Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
14,118
result(s) for
"Military tactics"
Sort by:
Frontline : combat and cohesion in the twenty-first century
In the last few decades, Western ground troops have been involved in intense close-quarters fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan on a scale not seen since the Vietnam and Korean wars. As a consequence, a unique, if disturbing, archive of data has emerged concerning the behaviour of soldiers on operations, in combat, or preparing for combat. This volume draws together historians, social, and political scientists in order to analyse how professional Western forces have sought to generate unit cohesion and how they have performed on operations and in combat.
Book
Russian hybrid warfare and extended deterrence in eastern Europe
Russia's use of force against Ukraine since early 2014 has prompted some observers to remark that it is engaging in 'hybrid warfare'. This form of military statecraft has made other former Soviet republics, such as the Baltic countries, fear that Russia would use subversion rather than pursue a conventional military engagement against them. Despite this concern about Russian hybrid war, existing descriptions of this form of war suffer from conceptual weaknesses. In this article hybrid warfare is conceived as a strategy that marries conventional deterrence and insurgency tactics. That is, the belligerent uses insurgent tactics against its target while using its conventional military power to deter a strong military response. The article then outlines why some former Soviet republics are susceptible to Russian hybrid warfare, allowing it to postulate inductively the conditions under which hybrid warfare might be used in general. The analysis yields two policy implications. First, military solutions are not wholly appropriate against hybrid warfare since it exploits latent ethnic grievances and weak civil societies. Second, only under narrow circumstances would belligerents resort to hybrid warfare. Belligerents need to be revisionist and militarily stronger than their targets, but they also need to have ethnic or linguistic ties with the target society to leverage in waging hybrid warfare.
Journal Article
Twisting arms and sending messages: Terrorist tactics in Civil War
We examine the strategic rationale for terrorist tactics in civil war. We identify conditions that favor terrorism as a tactic in armed civil conflicts as well as the specific targets as a function of rebel characteristics, goals, and government responses to political demands. Terrorist tactics can be helpful as an instrument to coerce the government in asymmetric conflicts, as rebels are typically weak relative to the government. But terrorism can also help communicate the goals and resolve of a group when there is widespread uncertainty. We consider the strategic importance and rationale for terrorism in terms of the frequency of attacks and specific targets, and analyze our propositions using new data linking actors from the Uppsala/PRIO Armed Conflict Data and the Global Terrorism Database. Consistent with our expectations, we find that terrorism is used more extensively in civil conflicts by weaker groups and when attacks can help the group convey its goals without undermining popular support. Groups with more inclusive audiences are more likely to focus on 'hard' or official targets, while groups with more sectarian audiences are more likely to attack ' soft' targets and civilians.
Journal Article
Military adaptation in war : with fear of change
\"Military Adaptation in War addresses one of the most persistent, yet rarely examined, problems that military organizations confront: namely, the problem of how to adapt under the trying, terrifying conditions of war. This work builds on the volume that Professor Williamson Murray edited with Allan Millett on military innovation (a quite different problem, though similar in some respects). In Clausewitzian terms, war is a contest, an interactive duel, which is of indeterminate length and presents a series of intractable problems at every level, from policy and strategy down to the tactical. Moreover, the fact that the enemy is adapting at the same time presents military organizations with an ever-changing set of conundrums that offer up no easy solutions. As the British general, James Wolfe, suggested before Quebec: \"War is an option of difficulties.\" Dr. Murray provides an in-depth analysis of the problems that military forces confront in adapting to these difficulties\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Competition In Space Will Intensify In 2026
Fighting a war in space is no longer science fiction. The Economist’s defence editor, Shashank Joshi, explains how military competition is intensifying far above the earth.
Streaming Video
Military Technology and Human Loss in Intrastate Conflict
Although often conjectured, there is a lack of empirical evidence whether international inflows of military technology render intrastate conflicts more violent. We address this question and argue that expansions in governments’ ability to fight aggravate the lethality of intrastate war. However, we expect this effect to be conditioned by rebels’ military endowments and their choice of tactics. Where rebels are weak, they avoid open combat, and additional governmental arms imports have no effect on the number of casualties. In contrast, governmental arms imports cause human losses to multiply when rebels have achieved military parity or superiority and, as a consequence, use conventional combat tactics. This hypothesis is tested on the number of battle-related deaths in intrastate conflict, 1989 to 2011, using, for the first time, data on governmental imports of both major conventional weapons and small arms. Results support our propositions and are robust to instrumenting for imports of both types of weapons.
Journal Article