Insurgent, Raiders and Bandits explores the history of irregular warfare over the past 250 years through the lives and campaigns ofFrom w the greatest masters of this mode of conflict. The book not only tells their stories, but shapes an alternate history of the world as seen through the eyes of those who made up for their small numbers with clever, unorthodox methods that often brought them victory. Their lesson for military affairs in our time must not be ignored.
Special operations have played a key role throughout the history of conflict from the Trojan War to the great arms struggles of the 20th century. This volume introduces the reader to the broad sweep of the history of special operations.
This path-breaking collection of papers examines the phenomenon of jihadist insurgent movements in the Middle East and North, East and West Africa. It argues that military and strategic analysts have paid insufficient attention to the phenomenon of jihadism in insurgent movements, partly due to a failure to take the role of religion sufficiently seriously in the ideological mobilisation of recruits by guerrilla movements stretching back to the era of "national liberation" after World War Two. Several essays in the collection examine Al Qaeda and ISIL as military as well as political movements while others assess Boko Haram in West Africa, Al Shabaab in Somalia and jihadist movements in Libya. Additionally, some authors discuss the recruitment of foreign fighters and the longer-term terrorist threat posed by the existence of jihadist movements to security and ethnic relations in Europe Overall, this volume fills an important niche between studies that look at Islamic fundamentalism and "global jihad" at the international level and micro studies that look at movements locally. It poses the question whether jihadist insurgencies are serious revolutionary threats to global political stability or whether, like Soviet Russia after its initial revolutionary phase of the 1920s, they can be ultimately contained by the global political order. The volume sees these movements as continuing to evolve dynamically over the next few years suggesting that, even if ISIL is defeated, the movement that brought it into being will still exist and very probably morph into new movements. Jihadist Insurgent Movements was originally published as a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.
The United States and its allies have been fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for a decade in a war that either side could still win. While a gradual drawdown has begun, significant numbers of US combat troops will remain in Afghanistan until at least 2014, perhaps longer, depending on the situation on the ground and the outcome of the US presidential election in 2012. Given the realities of the Taliban’s persistence and the desire of US policymakers—and the public—to find a way out, what can and should be the goals of the US and its allies in Afghanistan? Afghan Endgames brings together some of the finest minds in the fields of history, strategy, anthropology, ethics, and mass communications to provide a clear, balanced, and comprehensive assessment of the alternatives for restoring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Presenting a range of options—from immediate withdrawal of all coalition forces to the maintenance of an open-ended, but greatly reduced military presence—the contributors weigh the many costs, risks, and benefits of each alternative. This important book boldly pursues several strands of thought suggesting that a strong, legitimate central government is far from likely to emerge in Kabul; that fewer coalition forces, used in creative ways, may have better effects on the ground than a larger, more conventional presence; and that, even though Pakistan should not be pushed too hard, so as to avoid sparking social chaos there, Afghanistan’s other neighbors can and should be encouraged to become more actively involved. The volume’s editors conclude that while there may never be complete peace in Afghanistan, a self-sustaining security system able to restore order swiftly in the wake of violence is attainable.
This collection examines the theory, practice, and application of state neutrality in international relations. With a focus on its modern-day applications, the studies in this volume analyze the global implications of permanent neutrality for Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States. Exploring permanent neutrality’s role as a realist security model capable of rivaling collective security, the authors argue that permanent neutrality has the potential to decrease major security dilemmas on the global stage.
Throughout the Civil War, irregular warfare—including the use of hit-and-run assaults, ambushes, and raiding tactics—thrived in localized guerrilla fights within the Border States and the Confederate South. The Guerrilla Hunters offers a comprehensive overview of the tactics, motives, and actors in these conflicts, from the Confederate-authorized Partisan Rangers, a military force directed to spy on, harass, and steal from Union forces, to men like John Gatewood, who deserted the Confederate army in favor of targeting Tennessee civilians believed to be in sympathy with the Union. With a foreword by Kenneth W. Noe and an afterword by Daniel E. Sutherland, this collection represents an impressive array of the foremost experts on guerrilla fighting in the Civil War. Providing new interpretations of this long-misconstrued aspect of warfare, these scholars go beyond the conventional battlefield to examine the stories of irregular combatants across all theaters of the Civil War, bringing geographic breadth to what is often treated as local and regional history. The Guerrilla Hunters shows that instances of unorthodox combat, once thought isolated and infrequent, were numerous, and many clashes defy easy categorization. Novel methodological approaches and a staggering diversity of research and topics allow this volume to support multiple areas for debate and discovery within this growing field of Civil War scholarship.
“Over the past dozen years special operations forces (SOF) have been one of the few areas of growth and expansion in a number of militaries. This growth and expansion, however, has not been mirrored by a comparable one in academic inquiries into the subject. Special Operations from a Small State Perspective - Future Security Challenges, which contains a wide range of perspectives from both practitioners and academics, makes a unique contribution to the literature and offers fascinating insights into the opportunities provided by and challenges confronting small states such as Swedenin their evolutionary development and use of SOF.” Dr James Kiras, Associate Professor, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, The Air University, Alabama, USA.
In The Last Great Safari: East Africa in World War I, military historian Corey W. Reigel explores a fascinating and misunderstood theater of operations in the history of the First World War. Unprepared for the Great War, colonial units combined modern industrial weapons and equipment with traditional African methods to produce a hybrid force. Throughout The Last Great Safari, Reigel challenges myth after myth. Were really one million Allied soldiers pulled up from Europe to toil in the tropical sun only to fall victim to local diseases? Did the Germans truly become masters of guerrilla warfare and humiliate the British Empire in what appeared a David versus Goliath conflict? Reigel brings together traditional military studies and African history to explore the myths, fables, and stereotypes that have long characterized examinations of this topic, from questions as to how German East Africa contributed to the fate of the war to claims respecting significant diversion of resources. Racism played a significant role in then prevalent definitions of what constituted military success and in how Africans and Indians were recruited, holding more sway in the minds of white armies as a success factor than differences in weapons. Reigel points out how modern methods of medicine and transportation ultimately failed, only to be replaced by a hybrid of industrial Europe and traditional African solutions for dealing with an especially difficult climate. In the end, when necessity came to outweigh then current ideas of professionalism did German forces outfight their opponents. The Last Great Safari: East Africa in World War I will interest students of military history, African studies, and World War I, as this tale of colonial warfare within a war of attrition shaped part of Africa’s colonial future.
The book investigates the emergence and the development of irregular fighters, such as guerrillas, rebels, insurgents, and terrorists throughout the history of modern war. It presents a historically based critique of the twenty-first century notion of the irregular fighter as an 'unlawful combatant'.
