Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths

Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths PDF Author: Strategic Studies Institute
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781312319387
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
In an era of broad and perhaps profound change, new theories and concepts are to be welcomed rather than shunned. However, before they are fully embraced, they need to be tested rigorously, for the cost of implementing a false theory and developing operational and strategic concepts around it can be greater than remaining wedded to an older, but sounder one. The theory of Fourth Generation War (4GW) is a perfect example. Were we to embrace this theory, a loose collection of ideas that does not hold up to close scrutiny, the price we might pay in a future conflict could be high indeed. In this monograph, Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II provides a critique of the theory of 4GW, examining its faulty assumptions and the problems in its logic. by subscribing to this bankrupt theory. If their aim is truly to create positive change, then they- and we-would be better off jettisoning the theory and retaining the traditional concept of insurgency, while modifying it to include the greater mobility and access afforded...

Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths

Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths PDF Author: Strategic Studies Institute
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781312319387
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Get Book Here

Book Description
In an era of broad and perhaps profound change, new theories and concepts are to be welcomed rather than shunned. However, before they are fully embraced, they need to be tested rigorously, for the cost of implementing a false theory and developing operational and strategic concepts around it can be greater than remaining wedded to an older, but sounder one. The theory of Fourth Generation War (4GW) is a perfect example. Were we to embrace this theory, a loose collection of ideas that does not hold up to close scrutiny, the price we might pay in a future conflict could be high indeed. In this monograph, Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II provides a critique of the theory of 4GW, examining its faulty assumptions and the problems in its logic. by subscribing to this bankrupt theory. If their aim is truly to create positive change, then they- and we-would be better off jettisoning the theory and retaining the traditional concept of insurgency, while modifying it to include the greater mobility and access afforded...

Fourth-generation War and Other Myths

Fourth-generation War and Other Myths PDF Author: Antulio Joseph Echevarria
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Insurgency
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description


War Before Civilization

War Before Civilization PDF Author: Lawrence H. Keeley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199880700
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as "the pacification of the past"). Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared even women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children (a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus). In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley is a seasoned writer and his book is packed with vivid, eye-opening details (for instance, that the homicide rate of prehistoric Illinois villagers may have exceeded that of the modern United States by some 70 times). But he also goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.

Myth and the Greatest Generation

Myth and the Greatest Generation PDF Author: Kenneth Rose
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135909946
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Myth and the Greatest Generation calls into question the glowing paradigm of the World War II generation set up by such books as The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw. Including analysis of news reports, memoirs, novels, films and other cultural artefacts Ken Rose shows the war was much more disruptive to the lives of Americans in the military and on the home front during World War II than is generally acknowledged. Issues of racial, labor unrest, juvenile delinquency, and marital infidelity were rampant, and the black market flourished. This book delves into both personal and national issues, calling into questions the dominant view of World War II as ‘The Good War’.

Looking for the Good War

Looking for the Good War PDF Author: Elizabeth D. Samet
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374716129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
“A remarkable book, from its title and subtitle to its last words . . . A stirring indictment of American sentimentality about war.” —Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans—all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States’ “exceptional” history and destiny. Samet finds the war's ambivalent legacy in some of its most heavily mythologized figures: the war correspondent epitomized by Ernie Pyle, the character of the erstwhile G.I. turned either cop or criminal in the pulp fiction and feature films of the late 1940s, the disaffected Civil War veteran who looms so large on the screen in the Cold War Western, and the resurgent military hero of the post-Vietnam period. Taken together, these figures reveal key elements of postwar attitudes toward violence, liberty, and nation—attitudes that have shaped domestic and foreign policy and that respond in various ways to various assumptions about national identity and purpose established or affirmed by World War II. As the United States reassesses its roles in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the time has come to rethink our national mythology: the way that World War II shaped our sense of national destiny, our beliefs about the use of American military force throughout the world, and our inability to accept the realities of the twenty-first century’s decades of devastating conflict.

Fourth-generation War and Other Myths

Fourth-generation War and Other Myths PDF Author: Antulio Joseph Echevarria
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781584872252
Category : Insurgency
Languages : en
Pages : 21

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Book Description


Hybrid Warfare

Hybrid Warfare PDF Author: Williamson Murray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107026083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Hybrid warfare has been an integral part of the historical landscape since the ancient world, but only recently have analysts - incorrectly - categorised these conflicts as unique. Great powers throughout history have confronted opponents who used a combination of regular and irregular forces to negate the advantage of the great powers' superior conventional military strength. As this study shows, hybrid wars are labour-intensive and long-term affairs; they are difficult struggles that defy the domestic logic of opinion polls and election cycles. Hybrid wars are also the most likely conflicts of the twenty-first century, as competitors use hybrid forces to wear down America's military capabilities in extended campaigns of exhaustion. Nine historical examples of hybrid warfare, from ancient Rome to the modern world, provide readers with context by clarifying the various aspects of conflicts and examining how great powers have dealt with them in the past.

The Blind Strategist

The Blind Strategist PDF Author: Stephen Robinson
Publisher: Exisle Publishing
ISBN: 1991001010
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Did Nazi war criminals deceive the United States military during the Cold War? A new book by a Canberra-based historian tells the story of how America’s most famous and influential military theorist was seduced by the lies of Hitler’s defeated generals. From the author of Panzer Commander Hermann Balck and False Flags comes The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War. Colonel John Boyd, a maverick fighter pilot, revolutionized the American art of war through his ideas on conflict and the human mind. Boyd claimed that victory is won by the side which transitions through 'decision cycles' faster than the enemy and his ideas gained influential converts in the Pentagon who were seeking a new way of waging war after defeat in Vietnam. Although Boyd’s theories became the basis of American military doctrine, he relied upon the fraudulent testimony of former Nazi generals who fabricated historical evidence to disassociate their reputations from their defeat and cover up their willing participation in war crimes. Boyd certainly changed the American art of war, but did he corrupt it in the process? The Blind Strategist separates fact from fantasy and exposes the myths of maneuver warfare through a detailed evidence-based investigation. Discover how maneuver warfare has resulted in catastrophic decisions in this must-read for anybody interested in American military history.

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons PDF Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786252961
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

The Generation Myth

The Generation Myth PDF Author: Bobby Duffy
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1541620305
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Millennials, Baby Boomers, Gen Z—we like to define people by when they were born, but an acclaimed social researcher explains why we shouldn't. Boomers are narcissists. Millennials are spoiled. Gen Zers are lazy. We assume people born around the same time have basically the same values. It makes for good headlines, but is it true? Bobby Duffy has spent years studying generational distinctions. In The Generation Myth, he argues that our generational identities are not fixed but fluid, reforming throughout our lives. Based on an analysis of what over three million people really think about homeownership, sex, well-being, and more, Duffy offers a new model for understanding how generations form, how they shape societies, and why generational differences aren’t as sharp as we think. The Generation Myth is a vital rejoinder to alarmist worries about generational warfare and social decline. The kids are all right, it turns out. Their parents are too.