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22. Transitional Fossils of the Atomic Age: Regulus and Sea Master
- Author:
- Edward Andrew Kaplan
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Revolutions in strategy and military affairs happen one step at a time. "Revolution" implies a sudden shift, with old and worn ideas, and the weapon systems they support, ceding ground to the fresh and modern. The medieval castle gives way to the trace italienne. Panzers rip through slow-moving, "methodical," infantry. Precision munitions guided by definitive intelligence eviscerate a veteran Iraqi Army. In retrospect, these "revolutions" can appear fated, but this paper argues that this is not always the case. The apparent discontinuity between one method of warfare and its so-called revolutionary successor is on closer inspection often filled with short-lived "failed" projects. They do not last long (or even reach active service), but they are essential evolutionary steps for later, more enduring, systems. Their most important contribution is to introduce novel ideas, often taken from outside conventional military circles, and they can be an important way for an organization to change its approach to core functions. When these intermediate systems are forgotten, they make the final step look like a revolutionary leap, as opposed to a steady advance of evolutionary development. This paper restores to visibility two overlooked parts of one such process, the movement from carrier-based seapower to nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.
- Political Geography:
- United States
23. The Past as Future: The US Army's Vision of Warfare in the 21st Century"
- Author:
- Terry Terriff
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Today the US Army is engaged in the effort to learn the appropriate lessons from the wars it has been engaged in since the autumn of 2001 and to think through what type of force it needs to be, with what kinds of capabilities, in order to prepare for further future conflicts in the 21st Century. Estimating the character of future conflicts, and then preparing one's forces appropriately, is not an easy task. A critical line of argument today is that the vision of future warfare the Army developed in the decade plus following the end of the Cold War left it ill-prepared for the wars it found itself conducting in Afghanistan and Iraq. In an article published in 2007, US Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling very pointedly, and very boldly for a serving officer, contended that, "throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly." The US Army's operational experiences in the first decade of this century, particularly in the early years of the long conflict in Iraq, suggest that it marched eyes wide shut through the decade of the 1990s into the 21st Century.
- Political Geography:
- United States
24. Irene R. Makaryk and Marissa McHugh, ed. Shakespeare and the Second World War: Memory, Culture, Identity. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
- Author:
- Deji A. Oguntoyinbo
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- All through the ages, Shakespeare's literary oeuvre has occupied a canonical status in world literature, primarily because of its universal relevance in terms of thematic preoccupation, characterization, and setting amongst several literary components. Though widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre- eminent dramatist, Shakespeare has been translated into every major living language and is performed more often than any other playwright. His dramatic works have been repeatedly adapted and rediscovered by new movements or perspectives in scholarship and performance. Even now, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in various social, cultural and political contexts throughout the globe. One of these contexts is the Second World War. Regarded as the longest, bloodiest and deadliest conflict in history, World War II was fought predominantly in Europe and across the Pacific and Eastern Asia, pitting the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Japan against the Allied nations of Great Britain, France, China, United States and the Soviet Union. It is the most widespread war in history with more than one hundred million people serving in military units from over thirty different countries, and death tolls estimated to be between fifty and eighty-five million fatalities. Despite the fact that theatre stands as a “simulacrum of the cultural and historical process itself, seeking to depict the full range of human actions within their physical context, has always provided society with the most tangible records of its attempts to understand its own records” (3), the role of Shakespeare during the Second World War had not yet been given sustained, critical and detailed scholastic documentation. Herein lies the relevance and necessity of Shakespeare and the Second World War – as a writers' quota to fill the scholastic lacuna. Most of the war's belligerents showed affinity with Shakespearean works as a depiction of their society's self-image. Divided into fifteen illuminating, diverse, and yet coherent essays by seasoned and erudite academics, Shakespeare and the Second World War is a small sampling of reviewed and extended essays from “Wartime Shakespeare in a Global Context/Shakespeare au temps de la guerre” – an international bilingual conference that took place at the University of Ottawa in 2009. Within the spatial and temporal context of the war, Shakespeare's oeuvre is recycled, reviewed and reinterpreted in the chapters. In a Manichean manner, these essays cannot be collectively pigeonholed as either pro or anti–war. In fact, there is a sort of ambivalence with vacillating opinions by the writers.
- Political Geography:
- Britain, United States, Japan, China, France, Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy
25. Jeffrey R. Macris and Saul Kelly, eds. Imperial Crossroads: The Great Powers and the Persian Gulf. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012.
- Author:
- Irakli A Geluk'ashvili
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- The history of the Persian Gulf has always been characterized by conflict. It has been an arena for intervention by several world powers at one time or another. Many countries have defended their economic and political interests in this region, in no small part because it is one of the main oil reserves in the world. Moreover, it is also the largest exporter of oil. Therefore, it can be seen as the "jugular vein" of the global energy system, and so it has become an important area from a geostrategic point of view. The interests of several contemporary powers intersect here, from Western countries to emerging powers and neighbouring countries; the potential for conflict is easily imaginable.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Asia
26. Thomas G. Mahnken, ed. Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies – Stanford University Press, 2012.
- Author:
- Michael Carl Haas
- Publication Date:
- 06-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Among the grand narratives of international relations in the early 21st century, China's ascendancy and potential challenge to the US-led word order is now the most dominant, and perhaps the most compelling. Ostensibly the latest instalment in an unceasing sequence of great powers' rise and fall, it resonates deeply with specialist and non-specialist audiences alike. Central aspects of the emerging Sino-American competition - diplomatic, economic, and military – have been addressed at length in variety of for a and from widely diverging perspectives. Yet, up to now, few analysts have formulated anything resembling a coherent, prescriptive framework for how the United States and its allies should approach the increasingly confrontational dynamics that mark the defining great power relationship of our time.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, America, and Asia
27. John R. Ballard, David W. Lamm, and John K. Wood, From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The US at War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012.
- Author:
- Megan Johnson
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- From Kabul to Baghdad and Back, written by John R. Ballard, David W. Lamm, and John K. Wood, chronicles the conflicts that the United States undertook in Afghanistan and Iraq following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This book sets out to discuss the strategic and operational actions the United States took in its efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, paying close attention to the critical decisions that wentinto planning each of the combat operations and how those decisions affected the outcomes in each of the respective campaigns. Methodically researched and well written, the authors provide in-depth analysis and valuable insight into the complex nature of fighting a two-front war. While the book is not a complete or all-inclusive study of the successes and failures of America’s decade-long war, the authors present a clear analysis of how conducting a two-front war affected the outcomes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Their premise is that much would have been different in America’s war in Afghanistan had the choice not been made to simultaneously go to war with Iraq. This book is full of great detail and covers a topic that is massive in scope and complexity, giving the reader much to absorb and ponder. The layout of the book, however, makes it more manageable with each chapter broken down further by subtitles. The selected bibliography and extensive footnoting of the book are valuable assets and ensure the reader access to a plethora of additional resources.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq
28. Micah Zenko, Between Threats and War: US Discrete Military Operations in the Post - Cold War World . Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies – Stanford University Press, 2010.
- Author:
- Scott Nicolas Romaniuk
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Over the past century, a gradual shift has taken place in which the conditions for total war have considerably faded. This steady realignment toward full-scale war, however, exposes the many varieties of force that still exist along a continuum bookended by the state of absolute war and that of peace. Much has been written about the occurrence of full-scale war within the international system, yet the level of attention given to what occurs when neither a state of peace nor state of war exists remains somewhat derisory. The last two decades, in particular, can be characterized as a state of threat within which varying degrees of the utility of force have persisted. Such processes and practices with public spheres are slowly being examined but questions of why specific forms of forms have continued to be used despite criticism of their political and military effectiveness are seldom raised. Moreover, they continue to go unanswered even though they have become relatively commonplace and seem to be the preferred policy option of US administrations. Academics addressing issues of evolving military culture and technological base within the 21st century have only begun to delve into the nature of America's discrete military operations (DMOs) but rarely depict them in terms of their implication for the future of military practice.
- Topic:
- Cold War
- Political Geography:
- United States
29. Spencer C. Tucker, ed. US Leadership in Wartime: Clashes, Controversy, and Compromise (2 volumes). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
- Author:
- Bruce E. Stanley
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Spencer C. Tucker is currently a senior fellow in military history at ABC-CLIO Publishing in Santa Barbara, California. Dr. Tucker has written or edited over 30 books and encyclopedias focusing on military and naval history and is the senior editor for the two-volume encyclopedia US Leadership in Wartime: Clashes, Controversy, and Compromise. Tucker, along with ten assistant editors and a vast array of scholars, presents a comprehensive account of United States leadership in war from the American Revolution to the latest conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq
30. It is Time to Start Talking about Mitt: Mitt Romney and the Issue of Missile Defence
- Author:
- Dr. Matthew Trudgen
- 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 the weeks since he has secured the Republican Presidential Nomination, Mitt Romney has gone from being a long shot challenger for the presidency to being a legitimate contender. The result is that it is now time to discuss what a Romney presidency could mean for the Canada, and one issue that could surface as flash point in the bilateral relationship is ballistic missile defence (BMD). Consequently, it is important to ask the question of what level of interest will a President Romney have in this issue. This article argues that Romney will be a strong supporter of expanding America's missile defences for a number of reasons.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, and Canada