Unending War

Unending War
Author: Ian Howie-Willis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2016-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1925275736

Malaria is not only the greatest killer of humankind, the disease has been the relentless scourge of armies throughout history. Malaria thwarted the efforts of Alexander the Great to conquer India in the fourth century BC. Malaria frustrated the ambitions of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan to rule all Europe in the fourth and thirteenth centuries AD; and malaria stymied Napoleon Bonaparte’s plan to conquer Syria at the end of the eighteenth century. Malaria has also been the Australian Army’s continuing implacable foe in almost all its overseas deployments formation of the Australian Army in 1901. On at least three occasions malaria has halted Australian Army operations, bringing it to a standstill and threatening its defeat. The first time was in Syria in 1918, when a malaria epidemic cut a swathe through the Australian-led Desert Mounted Corps. The second time was in Papua New Guinea in 1942–43, when the Army was fighting malaria as well as the Japanese. The third time was in Vietnam in 1968, when malaria caused more casualties than did enemy action. Indeed the Australian Army has been fighting ‘an unending war’ against malaria ever since the Boer War at the end of the nineteenth century. The struggle against the disease continues 115 years later because virtually all Army’s overseas deployments are to malarious regions. Fortunately for Australian troops serving in nations where malaria is endemic, the Australian Army Malaria Institute undertakes the scientific research necessary to protect our service personnel against the disease. Ian Howie-Willis, in this very readable book, tells the dramatic story of the Army’s long and continuing struggle against malaria. It breaks new ground by showing how just one disease, malaria, is as much the serving soldier’s foe as any enemy force.

The War That Doesn't Say Its Name

The War That Doesn't Say Its Name
Author: Jason K. Stearns
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2023-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 069122451X

Why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a “forever war”—a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity. Millions have died in one of the worst humanitarian calamities of our time. The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name investigates the most recent phase of this conflict, asking why the peace deal of 2003—accompanied by the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world and tens of billions in international aid—has failed to stop the violence. Jason Stearns argues that the fighting has become an end in itself, carried forward in substantial part through the apathy and complicity of local and international actors. Stearns shows that regardless of the suffering, there has emerged a narrow military bourgeoisie of commanders and politicians for whom the conflict is a source of survival, dignity, and profit. Foreign donors provide food and urgent health care for millions, preventing the Congolese state from collapsing, but this involvement has not yielded transformational change. Stearns gives a detailed historical account of this period, focusing on the main players—Congolese and Rwandan states and the main armed groups. He extrapolates from these dynamics to other conflicts across Africa and presents a theory of conflict that highlights the interests of the belligerents and the social structures from which they arise. Exploring how violence in the Congo has become preoccupied with its own reproduction, The War That Doesn't Say Its Name sheds light on why certain military feuds persist without resolution.

An Unending War

An Unending War
Author: Bob Goff
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2017-12-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1543473148

This story is about the war in Vietnam from April 1967 to April 1968, as seen and experienced through the eyes of a young infantry sergeant. It is a story that is punctuated with personal accounts of ambushes, booby traps, and battles that involved his unit. It is about the struggle of dealing with PTSD even before it was an official diagnosis and, after, being haunted in his sleep by dreams of ambushes and the cries of the wounded. Its a heartfelt story thats emotional and exciting, one that will most certainly give you the feeling of being on the ground with these troops as they fight to stay alive. It is a story of the heartbreak of losing friends to enemy actions in the heat of combat. It is about the struggle of processing these losses, some of which have lasted fifty years, some that he will take to the grave.

Development, Security and Unending War

Development, Security and Unending War
Author: Mark Duffield
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2013-08-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745657931

According to politicians, we now live in a radically interconnected world. Unless there is international stability – even in the most distant places – the West's way of life is threatened. In meeting this global danger, reducing poverty and developing the unstable regions of the world are now imperative. In what has become a truism of the post-Cold War period, security without development is questionable, while development without security is impossible. In this accessible and path-breaking book, Mark Duffield questions this conventional wisdom and lays bare development not as a way of bettering other people but of governing them. He offers a profound critique of the new wave of Western humanitarian and peace interventionism, arguing that rather than bridging the lifechance divide between development and underdevelopment, it maintains and polices it. As part of the defence of an insatiable mass consumer society, those living beyond its borders must be content with self-reliance. With case studies drawn from Mozambique, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, the book provides a critical and historically informed analysis of the NGO movement, humanitarian intervention, sustainable development, human security, coherence, fragile states, migration and the place of racism within development. It is a must-read for all students and scholars of development, humanitarian intervention and security studies as well as anyone concerned with our present predicament.

Obama's Unending Wars

Obama's Unending Wars
Author: Jeremy Kuzmarov
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2019-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1949762017

Many academics consider Obama to have been a master foreign policy strategist and shrewd practitioner of the art of realpolitik. This book demonstrates, however, that Obama in reality helped to institutionalize a permanent warfare state that resulted in gross human rights violations and contributed to America's strategic decline. His perpetuation of the War on Terror created more enemies and prompted the United States to lose influence in the Middle East. His Pivot to Asia policy intensified prospects for regional war while his unnecessary and willful military intervention destroyed Libya and drew the Russians in to protect Bashir al-Assad who won Syria's civil war. The Obama administration's heavy-handed interference in Ukraine led to effective Russian counter-moves, promoting a strategic alliance with China and regional integration that is moving the world towards multi-polarity. Obama's Unending Wars provides the first critical, comprehensive and highly documented history of the foreign policy of America's forty-fourth president - the drone king who ordered the bombing of seven Muslim countries, backtracked on a pledge to reduce America's nuclear arsenal, and helped fuel a new Cold War with Russia. During his years in office Obama provided billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia as it assisted in the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain and invaded Yemen. He sanctioned a coup in Honduras which plunged that country into chaos, perpetuated a failed drug war policy and contributed to the recolonization of Africa. While any Democratic Party president would have faced peril in confronting the Pentagon which had carried out a slow coup d'etat over the decades, Obama was rather, in many ways, the most perfect spokesman for the military-industrial complex. Who else but this articulate constitutional law professor could pull off a pro-war speech after winning the Nobel Peace Prize while ramping up drone assassinations and America's network of military bases in Africa and still retain the support of liberal-progressives? As many in the time of Trump now glance nostalgically back to the Obama presidency, this book will help them to see the continuity -- and continuous failure -- of American foreign policy irrespective of the party or figurehead representing it.

Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea

Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea
Author: Sheila Miyoshi Jager
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 625
Release: 2013-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393068498

A comprehensive history of the Korean War that explains how it started and why it still has not technically ended, and describes how North Korea continues to stockpile weapons while its people go without the basic necessities of life.

Assessing the War on Terror

Assessing the War on Terror
Author: Charles Webel
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2017-02-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315469162

This volume is a collection of articles that critically examine the efficacy, ethics, and impact of the War on Terror as it has evolved since 9/11. During the decade and a half of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), numerous books have considered the political, psychosocial, and economic impacts of terrorism. However, there has been little systematic effort to examine the effectiveness of the GWOT in achieving its goals. Furthermore, there is virtually nothing that presents a comparative analysis of the GWOT by the people most directly affected by it—citizens and scholars from conflict zones in the Middle East. There is, therefore, great need for a book that analyzes the strategies, tactics, and outcomes of the GWOT and that also presents facts and ideas that are missing or underrepresented in the dominant public narratives. The contributions in this volume were chosen to specifically address this need. In doing so, it uniquely provides not only Western perspectives of the GWOT, but also importantly includes perspectives from the Middle East and those most directly affected by it, including contributions from scholars and policy makers. Overall, the contributions demonstrate how views differ based on geographical location, and how views have changed during the course of the still-evolving War on Terror. The book will be of much interest to students and scholars of terrorism and counter-terrorism, foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR, as well as policy makers.

The Great War and Modern Memory

The Great War and Modern Memory
Author: Paul Fussell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780195133325

Landmark study of World War I, describing its effects on the nation.

Revolution Unending

Revolution Unending
Author: Gilles Dorronsoro
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2005-03-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780231510240

Having traveled and researched in Afghanistan since 1988, Gilles Dorronsoro has developed a rich and nuanced understanding of the country's history and people. In Revolution Unending he draws on his extensive firsthand experience to consider the political, historical, economic, and ethnic factors that will influence Afghanistan's future. He argues that U.S. optimism about Afghanistan following Western intervention and recent elections fails to appreciate the divisions that continue to define the country. While not underestimating the oft-cited "ethnic factor" in Afghan politics, especially Pashtun dominance, Dorronsoro argues that class and the competition for employment and education are key factors in explaining the country's recent past. The 1990s saw the triumph of religious authorities (the ulema) and the marginalization of the traditional elites. With coalition intervention in 2001 and the subsequent deposition of the ulema-dominated Taliban, the educated elites are back in power. However, as Dorronsoro argues, patching up the country by means of short-term ethnic alliances and a new division of the spoils will only perpetuate the schisms in society. The Afghan civil war, Dorronsoro suggests, is set to continue and perhaps worsen over time.

War and the Politics of Ethics

War and the Politics of Ethics
Author: Maja Zehfuss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2018-02-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192535404

Contemporary Western war is represented as enacting the West's ability and responsibility to help make the world a better place for others, in particular to protect them from oppression and serious human rights abuses. That is, war has become permissible again, indeed even required, as ethical war. At the same time, however, Western war kills and destroys. This creates a paradox: Western war risks killing those it proposes to protect. This book examines how we have responded to this dilemma and challenges the vision of ethical war itself, exploring how the commitment to ethics shapes the practice of war and indeed how practices come, in turn, to shape what is considered ethical in war. The book closely examines particular practices of warfare, such as targeting, the use of cultural knowledge, and ethics training for soldiers. What emerges is that instead of constraining violence, the commitment to ethics enables and enhances it. The book argues that the production of ethical war relies on an impossible but obscured separation between ethics and politics, that is, the problematic politics of ethics, and reflects on the need to make decisions at the limit of ethics.