Focusing on the challenges faced by the US military in responding to "operations other than war" in the post-Cold War era, Rudolph Barnes makes a plea for the US government to address the "organizational bias for combat" and "narrow traditionalist view of military professionalism" within the Pentagon, which, he argues, are serious obstacles to developing an effective capabiilty for operations other than war. He draws on examples from Vietnam to the mismanagement of US military involvement in Somalia.
The Democratic Coup d'État advances a simple, yet controversial, argument: democracy sometimes comes through a military coup. Covering coups that toppled dictators and installed democratic rule in countries as diverse as Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, and Colombia, the book weaves a balanced narrative that challenges everything we knew about military coups.
The overthrow of Viceroy Joaqu&ín de la Pezuela on 29 January 1821 has not received much attention from historians, who have viewed it as a simple military uprising. Yet in this careful study of the episode, based on deep archival research, Patricia Marks reveals it to be the culmination of decades of Peruvian opposition to the Bourbon reforms of the late eighteenth century, especially the Reglamento de comercio libre of 1778. It also marked a radical change in political culture brought about by the constitutional upheavals that followed Napolean's invasion of Spain. Although Pezuela's overthrow was organized and carried out by royalists among the merchants and the military, it proved to be an important event in the development of the independence movement as well as a pivotal factor in the failure to establish a stable national state in post-independence Peru. The golpe de estado may thereby be seen as an early manifestation of Latin American praetorianism, in which a sector of the civilian population, unable to prevail politically and unwilling to compromise, pressures army officers to act in order to &"save&" the state.
This book analyses the issue of child soldiers in order to understand how armed groups engage with international organizations to gain international legitimacy. The work examines why some armed groups 'follow the rules' of international humanitarian law and others do not. It argues that armed groups in conflicts around the world engage with international organizations in order to gain international legitimacy and to show they are following the laws of war. By examining the issue of child soldiers in contemporary armed conflict, the volume establishes a typology of which groups will engage with international actors and follow the laws of war - and which will not. The main aim of the book is to understand the rationality of even the most violent of actors, and to understand when and how armed groups can be encouraged to follow the laws of war. The work draws from extensive primary research conducted among armed groups in Syria and Myanmar, including al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the many small ethnic insurgent groups of Myanmar. This book will be of much interest to students of war and conflict studies, security studies, international humanitarian law, and International Relations.
Throughout human history, scholars, statesmen and military leaders have attempted to define what constitutes the legitimate use of armed force by one community against another. Moreover, if force is to be used, what normative guidelines should govern the conduct of warfare? Based upon the assumption that armed conflict is a human enterprise and therefore subject to human limitations, the Western 'just war tradition' represents an attempt to provide these guidelines. Following on from the success of Hensel's earlier publication, The Law of Armed Conflict, this volume brings together an internationally recognized team of scholars to explore the philosophical and societal foundations of just war tradition. It relates the principles of jus ad bellum to contemporary issues confronting the global community and explores the relationship between the principles of jus in bello and the various principles embodied in the customary law of armed conflict. Applying an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing and assessing the links between just war and the norms of behaviour, the book provides a valuable contribution to international law, international relations and national security studies.
Hilaire McCoubrey wrote extensively in the area of armed conflict law, and on the issues of collective security law and the law relating to arms control. Although he died at the early age of 46 in 2000 he had contributed significantly to the separate study of these areas, but also to the idea of studying the issues as a whole subject. The collection covers difficult and controversial issues in the area of conflict and security law. The contributors, drawn both from academe and practice, provide expert analysis of many aspects of the law governing armed conflict and collective security. As well as providing a fitting tribute to the main aspects of Hilaire's contribution to knowledge, the volume provides a coherent reconsideration and development of key aspects of conflict and security law at a time when that law is being applied, breached, debated or reformed on almost a daily basis.
Based on extensive Japanese-language materials, this book is the first to examine the development of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force. It addresses: how the GSDF was able to emerge as the post-war successor of the Imperial Japanese Army despite Japan’s anti-militarist constitution; how the GSDF, despite the public skepticism and even hostility that greeted its creation, built domestic and international legitimacy; and how the GSDF has responded to changes in international and domestic environments. This path-breaking study of the world’s third-largest-economic power’s ground army is timely for two reasons. First, the resurgence of tensions in Northeast Asia over territorial disputes, and the emphasis recent Japanese governments have placed on using the GSDF for defending Japan’s outlying islands is driving media coverage and specialist interest in the GSDF. Second, the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami has focused global attention on the GSDF as Japan’s lead disaster relief organization. This highly informative and thoroughly researched book provides insight for policy makers and academics interested in Japanese foreign and defense policies.
The new form of "humanitarian government" emerging from natural disasters and military occupations that reduces people to mere lives to be rescued. From natural disaster areas to zones of political conflict around the world, a new logic of intervention combines military action and humanitarian aid, conflates moral imperatives and political arguments, and confuses the concepts of legitimacy and legality. The mandate to protect human lives--however and wherever endangered--has given rise to a new form of humanitarian government that moves from one crisis to the next, applying the same battery of technical expertise (from military logistics to epidemiological risk management to the latest social scientific tools for "good governance") and reducing people with particular histories and hopes to mere lives to be rescued. This book explores these contemporary states of emergency. Drawing on the critical insights of anthropologists, legal scholars, political scientists, and practitioners from the field, Contemporary States of Emergency examines historical antecedents as well as the moral, juridical, ideological, and economic conditions that have made military and humanitarian interventions common today. It addresses the practical process of intervention in global situations on five continents, describing both differences and similarities, and examines the moral and political consequences of these generalized states of emergency and the new form of government associated with them.
According to the Department of Defense's 2004 Base Structure Report, the United States officially maintains 860 overseas military installations and another 115 on noncontinental U.S. territories. Over the last fifteen years the Department of Defense has been moving from a few large-footprint bases to smaller and much more numerous bases across the globe. This so-called lily-pad strategy, designed to allow high-speed reactions to military emergencies anywhere in the world, has provoked significant debate in military circles and sometimes-fierce contention within the polity of the host countries. In Base Politics, Alexander Cooley examines how domestic politics in different host countries, especially in periods of democratic transition, affect the status of U.S. bases and the degree to which the U.S. military has become a part of their local and national landscapes. Drawing on exhaustive field research in different host nations across East Asia and Southern Europe, as well as the new postcommunist base hosts in the Black Sea and Central Asia, Cooley offers an original and provocative account of how and why politicians in host countries contest or accept the presence of the U.S. military on their territory. Overseas bases, Cooley shows, are not merely installations that serve a military purpose. For host governments and citizens, U.S. bases are also concrete institutions and embodiments of U.S. power, identity, and diplomacy. Analyzing the degree to which overseas bases become enmeshed in local political agendas and interests, Base Politics will be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the extent—and limits—of America's overseas military influence.
