The Revenge of the Melians

The Revenge of the Melians
Author: Kenneth F. McKenzie
Publisher:
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2000
Genre: Asymmetric warfare
ISBN:

This essay is a product of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2001 Working Group, a project of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, Sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the working group is an independent, honest-broker effort intended to build intellectual capital for the upcoming QDR. More specifically, it aims to frame issues, develop options, and provide insights for the Chairman, the services, and the next administration in three areas: defense strategy, criteria for sizing conventional forces, and force structure for 2005-2010. One of the group's initial tasks was to assess the future security environment to the year 2025. This was pursued by surveying the available literature to identify areas of consensus and debate and by deepening knowledge of asymmetric threats to the United States both at home and abroad, given their potential appeal to likely adversaries in view of America's conventional military superiority. The essay that follows grew out of that latter effort and reflects a growing consensus that the issues posed by asymmetric threats should occupy a more prominent place in defense strategy and force planning. This essay makes a unique contribution to the growing literature on asymmetric threats by providing a conceptual framework for thinking about such threats, offering an approach to determining which threats should receive the greatest attention from defense planners, and suggesting concrete steps that the Nation should take to address them.

The Revenge of the Melians

The Revenge of the Melians
Author: Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2001-02
Genre:
ISBN: 075670796X

This essay is a product of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2001 Working Group, a project of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, Sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the working group is an independent, honest-broker effort intended to build intellectual capital for the upcoming QDR. More specifically, it aims to frame issues, develop options, and provide insights for the Chairman, the services, and the next administration in three areas: defense strategy, criteria for sizing conventional forces, and force structure for 2005-2010. One of the group's initial tasks was to assess the future security environment to the year 2025. This was pursued by surveying the available literature to identify areas of consensus and debate and by deepening knowledge of asymmetric threats to the United States both at home and abroad, given their potential appeal to likely adversaries in view of America's conventional military superiority. The essay that follows grew out of that latter effort and reflects a growing consensus that the issues posed by asymmetric threats should occupy a more prominent place in defense strategy and force planning. This essay makes a unique contribution to the growing literature on asymmetric threats by providing a conceptual framework for thinking about such threats, offering an approach to determining which threats should receive the greatest attention from defense planners, and suggesting concrete steps that the Nation should take to address them.

Military Robots

Military Robots
Author: Jai Galliott
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317096002

Philosophers have wrestled over the morality and ethics of war for nearly as long as human beings have been waging it. The death and destruction that unmanned warfare entails magnifies the moral and ethical challenges we face in conventional warfare and everyday society. Intrinsically linked are questions and perennial problems concerning what justifies the initial resort to war, who may be legitimately targeted in warfare, who should be permitted to serve the military, the collateral effects of military weaponry and the methods of determining and dealing with violations of the laws of war. This book provides a comprehensive and unifying analysis of the moral, political and social questions concerning the rise of drone warfare.

The Past as Prologue

The Past as Prologue
Author: Williamson Murray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2006-05-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139452584

In today's military of rapid technological and strategic change, obtaining a complete understanding of the present, let alone the past, is a formidable challenge. Yet the very high rate of change today makes study of the past more important than ever before. The Past as Prologue, first published in 2006, explores the usefulness of the study of history for contemporary military strategists. It illustrates the great importance of military history while simultaneously revealing the challenges of applying the past to the present. Essays from authors of diverse backgrounds - British and American, civilian and military - come together to present an overwhelming argument for the necessity of the study of the past by today's military leaders in spite of these challenges. The essays of Part I examine the relationship between history and the military profession. Those in Part II explore specific historical cases that show the repetitiveness of certain military problems.

All Possible Wars?

All Possible Wars?
Author: Sam J. Tangredi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2000
Genre: National security
ISBN:

This survey is a product of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2001 Working Group, a project of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the working group is an independent, honest-broker effort intended to build intellectual capital for the upcoming QDR. More specifically, it aims to frame issues, develop options, and provide insights for the Chairman, the services, and the next administration in three areas: defense strategy, criteria for sizing conventional forces, and force structure for 2005-2010. One of the group's initial tasks was to assess the future security environment to the year 2025. This was pursued by surveying the available literature to identify areas of consensus and debate. The goal was to conduct an assessment that would be far more comprehensive than any single research project or group effort could possibly produce. This survey documents major areas of agreement and disagreement across a range of studies completed since the last QDR in 1997. Because it distills a variety of sources and organizes and compares divergent views, this volume makes a unique contribution to the literature. It also provides a particularly strong set of insights and assumptions on which both strategists and force planners can draw in the next Quadrennial Defense Review. This survey does not claim to predict or illustrate all possible wars that Anmrica might face between now and the year 2025. Rather, it attempts, through analysis of representative and reputable sources, to incorporate the most likely characteristics of the future security environment into a single scenario, while heightening our awareness of dissenting viewpoints and plausible wild cards.

Americans and Asymmetric Conflict

Americans and Asymmetric Conflict
Author: Adam B. Lowther
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2007-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0275996360

As the War in Iraq continues to rage, many in the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, and outside government are left to wonder if it was possible to foresee the difficulty the United States is currently having with Sunni nationalists and Islamic extremists. Recent American military experience offers significant insight into this question. With the fog of the Cold War finally lifting and clarity returning to the nature of conflict, the dominance of asymmetry in the military experience of the United States is all too evident. Lebanon (1982-1984), Somalia (1992-1994), and Afghanistan (2001-2004) offer recent and relevant insight into successes and failures of American attempts to fight adversaries utilizing asymmetric conflict to combat the United States when it intervened in these three states. The results illustrate the difficulty of engaging adversaries unwilling to wage a conventional war and the need for improved strategic and tactical doctrine. It is easy, Lowther writes, for Americans to forget the lessons of past conflicts as the politics of the present dominate.... His purpose here is to highlight some of history's recent lessons so that we may move forward with an awareness of what experience offers.

Clash of Barbarisms

Clash of Barbarisms
Author: Gilbert Achcar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2015-12-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317262379

"This inquiry into the probable shape of things to come is sober, uncompromising, deeply informed, and full of provocative insights and judicious analyses." Noam Chomsky "The most forceful, most rigorous text that there is to read on this war." Le Monde Diplomatique The volatile Middle East is the site of vast resources, profound passions, frequent crises, and long-standing conflicts, as well as a major source of international tensions and a key site of direct U.S. intervention. Two of the most astute analysts of this part of the world are Noam Chomsky, the preeminent critic of U.S. foreign policy, and Gilbert Achcar, a leading specialist of the Middle East who lived in that region for many years. In their new book, Chomsky and Achcar bring a keen understanding of the internal dynamics of the Middle East and of the role of the United States, taking up all the key questions of interest to concerned citizens, including such topics as terrorism, fundamentalism, conspiracies, oil, democracy, self-determination, anti-Semitism, and anti-Arab racism, as well as the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the sources of U.S. foreign policy. This book provides the best readable introduction for all who wish to understand the complex issues related to the Middle East from a perspective dedicated to peace and justice.

United States military space into the twenty-first century

United States military space into the twenty-first century
Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2002
Genre:
ISBN: 1428990283

This is the 42nd volume in the Occasional Paper series of the U.S. Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This volume presents two important papers on United States military space. The first paper, "What is Spacepower and Does It Constitute a Revolution in Military Affairs?", examines the concept of "spacepower" as it is emerging within the U.S. military and business sectors to establish the basis for military space roles and implications. It also posits military-commercial sector linkages as the best near-term road map for future development. As commercial activities expand the importance of United States space, and as technological advances enable military missions, Hays sees expanded military roles, including space weaponization, on the horizon. He concludes that military space has already had a significant impact on the American way of war. That trend will only continue as the promise of a true space-led revolution in military affairs awaits eventual space weaponization. Given an increasingly important U.S. commercial and military presence in space, the second paper, "Space-Related Arms Control and Regulation to 2015: Precedents and Prospects," presents a detailed analysis of existing regulations and controls that constrain and shape military space use and development. It also presents a comprehensive examination of current and future issues that will define likely arenas of international efforts to further control military space. The United States must be very aware of the possible consequences for its overall commercial and military space efforts in addressing these issues. Finally, the paper suggests areas where some current regulatory emphasis could benefit the United States, indicating areas for current policy emphasis. Together, the two papers provide a timely and important examination of the current state and the likely future of United States military space.