern Europe have lessened the dangers of a major war between the superpowers, small wars like the Persian Gulf War still occur. The end of the Cold War has brought more armed conflict in Europe, albeit in the form of sporadic civil war or ethnic violence, than during the height of NATO and Warsaw Pact confrontation. Indeed, it seems that as the risks of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union have diminished, political leaders have become more willing to resort to military force to solve complex international problems before exhausting diplomatic channels. This study will be of interest to policymakers and scholars interested in the judicial exercise of power.
Author: Sir Charles Edward Callwell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592
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Book Description
Author: Donald Stoker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009220888
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
How can you achieve victory in war if you don't have a clear idea of your political aims and a vision of what victory means? In this provocative challenge to US political aims and strategy, Donald Stoker argues that America endures endless wars because its leaders no longer know how to think about war, particularly wars fought for limited aims, taking the nation to war without understanding what they want or valuing victory and thus the ending of the war. He reveals how flawed ideas on so-called 'limited war' and war in general evolved against the backdrop of American conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These ideas, he shows, undermined America's ability to understand, wage, and win its wars, and to secure peace. Now fully updated to incorporate the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Why America Loses Wars dismantles seventy years of misguided thinking and lays the foundations for a new approach to the wars of tomorrow.
Author: United States. Marine Corps
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Guerrilla warfare
Languages : en
Pages : 602
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Book Description
Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
Author: Benjamin R. Beede
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136989900
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546
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Book Description
The Small Wars of the United States, 1899–2009 is the complete bibliography of works on US military intervention and irregular warfare around the world, as well as efforts to quell insurgencies on behalf of American allies. The text covers conflicts from 1898 to present, with detailed annotations of selected sources. In this second edition, Benjamin R. Beede revises his seminal work, bringing it completely up to date, including entries on the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. An invaluable research tool, The Small Wars of the United States, 1899–2009 is a critical resource for students and scholars studying US military history.
Author: Bernard B. Fall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811767752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 423
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Book Description
First published in 1961 by Stackpole Books, Street without Joy is a classic of military history. Journalist and scholar Bernard Fall vividly captured the sights, sounds, and smells of the brutal— and politically complicated—conflict between the French and the Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists in Indochina. The French fought to the bitter end, but even with the lethal advantages of a modern military, they could not stave off the Viet Minh insurgency of hit-and-run tactics, ambushes, booby traps, and nighttime raids. The final French defeat came at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, setting the stage for American involvement and a far bloodier chapter in Vietnam‘s history. Fall combined graphic reporting with deep scholarly knowledge of Vietnam and its colonial history in a book memorable in its descriptions of jungle fighting and insightful in its arguments. After more than a half a century in print, Street without Joy remains required reading.
Author: John J. Mearsheimer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393076245
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 572
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Book Description
"A superb book.…Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers."—Barry R. Posen, The National Interest The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully? In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable.
