Content Type: Journal Article / Publication Year: within 25 Years / Topic: War

201. 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

202. 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

203. Turkey: A Short History by Norman Stone

Author:: William Armstrong
Publication Date:: 04-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Early on in this slim account of 1,300 years' of Turkish history, Norman Stone suggests: "If you are Turkish you have to ask what you owe to: (1) the ancient native Turkish tradition; (2) Persia; (3) Byzantium; (4) Islam; (5) what sort of Islam; and (6) conscious westernization." It would be far-fetched to imagine that every modern Turk self-consciously ratiocinate these things and comes up with their own credit-debit account of historical heritage. This book's major strength, however, is to demonstrate the lesser-appreciated continuities-as well as sudden changes-that do make up so much of Turkish history. The Ottoman Empire, Stone tells us, initially saw itself as an inheritor of both the Seljuk Turk and Byzantine Greek traditions. Until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, for example, the Ottomans had thrived as a cavalry-based nomadic "military empire" in the Seljuk tradition; indeed, the plan of the Topkapı Palace they built soon after the conquest-with its modest, low-rise pavilions and courtyards-deliberately imitates the tented headquarters of a nomadic Turkish chieftain. On the other hand, Mehmet II (the conqueror of Constantinople) spoke fluent Greek and was "in effect set upon retaking the eastern Roman Empire that Justinian had made great in the sixth century." There is also the fact that, at the time of the taking the city, the population of the Ottoman lands was 75 percent Christian.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Russia, Turkey, and Persia

204. A Persian - Muslim Approach to Diplomacy

Author:: Ahmad Naghibzadeh
Publication Date:: 01-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: Conventional history has been invariably transcribed by conquerors and based on certain cognitive foundations. The history of diplomacy, international relations and their governing policies have not only not remained immune to this orientation, but specifically been affected and accordingly developed. The expansion of Western domination which gradually took place after the Renaissance, brought along with itself a development in Western epistemology, summarized as the denial of existents and approval of appearances. Machiavelli and Hobbes were the bearers of this shift in the political sphere. As a result of these changes, morality and human dignity were undermined by the false rationalization of realism. Unfortunately, coinciding with these changes in the West, the Islamic East was going through a downward spiral which started with the Mongol assault and the governance of newly converted Muslim military men who inevitably distorted the facets of theoretical discussions. However, when we skip this era of the Islamic East and go further back to study the scripts of Ancient Iran and the period of Islam's vast development, we will come to find factual and valuable statements derived from fundamental and comprehensive interpretations regarding politics and diplomacy from original sources. This is the exact aim of this study, i.e. to re-extract an Iranian-Islamic approach to diplomacy from proper sources.
Topic:: International Relations, Diplomacy, and War
Political Geography:: Iran

205. The Coming Fiat Money Cataclysm and the Case for Gold

Author:: Kevin Dowd, Martin Hutchinson, and Gordon Kerr
Publication Date:: 06-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: A recurring theme in monetary history is the conflict of trust and authority: the conflict between those who advocate a spontaneous monetary order determined by free exchange under the rule of law and those who wish to meddle with the monetary system for their own ends. This conflict is perhaps most clearly seen in the early 20th century controversy over the "state theory of money" (or "chartalism"), which maintained that money is a creature of the state. The one side was represented by the defenders of the old monetary order-most notably by the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, and by the German sociologist Georg Simmel. The other side was represented by the German legal scholar Georg Friedrich Knapp and by John Maynard Keynes. They argued that on monetary matters the government should be free to do whatever it liked, free from any constraints of law or even conventional morality.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Germany and Australia

206. Where Is Private Note Issue Legal?

Author:: Kurt Schuler and William McBride
Publication Date:: 06-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: During the 18th and 19th centuries and for part of the 20th century, more than 60 countries had free banking. The major characteristics of free banking are competitive issue of notes (paper money) and deposits by commercial banks, low legal barriers to entry, little regulation unique to the industry, and no central control of reserves (the monetary base) within the national monetary system (Dowd 1992, White 1995). Among the countries that had a form of free banking was the United States. Even after the freest period of free banking ended, with the Civil War, banks continued to issue notes until the federal government effectively monopolized note issue in 1935.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States

207. The Responsibility to Protect and the Role of Regional Organizations: An Appraisal of the African Union's Interventions

Author:: Tom Kabau
Publication Date:: 06-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:: This article examines the dilemmas and opportunities of the African Union, a regional organization, in implementing the responsibility to protect concepts in respect to forceful intervention to prevent or stop the occurrence of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union specifically mandates the Union to forcefully intervene in a Member State in such circumstances. Although the African Union has successfully resolved some situations where peaceful negotiations or consensual military intervention was sufficient, there has also been failure by the Union where such means fail or are inadequate. Such instances include the Darfur conflict where peacekeeping was insufficient, and recently in Libya where the African Union openly opposed enforcement of no fly zones to protect civilians. This article is of the view that the African Union's failure to implement Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act, even in deserving situations, may have been aggravated by the failure to institutionalize the concept of responsible sovereignty within the Union's legal framework and processes. Despite the forceful intervention mandate, there are also provisions that affirm the principles of non-interference. The AU system therefore fails to resolve the dilemma between sovereignty and intervention. Sovereignty preservation remains as an effective legal and political justification for non-intervention by the AU. This has promoted a subsequent trend of greater sovereignty concerns by the Union. Institutionalization of the concepts postulated under the emerging norm of responsibility to protect within the AU framework and processes can contribute to the elimination of the legal and political dilemmas of forceful intervention by the Union.
Topic:: Crime and War
Political Geography:: Africa and Libya

208. Sovereign Debt Crises as Threats to the Peace: Restructuring under Chapter VII of the UN Charter?

Author:: Matthias Goldmann
Publication Date:: 06-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:: Sovereign debt crises might significantly decrease the level of socioeconomic rights enjoyment for the population in the affected state. According to recent data, they even increase the risk of civil unrest. However, the resolution of sovereign debt crises is compromised by legal obstacles which result from the absence of a statutory, obligatory bankruptcy procedure for states. On the one hand, creditors might refuse to accept an exchange of their debt instrument in the frame of a workout and choose to litigate against the state. On the other hand, states might worsen their situation by unnecessarily delaying inevitable workouts. This article explores whether and to what extent the powers UN Security Council could be deployed in order to mitigate these problems. This requires a reconsideration of the concept of peace in Article 39 UN Charter. The article concludes that, at the request of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Security Council might put a stay on the enforcement of creditors' claims or order workout negotiations.
Topic:: Security, International Law, War, and International Monetary Fund
Political Geography:: Germany and United Nations

209. Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change.

Author:: Rachael Bryson
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: In Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change Williamson Murray differentiates between innovation and adaptation. Innovation, the focus of a previous book (with Allan R. Millett, 1998), includes peacetime advancements and learning. In contrast, adaptation is comprised of wartime changes and battlefield lessons. Murray argues that militaries able to adapt to battle conditions have a higher probability of ending the conflict as the victor. He expands on this point, writing that the United States has demonstrated a lack of adaptability in recent conflicts, and therefore the purpose of this study is to glean lessons about adaptability that may be applied to the US military.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States

210. Millett, Allan R. and Williamson Murray, eds. Military Effectiveness, 3 volumes. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Author:: Keith Hann
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Cambridge University Press has seen fit to re-release this seminal three-volume work, produced under the stewardship of Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray and originally published by Unwin Hyman in 1988. This work, covering the armies of most of the major powers in the First World War (volume one), the Interwar Period (volume two), and the Second World War (Volume three), contains essay from a veritable who's who of military historians: Earl F. Ziemke, Brian Sullivan, MacGregor Knox, Paul Kennedy, Holger H. Herwig, and many more. Well regarded upon its original release, it has been cited again and again by scholars over the past twenty-five years, both by those looking to understand the nature of military effectiveness as well as by those seeking deeper insight into a particular nation's armed forces, and a reissue is more than welcome.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: New York

211. The Crisis of Europe

Author:: Timothy Garton Ash
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After World War II, Europe began a process of peaceful political unification unprecedented there and unmatched anywhere else. But the project began to go wrong in the early 1990s, when western European leaders started moving too quickly toward a flawed monetary union. Now, as Europe faces a still-unresolved debt crisis, its drive toward unification has stalled -- and unless fear or foresight gets it going again, the union could slide toward irrelevance.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Europe

212. From Cold War to Hot Peace: The Habit of American Force

Author:: Richard K. Betts
Publication Date:: 09-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: WHEN THE UNITED STATES BECAME MORE SECURE, it became more forceful. Since the Cold War ended, it has spent far more than any other country or coalition to build armed forces; it has sent forces into combat more frequently than it did in the era of much bigger threats to national security; and it has done so much more often than any other country. The United States has been, quite simply, “the most militarily active state in the world.” To many in the mainstream of American politics, this is as it should be, because the United States has the right and responsibility to lead the world—or push it—in the right direction. To others, more alarmed by the pattern, U.S. behavior has evolved into “permanent war.”
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States

213. Partisan Balance: Why Political Parties Don't Kill the U.S. Constitutional System

Author:: Paul Frymer
Publication Date:: 09-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The Constitution of the United States provides the federal government with 536 elected officials who come from 536 different electoral districts. David Mayhew asks whether this constitutional system is democratically fair. Given the 536 differently constituted and independent electoral bases, there is a real potential for what Mayhew labels both "dissonance" and "skew" in terms of which voters are represented by government activity.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States

214. Francis Lieber on Public War

Author:: Rotem Giladi
Publication Date:: 11-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:: This paper examines Francis Lieber's concept of modern war as “public war” — in the Code he drafted for the 1863 Union Armies and in his earlier writings. Though Lieber was not the first to engage the distinction between private and public war, his treatment of modern war as exclusively public nevertheless deserves special attention. It became, in time, a foundational concept of the 19 th Century effort to modernize and humanize the laws of war. Today, it remains embedded, albeit implicit, in contemporary international humanitarian law and its paradigmatic interstate war outlook.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Germany

215. Iraq: Transition to Embassy Lead – 2010-2012

Author:: James Franklin Jeffrey
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: The 2011 transition from a US military-centric American presence in Iraq to a diplomatic lead, requiring the build out of already the largest US embassy since Vietnam, was an extraordinary political and logistic al effort, all but unparalleled in State Department history. The transition's success and its many challenges provide lessons for both the upcoming Afghanistan transition and 'expeditionary diplomacy' generally. It provides a model for diploma tic primacy in a conflict environment, but also cautionary lessons on the limits of diplomatic engagement in a war zone.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Vietnam

216. Terrorism Franchised: Al-Qaeda as Autonomous Imitation and Al-Shabaab as Proto-Caliphate

Author:: Daniel Lewis
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: If ideologies that inspire violence are not overcome by force of persuasion, they will only be overcome by force of arms. Al-Qaeda's ideas continue to take root in new and diverse soil. Where they do, violence, destabilization, and devastation are the predictable results. During the last eleven years, America and her allies have waged war on al-Qaeda the organization. War has not been waged on al-Qaeda the idea. The result has crippled al -Qaeda's tactical cap abilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but has allowed for its transnational presence to flourish. To engage al-Qaeda the idea, the foremost warriors needed are state and public diplomats whose weapons are far more subtle than bombs and bullets.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and America

217. Introduction

Author:: Julie Smith
Publication Date:: 11-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Many people believed that Great Britain was not and did not wish to become European, and that Britain wanted to enter the Community only so as to destroy it or divert it from its objectives. Many people also thought that France was ready to use every pretext to place in the end a fresh veto on Britain's entry. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you see before you tonight two men who are convinced of the contrary.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, and Germany

218. Interview with Hans-Dietrich Genscher

Author:: Quentin Peel and Michael Stürmer
Publication Date:: 11-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Michael Stürmer: Occasionally, and very pointedly, you have described yourself as 'the man from Halle'. What does Halle stand for in your life? Hans-Dietrich Genscher: It is the city that has moulded me. It is a very defiant, revolutionary city, with a great tradition in the Enlightenment, in the Reformation, but also in the labour movement. So it is no surprise that on 17 June 1953, the centre of the uprising, outside Berlin, was in Halle. But also in the Third Reich there was strong resistance in this region.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Europe and England

219. A high price to pay? Britain and the European budget

Author:: James Spence
Publication Date:: 11-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Shadows of 'bougets', in the old sense of moneybags, loom over Britain's stance on the EU budget today, as they did over EC budgets 40 years ago. Three of the make-or-break issues for the UK in the negotiations over the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the period from 2014 to 2020 concern the direct cost of UK membership. The first is maintaining the British correction or 'rebate', while also maintaining member state sovereignty over budget revenue decisions. (The current rebate, some claim, was finally gained by another 'bouget', Mrs Thatcher's fabled handbag, in 1984.) Cutting finance to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the second, and closely linked to the first. At the time Britain was negotiating its terms for accession, its less Eurocentric agricultural trade patterns, and its higher dependence on cheap food imports from outside the Communities, marked it off from the six founding EC member states for which food security was a high priority. UK food prices were relatively low compared to Continental prices. Agriculture was a smaller economic and employment sector in the UK than it was in Continental Europe, and land ownership patterns also differed markedly. The third, and again related, issue is reducing the overall size of the MFF: that is, limiting the amounts available for the EU's annual budgets over several years, and therefore reducing the UK's contributions.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United Kingdom and Europe

220. Britain, Europe and the United States: change and continuity

Author:: Arthur I. Cyr
Publication Date:: 11-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: There is no shortage of attention to disagreements and tensions between the United States and the nations of Europe, considered both individually and collectively. The 40th anniversary of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), is a good benchmark anniversary not only for reflection on what has transpired to date but also for evaluation of current trends and likely future developments. The nation's course, regarding both entry into membership and participation, has hardly been smooth, but the relationship with the institution has endured.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Britain, United States, and Europe

221. Just War Moral Philosophy and the 2008-09 Israeli Campaign in Gaza

Author:: Jerome Slater
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Security
Institution:: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:: Scholars and policymakers regard the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of the most serious and intractable conflicts in today's world. In particular, there continues to be fierce controversy over the most recent large-scale Israeli military action in that conflict: the three-week attack on Gaza that began on December 27, 2008.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Israel and Palestine

222. Israel's War in Gaza: A Paradigm of Effective Military Learning and Adaptation

Author:: Benjamin S. Lambeth
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Security
Institution:: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:: Assessing major combat experiences to help rectify errors made in the planning and conduct of operations has enjoyed a long and well-established tradition in the fields of military history and security studies. In particular, since Operation Desert Storm against Saddam Hussein's Iraq by U.S. and coalition forces in 1991, the pursuit of "lessons learned" from major combat has been a virtual cottage industry within the defense establishments of the United States and its principal allies around the world.
Topic:: Security and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Israel

223. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park

Author:: Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:: 12-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Objective Standard
Institution:: The Objective Standard
Abstract:: In the Summer 2008 issue of The Objective Standard, John David Lewis concluded his review of Sun-tzu: Art of War with this important truth: "War is fought with wits as well as with weapons, and the way to victory is to use one's mind to defeat one's enemy." In The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park , Sinclair McKay relays how this truth played out in Britain's relentless fight against Nazi Germany.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Britain and Germany

224. Engaging with Youth, Engaging with War

Author:: Helen Brocklehurst
Publication Date:: 12-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:: Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:: Youth and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Agents of Change has been written with great precision, focus, and clarity. It is short but powerful, much like the lives and experiences it documents. As such it makes an extremely erudite and important contribution to our understanding of the role that youth can play in countries emerging from conflict.
Topic:: War

225. The True Size of Africa

Author:: Thomas Cargill
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: The next big thing: Once known only for hunger and war, Africa's moment has arrived
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Europe, and Middle East

226. The height of arrogance?

Author:: James Nixey
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Boosting morale while straining the neck. Why countries vie to have the tallest flagpoles
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: North Korea and Egypt

227. Cruise Control in the War on Terror

Author:: Thomas Joscelyn
Publication Date:: 12-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Journal of International Security Affairs
Institution:: Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Abstract:: Tactical successes and strategic failures typify the White House's approach to counterterrorism.
Topic:: War

228. Evolution and Normalization: Historical Consciousness in Germany

Author:: Felix Philipp Lutz
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: German Politics and Society
Institution:: German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:: German political culture has been undergoing gradual but significant changes since unification. Military engagements in combat missions, the introduction of a professional army, and a remarkable loss of recent historical knowledge mostly within the younger generations are hallmarks of the new millennium. Extensive education about the Holocaust is still prevalent and there is a strong continuity of attitudes and orientations toward the Nazi era and the Holocaust reaching back to the 1980s. Nevertheless, a lack of knowledge about history-not only the World War II period, but also about East and West Germany-in the age group of people under thirty is staggering. The fading away of the generation of victims who are the last ones to tell the story of persecution during the Holocaust and a parallel rise of new actors and technologies, present challenges to the educational system and the current political culture of Germany.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Germany

229. Richard Ned Lebow. Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Author:: Dylan Kissane
Publication Date:: 04-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:: Central European University
Abstract:: International relations, as a discipline, is concerned with the many and varied questions that arise through inter-state engagement. Some are trivial and fleeting, specific to a certain space and time and destined to only ever emerge as a sub- specialty, perhaps with a small group of committed yet marginalised scholars pursuing answers to questions that most in the field will only ever consider of secondary or tertiary appeal. Some questions, though, are central to what this social science is about, perhaps none more so than questions of war and peace in international politics. International politics, so said John Mearsheimer, is a ruthless and dangerous business and there is no sector of that business more ruthless or dangerous than war. As a result, understanding why states enter into wars that have, in the last century alone, led to the collapse of empires, the subjugation of great powers and the destruction of man and his environment is essential, if only to mitigate the ruthlessness and danger and not solve it. In this disciplinary and historical context, Richard Ned Lebow's Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War offers an argument that, if heeded, should teach theorists and practitioners of international affairs just how and why they continue to find themselves embroiled in conflict year after year.
Topic:: International Relations and War

230. Joseph A. Camilleri and Jim Falk, World in Transition: Evolving Governance across a Stressed Planet (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Author:: Emilian Kavalski
Publication Date:: 04-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:: Central European University
Abstract:: The need to develop sustainable and resilient governance mechanisms has plagued scholars, policy-makers and publics for several decades. Traditionally, such frameworks for coordinated decision-making have been associated with the problem of war. Yet in recent years both the recognition of and the proliferation of complex challenges emerging from the interconnectedness between local and transnational realities, between markets, migration, trafficking, and social movements, and between pandemics, a looming energy crisis, and climate change have tested the ability to comprehend and address convincingly their turbulence. Such risks have disturbed not only the assumption of a predictable model of world politics, but equally importantly they have also unsettled the accepted ways in which international affairs have been explained and understood. In this respect, the study of global governance seems to have been undergoing an intense and oftentimes troubled reflection on the validity and relevance of its theories, methods, and propositions. At the same time, the proliferation of a diverse set of new (or previously overlooked) issues on the political stage has urged such reconsiderations of the study of politics to promptly produce explanatory frameworks that can offer germane responses to the emerging challenges.
Topic:: War and International Affairs

231. Morality and War: Can War Be Just in the Twenty-First Century?

Author:: Michael L. Gross
Publication Date:: 04-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Morality and War is a timely addition to contemporary just war literature. While advocating the use of just war principles to evaluate modern armed conflict, Fisher takes the innovative step of introducing virtue theory into these debates. Largely neglected by just war theorists, virtue theory has, for example, invigorated bioethics by providing an antidote to the rigidity of principled moral thinking while also offering a useful and versatile educational tool. Fisher uses it to do both as he combines virtue ethics with consequentialism into what he terms "virtuous consequentialism."
Topic:: War

232. Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II by Michael Burleigh

Author:: Cathal J. Nolan
Publication Date:: 07-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Michael Burleigh is a prolific writer on issues of ethics in history, notably the crimes of Nazi Germany and other totalitarian regimes. In this popular survey of some of the larger moral demands and dilemmas of fighting World War II, he is never boring and quite often right. He is also, far too frequently, surprisingly uninformed.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Germany

233. Guatemala's Military Man, Nicaragua's Revolutionary

Author:: Mike McDonald
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: The newly elected leaders of Guatemala and Nicaragua are familiar. So are the problems they face.
Topic:: Economics and War
Political Geography:: Cuba, Central America, and Guatemala

234. Limiting the Killing in War: Military Necessity and the St. Petersburg Assumption

Author:: Henry Shue and Janina Dill
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Over the last decade, conventional just war theory has been systematically and thoroughly unraveled by a group of philosophers sometimes collectively referred to as the“revisionist critics.”Given the antagonism between the conventional and the revisionist camps, it is rarely recognized that their most prominent representatives, Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahan, respectively, share the assumption that the form of the rules of war can be explained byan underlying retention or forfeiture of moral rights by individual persons. Walzer treats combatants on both sides as morally equal—that is, equal in moral rights; and McMahan treats them as morally unequal as a result of their own individual conduct—that is, as displaying different degrees of moral liability to defensive harm as a result of features of their decision to participate in war and of their conduct in that war. Both maintain that there can be a rational connection between the moral status of individuals (moral equality for Walzer and differential “moralliability to defensive harm”for McMahan) and how they are permitted to be treated during combat.
Topic:: War

235. Humanity's Law

Author:: Martti Koskenniemi
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: In his draft of the opening speech for Sir Hartley Shawcross, the British prosecutor at Nuremberg, Hersch Lauterpacht wrote that the establishment of the tribunal meant that the “sovereign State” had finally been arraigned before the law. In Lauterpacht's mind, Nuremberg signaled the end of the political system of statehood. With other interwar internationalists, Lauterpacht viewed the First World War, and now the Second, as outcomes of an out- dated and dangerous idea of sovereignty that put the egoistic values of the nation over those of a universal humanity. But when Shawcross received Lauterpacht's draft, he coolly crossed out the latter's wording. It is not that difficult to understand why he did so. After all, Hitler's opponents had struggled fiercely, at the cost of many lives, to defend the sovereignty of their own countries. The allied forces that finally crushed Nazi Germany were composed of military and economic resources that had been gathered, organized, and operated by states. The last thing the English, the Russians, or the French wanted to hea was that they would now condemn precisely the sovereignty they had spent five years fighting to protect.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Russia and Germany

236. 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

237. Complexity theory and the War on Terror: understanding the self-organising dynamics of leaderless jihad

Author:: Antoine Bousquet
Publication Date:: 07-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:: Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:: This article seeks to substantiate theoretically Marc Sageman's claims of a 'leaderless jihad' through the application of the conceptual framework offered by the novel scientific paradigm of complexity theory. It is argued that jihadist networks, such as those behind the September 11 attacks and the bombings in London and Madrid, can be profitably understood in terms of complex adaptive systems, emergent organisations that coalesce and self-organise in a decentralised fashion. Complexity sheds new light on the jihadist movement by providing an account of the bottom-up self-organisation of its networks and the systems of distributed intelligence which allow those networks to operate and pursue successful attacks on the basis of partial and localised information, and this despite the strenuous efforts at counter-terrorism deployed by states.
Topic:: War

238. Parliamentary peace or partisan politics? Democracies' participation in the Iraq War

Author:: Patrick A. Mello
Publication Date:: 07-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:: Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:: This paper seeks to explain democracies' military participation in the Iraq War. Prior studies have identified institutional and partisan differences as potential explanatory factors for the observed variance. The interaction of institutions and partisanship, however, has gone largely unobserved. I argue that these factors must be analysed in conjunction: institutional constraints presume actors that fulfil their role as veto players to the executive. Likewise, partisan politics is embedded in institutional frames that enable or constrain decision-making. Hence I suggest a comparative approach that combines these factors to explain why some democracies joined the ad hoc coalition against Iraq and others did not. To investigate the interaction between institutions, partisanship and war participation I apply fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The analysis reveals that the conjunction of right-of-centre governments with an absence of both parliamentary veto rights and constitutional restrictions was sufficient for participation in the Iraq War. In turn, for countries where the constitution requires parliamentary approval of military deployments, the distribution of preferences within the legislature proved to be decisive for military participation or non-participation.
Topic:: Politics and War
Political Geography:: Iraq

239. Law Enforcement Capacity-building in African Postconflict Communities

Author:: Bruce Baker
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: PRISM
Institution:: Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:: Postconflict is, unfortunately, not always a suitable descriptor of societies where a peace agreement has been signed and a transitional government installed. Violence does not stop on the day of the public signing of the treaty. Large numbers of unemployed and (in the short term) unemployable youths, often armed or with access to arms, loiter on the streets. They have had little opportunity to gain education in the preceding years, but have learned that violence is the key to accessing resources and status. The former security forces or informal armed groups and militias that they have been part of have, over many years, provided a whole range of roles: social support group, family, employer, provider, escape ladder from rural poverty, and source of status. Hence, whether these groups are officially disbanded or not, the youths look to their former general-patron and their ex-fighting colleagues as their surrogate “clan” in times of trouble. Violence may well live on in their minds, dreams, responses to conflict resolution, attitudes toward women, and methods of securing resources. No wonder, then, that the crime rates escalate in the cities where they now live, and no wonder that some militias remain in the countryside, looting and robbing, despite the official end of the war.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution and War
Political Geography:: Africa

240. No Marshall Plan for the Middle East

Author:: Amitai Etzioni
Publication Date:: 12-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: PRISM
Institution:: Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:: At first blush, the idea that the United States, working with other nations, should initiate, guide, and finance economic development and introduce democratic regimes to the nations of the Middle East—just as it did in post–World War II Germany and Japan—is appealing. From a humanitarian viewpoint, one cannot help but be moved by the idealism of helping millions of people who are currently unemployed and poor—including many children and young people, and others who live under oppressive regimes—to gain the kind of life Americans cherish. From a realpolitik viewpoint, military means will not suffice when it comes to ending the terrorism that threatens the United States and its allies, or halting the insurgencies that destabilize the Middle East.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, Middle East, and Germany

241. Regulating War: A Taxonomy in Global Administrative Law

Author:: Daphné Richemond-Barak
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: This article examines the intersection between the private security and military industry and the emerging framework of global administrative law ('GAL'). I explore in this article one aspect of this intersection, namely the use of GAL to create a taxonomy of the industry's regulatory schemes. The industry is characterized by a fragmented and decentralized regulatory framework, which has yet to be presented in a complete and orderly fashion. This article fills the gap by applying GAL's methodology to the private security and military industry. Using the industry as a case study in GAL, I identify (1) international formal administration (the United Nations Working Group on Mercenaries); (2) distributed domestic administration (contract and domestic legislation); (3) hybrid modes of administration (multi-stakeholder initiatives); and (4) private modes of administration (industry associations and codes of conduct). By emphasizing – but not limiting itself to – hybrid and private modes of administration, this article describes what is an increasingly complex manifestation of global governance. Its purpose is to highlight GAL's potential in understanding and contending with the growth of the private security and military industry.
Topic:: War and Law
Political Geography:: Africa and United Nations

242. How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle

Author:: James N. Soligan
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: PRISM
Institution:: Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:: Ongoing engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq have resurrected one of the most important and challenging questions facing political and military leaders in the United States and other nations: how to set objectives, conduct operations, and terminate wars in a manner that achieves intended political outcomes. The collective track record leaves much to be desired, and results of even the most recent conflicts would argue that we have not yet learned the necessary lessons from wars in the 20 th century to prevent making many of the same mistakes and suffering similar consequences in the 21 st century.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

243. America's Post-Cold War Policies in the Post-Soviet Expanse

Author:: Vladimir Batyuk
Publication Date:: 12-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: East View Information Services
Abstract:: The Russian-American Dialogue on regional issues differs greatly from the Soviet-American dialogue of the Cold War era maintained to prevent regional conflicts and their escalation among Moscow's and Washington's ideological allies to avoid a direct armed clash between the great Powers fraught with a nuclear catastrophe.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Russia, and Moscow

244. Charter Schools: Choice of Somali-American Parents?

Author:: Farhan Hussein
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:: Macalester College
Abstract:: Most of the Somali community in the United Stated came here after civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991. During the war, hundreds of thousands of people fled to neighboring countries where many received resettlement aid from yet other countries, including the United States. The largest Somali community in the United States lives in Minnesota, mainly in the Minneapolis area.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Somalia

245. Britain's Policy Toward Kurdistan at the End of the First World War

Author:: İhsan Şerif Kaymaz
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:: Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:: In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain aimed to create an autonomous Kurdish state – or states – in northern Mesopotamia to be governed under its protection. It therefore experimented with various different methods between the years 1918 and 1920. All those attempts were proven futile. Using mainly the British and Ottoman archival material it has been inquired how the British authorities had developed the plan for Kurdistan, how they tried to implement it in the northern Iraq (then the Mosul vilayet) and the southeastern Anatolia respectively, and how they failed. The reasons for Britain's failure had been discussed. After the failure new policy options had been given consideration among which, the debates on retreat came into prominence. The diplomatic negotiation process between the allies and the legal arrangements on Kurdistan that took pace in the Treaty of Sevres was of a nature of keeping up appearances. Kurdistan plan, though failed in 1920's, gained ground in the following years as the international conditions became more convenient. As the Kurdish problem has once again become an issue of worldwide concern, it will be interesting to see how the British government dealt with this complicated problem when it first emerged, some ninety years ago.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Britain, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdistan

246. Strategy "in a microcosm": Processes of tactical learning in a WWI German Infantry Division

Author:: Christian Stachelbeck
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Despite the defeat of 1918, the tactical warfare of German forces on the battlefields against a superior enemy coalition was often very effective. The heavy losses suffered by the allies until well into the last months of the war are evidence of this. The tactical level of military action comprises the field of direct battle with forces up to division size. Tactics – according to Clausewitz, the “theory of the use of military forces in combat” – is the art of commanding troops and their organized interaction in combined arms combat in the types of combat which characterized the world war era – attack, defense and delaying engagement.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Germany

247. The German Army and the Defense of the Reich: Military Doctrine and the Conduct of the Defensive Battle 1918-1939.

Author:: Matt Bucholtz
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: For decades historical research dedicated to the study of the German army, or Reichswehr, before the Second World War has been dominated by a single overriding question: How did the German army create Blitzkrieg? Studies, both popular and academic, have focused on German offensive doctrine and the leading figures responsible for its creation, in an attempt to understand the stunning German victories of the first half of the Second World War. While this has led to a fuller appreciation of the various characteristics of combined arms warfare, it has also generated a skewed vision of the German army that does not accurately portray its operation, activities, strategic outlook, and doctrinal breadth. Matthias Strohn's work, The German Army and the Defense of the Reich provides a much-needed counter-weight to the existing 'Blitzkrieg' centric historiography of the Reichswehr between the First and Second World Wars.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Germany

248. The Legacy of the French Revolutionary Wars: The Nation-in-Arms in French Republican Memory

Author:: Matt Bucholtz
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Relying upon thousands of newly raised conscripts to augment the remaining professionals from the old monarchial army, Generals Kellermann and Dumouriez scored a decisive victory over the Duke of Brunswick and the forces of Prussia at the Battle of Valmy and thereby firmly established the foundation for the legacy of the volunteers of Year II and the military abilities of French citizen-soldiers. French victory at Valmy became the rationale for conscription laws across Europe in the following decades and served as the basis for a closer relationship between the military and society. Alan Forrest's book, The Legacy of the French Revolutionary Wars: The Nation-in-Arms in French Republican Memory, masterfully traces the evolution of the myths of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era through over 150 years of French and European military and political development. It stands as a concise single volume investigation of the nineteenth and twentieth century French political landscape and military affairs, as well as the ever-contested field of civil-military relations, expressed through a work centred on memory and myth.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Europe, France, and Prussia

249. The Art of Censorship in Vietnam

Author:: Samantha Libby
Publication Date:: 09-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of International Affairs
Institution:: School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:: Vietnam now participates in a capitalist market and keeps its borders open, but it still imposes a dated yet effective communist matrix of control over the country's media outlets. This article examines the effectiveness of this system of control with respect to visual art. I find that contemporary art in particular is able to communicate—and express frustrations with—the tensions between rapid economic development and political stagnation, and between cultural traditionalism and modernization. Art can speak with relative impunity because its meaning is more difficult to pinpoint than written criticism of the regime. However, it is important to note that few, if any, Vietnamese artists advocate a change of regime. Instead, they emphasize their concerns about tensions in society caused by rapid development and its effect on centuries-old traditions. The current one-party regime certainly contributes to this tension, but it would be an oversimplification to call these artists “protest artists”; rather, they act as a lens through which both Vietnamese citizens and outsiders get an honest and unbiased view of a country that is too often thought of in terms of colonialism or war.
Topic:: Development and War
Political Geography:: Vietnam

250. Small Arms, Big Problems

Author:: C.J. Chivers
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As U.S. marines fought in Marja last year, they captured the weapons used by Taliban fighters. These arms -- from British Lee-Enfields to Soviet Kalashnikovs to Czech vz. 58s -- tell the story of how many modern wars are fought.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States

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