War Studies

In recent years, the idea of ‘swarming’ – that is, simultaneous multidirectional attack or maneuver by large number of independent or semi-independent small units – became a subject of a heated debate. Some believe this is the future of warfare, while others see this belief as ridiculous and dangerous. In the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), specifically, swarming was heralded as the new way of war before the 2006 Second Lebanon War. But during and after the war, the word itself was turned into a derogatory term, symbolizing all that was wrong with the IDF’s performance: relying on new, untested and unrealistic concepts to pretend that the Army has a silver bullet which will solve its problems quickly and easily, ignoring reality in the process. This article draws on six historical case studies, from the American airborne operation in the Normandy Invasion to the Second Lebanon War, to examine the method of swarming, its relevance and its uses. Finally, the article concludes that Swarming is not a revolutionary method, and not ‘The future of conflict’. However it is a very useful method in certain situations, provided that commanders know and understand its possibilities and limitations.

"Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos opens the book with his latest contribution to his comprehensive project of re-theorising spatial justice with a piece titled ‘Spatial Justice in a World of Violence’. Through a close reading
of the photographic series Fortunes of War, Life Day by artist Eric Lesdema,
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos is interested in how these images reveal peripheral
spaces at the edge of violence which impose an ethic of spatial responsibility on the
viewer in the act of turning away and looking elsewhere. While no acts of explicit
violence are shown in the images, we are left with no doubt that violence is ubiquitous
along the spatio-temporal continuum. This continuum of violence between
bodies raises questions of complicity and responsibility. Do we submit to a state
of affairs in which space is saturated with the everyday and immobilised violence
of the ‘engineered atmosphere’ – or is it also possible for bodies to withdraw from
the atmosphere, through ruptures and folds within the continuum? Such a notion
raises the ethical possibility of the ‘emergence of spatial justice’." Chris Butler and Edward Mussawir (eds)

Tras la independencia del Alto Perú en 1825, el Litoral boliviano de Atacama se convirtió en una cuña territorial y marítima preocupante para los intereses hegemónicos de Lima y Santiago. El puerto boliviano de Santa María Magdalena deCobija competía con Arica, Callao y Valparaíso, dándole salida a la producción argentífera boliviana. El análisis del contexto social sugiere que la guerra no fue de tipo nacional-popular, sino que parte del proyecto geopolítico portaliano para la consolidación estatal chilena y la hegemonía comercial en el Pacífico. Algunos textos claves establecen la presencia del espíritu racista característico de las guerras chilenas, denostando a Santa Cruz como un cholo con ambiciones de reinstituir el  Imperio Incaico. Esto lleva finalmente a considerar la guerra desde la contingencia geopolítica sudamericana actual

Until recently most militaries tended to see moral issues through the lens of rules and regulations. Today, however, many armed forces consider teaching virtues to be an important complement to imposing rules and codes from above. A closer look reveals that it is mainly established military virtues such as honour, courage and loyalty that dominate both the lists of virtues and values of most militaries and the growing body of literature on military virtues. Although there is evidently still a role for these traditional martial virtues, it is equally evident that they are not particularly relevant to, for instance, military personnel operating drones. This chapter looks into the ethics of unmanned warfare from the perspective of military virtues and military ethics education, and addresses the question of what we need to solve that just-mentioned misalignment: 1) a new set of virtues; 2) a different interpretation of the existing virtues; or 3) a different approach altogether, that is, an alternative to teaching virtues? That we have to think about such questions is at least partly because unmanned systems bring risk asymmetry in war to a new level, making warlike virtues such as physical courage by and large obsolete. The last section of this chapter therefore addresses the question: to what extent does the possibility of riskless warfare makes drone use ‘virtue-less’?

As historians are becoming more aware of the diversity of the Australian prisoner of war experience during the Second World War, increasing numbers of Indigenous Australians' stories are being identified. Through the combined hard work of researchers, families, and communities, a more complete picture of Aboriginal prisoner-of-war experiences is emerging.

El interés del presente libro reside en analizar el impacto y la recepción que el conflicto árabe-israelí ha tenido en el escenario político argentino. En este sentido, las investigaciones buscarán reconocer la particularidad de las definiciones producidas por los diversos actores atendiendo el carácter específico en el contexto de su elaboración. Entre los aportes que pretende brindar la presente compilación se encuentran los de reconocer la dinámica del debate acerca de la “cuestión israelí”, la “causa palestina” y el sionismo en el escenario político nacional en un período amplio de la historia argentina: desde mediados de la década del 40´ hasta los albores de la gestión kirchnerista.

As India successfully positions itself as one of the core, influential nations of the world, its security scenario has become more vulnerable and complex. The roots of India's security challenges lie not only at the regional and international levels but also from within. These threats can be dealt with by securing the borders efficiently. However, the borders of India and their associated problems, geographical, social and cultural, are vivid and varied. Each border receives a different kind of treatment in accordance with the existing mutual relationship across the border. If the border people cannot connect with the country's mainstream, national security is affected. Indian policymakers face a hard challenge to formulate an integrated policy for borderlands and borders. While there are many common cross-border issues, chiefly non-security threats, there are other cross-border issues which are border specific. Besides, soft approaches to economic and cultural cross-border interactions are beneficial. The border security approach focuses on defending the borders from various threats but the border management approach involves protecting the interests of the country across the border.

Las primeras décadas del siglo XVIII vieron un importan-te recrudecimiento de la tensión militar y geopolítica en el Mediterráneo occidental. A ello contribuyeron las aspiraciones frustradas surgidas de los acuerdos de la paz de Utrecht y Rastatt. La España de Felipe V fue uno de los principales contendientes que pugnó por la hegemonía en la zona. Para conseguirla, se vio obligada a realizar esfuerzos logísticos, militares y económicos de gran calibre. Este artículo tiene como objetivo principal constatar cómo la dinámica del corso, de larga tradición en las costas hispánicas, fue utilizada de manera directa por la Corona como una herramienta más de su estrategia mediterránea.

Claude Eatherly, pilota e metereologo,
era un ragazzo texano di
27 anni quando ordinò lo sgancio
della prima bomba atomica della
storia, Little Boy, che colpì Hiroshima
il 6 agosto 1945.
Nonostante la giovane età, non
era certo un dilettante: per quella
missione vennero scelti i migliori
piloti della US Army, e Eatherly
aveva già dato prova del suo valore
militare, abbattendo, nel corso
della sua fulminante carriera,
più di trenta aerei nemici. Dopo
lo sgancio della bomba, tuttavia,
lasciò l’esercito e rifi utò qualsiasi
riconoscimento al valore da parte
degli Stati Uniti. Compì anche
maldestre rapine e altri piccoli
crimini, con la speranza di trovare
sollievo nel biasimo collettivo. Ma
ciò non bastò a placare i suoi dilanianti
sensi di colpa e Eatherly
venne internato in un ospedale
psichiatrico. Fu in questo momento,
quattordici anni dopo Hiroshima,
che iniziò un carteggio con
Günther Anders, il fi losofo tedesco
autore del capolavoro L’uomo
è antiquato. Il risultato è questo
libro: un commovente scambio
epistolare tra Anders e un’anima
persa, in cerca di un’espiazione
tanto impossibile quanto necessaria.
Dopo anni di assenza dalle
librerie, torna disponibile una delle
testimonianze più toccanti sul
disastro che cambiò per sempre
la coscienza collettiva.

This work is a beguiling prospect for anyone who has been involved in South Asia or has an interest in the region. The idea of analysing so many distinct insurgencies and counter-insurgency (COIN) campaigns within the covers of a single book is both ambitious and tantalising. Unfortunately, and in spite of occasional good moments, this book provides few of the answers. It has a clunky structure, is peppered with editorial and factual errors and unsupported statements. The British General Templer in Malaya argued that COIN should only be 25% shooting. The remainder should be winning "hearts and minds". Sadly this has all too rarely been the case in South Asia where many of the COIN campaigns have been heavy-handed and brutal. Partly this is a function of capability; effective COIN needs excellent intelligence and highly trained and equipped Special Forces. Yet it is interesting to reflect that two "successful" COIN operations of recent years; the Indian defeat of the Khalistan movement and President Rajapaksa's suppression of the Tamil Tigers owed little to Templer or the proponents of minimum force

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Από την αρχαιότητα έως σήμερα, οι διάφορες προσεγγίσεις περί των οργανωμένων ένοπλων αντιμαχιών αποτελούν κύρια πεδία μελέτης των ειδημόνων, μα και το διανοητικό υπόβαθρο για την άσκηση της κρατικής πολιτικής. Ως σημείο σταθμός σε αυτή την πνευματική πορεία θα μπορούσε να οριστεί ο 19ος αιώνας, κατά τον οποίο έλαβαν χώρα σημαίνουσες επιστημονικές ανακαλύψεις και πολιτικές μεταβολές που επηρέασαν τη στρατιωτική οργάνωση, επιτρέποντας στον Ναπολέοντα να κυριαρχήσει σε ένα μεγάλο τμήμα της Ευρώπης. Με τη σειρά τους, οι ναπολεόντειοι πόλεμοι συνέβαλλαν καθοριστικά στη συγγραφή δύο διαχρονικών έργων, του Περί Πολέμου του Πρώσου στρατηγού Καρλ φον Κλαούζεβιτς και του Η Τέχνη του Πολέμου του Ελβετού συναδέλφου του, Αντουάν Ανρί Ζομινί. Σε αμφότερα τα συγγράμματα, εξετάζεται το ενδεχόμενο ο πόλεμος να αποτελεί μια ακόμη επιστήμη όμοια με αυτή των μαθηματικών, καθώς επίσης η ίδια η φύση του εν λόγω φαινομένου. Οι απαντήσεις του Ζομινί και του Κλαούζεβιτς στο συγκεκριμένο ζήτημα συγκροτούν για ακόμη μια φορά ένα εν πολλοίς αντιθετικό δίπολο, το οποίο επηρεάζει τους ειδικούς έως τις μέρες μας.

Israel's strategic environment has witnessed dramatic changes in the array of threats. The nuclear agreement between the world powers and Iran took the immediate Iranian nuclear threat off the table and postponed it for several treaties were signed with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), and following has since been reduced further now that the Syrian army no longer poses a risk, due to its involvement in the civil war and the tremendous losses it has sustained there. The sub-conventional threat, especially from Hezbollah, has because of the resources that Iran has invested to beef up the organization. Nonetheless, Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian civil war should at least delay its decision to embark on another major operation against Israel. The current security threats to Israel are rooted in three sources: 1 a) states, al-Qaeda organizations, and organizations with expansionist visions, such many other states. In addition, efforts persist in establishing terrorist cells typical of the terrorism Israel has tackled since October 2015. In other

"The so-called cyber-threat commands the attention of multinational corporations, governments and the strategic community, keen as they are to harness the power of digital communications yet anxious to protect their interests. Attacks such as those which disrupted on-line banking in Estonia and defaced government websites in Georgia, as well as the infamous Stuxnet worm that temporarily shut down Iran’s nuclear programme, are vivid examples of what may be possible within this new strategic domain. But are our networked societies really vulnerable, as some have suggested, to a knock-out blow, perpetrated by state-sponsored hackers or terrorists? And what can be done to defend the state from this and from the encroachment of external networks that transcend its borders and breach its laws?

This Adelphi tackles the range of issues raised by our dependence on digital networks. It considers how instantaneous, global communications are challenging national and social orders and what shape those challenges may take as the net is cast ever wider. Comparing the transformations of the Information Age with those of previous generations, when new technologies and emerging transnational threats spread panic in political and strategic circles, the authors examine the real implications for states and statehood."

Rapid urbanisation in Somalia, as in many other war-torn countries, is driven by in-migration of displaced people who are often amassed in camps. Although such camps become institutionalised sites of exclusion where ‘bare life’ is generated and disposed, they are also characterised by socially messy and continuously evolving relations of space, power, violence and displacement. The article draws on fieldwork with displaced people in Somali cities to analyse claims to property and (often violent) competition to uphold them in contestation for sovereignty. Comparing two cities, Mogadishu and Bosaaso, we show how a broad range of international and local actors, including displaced people themselves, negotiate (urban) property and establish relations that guide and foster political authority, while rendering the lives and livelihoods of displaced people precarious and insecure. In property, politics and the economy intersect, and property relations are therefore subject to struggles for both power and profit. We underscore how sovereign power produces spaces of indistinction, but emphasise that property as an analytical category contributes to understandings of sovereignty. Furthermore, propertying as social practice draws attention to the way sovereignty emerges and is connected to the market. This enables the differentiations of forms of sovereignty and draws attention to how it is negotiated, openly challenged or silently undermined.

ارتبط الاهتمام بدراسة الفاعلين العنيفين من غير الدول Violent Non State Actors (VNSAs بالتحولات التي شهدتها الدولة منذ نهاية الحرب الباردة، سواء من حيث طبيعة دورها، أو من حيث بنيتها، وعجزها عن ممارسة وظائفها التقليدية، علي النحو الذي صورها به هوبز حين رآها الليفياثان العظيم الذي سينهي حالة حرب الكل ضد الكل، كما لم تعد الدول كما رأي كينيث والتز "المحتكر الوحيد للقوة". ويعد الاهتمام بدراسة VNSAs، بصفة خاصة، والفاعلين من غير الدول بصفة عامة، في مجال العلاقات الدولية حديثا نسبيا، مقارنة بدراسة الدولة، كما أنه تال علي وجود هذا النمط من الفاعلين. ففي عهد الإمبراطورية الرومانية مثلا، انتشرت عصابات الجريمة، التي هي صورة من صور VNSAs، ودخلت مع الدولة في حروب. ومع القرن العشرين، انتشرت حركات التحرر الوطني، التي هي صورة أخري للفاعلين العنيفين، والتي نجحت في التأثير في سياسات الدول الاستعمارية الكبري حينها: فرنسا، وبريطانيا، وألمانيا.

Though Odysseus’ tales to Eumaios and Aninoos in Odyssey 14.199–359 and 17.417–44, respectively, are presented as fictional tales within Homer’s larger myth, some elements have striking analogs in Late Bronze–Early Iron Age reality.

This article examines these portions of the hero’s false ainoi within their fictive context for the purpose of identifying and evaluating those elements. Particular focus is given to Odysseus’ declaration that he led nine successful maritime raids prior to the Trojan War; to his twice–described ill–fated assault on Egypt; and to his claim not only to have been spared in the wake of that Egyptian raid, but to have spent a subsequent seven years in the land of the pharaohs, during which he gathered great wealth.

Through a comparative examination of literary and archaeological evidence from the Late Bronze–Early Iron transition in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is shown that these aspects of Odysseus’ stories are not only reflective of the historical reality surrounding the time in which the epic is set, but that Odysseus’ fictive experience is remarkably similar to that of one specific member of the ‘Sea Peoples’ groups best known from 19th and 20th dynasty Egyptian records: the ‘Sherden of the Sea.’

Osmanlı Devleti ile Venedik Cumhuriyeti arasında, küçük birtakım mücadeleleri kenara bırakırsak en temelde yedi ayrı savaş meydana gelmiştir. Savaşların son üçü ise incelediğimiz tarih aralığında yaşanmıştır... bu savaşların çoğu Osmanlılar tarafından Venediklileri Balkanlardan tamamen atmak için bilinçli bir politikanın ürünü olarak çıkarılmışlardır. Çünkü Osmanlı yöneticileri için karada Venediklilerle yapılacak olan savaş denizde yapılanların aksine çok daha kolay neticelenecek ve istenilen hedefe çok hızlı bir şekilde ulaşmak mümkün olacaktır. Hatta bir kronikte ifade edildiği şekliyle; “Venedik keferesi dahi deryâ cengi hilekârlığında akrânı nadir pehlevândır. Lâkin karada musâff cenglerine zehresi olmayup, kal’alarından taşra çıkması güya balık sudan çıkduğı misillidür".  Ancak, burada ifade edildiği şekliyle kara özelinde cereyan eden
savaşlarda -ki bunlar meydan savaşları değil kuşatma savaşlarıdır- Venedikliler, Osmanlıların ifade ettiği gibi pek de sudan çıkmış balık olmamışlar; aksine Osmanlı ordusunu birçok noktada mağlup etmişler veya başarılı savunmalar gerçekleştirmişlerdir.

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

Smedley Darlington Butler was born in 1881.  He was a Major General in the US Marine Corps, and witnessed the horrors of the First World War first-hand.

He retired in 1931, ran as a Republican Candidate for Senate in 1932, and died in a Philadelphia Naval Hospital in 1940. 

He was awarded two congressional medals of honor, one for the capture of Vera Cruz in Mexico, in 1914; the other for the capture of Fort Riviere in Haiti, in 1917.  He also received the distinguished service medal in 1919.

In the 1930s General Butler made a nationwide tour, giving his speech 'War Is A Racket'. 

The speech and accompanying booklet were so well recieved that he wrote a longer version as a small book.  A book which has since gained notoriety as an honest appraisal of modern warfare and the growth of an industry driving it.

The text provides an honest analysis of war profiteering from the misery of the First World War. ...

The issue of the political rehabilitation and glorification of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) became one of the central political issues in Ukraine after the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan. It provoked major political and historical controversies and debates in Ukraine and other countries. Presidents Yushchenko and Poroshenko, their parties, far right organizations, and many Ukrainian historians attempted to recast the OUN-B and the UPA as parts of a popular national liberation movement that fought against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and to present the OUN-B and UPA leaders as national heroes. They denied, minimized or justified the involvement of the OUN-B and the UPA leaders and members in the mass murder of Jews, Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians.

The analyses of biographic publications, historical studies, and archival documents show that the majority of the OUN-B and UPA leaders and very large proportions of their members collaborated with Nazi Germany, mainly in the beginning of the Second
World War. Nearly half of the top and middle-ranked leaders of these organizations and
at least until the end of 1943 the majority of UPA members served in various police formations. They assisted the German occupation authorities in implementing genocidal policies towards the Jews, Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles by helping to carry out mass shootings and create conditions intended for the physical annihilation of the entire Jewish population and large numbers of Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles, specifically in Volhynia. The fact that many police commanders and large numbers of policemen in various locations and formations followed orders from the OUN-B by deserting en masse from their service, in particular in Volhynia in the spring of 1943, and forming the basis of the UPA shows that these commanders and police members were de facto controlled by the OUN-B.

Yeni savaşlar tartışmasından yola çıkarak Soğuk Savaş sonrası dönemde karşımıza çıkan farklı çatışma türevleri, bunların dinamikleri, etkilenen aktörler ve ortaya çıkan sonuçlar, vaka etüdü çalışmalarıyla, bu derleme kitap çerçevesinde ele alınmıştır. Vekalet savaşlarından hibrit savaşlara, siber güvenlik tartışmalarından özel askeri şirketlere değin yeni savaşlar tartışmasının birçok farklı boyutu bu kitap çerçevesinde değerlendirilmiştir.