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12. Military doctrine, command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory
- Author:
- Geoffrey Sloan
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- It was the British maritime strategist Sir Julian Corbett who, on the eve of the First World War, described doctrine as 'the soul of warfare'. This assertion conceals as much as it reveals, leaving out any explanation of how doctrine is formulated, disseminated or used, and any account of the relationship between doctrine and command philosophy. It is only through a synthesis of these two factors that fighting power can be generated. Doctrine can be described as a force multiplier in that a fighting organization that applies it consistently will be able to take on a larger force in battle and win. It is often analysed and evaluated in isolation from command philosophy. How, then, do we define doctrine and what are the major variants of command philosophy? What is the nature of the relationship between doctrine and command philosophy? Is it possible to identify and assess the component parts of doctrine, and to understand how they manifest themselves at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war?
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- United States
13. Review Article: The Crimean War and its lessons for today
- Author:
- David Benn
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- The Crimean War of 1854–6 has been described in many books. Nevertheless, the present book, written by a professor of history at the University of London, does in important ways supply a new dimension to the subject. It provides a wealth of new colour and detail, mentioning for instance that France bore the brunt of the fighting and that 40 American doctors volunteered their services on the Russian side. Above all, it places the war in its historical context, relying not just on English but on French, Russian and Turkish sources. The subject is of obvious importance to diplomatic historians—and also to military historians, if only because it seems to provide a textbook example of how not to conduct a war.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, America, and London
14. Book Reviews
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- This edited volume has been published at the end of a year in which African actors have enjoyed almost unprecedented global attention. Protest movements across North Africa, but particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, captured headlines during the Arab Spring, and Time magazine named 'The protestor' as their person of the year for 2011. The world's newest state was born in South Sudan in June. The second half of the year was dominated by a violent revolt and civil war in Libya, against the backdrop of massive western intervention. As the year drew to a close, environmental diplomats and activists from across the world convened in Durban in December, as the possibility of a legally binding global successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was hammered out. One might think, therefore, that the continued warnings from Africanists that most analyses of the continent's inter - national politics continue to 'occur largely from a vantage point of detachment, exclusion and aberrance' (p. 2) might start to ring a little hollow.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Africa, North Africa, Egypt, and Tunisia
15. Resource wars: searching for a new definition
- Author:
- Jasper Humphreys
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- It is a sad and startling fact that the second highest segment of global illicit commerce is in wildlife, dead or alive; in May 2012 the average price for rhino horn was higher than that of either gold or cocaine at US$60,000 per kilo.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan
16. Ten years on: Obama's war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice
- Author:
- Trevor Mccrisken
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- It has been almost ten years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon led President George W. Bush to proclaim a 'war on terror'. This article focuses on the difficulties faced by his successor, Barack Obama, as he has attempted to move away from much of the Bush rhetoric and practice of counterterrorism. Obama came to office determined to 'reboot' US counter-terrorism policy so that it would not only be more effective but also more in keeping with what he perceived as the core moral values and principles at the heart of American political culture. For many observers, Obama has not lived up to expectations as he has not made wholesale changes to counter-terrorism policy. This article argues, however, that he always intended to not only maintain but, in fact, deepen Bush's war against terrorism, not because he was trapped by Bush's institutionalized construction of a global war on terror, but because he agrees fundamentally with the core assumptions and imperatives of that war on terror narrative. Nonetheless, Obama promised to continue combating terrorism in ways that were distinctive from his predecessor, not least because a higher moral standard would be applied to the conduct of counter-terrorism. By addressing his policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, Guantanamo Bay and torture, and the use of unmanned drone attacks, it is argued that Obama's 'war' against terrorism is not only in keeping with the assumptions and priorities of the last ten years but also that, despite some successes, it is just as problematic as that of his predecessor.
- Topic:
- Terrorism and War
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and America
17. War and wildlife: the Clausewitz connection
- Author:
- Jasper Humphreys and M L R Smith
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- Carl von Clausewitz might seem an unusual thinker to invoke in the name of wildlife protection but his insights into the nature of war provide a unique perspective into an arena that arguably poses more complex moral questions of responsibility to protect than with humans. The increasingly dangerous world of wildlife conservation offers a prism for examining many issues linked to sovereignty, especially in developing countries. This study highlights how the commercial rewards of the wildlife trade have fed into problems surrounding national security such as corruption, sub-state insurgency and state legality. These factors have led to the growing militarization of wildlife protection and, in turn, raise a fundamental question: is it ever right for an outside actor to ignore international convention to save a species from extinction?
- Topic:
- Sovereignty and War
18. 'Transformation in contact': learning the lessons of modern war
- Author:
- Robert Foley, Stuart Griffin, and Helen McCartney
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- While the US and British armies have proved adept at fighting high-intensity conflict, their initial performance against asymmetric threats and diffuse insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated how much each army had to learn about conducting counterinsurgency operations. This article examines one important means by which the US and British armies have transformed themselves into more flexible and responsive organizations that are able to harness innovation at the front effectively. It traces the development of the lessons-learned systems in both armies from the start of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq to today. Reform of US and British army learning capabilities offers an important insight into the drivers of military change.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq
19. Infidels and miscreants: love and war in Afghanistan
- Author:
- Alex Danchev
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- This article reviews the fruits of a sustained collaboration between the writer and reporter Sebastian Junger and the photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington, embedded with the US Army in Afghanistan: Junger's meditation, War; Hetherington's photographs, Infidel; and the documentary film they co-directed, Restrepo. Taken together, these works offer perhaps the most significant insight into the nature of combat, and combat effectiveness, yet to emerge in the era of the 'war on terror'. Remarkably enough, their fundamental theme is love.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States
20. A challenge to the reigning theory of the just war
- Author:
- Christian Barry
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- Troubled times often gives rise to great art that reflects those troubles. So too with political theory. The greatest work of twentieth century political theory, John Rawls's A theory of justice, was inspired in various respects by extreme social and economic inequality, racialized slavery and racial segregation in the United States. Arguably the most influential work of political theory since Rawls—Michael Walzer's Just and unjust wars—a sustained and historically informed reflection on the morality of interstate armed conflict—was written in the midst of the Vietnam War. It should be no surprise, then, that the bellicose period of the past 20 years should give rise to a robust new literature in political theory on the morality of armed conflict. It has been of uneven quality, and to some extent episodic, responding to particular challenges—the increased prevalence of asymmetric warfare and the permissibility of preventive or preemptive war—that have arisen as a result of specific events. In the past decade, however, a group of philosophers has begun to pose more fundamental questions about the reigning theory of the morality of armed conflict warfare—just war theory—as formulated by Walzer and others. Jeff McMahan's concise, inventive and tightly argued work Killing in war is without doubt the most important of these challenges to the reigning theory of the just war. This review article discusses McMahan's work, some of the critical attention it has received, and its potential implications for practice.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- United States and Vietnam
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