Download or read book The Long Search for a Surgical Strike written by David R. Mets and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dr. David R. Mets[alpha]s The Long Search for a Surgical Strike: Precision Munitions and the Revolution in Military Affairs is a broad, thought-provoking examination of the relationship between the advancement in conventional weapons guidance technology and the [beta]revolution in military affairs[gamma] (RMA). He defines an RMA as a rapid change in military technology, doctrine, and organization leading to a sweeping new way that wars are fought. Dr. Mets then considers whether the improvement in conventional air weapons accuracy since World War II is the foundation, the main pillar, one of the principal supports, or is irrelevant to the RMA2which is said to be afoot. Clearly, the air theorists of the 1920s were fully persuaded that indeed a revolution was afoot. Equally clearly, the visions of Giulio Douhet, William [beta]Billy[gamma] Mitchell, and the Air Corps Tactical School were no more than partially fulfilled in World War II. Dr. Mets also explores the degree to which the shortcomings of aerial weapons were responsible for the denial of their visions and the degree to which those inadequacies were overcome in the conflicts that followed. He closes with an estimate as to whether their dreams of a revolution are about to be ful-filled."--Forward.
Download or read book The Long Search for a Surgical Strike Precision Munitions and the Revolution in Military Affairs written by David R., David Mets, and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-09-08 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. David R. Mets's "The Long Search for a Surgical Strike: Precision Munitions and the Revolution in Military Affairs" is a broad, though-provoking examination of the relationship between the advancement in conventional weapons guidance technology and the "revolution in military affairs" (RMA). He defines and RMA as a rapid change in military technology, doctrine, and organization leading to a sweeping new way that wars are fought. Dr. Mets then considers whether the improvement in conventional air weapons accuracy since World War II is the foundation, the main pillar, one of the principal supports, or is irrelevant to the RMA - which is said to be afoot. Clearly, the air theorists of the 1920s were fully persuaded that indeed a revolution was afoot. Equally clearly, the visions of Guilio Douhet, William "Billy" Mitchell, and the Air Corps Tactical School were no more than partially fulfilled in World War II. Dr. Mets also explores the degree to which the shortcomings of aerial weapons were responsible for the denial of their visions and the degree to which those inadequacies were overcome in the conflicts that followed. He closes with an estimate as to whether their dreams of a revolution are about to be fulfilled.
Download or read book AU Press Your Air and Space Power Publisher 2003 written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Death by Moderation written by David A. Koplow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addresses the military's pursuit of 'usable' weaponry that is deliberately crafted to be less powerful, less deadly, and less destructive than the systems it is designed to supplement or replace.
Download or read book Power over Peoples written by Daniel R. Headrick and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-28 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major history of technology and Western conquest For six hundred years, the nations of Europe and North America have periodically attempted to coerce, invade, or conquer other societies. They have relied on their superior technology to do so, yet these technologies have not always guaranteed success. Power over Peoples examines Western imperialism's complex relationship with technology, from the first Portuguese ships that ventured down the coast of Africa in the 1430s to America's conflicts in the Middle East today. Why did the sailing vessels that gave the Portuguese a century-long advantage in the Indian Ocean fail to overcome Muslim galleys in the Red Sea? Why were the same weapons and methods that the Spanish used to conquer Mexico and Peru ineffective in Chile and Africa? Why didn't America's overwhelming air power assure success in Iraq and Afghanistan? In Power over Peoples, Daniel Headrick traces the evolution of Western technologies—from muskets and galleons to jet planes and smart bombs—and sheds light on the environmental and social factors that have brought victory in some cases and unforeseen defeat in others. He shows how superior technology translates into greater power over nature and sometimes even other peoples, yet how technological superiority is no guarantee of success in imperialist ventures—because the technology only delivers results in a specific environment, or because the society being attacked responds in unexpected ways. Breathtaking in scope, Power over Peoples is a revealing history of technological innovation, its promise and limitations, and its central role in the rise and fall of empire. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
Download or read book Global Defense Procurement and the F 35 Joint Strike Fighter written by Bert Chapman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-27 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the development and evolution of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a multinational aircraft endeavor involving the U.S. and many of its allies. The author provides a historical overview of jet fighter aircraft, discussing the different generations of these planes and their technical characteristics, as well as an outline of emerging international geopolitical and security trends the F-35 may see combat in. By examining the role of defense industries, domestic politics, and governmental oversight of the Joint Strike Fighter in various countries, the author concludes that this aircraft will be deployed in most of these countries to replace their aging jet fighter fleets and combat potential military aggression from China, Russia, and other revisionist international powers.
Download or read book US Military Innovation Since the Cold War written by Harvey Sapolsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: explains how the US military transformation failed in the post-Cold war era Harvey Sapolsky is a leading defence scholar in the US will be of interest to students of strategic studies, defence studies, military studies, US politics and security studies in general
Download or read book Eagles Overhead written by Matt Dietz and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2023-02-15 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: US Air Force Forward Air Controllers (FACs) bridge the gap between air and land power. They operate in the grey area of the battlefield, serving as an aircrew who flies above the battlefield, spots the enemy, and relays targeting information to control close air support attacks by other faster aircraft. When done well, Air Force FACs are the fulcrum for successful employment of air power in support of ground forces. Unfortunately, FACs in recent times have been shunned by both ground and air forces, their mission complicated by inherent difficulty and danger, as well as by the vicissitudes of defense budgets, technology, leadership, bureaucracy, and doctrine. Eagles Overhead is the first complete historical survey of the US Air Force FAC program from its origins in World War I to the modern battlefield. Matt Dietz examines their role, status, and performance in every US Air Force air campaign from the Marne in 1918, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and finally Mosul in 2017. With the remaking of the post-Vietnam US military, and the impact of those changes on FAC, the Air Force began a steady neglect of the FAC mission from Operation Desert Storm, through the force reductions after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and into the post 9-11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eagles Overhead asks why FACs have not been heavily used on US battlefields since 2001, despite their warfighting importance. Dietz examines the Air Force FAC’s theoretical, doctrinal, institutional, and historical frameworks to assess if the nature of air warfare has changed so significantly that the concept and utility of the FAC has been left behind. From these examinations, Eagles Overhead draws conclusions about the potential future of Air Force FACs.
Download or read book Reconceptualising Arms Control written by Neil Cooper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theory and practice of arms control seemed to have its heyday during the height of the Cold War, with its focus on the East-West conflict and nuclear arms. In the past twenty years, both arms technologies and various practices aimed at their control have continued to develop, but scholarly thinking has not kept up. This volume seeks to redress this scholarly neglect of the range of issues associated with the control of the means of violence, by asking the question: what does arms control mean in the 21st Century? In asking this question, the volume examines issues surrounding sovereignty, geopolitics, nuclear disarmament, securitization of space, technological developments, human rights, the clearance of landmines, the regulation of small arms and the control of the black market for arms and nuclear secrets. The book discusses terrorism with reference to the case of the suicide attacks in Beirut in 1983 and how the Obama administration is orientating its posture on nuclear arms. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Security Policy.
Download or read book Civilian Or Combatant written by Anisseh van Engeland and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-03-23 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title describes how the practice and evolution of warfare have turned international humanitarian law into an enigmatic law that is complex to understand, interpret, and enforce. It identifies the challenges that advocates of international humanitarian law face, which range from genocide, asymmetrical warfare, and terrorism to rape as a weapon. The author demonstrates that this branch of international law is in constant evolution.
Download or read book Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm written by John Andreas Olsen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on the second of August 1990, a small group of air power advocates in the Pentagon proposed a strategic air campaign - "Operation Desert Storm" designed to drive the Iraqi army from Kuwait by a sustained effort against the major sources of Iraqi national power. John Andreas Olsen provides a coherent and comprehensive examination of the origins, evolution and implementation of this campaign. His findings derive from official military and political documentation, interviews with United States Air Force officers who were closely involved with the planning of the campaign and Iraqis with detailed knowledge and experience of the inner workings of the Iraqi regime.
Download or read book Ethics and the Future of Spying written by Jai Galliott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-08 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the ethical issues generated by recent developments in intelligence collection and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key legal, moral and social questions thereby raised. Intelligence officers, whether gatherers, analysts or some combination thereof, are operating in a sea of social, political, scientific and technological change. This book examines the new challenges faced by the intelligence community as a result of these changes. It looks not only at how governments employ spies as a tool of state and how the ultimate outcomes are judged by their societies, but also at the mind-set of the spy. In so doing, this volume casts a rare light on an often ignored dimension of spying: the essential role of truth and how it is defined in an intelligence context. This book offers some insights into the workings of the intelligence community and aims to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the relevant moral, legal and social questions, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The contributors analyse the ethics of spying across a broad canvas – historical, philosophical, moral and cultural – with chapters covering interrogation and torture, intelligence’s relation to war, remote killing, cyber surveillance, responsibility and governance. In the wake of the phenomena of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, the intelligence community has entered an unprecedented period of broad public scrutiny and scepticism, making this volume a timely contribution. This book will be of much interest to students of ethics, intelligence studies, security studies, foreign policy and IR in general.
Download or read book The Limitless Sky written by Air Force History and Museums Program (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Compliance Defiance and Dirty Luxury written by Tereza Østbø Kuldova and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Between Threats and War written by Micah Zenko and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When confronted with a persistent foreign policy problem that threatens U.S. interests, and that cannot be adequately addressed through economic or political pressure, American policymakers and opinion formers have increasingly resorted to recommending the use of limited military force: that is, enough force to attempt to resolve the problem while minimizing U.S. military deaths, local civilian casualties, and collateral damage. These recommendations have ranged from the bizarre—such as a Predator missile strike to kill Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, or the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez—to the unwise—the preemptive bombing of North Korean ballistic missile sites—to the demonstrably practical—air raids into Bosnia and Somalia, and drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. However, even though they have been a regular feature of America's uses of military force through four successive administrations, the efficacy of these "Discrete Military Operations" (DMOs) remains largely unanalyzed, leaving unanswered the important question of whether or not they have succeeded in achieving their intended military and political objectives. In response, Micah Zenko examines the thirty-six DMOs undertaken by the US over the past 20 years, in order to discern why they were used, if they achieved their objectives, and what determined their success or failure. In the process, he both evaluates U.S. policy choices and recommends ways in which limited military force can be better used in the future. The insights and recommendations made by Zenko will be increasingly relevant to making decisions and predictions about the development of American grand strategy and future military policy.
Download or read book NATO s Gamble written by Dag Henriksen and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-11-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected for the 2008 Royal Air Force Reading List In this revealing work, Dag Henriksen discloses the origins and content of NATO's strategic and conceptual thinking on how the use of force was to succeed politically in altering the behavior of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The air campaign, known as Operation Allied Force, was the first war against any sovereign nation in the history of NATO and the first major combat operation conducted for humanitarian purposes against a state committing atrocities within its own borders. This book examines the key political, diplomatic, and military processes that shaped NATO and U.S. management of the Kosovo crisis and shows how air power became the main instrument in their strategy to coerce the FRY to accede to NATO's demands. The book further shows that the military leaders set to execute the campaign had no clear strategic guidance on what the operation was to achieve and that the level of uncertainty was so high that the officers selecting the bombing targets watched NATO's military spokesman on CNN for guidance in choosing their targets. Henriksen argues that structures preceding the Kosovo crisis shaped the management to a much greater degree than events taking place in Kosovo and that the air power community's largely institutionalized focus on high-intensity conflicts, like the 1991 Gulf War, hampered them from developing strategies to fit the political complexities of crises. Because fighting and wars in the lower end of the intensity spectrum are likely to surface again, study of the Kosovo crisis offers lessons for future international conflicts in which the combination of force and diplomacy will play a very significant role.
Download or read book Drone Warfare written by John Kaag and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015 One of the most significant and controversial developments in contemporary warfare is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones. In the last decade, US drone strikes have more than doubled and their deployment is transforming the way wars are fought across the globe. But how did drones claim such an important role in modern military planning? And how are they changing military strategy and the ethics of war and peace? What standards might effectively limit their use? Should there even be a limit? Drone warfare is the first book to engage fully with the political, legal, and ethical dimensions of UAVs. In it, political scientist Sarah Kreps and philosopher John Kaag discuss the extraordinary expansion of drone programs from the Cold War to the present day and their so-called effectiveness in conflict zones. Analysing the political implications of drone technology for foreign and domestic policy as well as public opinion, the authors go on to examine the strategic position of the United States - by far the worlds most prolific employer of drones - to argue that US military supremacy could be used to enshrine a new set of international agreements and treaties aimed at controlling the use of UAVs in the future.
