The Journal of Strategic Studies
Abstracts of articles in Issue 26.2
The Civil–Military Gap in Comparative Perspective by Peter D. Feaver
The Winds of Change: The Transition from Armed Forces for Peace to New Missions for the Bundeswehr and its Impact on Civil–Military Relations by Gerhard Kümmel
The debate on the civil–military gap and especially the TISS findings are viewed with a focus on Germany. After outlining the historical development of civil–military relations, the question of a civil–military gap is explored with data from 2001. The study finds similarities and differences in the attitudes of the civilian and the military population on several issues. Overall, there is a broad overlap of attitudes, yet differences do exist, especially on issues of foreign policy and things military. It is argued that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, civil–military relations in Germany are largely uncontested, but will become more strained.
Civil–Military Relations in France: Is there a Gap? by Pascal Vennesson
Since President Jacques Chirac’s 1996 decision to professionalise the armed forces, many political and military leader expressed concerns about its potential consequences on civil–military relations. Will the shift to an all-volunteer force create a gap in civil–military relations? The goal of the article is to provide a preliminary assessment of civil–military relations in France before the full professionalisation of the armed forces. Using the results of existing polls conducted annually, I lay out a basis of comparison to evaluate the future evolution of civil–military relations on several dimensions: image of the military, perception of civil–military relations, social and political values, and the legitimacy of the use of force. Although civil–military relations in France have never been as harmonious since the Second World War as they are today, the article argues that these relations are not as rosy as they may seem.
The Civil–Military ‘Gap’ in Britain by Hew Strachan
The civil–military ‘gap’, identified by the TISS report for the United States, is also to be found in the United Kingdom. But it is less a new phenomenon than the result of a selective view of the past. Compulsory military service has been the exception in Britain, but that is what has softened the divide between the armed forces and society. It follows that the abolition of conscription was a bigger change for civil–military relations than the end of the Cold War thirty years later. Since then the practices of the forces, justified by the claim that they are necessary for operational effectiveness, have deepened the divide. But professionalism has also rendered Britain’s armed services of greater utility: casualty aversion has not been a significant constraint on recent deployments. The use of mercenaries could be one way to address the services manpower problems, but another would be a more concerted effort to target higher socio-economic groups as possible recruits. Some possible devices for easing the ‘gap’ include more open public debate, the exploitation of links with higher education, and the restructuring of the reserve forces in order to enhance their regional identity.
Is the Russian Bear Learning? An Operational and Tactical Analysis of the Second Chechen War, 1999–2002 by Quentin E. Hodgson
In recent years, writers have too quickly dismissed the Russian military as incompetent. Its performance in the Second Chechen War should give them pause. The Russian military has learned valuable lessons from the disaster of the first war and is applying those lessons to its conduct of the second. While improvements have come on the tactical and operational level, one should not conclude, however, than the Russians are winning the war. The Second Chechen War is proving once again that modern warfare is a messy business and that only a political solution can bring an end to a political problem.
Asymmetry and Systemic Misperception: China, Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s by Brantly Womack
While the differences between the perspectives of countries disparate in size and power provide fertile ground for the individual misperceptions analyzed by Robert Jervis in his seminal work, the imbalance of vulnerability between the stronger and weaker sides in an asymmetric relationship can also create systemic misperceptions. The structurally based misperceptions of each side have a negative complementarity, that is, they will tend to produce a vicious circle in which the interpretation of the actions of the other side becomes further and further removed from the other side’s subjective intentions, and negotiation breaks down. The constraints on asymmetric misperceptions are very different from the ‘golden rule’ because treating another as oneself is premised on reciprocity. The management of asymmetric relationships is based in part on the neutralization of issue areas by means of inclusive rhetoric and routinization and in part on creating a sleeve of normalcy for transactions through precedent and diplomatic ritual. Structural misperception is illustrated by considering two extreme dyads, that of China and Vietnam in the 1970s and that of Vietnam and Cambodia in the same period. These dyads are particularly interesting because Vietnam is in the weaker position in one and in the stronger position in the other, and it behaved according to its different dyadic positions.
British Intelligence and the Soviet Atomic Bomb, 1945–1950 by Michael S. Goodman
With relations with the Soviet Union growing ever ‘hotter’, it became essential for the British to comprehend Soviet atomic development. However, British intelligence had to rely on more overt methods of intelligence collection, which provided an inadequate basis from which to proceed. This was further hindered by the interpretation of such information on the basis of Anglo-American development and by the 1946 McMahon Act. Accordingly the first Soviet atomic bomb in August 1949 was not accurately predicted by the British. Meanwhile British war planning centred on the year 1957, based – it was argued – on strategic forecasts. Yet the impact of recently released intelligence material throws this into question, and instead reveals that the date reflected British war readiness, rather than when British intelligence predicted the Soviet Union would have achieved the nuclear capability to wage a successful war.
Prologue to Suez: Anglo-American Planning for Military Intervention in a Middle East War, 1955–1956 by Michael J. Cohen
This article contributes yet another perspective to the Suez War – the strategic and military planning carried out since the end of the Second World War by the Western Allies for the contingency of a new world conflict against the Soviet bloc. The Middle East was of vital strategic significance. Colonel Nasser’s announcement of the Czech arms deal in September 1955 triggered the countdown to a new war in the region. London and Washington urgently drew up contingency plans for intervention, both with economic sanctions and armed force. Joint staff talks were held in Washington from March to August 1956. They were halted just two months before the United Kingdom decided to collude with France and Israel to attack Egypt.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 26.1
Atatürk’s Navy: Determinants of Turkish Naval Policy, 1923-38 by Serhat Güvenç and Dilek Barlas
Turkish naval policy during the period between the establishment of the Turkish Republic and the Second World War was influenced by a set of institutional, domestic and international factors. Until the mid-1930s domestic political rivalry and Turkish military culture relegated the navy to a secondary role in support of the army for territorial defence. Because of the new republic’s international isolation, naval policy was shaped largely in a diplomatic vacuum. Ankara gradually tried to take advantage of emerging great power rivalries in Europe to secure affordably priced naval arms. In the process, politically unsatisfied powers such as Germany and Italy figured prominently as suppliers of naval arms to Turkey. After 1934 changing international political and economic conditions weighed more heavily than domestic factors in setting the parameters of Turkish naval policy. The armaments programme adopted in 1934 provided for naval expansion to counter the Italian threat in the Aegean. This shift of emphasis is in naval policy also reflected Turkey’s changing international status from an ‘outcast’ to a pro-status quo power. However, the coming of the Second World War denied Turkey the chance to build the fleet envisaged under its new naval programme.
The Needs of Political Policy versus the Reality of Military Operations: Royal Navy Opposition to the Arctic Convoys, 1942 by James Levy
It has become commonplace, especially in the post-Vietnam strategic environment, to quote Clausewitz’s dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means. We are told that military operations are dictated by, and must serve, clear political ends. Such thinking has been invoked to support everything from punitive strikes, to peacekeeping missions, to the ‘Powell’ doctrine and its political ‘exit strategies’, but at times political policy and military operations do not mix. In 1942 the Royal Navy bowed to political pressure and, against its collective better judgement, continued the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. These military operations culminated in the destruction of convoy PQ 17 in early July. This conflict between political policy and military strategy provides an object lesson of why in war issues of means and priorities must outweigh the importance of any given political policy.
Why not NATO? Military Planning in the European Union by Sten Rynning
This article explains why the EU in recent years has gained an upper hand in Allied defence planning. The development is surprising in light of the reforms undertaken by NATO in the mid-1990s and also the 1998–99 US ambition to reinforce NATO’s defence planning process with the Defence Capabilities Initiative. The article argues that a number of European governments, notably including the British and French, have been motivated to seek change because NATO’s defence planning process has proved difficult to adapt to new low-intensity threats and also because governments seek to control the political development of the EU itself. The article illustrates how these concerns are directly visible in the current EU design for military planning and offers an assessment of future NATO-EU relations.
Credibility over Courage: NATO’s Mis-Intervention in Kosovo by G. Gerard Ong
NATO officials have cited various reasons for conducting their air campaign in Kosovo. Though not emphasised as much, the concern that NATO’s credibility was at stake stood out as the most paramount on the basis of logical comparison. In fact, NATO intervened in Kosovo primarily to maintain its credibility as the Trans-Atlantic’s only multilateral security mechanism because its continued existence depended on it. While NATO’s search for its new role in the post-cold war strategic environment has been fraught with several problems, the inclination towards collective security and crisis management has placed it in a position of proactive military obligation. Predictably, NATO’s venture in the Balkans this time around has had various implications on its future prospects as an organisation.
Realist Hypotheses on Regional Peace by Gil Merom
This is a primarily theoretical article. It aspires to fill the void left by realist neglect of regional analysis. The article starts with a presentation of a power-based analysis of the interaction between systemic and regional level actors, and of basic patterns of regional stability, conflict and peace. Next, it offers two amendments to the conventional realist analysis of regions. The first amendment discusses regional order in terms of unit-types; the second discusses regional order while referring to conventional realism, the English School and constructivist principles. The article concludes with a brief discussion of different realist visions of regional order and their analyses of the prospects of Middle Eastern peace.
The Nuclear Peace Fallacy: How Deterrence Can Fail by Richard L. Russell
Some scholars counter-intuitively argue that the proliferation of nuclear weapons increases international security by substantially reducing the chances for inter-state armed conflict. This school of thought draws heavily on the history of the American-Soviet cold war rivalry to inform its analysis. The security dilemmas in the contemporary Middle East and South Asia where numerous states have or want nuclear weapons, however, are profoundly different than the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. States in the Middle East and South Asia today may see nuclear weapons as usable instruments of warfare in contrast to conventional wisdom in the West that views them as weapons of deterrence and last resort. As common sense would have it, American and Allied policy designed to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons is prudent. American diplomatic intervention, moreover, in regional crises as a third party may be needed in the future in the Middle East and South Asia to lessen the risks of nuclear warfare. Nevertheless, American policy-makers are likely in the future to find themselves facing a nuclear-armed nation-state – or soon to be nuclear weapons capable state – in a crisis and will have to grapple with the risks of pre-emptive or preventive military action.
Geography and Strategic Stability by Bernard Loo
This article suggests that the inclusion of geographic considerations helps to create a more nuanced idea of strategic stability. At one level, there are the geographical conditions such as disputing territorial claims that lead policy-makers to perceive the increased propensities for inter-state conflict in a given region. At the other level, there are geostrategic conditions that lead strategic planners to perceive geostrategic vulnerabilities as a result of their assessments about the viability or imminence of military operations.
Book Reviews
Abstracts of articles in Issue 25.4
Special Issue: India as an Emerging Power
Editor: Sumit Ganguly
Introduction by Sumit Ganguly
The US-India Courtship: From Clinton to Bush by Robert M. Hathaway
While a considerable thaw in Indo-US relations bequeathed by the Cold War took place under Clinton, there are still factors even after 11 September 2001, which have hindered a relationship of common strategic interests. These factors involve divergences on nuclear proliferation, the emergence of China as a world power, the pace of India’s economic liberalisation, and the Indo-Pakistani tension. A strategic partnership is achievable, but India will need to keep US interests constantly in focus.
India, Pakistan and Kashmir by Stephen Philip Cohen
The India–pakistian conflict has taken a new, nuclear turn, making South Asia one of the most dangerous place I the world. The Kashmir dispute is only on aspect of the larger struggle between the two states. Their conflict is hard to manage, and may prove impossible to resolve, because it is a ‘paired minority’ conflict in which each side views itself as threatened and vulnerable, and thus resists negotiation and compromise.
Toward a ‘Force-in-Being’: the Logic, Structure and Utility of India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture by Ashley J. Tellis
Defines as a ‘force-in-being’, this nuclear posture exhibits a nuclear deterrent capability based on available but disperse components capable of being constituted into usable nuclear weapon systems during a supreme emergency, and even after enduring an enemy nuclear strike. On current plans, New Delhi’s force-in-being will be limited in size, separated inn geographical disposition, and centralized in control.
Asymmetrical Indian and Chinese Threat Perceptions by John W. Garver
India tends to be deeply apprehensive of threats from China, while China appears comparatively unconcerned about threats from India, and find it difficult to understand why India might perceive China as a threat. Two explanations of this asymmetry are (1) a deliberate and systematic understatement of Chinese concerns about India, resulting from the mobilization function of China’s public media, and (2)the greater effectiveness of China’s application of power over the past 50 years.
Indo-Russian Strategic relations: new Choices and Constraints by Deepa Ollapally
Three level of analysis are applied: bilateral, regional and global. While the bilateral level has been critical in the past, global compulsions are becoming less intense, and that regional dynamics now hold the key to future relations.
The Indo-French Strategic Dialogue: Bilateralism and World Perceptions by Jean-Luc Racine
Shared willingness to develop a stronger relationship, articulated by President Chirac during his visit to India in 1998, was not weakened by India’s ensuing nuclear tests. Looking for enhanced power and global recognition, India and France share a common approach to realpolitik, and India’s foreign policy is still searching for fresh opportunities to maximize influence in a new global order.
India and Israel: Emerging Partnership by P.R. Kumaraswamy
The absence of formal diplomatic relations between India and Israel from India’s hesitant recognition of Israel in 1950 and the establishment of full relations in January 1992, was the result of a complex interplay between tow sets of tensions. The first involved the Arab–Isaraeli dispute, and India’s sympathies with a post-colonial Arab world and with the Non-Aligned Movement; the second involved accommodating Muslim opinion within India. Normalization has proceeded more strongly as the growth of Hindu nationalism has weakened Muslim leverage on Indian foreign policy.
The Political Economy of India’s Second-Generation Reforms by Sunila Kale
The essay analyses the broad failure of India’s attempts to deregulate its economy in the 1990s and the comparative success of privatisation efforts since 2000, and suggests that the growing, though still limited, success with privatisation is due largely to the new institutional environment of competitive investment unleashed by earlier waves of market reform.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 25.3
Shoestring Strategy: The British Campaign in the Aegean, 1943 by Ian Gooderson
The British campaign in the Aegean in 1943 is a case study in audacity, in joint warfare and in failure. The fall of Mussolini and Italy’s consequent departure from the Axis brought a fleeting opportunity of securing wide strategic gains in the eastern Mediterranean, and the possibility of drawing Turkey into the war on the Allied side. The Dodecanese islands in the Aegean were the key, but provision of the forces necessary for their capture was contrary to the priorities agreed by the British and American Allies. Urged by Churchill, the British command in the Middle East attempted to secure the islands with the limited forces at their disposal, and ran headlong into Hitler’s determination to demonstrate German strength in the Aegean. The following article examines the British campaign in the Aegean, largely from the perspective of a joint operation.
The Partisan War in North-West Russia 1941–1944: A Re-Examination by Alexander Hill
This article examines the extent to which the limited achievements of the Soviet partisan movement in north-west Russia during the first months of the great Patriotic War can be attributed largely to inadequacies in the organisation, leadership, equipment and training of the movement as emphasised in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian published works. On the basis of Soviet archival sources the author concludes that whiles these factors were important, German occupation policies were far more effective in inhibiting partisan activities on the area concerned than existing published material would have us believe. However, the same policies seem only to have been effective in the context of the German military successes or perceived successes at the front. The author goes on to examine factors contributing to the dramatic increase in Soviet partisan activity towards the end of the period of German occupation.
The Royal Navy’s Polaris Lobby, 1955–62 by Ken Young
This article examines the background to the Royal Navy’s acquisition of Polaris. The conventional wisdom is that the navy had little interest in Polaris, which was foisted on it upon the cancellation of Skybolt. Extensive use of files in the Public Record Office is made to mount the contrary argument, that the Admiralty had been interested in the submarine-launched ballistic missile since at least 1955, that there was widespread support for it among the naval staff, that a substantial amount of preparatory work was undertaken with the assistance of the US Navy, and that the naval staff were prepared to accept the deterrent role. Naval tactics – to play a waiting game and feign indifference – have contributed to the establishment of the orthodox interpretation, as has the view that the navy was handicapped by the lack of a body of doctrine within which the deterrent role could be accommodated. The article shows that the orthodox account cannot be sustained by the evidence, which points to a naval triumph in terms of Whitehall politics and inter-service competition.
Preventing the ‘Smiling Buddha’: British–Indian Nuclear Relations and the Commonwealth Nuclear Force, 1964–68 by Susanna Schrafstetter
This article examines two related issues: the policy objectives pursued by the British government to prevent India from developing nuclear weapons and the challenges presented to the Indian government in balancing Gandhian idealism with the reality of nuclear diplomacy. Building on recent research, the following issues are explored: the implementation of Anglo-American non-proliferation policy in Asia, the provision of security guarantees for India and Pakistan and the UK proposal to establish a Commonwealth Nuclear forces as a means of maintaining British influence in the region. The analysis is placed within the context of Britain’s overall defence policy during the 1960s focusing particularly on the British withdrawal from East of Suez and the development of nuclear-sharing arrangements within NATO. The article argues that the Wilson government regarded security guarantees for India as an obstacle towards the successful conclusion of a non-proliferation agreement. Britain’s primary objective in advancing the concept of a Commonwealth Nuclear Forces was not to increase Indian security in the face of Chinese nuclear threats but to explore possible options to internationalise Britain’s nuclear forces after initial plans for a NATO nuclear force had failed.
Uncertain Courses: Theater Missile Defense and Cross-Strait Competition by Jianxiang Bi
Heated debates on the utility and effectiveness of theater missile defense against ballistic missile threats not only dramatically affect cross-Taiwan Strait relations and East Asian security, but also provide scholars, soldiers and politicians an extraordinary opportunity for reflection and critical self-appraisal. An in-depth analysis of the issues demonstrates that unless separation becomes a fact of life, an emerging but carefully managed missile race is and will remain part of the projected military modernization programs, while pressing issue linkages and conflict prevention measures set and will continue to set constraints on the likelihood of war, making Beijing and Taibei peculiarly reluctant to resort to use of force. This competition and cooperation pattern will shape the strategic landscape of China and Taiwan.
Explaining Third World Security Structures by Hillel Frisch
Why did the Palestinian Authority established in 1994 create 12 security forces when Eritrea, which achieved independence in 1994, made do with one conventional army? This article attempts to explain the variation in the structure of national security systems in Third World states as a function of two basic factors: the state’s political and social heterogeneity and the state’s relative importance to United States foreign policy and security concerns. Authoritarian one-party and centralizing states tend to fragment their security forces more than states that cultivate social or political pluralism. Fragmentation is a classic exercise of divide and rule. But a tradeoff exists between fragmentation and assuring internal security on the one hand, and ensuring offensive capabilities to ward off external enemies, on the other. Hence the importance of a strong foreign ally – preferably the United States. According to this model, centralized homogenous states enjoying United States protection will tend to fragment or bifurcate their security systems most.
The Freudian Trap in Combat Motivation Theory by David Smith
Theories of group, and individual, motivation to fight have shown little real advancement since the Second World War. The lively debate between the proponents of ‘primary group’ and ideological theories has tended to preclude any other analysis. The debate has continued to generalise from the experience of the Wehrmacht and its cohesion in the face of appalling destruction. In this article I suggest that the theoretical underpinnings of the debate have revolved around one particular, and somewhat unrecognised, concept of the mind. Work on combat motivation owes a substantial debt to Freudian ideas concerning the unconscious and group psychology. Both sides of the ideology/primary group debate use Freudian ideas, often without realising it, and these concepts shape the various positions taken. Only by acknowledging and examining this underpinning can the debate move forward and produce a more general theory of combat motivation and group conflict with wider application.
Book Reviews
Abstracts of articles in Issue 25.2
Special Issue: France and the Algerian War 1954–62. Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy
Editors: Marin S. Alexander and J.F.V. Keiger
France and the Algerian War: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy by Martin S. Alexander and J.F.V. Keiger
France’s war in Algeria from 1954-62 has prompted new historical research and political polemics since 1992. Especially controversial has been an acknowledgement that torture was practised systematically, and the fact that French governments refused until 1999 to admit that Algeria was a real war, not just ‘a law and order problem’. Access to French archives, along with publication of memoirs and collections of letters by conscript troops, has permitted fresh social, cultural and literary perspectives, and new insights about the memory of this war in France and Algeria. The war’s strategies and military operations, however, have been neglected. Yet these aspects illuminate the nature of the armed challenges by nationalist insurgents in the era of Cold War and European decolonizations. Algeria reveals the operational success of the responses by the French military forces and psychological warfare service. The war’s international diplomacy suggests that another ‘operational theatre’ -- that of the United Nations and world opinion -- was where the Algerian National Liberation Front really outmanoeuvred France. This ensured that French Algeria’s days were numbered by 1960, despite French success in defeating the armed insurrection within Algeria.
The French Army’s ‘Centre for Instruction and Preparation in Counter-Guerrilla warfare’ (CIPCG) at Arzew’ by Lt. Colonel Frederic Guelton
Psychological warfare had been used by the French army in the Indochina War (1946-54), and had spawned a sub-caste of French officers who moulded it and counter-insurgent propaganda into a doctrine known as guerre révolutionnaire (revolutionary war). In Algeria, in 1957, the army established a specialist training centre, the CIPCG, at Arzew on the Algerian coast, to provide courses for all officers arriving ‘in country’. By this, the French command sought to ensure that field officers possessed an approach to pacification and the political dimension to their missions well suited to the terrain and socio-political make-up of Algeria. The real ‘revolutionary war’ zealots were kept away from the directing staff, although some delivered guest lectures. Despite complaints from commanders of field units at losing experienced officers to the CIPCG instructing staff, Arzew students testified that the courses aided them in their missions. Some 10,000 French officers undertook courses at the CIPCG before it was downgraded and then disbanded after Pierre Messmer, a Gaullist, became Minister for the Armed Forces in 1960.
A Case of Successful Pacification: The 584th Bataillon du Train at Bordj de l’Agha (1956-57)’ by Alexander Zervoudakis
The scale of the Algerian War led France to deploy hundreds of thousands of reservists and conscripts to the theatre from mid-1956. Many of these ‘civilians in uniform’ arrived with poor morale, and were ill-trained and unsuited to their twin missions: finding, engaging and destroying the armed Algerian nationalist bands, and providing security, confidence in France, and material and welfare improvements for the Muslim village populations. This case study shows how one ill-disciplined reservist transport battalion was given firm leadership by a celebrated, dynamic and wily Indochina veteran, Major Jean Pouget. It explores the methods Pouget used to win over the indigenous peoples living near his battalion’s post at the Bordj de l’Agha, in the foothills of the Saharan Atlas Mountains, and draws out the wasted idealism and courage demonstrated by some of his officers and men.
Aerial Intelligence during the Algerian War by Marie-Catherine and Paul Villatoux
Aviation had a highly significant role in supporting French military operations in Algeria. This was particularly true of aerial reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. Initially, however, the Air Force effort was handicapped by inappropriate approaches, too few army/air liaison officers and scepticism among army officers aware of the difficulties of earlier air operations against an insurgency in Indochina (1946-54). It also lacked sufficient suitable aircraft types. Gradually, improved aircraft and photographic techniques permitted systematic and detailed aerial mapping and intelligence work, as well as rapid provision of close air support during ground battles. Better integration of air and ground forces, along with more coordinated command and control, arrived from 1959 onwards when an air general, Maurice Challe, became inter-service commander-in-chief in Algeria. This permitted an authentic and mostly effective combined-arms and joint service approach to the locating, tracking, engagement and destruction of Algerian nationalist bands.
The French Navy and the Algerian War by Rear-Admiral Bernard Estival
The French Navy’s part in the Algerian War has been overlooked, but was vitally important. It took two main forms. The first, and primary, mission was to cut off the Algerian nationalists from outside support by a rigorous coastal blockade. Maritime surveillance in the Mediterranean and along the Algerian coastal littoral achieved this. Inshore patrol vessels, supported by larger warships, sealed the routes by which the nationalists sought to infiltrate weapons and newly-trained guerrilla fighters from camps and arms dumps in Tunisia and Morocco. The French Navy intercepted cargo ships that sailed from East Bloc ports, attempting to smuggle arms into the Algerian nationalists. The most celebrated successes were the seizures of the Athos, Slovenija and Lidice in 1958-59. The Navy’s second mission involved the deployment ashore, from April 1956, of the marine infantry (the demi-brigade of Fusiliers-Marins). These units participated in sweeps by French army units and engaged insurgent bands. They also garrisoned and protected installations, port facilities and transport networks in Algeria’s coastal hinterland.
The Gaullists, the French Army and Algeria before 1958: Common Cause or Marriage of Convenience? by Stephen Tyre
Though the Gaullists and the officer class shared a common view of France’s military, diplomatic and operational weaknesses during the Algerian War they did not always share ideas on solutions to the problem. The Gaullists were fixated on France’s declining world status and were prepared to act opportunistically to halt it, thereby making a French Algeria expendable. The military, on the other hand, believed that keeping Algeria French was axiomatic in avoiding further national humiliation. The coming together of Gaullists and the Army in May 1958 was therefore only a short-term alliance, which quickly crumbled.
De Gaulle, the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and the Algerian War by Irwin M. Wall
Rejecting the orthodoxy of French diplomatic historiography that de Gaulle was the founder of a new French independence and effected a revolution in French diplomacy after freeing himself from the Algerian yoke in 1962, this article argues that de Gaulle sought from 1958 to make Algeria a central plank of his diplomatic strategy. That strategy sought to transform the relationship with Algeria in order for it to become the key to a neo-colonial French community, the basis for French leadership in Europe and the foundation of a new relationship of equality with Britain and the United States. However, largely as a result of de Gaulle’s own making this policy failed to materialise.
France, the United States and the Invisible Algerian Outcome by Charles G. Cogan
The American administration was much influenced through the late 1950s by the consequences of decolonisation. Though a nation historically committed to anti-imperialism, members of the American administration became anxious at the extent to which recently independent states were coalescing into a large ‘neutralist’ bloc likely to threaten US interests, particularly in the UN. Washington feared in particular that this Afro-Asian grouping might fall under the sway of the Soviet Union. How best to solve this problem created divisions within the US government about dealing with the Algerian problem: some favoured closer contacts with the FLN; others wished to help the French. In the end by hedging their bets and wishing to broker a solution American governments displeased both sides.
The British Embassy in Paris and the Algerian War: An Uncomfortable Partner? by Christopher Goldsmith
For the first four years of the Algerian War British ministers and officials claimed that while supporting the French position in North Africa they did not support their policies. Successive Conservative governments sought to sustain France in North Africa because of the impact that long term insurgency in Algeria would have on Western defence by draining French human and material resources. They also feared that Western influence in North Africa could decline, opening the way for the spread of Communism, and that further humiliation for France, coming on the heels of Indochina, could lead to a `neutralist’ government in Paris, which would politically weaken the Western alliance. Yet Britain’s own foreign interests led her to wish to limit the spread of Arab nationalism and to avoid being tarred with the colonialist brush. The ambiguity of Britain’s position led to shifting policies, which made the job of Britain’s Ambassador in Paris, Gladwyn Jebb, particularly difficult.
The British Government and the End of French Algeria, 1958–62, by Martin Thomas
Unlike France, Britain viewed the Algerian conflict from 1958 to 1962 primarily as a colonial war. The British government regarded Algérie française as an anachronism, which France would have to relinquish one day. Though Britain was no stranger to `dirty’ colonial wars, as continued operations against EOKA nationalists in Cyprus continued to prove, it was not averse to displaying a certain smugness at having averted the kind of mess Algeria seemed to represent. Britain’s interest in the latter stages of the Algerian conflict centred on four major areas: Perceptions of colonial warfare; De Gaulle’s Algeria policy; Algeria and Britain’s view of France in Europe and NATO; Negotiating the cease-fire and ending the conflict.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 25.1
'In a Box in the Corner’? NATO’s Theatre Nuclear Weapons, 1989–1999' by Martin A. Smith
NATO’s theatre nuclear weapons policy and posture underwent three distinct phases of evolution during the period 1989–1999. During 1989–1991, nuclear controversy was a dominant theme, with the particular focus being on the possible deployment of new short-range nuclear systems. This controversy was defused in 1991–1992, largely as a result of US initiative. Thereafter, NATO policy and posture evolved into one of ‘existential deterrence plus’. The salience of NATO’s nuclear dimension may well decline further, but member states appeared relaxed about this prospect by the end of the 1990s and it is unlikely to affect the health of the institution overall.
Israel’s Strategic Environment in the 1990s by Efraim Inbar
The 1990s were of particular importance in Israel’s history as they were characterized by drastic changes in the international system and by significant regional developments, which were beneficial for Israeli national security. Israel has remained a good ally of the United States in an American dominated world. This helped Israel become a respected international actor and allowed much progress in the peace process and Israel’s acceptance in the region. While the chances for a large-scale conventional war were lower than in the past, Israel still faced existential threats, stemming particularly from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East. In addition, it continued to face low-intensity conflict challenges.
The Kosovo War: Kosovar Insurrection, Serbian Retribution and NATO Intervention by Harry Papasotiriou
This article analyses the triangular strategic interaction between the Kosovar Albanians, the Serbs and NATO in the Kosovo War. The focus is first on the origins and nature of the armed conflict between the Kosovar Albanians and the Serbs in 1998, the strategy of which is analysed in terms of guerrilla warfare theory applied to the political and geostrategic context of Kosovo. An assessment follows of the reasons that led the Milosevic regime to its policy of a mass expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo, taking into account political and demographic factors. The second half of the paper analyses the strategic interaction between Serbia and NATO in the spring of 1999 that determined the course and outcome of the culminating phase of the Kosovo War.
The Role of Biological Weapons in International Politics: The Real Military Revolution by Susan B. Martin
This article analyzes the role of biological weapons in international politics. In order to understand why states might want these weapons, I examine the utility of biological weapons as counterforce weapons on the battlefield as well as their ability to serve as a strategic deterrent. I argue that despite recent scientific advances, biological weapons are not well suited to battlefield use. Instead, it is the ability of biological weapons to serve as a strategic deterrent that make them attractive to states. Although there is greater uncertainty about the effects of a biological attack than there is about the effects of a nuclear attack, I argue that the potential destructiveness of a biological attack is great enough to compensate; even a small probability of a successful retaliatory strike with biological weapons should deter an attack on a state’s vital interests. This ability of biological weapons to serve as a strategic deterrent has important implications for international politics. In particular, the spread of biological weapons may lead to a ‘biological revolution’ comparable to the nuclear revolution that occurred among the major nuclear powers.
Berlin Contingency Planning: Prelude to Flexible Response, 1958–1963 by Sean M. Maloney
Cold War Berlin Contingency Planning was an important series of developments which heralded the establishment of NATO’s Flexible Response strategy, a significant benchmark in the history of Western strategic thought and the place of nuclear weapons in it. Highly secret at the time, examining the BERCONs reveals the fears and aspirations of NATO policy-makers, particularly in the Kennedy administration which presided over the two most visible and dangerous Cold War confrontations: Berlin and Cuba. The BERCON process also demonstrates that the United States could be influenced by its allies, particularly Canada, in the development of NATO strategy.
Killing the ‘Vietcong’: The British Advisory Mission and the Strategic Hamlet Programme by Peter Busch
The British Advisory Mission to Vietnam (BRIAM) was established in September 1961. It was headed by Robert Thompson, who had gained experience in anti-guerrilla-warfare in Malaya. Contrary to the widely accepted view, Thompson did not conceive the Strategic Hamlet Programme that was announced in February 1962. While working for the adoption of methods used during the Malayan emergency, including strategic hamlets, Thompson was disappointed that its own strategy – the Delta Plan – got lost in the Strategic Hamlet Programme. Once Thompson had become resigned to the fact that he had to give advice within the framework of the Strategic Hamlet Programme, he began to believe in its ultimate success, and informed President John F. Kennedy in early 1963 that the defeat of the communist insurgents was imminent.
Captain James Hausman, US Army Military Advisor to Korea, 1946–1948: The Intelligent Man on the Spot by Peter Clemens
Building indigenous armies in Asia with military advisory and aid programs has been a mission of the United States Army for over 100 years. Creation of an indigenous army was an early goal of American occupation policy in Korea, but little support and resources were assigned. Between 1946 and 1948, a minute American advisory effort partially trained and equipped a Korean Army cadre of 25,000 men. The unceasing efforts of a talented American advisor, Captain James Hausman, made success possible. He dominated the small advisory group, was given carte blanche to implement his ideas, and left indelible changes on what became the South Korean Army.
The ‘Cult of the Offensive’ Revisited: Confronting Technological Change Before the Great War by Antulio J. Echevarria II
Conventional wisdom maintains that military thinkers before the Great War resorted to an irrational, and ultimately self-defeating, ‘cult of the offensive’ to overcome the rapidly increasing effectiveness of modern firepower. On the contrary, an underlying and, indeed, compelling military rationale did exist for placing renewed emphasis on the offensive spirit, particularly after the Russo-Japanese War. Moreover, the cult’s central argument was not that moral forces alone could overcome material factors, but that the human element must be made strong enough to complement the newfound power of military technology. The idea was not to pit man against machine, but to make man worthy of machine.
Book Reviews
Abstracts of articles in Issue 24.4
Special Issue: Future Trends in East Asian International Relations
Edited by: Quansheng Zhao
Trends in East Asian Internationsl Relations by Robert Scalapino
Despite certain serious problems, relations among and between Asia-Pacific nations at present are more positive than in earlier times. three factors are centrally involved: the primacy of domestic issues, especially the economy; an absence of immediate threats; and the existence of multilateral structures allowing dilogue. Each nation must now deal with internationalism, nationalism and communalism. Multilateral institutions are still incomplete, but serve useful purposes. Nationalism is rising in virtually all nations. And domestic problems are are numerous. The major powers each illustrate these basic facts in terms of both their domestic situation and their bilateral relations. Finally, given the problems of faltering or failing states, 'humanitarian intervention' will continue to be a contentious issue for the foreseeable future, yet war between major powers seems unlikely.
The United States and East Asia in the Unipolar Era by Michael J Green
United States' foreign policy in East Asia has been driven by a mix of idealism and realism. Asian observers may seen a confusing jumble of priorities in US foreign policy in the region. But there has been, and still remain, a clear and constitent hierarchy to US interests in East Asia that has its roots in the forming of the Republic over two hundred ago. While idealism and global regime-building are central elements in American foreign policy in East Asia today, realism and power still trump idealism. This essay examines the enduring US interests in East Asia with a particular focus on (a) its historical roots; (b) what has changed since the end of the Cold War; and (c) competing definitions of security in the US debate. The essay also examines how these interest affect US relations in East Asia, both in terms of broad regional themes and specific bilateral relations. The essay will conclude by stating that the United States will its strategic, economic and ideational objectives in Asia only by leading or joining in coalitions of the willing. This effort must begin with strengthening bilateral relations with key allies in the region, but increasingly the coalitions will have to expand beyond traditional allies. For this reason the United States will have to put more energy into 'multilateralism' and not give up entirely on broader regional multilateralism, even if the short-term pay-offs seem negligible.
The Shift in Power Distribution and the Change of Major Power Relations by Quansheng Zhao
In analyzing international relations in East Asia from the perspective of the changing dynamics of power distribution, this essay argues that the shift in power status is one of the most significant factors that changes perspections among major powers, thereby impacting upon international relations in the region. This dynamic is demonstrated by the important effects of the 'two ups and two downs', in which the united States and China are rising in power whereas Russia and Japan are experiencing a downward trend. Clarly, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific are in the best interests of all concerned parties in the region. Nevertheless, without properly handling shifts in power distribution, a peaceful international environment in East Asia will not be able to be maintained. The ability to adapt to new pwer configurations is crucial not only to major powers, but also to medium and small actors in the region.
The Second Nuclear Age: Proliferation Pessimism versus Sober Optimism in South Asia and East Asia by Victor D Cha
This study makes two arguments with regard to the second nuclear age in Asia. First, the author argue that the causes of proliferation are overdetermined. As was the case in the first nuclear age, proliferation derives largely from the intersection of security-scarcity, resource constraints, and domestic forces. The combination of these drivers not only ensuresthat proliferation is overdetermined in Asia, but also means that rollback of these capacities is not likely. Second, I make a case for 'sober optimism' regarding that prospects for stability. Swaggering, competitive testing, and outright conflicts may certainly occur, but there is no reason to expect that the likelihood of this behaviour escalating to a nuclear exchange is any more probable than was the case for the first nuclear age.
How Size Matters: The United States, China and Asymmetry by Brantly Womack
China as a regional power and the United States as a global power are in similar situations of relating to countries that are in general smaller in terms of population, economic capacity and military expenditures. Leadership in asymmetric relations is difficult because compliance can rarely be forced, and yet disparity creates a sense of vulnerability in the less powerful that can be exacerbated by the insensitivity of the powerful. This essay presents a genreal theory of asymmetric leadship and applies it to China's regional role and the American global role. It concludes with an analysis of the US-China relationship.
Taiwan in Japan's Foreign Relations: Informal Politics and Virtual Diplomacy by Phil Deans
The absence of diplomatic relations since 1972 has made the use of informal channels of contact vital to the maintenance of effective links between Japan and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Japan and Taiwan have evolved a 'virtual diplomatic relationship' that exploits aspects of informal politics common in much of East Asia. This contribution addresses the activities and motivations of pro-Taiwan figures in Japan over the last 25 years and argues that while this link has been extremely effective, the lack of institutionalised ties make it a vulnerable mechanism for contact.
A Regional Economic order in East and Southeast Asia? by Danny Unger
The region's great powers will have the greatest influence on the region's potential to facilitate national goals of growth, stability and equity. The contexts within which they attempt to manage conflicts among them, however, will be shaped in considerable part by political developments within Asia's developing states. The economic and political regimes that emerge within Southeast Asian states and the regional and global institutions within which their interactions are embedded will shape the wider East Asian region's geopolitics. The prospects for either new or significantly stronger regional institutions seem to be limited in the medium term. Enlargement, the economic crisis, and domestic political changes in key member countries have override forces pushing in the direction of greater economic openness. The politics of economic policy making in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia all exemplify these challenges to deeper integration. Ultimately, regional stability is likely to depend in large part on the capacities of governments in Asia's developing countries to meet rising expectations and quell identity conflicts.
Environmental Security in East Asia: A Critical View by M Shamsul Haque
The existing international relations theories have increasingly come under challenge due to unprecedented global events or issues, among which environmental security is one of the most widely known and discussed. The conventional theories and approaches are inadequate to deal with environmental security, because it involves multiple actors, transcends national borders, requires interstate collaboration, and needs alternative theoretical explanations. The increasing significance of environmental security is evident in the proliferation of related international conventions and organisations, research and academic institutions, and theoretical approaches and models. In more practical terms, the worsening forms of environmental degradation and catastrope make environmental security a crucial human concern. However, this non-traditional security issue has not gained much attention in East Asian countries that are still influenced by traditional security perception. In this context, the main purpose of this contribution is to explore the significance of environmental security in East Asia, the dominant realist perception of security in East Asia and its environmental implications, and the articulation of an environment-conscious approach for greater environmental security in the region.
Book Reviews
Abstracts of articles in Issue 24.3
Ideology, National policy, Technology and Strategic Doctrine between the World Wars by Azar Gat
Going beyond the still prevalent image of the interwar period as the scene of a struggles between progress and reaction in strategic doctrine, this article analyzes the factors that shaped the formulation of strategy and doctrine in each of the great powers. It shows how underlying technological trends and sweeping visions of warfare on land, in the air, and at sea had to be squared with practical questions and intricate problems of application and detail, as well as with differing national aims, priorities, and constraints.
Meeting the China Challenge: Some Insights from Scenario Based Planning by Richard Weitz
‘Meeting the China Challenge’ employs the methodology of scenario-based planning to offer a set of recommendations for long-term U.S. policy toward China. The article first describes the core elements of this analytical technique. It then uses a version of the scenario-based planning approach to establish four plausible scenarios regarding China’s future role in East Asian security. Finally, it outlines a combination of shaping and hedging strategies that would best advance US security interests in East Asia over the next 20 years.
Comparing Rational Choice and Prospect Theory Analyses: The U.S. Decision to Launch Operation Desert Storm, January 1991 by Rose McDermott and Jacek Kugler
The purpose of this article is to compare an expected utility rational actor model of decision making with a Prospect theory psychological model of decision making. Each theory is presented and then applied to the well known case surrounding the United States' decision to launch Operation ‘Desert Storm’ in January of 1991 at the outset of the Gulf War. Our goal is not to present new findings concerning the origins or outcomes of the Gulf conflict so much as to use the case to compare and illuminate the similarities and differences of these two theoretical approaches. Our approach does not assume that these two models are necessarily mutually incompatible alternatives. Our goal is to analyze this case in order to discover the comparative advantages and disadvantages of each model, and to determine how much analytic purchase can be gained by combining them. Finally, we offer some conclusions concerning this contrast.
Communications Intelligence and the Battle for Convoy OG 71, 15–23 August 1941 by David Syrett
In 1941, the British instituted a comprehensive system of convoys in the Atlantic. One of the first convoys, OG 71, whilst sailing between Britain and Gibraltar, was shadowed by German aircraft and attacked by U-boats. In the ensuing battle, while no U-boats were sunk, the British lost, out of a convoy consisting of 22 vessels, two escorts and eight merchant ships. The German victory was not complete owing to the inability of the German aircraft and U-boats to cooperate successfully as well as the failure of the U-boats to fight the battle effectively and aggressively. The British also made many mistakes during the defence of Convoy OG 71. The surface escorts made many errors of tactics; as for the British aircraft, owing to an inability to cooperate with the surface forces, they became almost totally ineffective. One bright spot for the British during the battle, however, was communications intelligence. The battle saw the first use of high frequency direction finders and on several occasions skill use was made of information obtained from enemy radio transmissions. In fact important lessons were learned by the British from such use of communications intelligence which would pave the way for a more effective implementation of such information in future convoy battles.
The Rationalization Of Warship Building In The United Kingdom, 1945–2000 by Lewis Johnman and Hugh Murphy
After World War Two the Admiralty and shipbuilding industry agreed that the largest possible capacity for warship building should be maintained. This proved impossible as the Royal Navy struggled to evoke a strategy in the nuclear era and the price of increasingly complex vessels rose remorselessly. As the shipbuilding industry wilted in the 1960s in the face of international competition a process natural selection was followed by increasing political intervention in the industry. Nationalisation in the 1970s aimed to preserve capacity and employment, policy aims which were reversed by privatisation in 1980s and which, ultimately resulted in oligopoly in the warship building sector.
Conflict, Technology, and The Impact of Industrialization: The Great War 1914–1918 by Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior
In major respects, the First World War appeared markedly unlike even quite recent wars. What, by and large, caused the difference was not quality of command or changing morale. It was industrial mobilisation and technological advancement. The emergence of new weapons, and of new methods of producing them in volume and at speed, played a crucial role in changing the nature of war. Certainly, the peculiar qualities of the Great War of 1914–1918 were not determined solely by technology. Quite other factors, such as the profundity of the issues at stake (‘This war is life and death’), and the relative equality in resources and determination between the principal rivals, also profoundly influenced the nature of the conflict. Yet in delineating the dominant aspects of that struggle, the contribution made by industrialisation and technology and a culture of inventiveness must loom large. Admittedly, in some respects, the transformation of weaponry under the impact of industrialisation did not necessarily produce a new kind of war. The battleship of 1914 was hugely unlike the battleship of 1805, yet the Great War at sea was not strikingly different from the naval war against Napoleon. War in the air was an entirely new phenomenon, yet the aircraft had not reached a state of development where it could fundamentally alter the face of battle. But in the case of the land war, new weapons and new volumes of weaponry did indeed make a vast difference to the nature and consequence of military operations. In large measure they generated the features by which this struggle is best remembered: stalemate, immobility, great battles of attrition, and ‘futility’.
One More Push; Forcing the Dardanelles in March 1915 by Edward J Erickson
The historiography of the Gallipoli campaign suggests that the Turks were critically short of ammunition for the Dardanelles coastal defences in March 1915. This theme, established by Winston Churchill, became the basis for a wide spread belief that the Royal Navy, after its failure to carry the Dardanelles on March 18, 1915, simply needed one more determined naval push to breakthrough the narrows. The presumed consequence was that the Ottoman Empire, with Constantinople under the guns of the Royal Navy, would have withdrawn form the war. Using modern Turkish sources, the author examines the available quantities, placement, and expenditure of ammunition, and challenges the premise that the Turks were desperately short of heavy shells. The author concludes that the Turks had sufficient remaining ammunition to fiercely contest control of the straits.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 24.2
Special Issue: Israel's National Security Towards the 21st Century
Edited by: Uri Bar-Joseph
The Concept of Security: Should it be Redefined? by Benjamin Miller
This article addresses the debate on the expansion of the concept of security, which emerged especially after the end of the Cold War. My argument is based on a distinction between the phenomenon to be explained and the explanations, which include all the relevant competing causal factors affecting the explained phenomenon. The subject matter, that the security field addresses, is the threat of organized inter-group violence, and the ways to manage and to prevent it. Here a somewhat broadened version of the traditionalist security concept is in order, which should treat peace as a central element of the field alongside war. Yet, regarding the competing explanations of war and peace, the door should be kept wide open to a great variety of causal factors, theories and explanations, on the condition that they logically and empirically affect war and peace.
New Threats, New Identities, and New Ways of War: The Sources of Change in National Security Doctrine by Emily O Goldman
Technology's Knowledge Burden, the RMA, and the IDF: Organizing the Hypertext Organization for future ‘Wars of Disruption’? by Chris C Demchak
In modernizing the IDF by adopting many budget-reducing elements of the US-defined RMA model of a modern military, Israeli defense leaders are choosing a path highly problematical for the knowledge-conditions of the nation. Even in selected pieces, the RMA model remains a socio-technical arrangement most appropriate for an expeditionary army of a geographically isolated, wealthy society. This work reviews the RMA model’s organizational knowledge requirements and the current knowledge conditions facing the IDF. The discussion addresses the RMA implications for Israel's conventional deterrence; the role of surprise in future conflicts; and the possible transformation of the IDF into a nonRMA knowledge-centric organization more congruent with Israeli geostrategic and internal knowledge conditions.
Non-conventional Solutions for Non-conventional Dilemmas? by Yiftah S Shapir
This article surveys Israel’s doctrine of multi-layered defense against the threat of ballistic missiles. It describes the nation’s unique combination of deterrence, passive defense, active defense, and offensive tactics against this threat and analyzes the technical, tactical, and political arguments for and against each layer of defense. The paper concludes that deterrence is likely to be Israel’s most effective strategy to forestall this threat in the future. Nevertheless, it also argues that although other methods might be technically less efficient, domestic and external political considerations may justify them and render them a sound strategy.
Israeli War Objectives into an Era of Negativism by Avi Kober
Israeli war objectives since the 1970s have gradually become more ‘defensive’ in nature. Four main factors have accounted for it: superpower constraints, difficulty in gaining public legitimization for war, the peace process, and the spread of SSMs in the region. At the same time, Israel has gradually withdrawn from its unequivocal commitment to the achievement of battlefield decision, putting more emphasis on the achievement of the political war objectives. The main reasons for this have been the strengthening of firepower relative to maneuver on the battlefield, the difficulty in translating battlefield decision to political achievements, and the growing political constraints on the freedom of action on the battlefield.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 24.1
Israeli Strategy: The Impact of Internal Politics on Israel’s Reprisal Policy during the 1950s by Ranan D Kuperman
Israel’s policy of military reprisals has never seemed to follow any consistent pattern of tit-for-tat. On the one hand, not every violent incident was answered with a counter-attack. On the other hand, when Israel responded, frequently it employed an excessive amount of force, which was disproportional to the Arab provocation. This behavior has not been the consequence of a premeditated and rational strategy. Instead, it appears to have been the result of a political dispute between alternative approaches regarding the use of military force. The following research analyzes the development of this controversy and how these differences of opinion were resolved.
Israeli Foreign Policy and the Arms Race in the Middle East: 1950-1960 by Zach Levey
Previous accounts of the arms race in the Middle East during the 1950s have focused on the imbalance that resulted from the ‘Czech deal’ of September 1955. While that transfer of weaponry by the Soviet Union to Egypt constituted both a historical turning point and sharp acceleration of the arms race, it was only one of several changes in the regional strategic balance of that decade. This article makes extensive use of archival material in order to identify five phases of the arms race of the 1950s and analyze the manner in which Israeli policy-makers dealt with the exigencies of procurement during each phase. Except for a brief period following the arms deals with France in 1956 that marked the beginning of the fifth phase examined below, the Israelis never abandoned the attempt to obtain arms from the United States. Israel’s success in maintaining a high degree of independence in foreign policy throughout this period was the result of arms purchases from Britain and France that marked each phase of the arms race examined here. Yet, the Israelis considered arms from both of these Western powers to be temporary substitutes for the arms relationship with the USA that came about during the 1960s.
Chief of Staff in Quest of a War: Moshe Dayan Leads Israel into War by Motti Golani
That Dayan was a central figure in Israel’s formative years during the 1950s is beyond dispute. His star blazed particularly bright during the Sinai War of October–November 1956. However, the roots of Dayan’s extraordinary influence are to be found in the period leading up to the Sinai War rather than in the war itself. It is impossible to understand the Sinai War, particularly its Israeli aspect, without understanding the central role played by the army and its chief in the preparations and in lobbying for its execution. For the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the idea of an Israeli-initiated war was neither a theoretical nor a practical surprise. The IDF was prepared to launch an offensive against Egypt, and that fact was of major importance far beyond the Israeli government’s decision to launch a war against Egypt. It was Dayan who ensured full coordination between progress in the military preparations and progress in the diplomatic process (the negotiations with France and Britain), as he himself was at the center of events in both spheres of activity.
A Realist before ‘Realism’: Quincy Wright and the Study of International Politics Between Two World Wars by Emily Hill Griggs
Contrary to conventional belief, IR theorist Quincy Wright and his cohort before World War II were neither idealists, legalists, nor moralists. Deeply grounded in the realism and pragmatism that marked the University of Chicago’s interwar climate, Wright applied an ethically neutral and empirical approach to understanding international relations. Unlike the stereotypical interwar theorist, Wright eschewed legalism. He recognized that a struggle for power drove international politics and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Above all, Wright embraced the complexities of international politics, rejecting monocausal explanations for war or simplistic frameworks for understanding international relations.
Troubled Triangle: Russia, Ukraine, and the United States by William H Kincade and Cynthia M Nolan
A potentially productive triangular arrangement among Russia, Ukraine, and the United States emerged in 1994 from efforts to constrain nuclear weapons diffusion. By 2001, this promising initiative was nearly moribund, owing to the inability or unwillingness of the parties to fulfill the commitments of subsequent agreements. The domestic and external causes of this failure are many and clear. Yet the advantages to each of reengaging in a trilateral relationship are also plain. This means fulfilling their unfinished agenda by learning from past mistakes, adopting realistic premises and goals, and pursuing ‘bottom up’ as well as ‘top down’ strategies.
Britain’s Global Military Role, Conventional Defence and Anglo-American Interdependence after Nassau by Michael Middeke
Britain’s failure to cut military commitments in spite of escalating defence costs was not the result of blocking policies by disgruntled services. Rather, there was no determination among Whitehall’s political departments to cut commitments even before the service departments could obstruct a decision on force levels. The Conservative governments under Macmillan and Douglas-Home showed a propensity for substantial force reductions in Europe rather than in out-of-NATO areas. This remained London’s long-term aim even after it had been accepted to build up British troops in Europe to agreed force levels. During Alec Douglas-Home’s premiership Britain’s global military role, especially east of Suez, gained a greater significance. An Anglo-American military axis operating in the Far East and the Indian Ocean became a prominent feature. Ultimately, Anglo-American military interdependence outside NATO was to ensure that Britain would be able to pursue a policy with more room for independent action.
The People’s Levy: The Volkssturm and Popular Mobilisation in Eastern Germany 1944-1945 by Alastair Noble
The Volkssturm (People’s Storm or Home Guard) was formed by the Nazi Party in late 1944 as Allied forces closed in on the Reich from the east and west. The political ambitions of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary and the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, were the driving force for this new national organisation. Lacking resources, the Volkssturm’s military value was negligible even in eastern Germany where battalions occasionally fought with great tenacity against the Red Army. However, its foundations, character and nature were indicative of the process through which Party power had reached its zenith on the eve of the Third Reich’s collapse.
The Korean War: A 50-Year Critical Historiography by Allan R Millett
Scholarly research and publication in many countries has made the Korean War not only remembered, but also better understood. Material from Russia and China has been especially helpful in adding nuance and detail to now-dated writing about the war’s causes. Much more work needs to be done on Korean politics and the 1952–53 period, but all the scholarship simply confirms the shared responsibility of all the belligerents – including the Koreans – in starting and continuing the war.
Book Reviews
Short Notes
Video Reviews
Abstracts of articles in Issue 23.4
Less than We Can Be: Men, Women and the Modern Military by Martin van Creveld
From the beginning of history, war has been an almost exclusively male affair and those who took part in it were often extolled as the most manliest of men. The recent feminization of the armed forces of many developed countries does not prove that women’s liberation is making progress, as most people believe. Rather it is part symptom, part cause, of the decline of those forces. Other things being equal, the fewer and less important the war fought by any armed force the more women it has; the more it has, the less likely it is to undertake serious wars.
Female Participation in War: Bio-Cultural Interactions by Azar Gat
Throughout history fighting has been associated with men. Cross-cultural studies of male/female differences have found serious violence as the most distinctive sex difference there is. Is that a matter of education and social conventions, or are men naturally far more adapted to fighting than women are? This question is at the centre of public debate nowadays regarding the right and ability of women to enlist in combat roles in the armed services. The article attempts to elucidate the nature of the bio-cultural interactions involved, whose complexity, and even existence, are all too often ignored in the debate.
Women and the Military by Caroline Kennedy-Pipe
Debates about the relationship between women and the military have become common within Western societies. These debates primarily centre on the issue of the place, fitness and desirability of a female presence within institutions designed for national war making. There are those who claim that equality between the sexes demands the full integration of women into national militaries, including in combat role, others however argue that women are ill-equipped for the traditional tasks required of ‘warriors’. The article argues that these debates are increasingly irrelevant. Future wars are increasingly less likely to be fought only by clearly defined national combat forces and more likely to be ‘virtual’ wars involving the deployment of Western technologies against militarily inferior opponents. This too is an age in which Western states will be engaged not just in virtual wars but in ‘humanitarian intervention’, peacekeeping, enforcement and postwar reconstruction. This allows, even encourages, a rethinking of traditional notions and debates over the place of women within the military sphere.
Proliferation and Critical Risk by Wallace J Thies
Does proliferation increase the risk of war between new nuclear powers? Twos school of thought – proliferation pessimists and optimists – offer very different answers. The former stress the first-strike danger of nuclear armed ballistic missiles and the resulting crisis instability as a cause of preemptive war. The latter stress the caution-inducing effects of nuclear wearheards and fear of retaliation as a check on would-be-attackers. To bridge the gap between these two schools, Daniel Ellsberg’s concept of critical risk is used to show how the likelihood of war changes as new nuclear powers enlarge and improve their missile forces. Ellsberg’s framework suggests that the danger of war is low between recent proliferators but rises as nuclear stockpiles grow, thereby changing the payoffs associated with striking first or striking second and increasing the danger of war due to accidents, miscalculations, and uncontrollable interactions between rival nuclear forces. Ellsberg’s framework also suggests that the transition from weaponization to secure second strike force is likely to be long and difficult, in part because short-range missiles like India’s Prithvi are better suited to strike first than to strike second, and in part because negative control procedures reduce the value of striking second, thereby increasing the attraction of a preemptive strike.
Decommissioning and Paramilitary Strategy in Northern Ireland: A Problem Compared by Kirsten E Schulze and M L R Smith
This study examines the problems of paramilitary decommissioning in Northern Ireland. It analyses why decommissioning has become so contentious in the Northern Ireland peace process. Decommissioning, though, is not a unique or intrinsically insurmountable problem. This is demonstrated by highlighting the issue in an international context. Three examples are assessed: the Lebanon, El Salvador and Mozambique. These varied examples do supply some limited lessons for Northern Ireland. This study argues that the explanation for the intractability of decommissioning in Northern Ireland resides, to a greater extent, in the tactical and strategic reasoning of the main paramilitary groupings in Northern Ireland. The factors that condition their thinking, however, can be found in the nature of the peace process itself which provides the paramilitaries with every incentive to retain possession of their weapons.
Forging the Anglo-American Global Defence partnership: Harold Wilson, Lyndon Johnson and the Washington Summit, December 1964 by Saki Dockrill
This article investigates the initial phase of the relationship between the Harold Wilson government and the Lyndon Johnson administration. Despite the generally held view that relations between these two countries were neither warm or close or that Wilson was more anxious to establish a close partnership with the United States than Johnson was with Britain, the article will show that this view is rather superficial. On the contrary, it was the Johnson administration which lacked confidence in dealing with the Wilson government for several reasons. The British leadership fought its corner very well, and used Britain’s ability to play a world role as a means of influencing the USA. Indeed, no other single Western ally was equal to the USA, and thus a close relationship with the USA did not necessarily mean the other country had to have equal power and strength to the USA.
Naval Policy and National Strategy in France, 1933–37 by Peter Jackson
This article argues that French naval policy-makers were slow to adjust to the changed strategic landscape of the 1930s. During the 1920s France did not face a serious land or air threat. Defence policy-makers were therefore able to devote a large portion of the defence budget to rebuilding French maritime power. But when the Depression and the rise of Nazi Germany overturned the strategic situation in Europe, policy makers adjusted by giving priority to land and air rearmament and by placing ever greater emphasis on securing an alliance with Great Britain. The French naval establishment resisted this trend unsuccessfully. The frustration of naval planning increased the resentment and mistrust of both the third Republic and Great Britain that characterized naval attitudes before and particularly during the Second World War.
Book Reviews
Short Notes
Abstracts of articles in Issue 23.3
NATO’s New Strategic Concept: Coherent Blueprint or Conceptual Muddle? by Ted Galen Carpenter
NATO’s new Strategic Concept is a document that attempts to placate competing factions on several major issues. Indeed, the carefully crafted language barely conceals the depth of discord on such matters as NATO’s commitment to out-of-area missions or the functional relationship between the alliance and the European Security and Defense Identity. As a political and public relations document, the Strategic Concept has been a solid success in preserving at least the façade of alliance unity. Yet the underlying substantive disagreements continue to roil. Thus, as a coherent strategic blueprint the Concept is not, and likely will not be, terribly relevant.
NATO Burden-Sharing: Promises, Promises by Alan Tonelson
Securing adequate military burden-sharing has been a major failure of America’s NATO policy. The Kosovo War showed that, 50 years after NATO’s founding, European alliance members still cannot defeat even a military midget on their own. Continuing transatlantic military imbalances drain from the United States valuable resources, threaten to embroil America in numerous conflicts that do not affect important US interests, and undermine American public support for US-European security cooperation. Only a significantly more detached US approach to European security – reflecting NATO’s recent acknowledgement that US and European interests are not always identical – can produce equitable burden-sharing.
US Hegemony and the Perpetuation of NATO by Christopher Layne
Offensive realist theory explains why – contrary to neorealist predictions – NATO did not unravel after the Cold War. In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Type I offensive realism (which explains why great powers engage in expansionist behavior) predicts that the United States would seek – geographically and ideologically – to extend its influence and control over the European security environment. Type II offensive realism (which explains why great powers seek hegemony) predicts that the United States would seek to prevent both the re-emergence of multipolarity in Europe and the emergence of rival European power centers. US policy – negotiations on German reunification, NATO enlargement, the Bosnia and Kosovo interventions, and the response to the European Security and Defense Policy – confirm these predictions.
The New NATO and Relations with Russia by Alton Frye
The promise of constructive NATO-Russia relations remains in jeopardy, prejudiced by friction over the alliance’s expansion, its intervention in the Balkans, and Moscow’s perception that its interests are being disregarded. On a host of issues, from stability in Europe to the maintenance of effective arms control regimes and management of regional crises beyond the Continent, cooperative working arrangements with Russia are vital. To assure such cooperation NATO should make clear that it is open to Russian membership, priority should go to EU expansion, and the United States should pursue joint defenses with Russia against potential ballistic missile threats.
NATO’s ‘Fundamental Divergence’ over Proliferation by Kori Schake
NATO has been so consumed with managing the Balkans and nascent EU security policies that it has largely ignored the much more serious defense challenge of managing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. US and European officials have divergent approaches that must be reconciled for the United States to construct a national missile defense in the near term. The means for creating a common approach lie within reach: modifying the ABM Treaty if possible, including critical allies, assisting European ballistic missile defenses, sustained priority in NATO budgeting and programming, supporting EU strategic intelligence collection and assessment, and building US-EU ‘pillar two’ links.
The Corruption of NATO: NATO Moves East by Amos Perlmutter
The Cold War ushered the end of political, and especially military, institutions that were designed to deter the Soviet Union and its ambitions on the Central Front. However, the NATO Alliance is unwilling to reform and downsize. In fact, a newly adopted strategic doctrine extended NATO to encompass the newly independent East European states. The first military exercise of an extended NATO was a response to a humanitarian crisis. American political capital was wasted in the war against Yugoslavia, which was never an American strategic interest, and succeeded in straining relations not only with Russia, but also with China. The Kosovo War, which was designed to demonstrate the political effectiveness of an extended NATO, instead contributed to its corruption.
NATO 1949, NATO 2000: From Collective Defense toward Collective Security by Richard Rupp
During the past ten years, NATO has been gradually transformed from a collective defense organization into one that more closely resembles a collective security organization. The Cold War NATO unified nations that shared a vital interest in confronting a specific threat. The post-Cold War NATO identifies no state as a threat. Rather, managing general Eurasian instability is to serve as the organization’s raison d’être. Historically, international organizations have failed when called upon to meet similar challenges. If NATO expansion continues, the organization will be required to address a myriad of security challenges and will eventually atrophy and collapse.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 23.2
Reinterpreting Western Use of Coercion in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Assurances and Carrots Were Crucial by Peter Viggo Jakobsen
This article demonstrates that assurances and carrots accompanied credible threats every time Western coercion succeeded in Bosnia. This finding is hardly surprising as it merely confirms earlier research on coercive diplomacy, but it is nevertheless important because the crucial role played by assurances and carrots has been completely ignored in most analyses to date. It also has important policy implications at a time when Western, and particularly American, policy-makers tend to ignore this fact at their peril. USpolicy towards Iraq and Western policy towards Yugoslavia have been based almost exclusively on the stick in recent years, and its lack of success is therefore not surprising. If Western policy-makers had learned the right lessons from Bosnia, they would have known that strategies coupling credible threats with credible assurances and carrots would have been more likely to succeed.
Europe’s New Subregionalism by Andrew Cottey
From the Barents and the Baltic Sea in the north, through Central Europe and the Balkans, to the Black Sea in the south a range of new subregional groups and cooperation processes have emerged in Europe during the 1990s. Compared to NATO and the European Union, these new subregional groups have received little attention. Their ‘indirect approach’ to security, however, plays an important role in overcoming the legacy of the Cold War, reducing the risks of military conflict and addressing non-military security challenges. As NATO and the EU expand eastwards, subregionalism is assuming growing importance as a means of avoiding new ‘dividing lines’ in Europe. After the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, subregionalism is also gaining importance as a means of building cooperation in South-Eastern Europe. The challenge for the future is to give more substance and depth to Europe’s new subregional cooperation frameworks.
Bargaining With Nuclear Weapons: Thomas Schelling’s ‘General’ Concept of Stability by Robert Ayson
This article identifies a consistent approach to stability across a wide range of conflict situations at the heart of Thomas Schelling’s strategic theory. It finds that there are two main aspects of this ‘general’ concept of stability. The first is the ability to strike a bargain at a mutually acceptable resting place as seen in the Korean War stalemate. The second is the ability to maintain a strategic bargain over the long term as in the stability of the balance of terror. This article finds that crucial assumptions which underpin Schelling’s general concept, such as the existence of restraints on the degree of competition and the idea that nuclear weapons assist the bargaining process, hold up better in some cases than in others. Stability consequently seems more possible in a conventional conflict or crisis when nuclear weapons are a background influence than in a war where the nuclear threshold has already been crossed.
To Avert Impending Disaster: American Military Plans to Use Atomic Weapons During the Korean War by Conrad C Crane
Though historians continue to argue about the role of American nuclear threats in producing an armistice in the Korean War, by 1953 the United States was moving closer to actually escalating the war with the employment of atomic bombs. While military studies and unsatisfactory exercises during the first two years of the conflict had relegated such weapons to a role just as a last resort to prevent a catastrophe, frustration with stalemated peace talks and the aggressiveness of General Mark Clark combined to produce a set of contingencies envisioning an expanded war involving nuclear air strikes.
East versus West in the Defeat of Nazi Germany by Phillips P O’Brien
One of the most commonly expressed opinions about victory in the Second World War is that the Soviet Union was mostly responsible for beating Nazi Germany. Supposedly the great land war fought between these two powers in the East was the decisive front in Europe. The West’s contribution to German defeat, on the other hand, is often seen as somewhat marginal. The Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign in 1943 paid few dividends and it was not until after the Normandy landings in June 1944 that the West really began to divert a large amount of German resources. The purpose of this article is to challenge some of these basic notions. Through analysing what Germany produced, where it was sent and how it was destroyed, the West’s contribution to defeating Germany moves from an ancillary position to a dominant one. Taking German war production as a whole, from 1943 onwards the West was responsible for tying down and destroying a significantly larger share than the Soviet Union.
A View From Berlin: Colonel Frederick Trench and the Development of British Perceptions of German Aggressive Intent, 1906–1910 by Matthew S Seligmann
This essay traces the image of Germany that emerges from the reports of Colonel Frederick Trench (1857–1942), British military attaché in Berlin from 1906 to 1910. At this time, the British Army possessed only the most limited intelligence-gathering apparatus and had to rely heavily on the reports of military attachés for information about their continental rivals. Trench, who believed that Germany planned to wage war against Britain and said so categorically in his reports, was the main source of data on the German Army. From the limited surviving records of who read these reports and how they responded to them, this essay posits that Trench’s views contributed to the growing British perception of a German threat, a perception that did much to influence British strategic planning in this period.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 23.1
Special Issue
Preventing the Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Edited by: Eric Herring
Counterproliferation, Conventional Counterforce and Nuclear War by James J Wirtz
This essay examines an increasingly important element of US defense policy, counterproliferation. It explains how US security strategy is no longer constrained by Mutual Assured Destruction: American strategists now contemplate using precision conventional weapons to deny proliferants nuclear capabilities. The study also suggests that US nuclear deterrent capabilities backstop counterproliferation policies. It explores the risks inherent in counterproliferation and how US escalation dominance helps to reduce these risks. In concluding, the analysis questions whether or not new counterproliferation strategies are superior to arms control or deterrence in countering nuclear-armed states.
NATO's Non-Proliferation and Deterrence Policies: Mixed Signals and the Norm of WMD Non-Use by Henning Riecke
Since 1994, the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have run a campaign to stem the spread of WMD. NATO tries to raise the costs and to reduce the benefits of WMD proliferation. The alliance, however, still utilises its nuclear posture to deter the use of all classes of WMD. The sobering status of proliferation indicates that the usual suspect states have not renounced the use of WMD at all. How is this possible? Neoliberal and constructivist hypothesis are applied to consider the effects of NATO's non-proliferation campaign on other states' decisions to use WMD. While NATO assists several non-proliferation regimes, it points to the strategic relevance of WMD and legitimacy of their use. States in NATO's vicinity might be successfully deterred from using WMD against the alliance, but they do not change their beliefs about the applicability of such weapons.
Iran and Iraq as Rational Crisis Actors: Dangers and Dynamics of Survivable Nuclear War by Carolyn C James
This essay will develop and analyze propositions about the behavior of 'mini-arsenal' nuclear dyads in crisis situations. 'Mini- arsenal' is a concept developed to describe more effectively a minimal nuclear capability. The guiding principle of the research is that the dynamics of nuclear strategy are expected to be different within mini-arsenal,third-,second-and first-level dyads. The specific objective of this study is to present a paradigm of crisis interaction that (a) encompasses these respective types of nuclear states, concentrating on mini-arsenals in this treatise; and (b) indicates whether preferences and behavior adhere to te assumptions of Classical (or Rational) Deterrence Theory.
Beliefs, Culture, Proliferation and Use of Nuclear Weapons by Beatrice Heuser
A state-focused analysis is insufficient in explaining why countries have in the past acquired nuclear weapons or chosen not to do so This can only be understood if one factors in the analysis of beliefs specific to the predominant culture in the respective states. Even taking these into consideration, it is not always possible to predict a state's behavior in times of war as can be demonstrated by past decisions to resort to large-scale city bombing (with conventional ordnance or with nuclear weapons). These decisions were functions of personal convictions of individual key decision- makers, and did not necessarily reflect the overall beliefs of the culture from which they sprang. In-depth analysis of cultures and even individual key decision-makers' beliefs is thus vital.
The International System and the Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction by Yannis A Stivachtis
This study examines the relationship between the type of international system and the use of WMD. Comparing the Cold War and post-Cold War international systems, it argues first, that as long as anarchy remains the basic ordering principle the structure of international system is irrelevant to the use of WMD. Second, it is relatively unclear whether the power structure of the system is related to the use of WMD although multipolarity seems to increase the chances that WMD might be used in wars between secondary powers. And third, the possibility of the use of WMD depends on the actors involved, the relevant strategic factors, the technical conditions related to WMD, the systemic processes in which the actors are involved and the rules and norms that regulate their behavior in the system.
The Impact of the Revolution in Military Affairs by Patrick Morgan
This contribution begins by discussing what makes for a revolution in military affairs (RMA), the components of the of the current one, and its probable effects on warfare in the future. Then it speculates on how the revolution will affect the future importance and use of weapons of mass destruction. It notes that the RMA has already encouraged efforts to put WMD in the background and strengthened efforts to eliminate those weapons, but that it has also incited some states to develop or rely more heavily on WMD because they fear US or Western dominance in conventional forces.
The Methodology of Mass Destruction: Assessing Threats in the New World Order by John Mueller and Karl Mueller
The label, 'weapons of mass destruction' has lately been applied not only to nuclear weapons, but, often on a seemingly equal footing, to arms that have thus far killed scarcely anyone (biological weapons), to arms that are vastly less effective (chemical weapons), and to costly and often ineffectual delivery devices (ballistic missiles). Meanwhile, in a thus-far futile effort to drive out, and essentially kill, its leader, economic sanctions have probably already taken the lives of more people in Iraq than have been killed by all weapons of mass destruction in history. A reassessment of economic warfare and of the limited dangers posed by 'rogue states' is overdue. For Iraq, deterrence and containment are preferable.
Rogue Rage: Can We Prevent Mass Destruction? by Eric Herring
For many, 'rogue' states are the most worrying kind of state when it comes to the potential for WMD use. For conservatives, the label 'rogue' state is appropriate for the very serious threats to the West which exist. For liberals, it exaggerates the threats but is still appropriate. For the left, it exaggerates the threats to the West and is applicable to the United States and some of its allies. For interpretivists, one's position on this issue is driven to a great extent by one's own values and identity. The essay argues that the perspectives of the left and the interpretivists are the most persuasive.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 22.4
Partners or Rivals? Chinese Perceptions of Japan's Security Strategy in the Asia-Pacific Region by Rex Li
Both China and Japan are key players in the Asia-Pacific region and their security relations will to a significant extent determine the peace and stability of the area. Based on a wide range of Chinese-language sources, this essay examines how China perceives Tokyo's regional security strategy since the end of the Cold War. It also provides a critical evaluation of Chinese perceptions of Japan and their policy implications. The essay focuses on the views of the Chinese security specialists who play an important advisory role in their foreign policy-making process. While Chinese analysts' interpretations of Japanese strategy in the Asia-Pacific are shaped largely by the consideration of great power competition and the balance of power in the region, they do appreciate the relevance of domestic politics and economic factors to Japanese strategic thinking. Thus, despite a deep suspicion among Chinese policy élites of Japan's global and regional aspirations, Beijing has basically adopted a pragmatic approach to managing Sino-Japanese relations over the past decade.
Uncovering Foreign Military Innovation by Thomas G Mahnken
An analysis of US assessments of Germany's development of armored warfare illustrates the problems that intelligence agencies face as they attempt to understand military innovation. The covert nature of German Army's tank research in the years immediately following World War I limited the number of indicators of Berlin's interest in armored warfare. Similarly, the United States possessed at best a fragmentary picture of German experimentation with armor. By the outbreak of World War II, however, US military attachés had nonetheless developed an accurate understanding of German concepts of armored warfare. If the United States is to avoid strategic surprise in the future, it must cultivate intelligence sources and employ considerably different methods from those of the Cold War.
Deception and Intelligence Failure: Anglo-German Preparations for U-boat Warfare in the 1930s by Joseph A Maiolo
This essay examines the key role played by intelligence and deception in the interactive process of British and German preparations in the 1930s for U-boat warfare. It argues that the Royal Navy (RN) employed the general perception of ASDIC (sonar) as a 'antidote' to the submarine to mislead potential foes about the state of its anti-submarine defences. This British campaign of deception had a discernible impact. Before the outbreak of World War II, the German Navy failed to discover the realities behind ASDIC's image, and this intelligence failure helped to shape U-boat policy.
Italian Naval High Command and the Mediterranean Crisis, January–October 1935 by Robert Mallett
This essay examines the role of Fascist Italy's Naval High Command during the months that preceded the Italian assault on Ethiopia in October 1935. It examines the internal political relationship between the Naval Chief-of-Staff, Admiral Domenico Cavagnari, Benito Mussolini and the other leaders of the Fascist armed forces as the plan to attack Ethiopia evolved. It demonstrates how Mussolini's expansionist agenda, of which the conquest of Ethiopia marked merely the initial stage, compelled the naval staff (in early 1935 contemplating a future conflict against France and Yugoslavia) to change operational policy and plan for a war against the Royal Navy. Accordingly, Cavagnari, faced with incomplete naval building programmes and serious all round fleet deficiencies, repeatedly warned the dictator, amid rising Anglo-Italian tension, that Italy would lose any war against Britain. Ultimately, this essay challenges the view that the Italian Navy and Air Force constituted any serious threat to Britain's imperial defence capability.
A Case Study in Early Joint Warfare: An Analysis of the Wehrmacht's Crimean Campaign of 1942 by Joel Hayward
Military theorists and commentators believe that joint operations prove more effective in most circumstances of modern warfare than operations involving only one service or involving two or more services but without systematic integrationor unified command. Many see Nazi Germany's armed forces, the Wehrmacht, as early pioneers of 'jointness'. This essay demonstrates that the Wehrmacht did indeed understand the value of integrating its land, sea and air forces and placing them under operational commanders who had at least a rudimentary understanding of the tactics, techniques, needs, capabilities and limitations of each of the services functioning in their combat zones. It also shows that the Wehrmacht's efforts in this direction produced the desired result of improved combat effectiveness. Yet it argues that the Wehrmacht lacked elements considered by today's theorists to be essential to the attainment of truly productive jointness – a single tri-service commander, a proper joint staff and an absence of inter-service rivalry – and that, as a result, it often suffered needless difficulties in combat.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 22.2&3
Sir Halford Mackinder: The Heartland Theory Then and Now by Geoffrey Sloan
One of the aims of geopolitics is to emphasise that political predominance is a question not just of having power in the sense of human or material resources, but also of the geographical context within which that power is exercised. States do not find themselves in a geographical strait-jacket; instead, geography or geographical configuration present opportunities for policy-makers and politicians. This was recognised by Sir Halford Mackinder (1861–1947) one of the founders of modern geopolitical theory. The three versions of the heartland theory: 1904, 1919, and 1943 are explained in the unique historical periods of their formation. Attention is then focused on the proposition which can be reduced to suggest the future release for Mackinder’s ideas. Mackinder’s view of geography is interpreted as a combination of a geographical longue durée and a theatre of military action.
Alfred Thayer Mahan, Geopolitician by Jon Sumida
The present essay advances four major revisionist propositions about Mahan and geopolitics. First, Mahan believed that good political and naval leadership was no less important than geography when it came to the development of sea power. Second, his unit of political analysis in so far as sea power was concerned was a trans-national consortium rather than the single nation state. Third, his economic ideal was free trade rather than autarchy. And fourth, his recognition of the influence of geography on strategy was tempered by a strong appreciation of the power of contingency to affect outcomes.
Air Power, Space Power and Geography by Benjamin S Lambeth
Success in major wars continues to require the involvement of all combat elements in appropriately integrated fashion. However, new air and space capabilities now permit joint force commanders to conduct operations against organized enemy forces more quickly and effectively than ever before. Properly applied, those capabilities enable the achievement of strategic effects directly, by offering commanders the prospect of engaging and destroying or neutralizing enemy ground forces from stand-off ranges with virtual impunity, thus reducing a threat to friendly troops who might otherwise have to engage undegraded enemy ground forces in direct contact and risk sustaining high casualties as a result.
Geography in the Space Age: An Astropolitical Analysis by Everett C Dolman
The line of geopolitical theory known as grand geostrategy includes assessments for land, sea, and air operations. Space power is here advocated as the next logical step in a coherent evolution of geostrategic thought. In this brief essay, I extend the classical geostrategic theories of Mackinder, Mahan, and Douhet into outer space. If these broad concepts can be proven transferable to the new realm, then arguments for the revivial of geopolitical theory as a useful avenue for academic inquiry are strengthened. By identifying salient and hopefully heuristic concepts in what should become the next arena for geopolitical analysis, I hope to add a still vital component to the rapidly growing literature on space power.
Understanding Critical Geopolitics: Geopolitics and Risk Society by Gearóid Ó Tuathail
Critical geopolitics is a perspective within contemporary political geography that investigates the politics of geographical knowledge in international relations. It has four different dimensions: formal, practical, popular and structural geopolitics. All four dimensions are introduced and briefly illustrated with reference to Sir Halford Mackinder, the discourse of ‘Balkanism’, and the processes shaping the contemporary geopolitical condition. These processes, globalization, informationalization and proliferating techno-scientific risks, force a re-thinking of geopolitics in what Ulrich Beck terms a ‘risk society’. Three critical geopolitical arguments about the dilemmas of geopolitics in risk society comprise the conclusion.
Geopolitics: International Boundaries as Fighting Places by Ewan Anderson
The importance of international boundaries in relation to sovereignty, state security and global flashpoints is identified. Boundary settlement requires geographical evidence, political will and international law support. Key recent concerns have been: maritime boundaries, transboundary issues, macropolitical problems and a post-modern approach to the subject. Examples of the main categories of boundary classification are given. The acquisition of territory and boundaries is discussed in detail with a focus upon the types of evidence used, the various settlement procedures and the stages of achieving agreement. The arguments are summarised in a discussion on boundaries as the environment for conflict.
Information Power: Strategy, Geopolitics and the Fifth Dimension by David J Lonsdale
In response to some of the current literature, this analysis argues that the information age will not invalidate the importance of physical geography in geopolitics and strategy. Although recognising that the infosphere represents a fifth dimension of strategy, the author contends that the strategic limitations of information power signify that physical expressions of military power will continue to dominate the practice of strategy. However, the infosphere is perhaps attaining greater significance. Consequently, this essay explores the nature of the fifth dimension, and outlines ‘control of the infosphere’ as a useful strategic concept for the twenty-first century.
Inescapable Geography by Colin S Gray
A comprehensive analysis of geography and strategy which argues that the former vitally influences tactical and then operational prowess. Strategy comes from the dialogue between policy and military power, but the grammar of strategy is dictated by the distinctive requirements of physical geography even in nuclear war. Geography as well as being physical also has its effect on the imagination, not least in geopolitical theory.
Weather, Geography and Naval Power in the Age of Sail by N A M Rodger
The essay examines the constraints imposed on naval operations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by wind systems and available navigational techniques. The course of the Anglo-Dutch Wars was largely dictated by the shoals and tides of the North Sea and Channel. War against France moved to the open Atlantic and beyond, where wind systems and the longitude problem governed the strategic possibilities. British command of the sea was finally achieved by exploiting the geography and wind system of European waters to defend against invasion and dominate the French and Spanish navies.
Some Thoughts on War and Geography by Williamson Murray
The focus of this study is military historical looking in turn at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war and geography primarily in the twentieth century. Even air power is a prisoner of terrain because of its need for bases. Mistakes at tactical and operational levels can be corrected promptly but not at the strategic level. The ‘American Way of War’ is defended because it recognises that only plentiful logistics can overcome geography and get US forces to the theatre of war as happened in World War II. This lesson is in danger of having to be relearnt by the Pentagon.
Geopolitik: Haushofer, Hitler and Lebensraum by Holger H Herwig
Karl Haushofer crafted, taught, and disseminated geopolitical theories throughout the Weimar and early Nazi periods. His influence on the development of Nazi policy remains controversial. Closely connected to Hitler and Hess, Haushofer supported the development of the Nazi Party and unquestioningly laid the intellectual framework which underpinned the concept of Lebensraum. In the hands of the Nazi regime, geopolitical theory became, in the words of Karl’s son Albrecht Haushofer, akin to a genie released from the bottle. In the end, Haushofer discovered that he was disposable to those whom he had helped to empower.
‘Russia Will not be Trifled With’: Geopolitical Facts and Fantasies by John Erickson
Long reviled in the former Soviet Union, geopolitics has returned to haunt post-Soviet Russia. Russian vulnerabilities, complicated security arrange-ments, the identity crisis intensified discussion of Russia’s vital interests and threat identification. Russia’s shrunken geopolitical ‘space’ has transformed geopolitical extroversion into introversion. A major effort has gone into developing a general theory of geopolitics and security, generating a concept of national security which also embraces energy security where geopolitics and geo-economics increasingly coincide. Without directly challenging American supremacy, ideas of a Russo-Indian-Chinese Eurasian geostrategic combination aim to promote diversity, foster multipolarity and outflank the ‘hegemonism’ of unipolarity.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 22.1
The Triumph of Transatlanticism: NATO and the Evolution of European Security After the Cold War by Tom Lansford
The end of the Cold War and the resulting American drawdown of forces in Europe only seemed to confirm the need for a European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) distinct from NATO. Differences over the scope and nature of the European pillar quickly derailed significant progress towards ESDI as some states, such as Great Britain or the Netherlands, insisted on the retention of NATO as the foundation of any European-wide security structure while other states, mainly France, insisted on a Euro-centric security system. This essay examines the rise of new security concerns and risks, and the perceived inability of the existing institutions in the early 1990s to deal with these new threats. The policies and priorities of the major powers involved in the security of the region are analyzed against the backdrop of these new risks. The impact of these security issues and national interests are assessed on the reforms and adaptations undertaken since 1990, and the new structures and institutional arrangements that emerged from such reforms and adaptations are evaluated in the context of their ability to meet the new requirements of European security. Despite considerable debate, NATO emerged as the institution best suited to deal with the new security threats to Europe and to serve the national interests of the major West European powers, even to the point of fostering the development of an autonomous European defence indentity.
Learning to Love the Bomb: The Command and Control of British Nuclear Forces, 1953–1964 by Stephen Twigge and Len Scott
The command and control of nuclear forces has emerged as an important concern in strategic studies. Yet the study of British command and control has been sparse. This article provides the first archive-based outline of the development of command and control of British nuclear forces in the period 1945–64. It examines the British response to the emerging Soviet ballistic missile threat: by appointing a designated deputy Prime Minister with the authority to launch Britain's nuclear forces; by establishing an alternate government headquarters outside London for authorising nuclear retaliation; and by delegating nuclear authority to the military. This article documents for the first time how nuclear release authority was delegated to Bomber Command, in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack and the destruction of Britain's political leadership.
Reconsidering Truman's Claim of 'Half a Million American Lives' Saved by the Atomic Bomb: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Myth by Barton J Bernstein
This essay, based on substantial archival research, critically examines President Harry S. Truman's often-cited post-World War II claim that he had received pre-Hiroshima counsel in 1945 that the invasion(s) of Japan could cost 'half a million American lives'. This essay concludes that there is no 1945 archival evidence supporting Truman's postwar contention, and that there is substantial evidence undercutting his claim. Moreover, in view of the total size of American forces scheduled for 1945–46 operations against Japan, any claim of 500,000 American dead seems implausible. This essay also critically examines how Truman's postwar memoir claim of 'half a million American lives' was constructed, and this essay discusses the many and rather varied casualty/fatality numbers that Truman presented during his White House and post-presidential years. Such an analysis also focuses on the numbers he privately provided in the construction of his memoirs by 'ghost' writers. Reaching beyond the specific question of Truman's claims, this essay also discusses the dangers of analysts relying heavily upon post-event memoir and interview sources, and this essay emphasises the need generally to instead privilege contemporaenous archival materials. Otherwise, analysts risk letting policymakers, often in self-serving recollections, shape the history of crucial events.
'Raising the Tribes': British Policy in Italian East Africa, 1938–41 by Dawn M Miller
With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Italy's presence in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) was a serious concern for Britain. Yet not until Italy declared war in June 1940 did London accept the recommendation of military planners to defeat Italy by aiding the Abyssinian Patriots whom the Italians were unable to quell. The subsequent campaign, christened 'raising the tribes' made an important contribution to victory in Italian East Africa at very small cost to Britain. This article explores the changing assessments of the value of 'raising the tribes', the planning for the campaign, its results and its value to Britain's war effort.
The Origins of the British Breakthrough into South Palestine: The ANZAC Raid on the Ottoman Railway, 1917 by Yigal Sheffy
Following two failed attacks on the Ottoman defence line in Gaza in the first part of 1917, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force successfully broke through the enemy eastern flank at Beersheba in October 1917 and occupied South Palestine. Traditional historiography has placed the shift of the British focus from the coast to the east immediately after the failure of Second Gaza, in April 1917. This article argues that the tentative idea of turning east matured into a solid operational concept only after, and as a result of, a successful mounted raid on the Ottoman Beersheba-'Awja railway in May. A minor operation, aimed at achieving tactical gain, recovering personal prestige and placating an activist War Cabinet, the railway raid unintentionally affected the entire Palestine Campaign.
Abstracts of articles in Issue 21.4
Australia’s Pursuit of Regional Security into the 21st Century by Craig A Snyder
This article discusses the implications of the division of Australia’s regional security arrangements between the older ‘threat-oriented’ alliance such as ANZUS and the FPDA and the newer ‘order-oriented’ arrangements Australia has signed with Indonesia, China, Japan and others. As Australia does not face a direct military attack in the near to medium term, the adoption of cooperative security is the most appropriate strategy for Australia. While many in the region are supportive of Australia’s role and look towards Australia for support, some concern continues to exist as to Australia’s own perception of the threats it faces in the region and its preference to secure itself from these latent military threats through its alliance with the United States. In the final section, the debate among the Australian security policy-makers between the effectiveness of bilateral versus multilateral approaches to regional security will be examined. While there is at least nominal bipartisan support for multilateral approaches, this support is usually tempered with caveats about the utility of Australia’s bilateral arrangements, especially the alliance with the United States, as insurance should the multilateral approach fail.
The Domestic Sources of Ukrainian Security Policy by Taras Kuzio
Domestic factors play an important role in the formulation and evolution of a country’s foreign and security policy. This is clearly seen in the case study of a Soviet successor state, Ukraine. The article brings together in seven sections theory with the key domestic factors that influence Ukrainian security policy, such as economics, energy, national identity, elites and political parties. The article provides an insight into how these domestic factors influence the course of Ukrainian security policy which is striking a balance between the twin extremes of Soviet re-integration, which would be tantamount to the loss of independence, and nationalist maximalism which seeks to place as much distance as possible between Ukraine and Russia.
The German Campaign in Norway 1940 as a Joint Operation by James S Corum
The German invasion in Norway in April 1940 was unique in that it was the first major ‘triphibious’ campaign. It was an operation that was equally dependent upon naval, air and ground forces for success. Norway had long been of interest to German strategists, especially naval thinkers. However, no serious Wehrmacht plans for occupying Norway were even started until December 1939. A small group of staff officers of the three services put together a comprehensive plan in a matter of weeks. The article examines the effectiveness of the German interservice cooperation and OKW leadership in a very tough and close run campaign. Although there were numerous problems, interservice cooperation was fairly effective at the tactical and operational levels. Indeed, the Germans won the campaign largely because their services worked together much better than their Allied opponents.
Marching to a New Drummer: Britain Revives the Belgian Army 1940–45 by Robert W Allen Jr
The British provided unprecedented shelter, training and supplies that made possible the revival of a new and better Belgian Army after the crushing German victories in 1940. Starting in Wales in 1940 as a small and disunited group, the Belgians improved more than any of the Allied exile ground forces. By 1944, their independent brigade fought well in Normandy and Belgium, restoring national pride and proving the worth of British help. The parallel and interdependent processes between the British and their Continental guests allow this analysis of the Anglo-Belgian experience to be useful in considering British Army interactions with the other exiles as well.
Book Reviews
Short Notes
Video Reviews
Abstracts of articles in Issue 21.3
War in the Information Age: International Law, Self-Defense and the Problem of 'Non-Armed' Attacks by Mark R Jacobson
The end of the Cold War and the unprecedented pace of technological change have resulted in a plethora of non-traditional threats to US national security. Indeed, the United States now faces some 'non-traditional' military threats that may exploit its vulnerabilities as a nation whose domestic strength is founded on an information-based economy. While international law supports the right of the United States to act, within limits, in self-defense against deliberate, aggressive, hostile attacks; some would argue that 'non-armed' assaults, such as some forms of information warfare, may not manifest themselves in such a way for a nation to claim the right of self-defense. The work argues that international law and custom, suggest that the United States has the right to take action, even military action to defend itself against 'non-armed' attacks and that attacks against the US National Information Infrastructure would require such a response. Specifically, the article addresses the question: under what conditions would pre-emptive action be justified when non-armed, yet deliberate, aggressive and hostile action is taken against the United States.
The European Community's Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia: The Strategic Implications by Richard Caplan
The EC's recognition of new states in former Yugoslavia is considered by most analysts to have seriously aggravated the conflict in the region. This article challenges the conventional wisdom and argues that the strategic effects of recognition have been largely overstated. The prospect of recognition played no significant role in the Slovene determination to sustain their campaign for independence and therefore bears little responsibility for the first phase of the war. In Croatia, recognition – together with the deployment of UN peacekeepers – may even have had a mitigating effect. Only in Bosnia is there any correlation between recognition and an intensification of hostilities but it is doubtful whether non-recognition would have prevented the eruption of violence since Bosnian Serb aspirations for an ethnically homogeneous state entity could not be realised without resort to war. The real relevance of recognition lies with the opportunities for more effective international action which it created. It was the failure to seize these opportunities, rather than the strategic effects of recognition, which better explains the tragic events that ensued.
Israel's Northern Eyes and Shield: The Strategic Value of the Golan Heights Revisited by Uri Bar-Joseph
According to common wisdom, the Golan provides Israel with an ideal platform for its warning stations as well as the best available defense line against a massive Syrian ground attack. Challenging this belief, this article compares the present situation with an alternative defined by (a) a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, (b) a complete demilitarization of the evacuated territory, and (c) considerable limitations on Syrian military presence in the area between the Golan and Damascus. The article reaches two conclusions. First, that a combination of means, primarily airborne and space-based platforms, can effectively answer Israel's northern intelligence needs. Second, the security arrangements set above, combined with recent revolutionary military technologies and its relative advantage in this domain, offer Israel an effective - in some respects even a better - alternative, to the present defense line.
Professionalization and Suicidal Defence Planning by the Irish Army, 1921–1941 by Theo Farrell
Recently declassified war plans reveal the Irish Army preparing a conventional defence against expected British invasion in 1940–41. Irish Army planners realized such a defence would have been suicidal in the face of overwhelming British military superiority, yet they rejected the obvious alternative of preparing a defence which incorporated their operational experience of guerrilla warfare from the Anglo-Irish War of 1919–21. This was because in building a professional organization in the 1920s and 1930s, Army leaders formed beliefs about military professionalism by imitating the British Army. This, in turn, led them to believe that guerrilla warfare was not the business of professional armies.
British Radar Organization and the Failure to Stop the Night-time Blitz by David Zimmerman
When the Luftwaffe began to attack British cities at night during the autumn of 1940 the Royal Air Force's aircraft defence system was almost useless. At the heart of the problem were the delays in providing effective Airborne Interception radar. This article examines the causes of the failure of the first three marks of AI and the delay in providing an effective replacement. It shows that the principle causes of this was the way research and development in the British radar programme were organized and managed, and the complete collapse of this organization in the last half of 1939.
Book Reviews (8 titles)
Short Notes on Some Books Received (4 titles)
Conference Announcement
Abstracts of articles in Issue 21.2
Ukraine and NATO: The Evolving Strategic Partnership by Taras Kuzio
The article explores the evolution of Ukrainian-NATO relations since the disintegration of the former USSR. It argues that Ukraine's elites have made a strategic decision in favour of integration into European and Trans-Atlantic structures. These ruling elites are divided into 'romantic' and 'pragmatic' groups. The former support a Baltic-style immediate demand of NATO membership while the latter opt for non-bloc status as a stage to future NATO membership. Ukraine's pragmatic elites have declared their aim of EU and WEU membership while only outlining a future desire for NATO membership. Nevertheless, whereas NATO has adopted an open door policy the EU/WEU have defined two groups of future members which exclude Ukraine. Such a Western policy could turn Ukraine into another 'Turkey' which may achieve future NATO membership while being excluded from the EU/WEU as somehow 'non-European'.
'A Fly in Outer Space': Soviet Ballistic Missile Defence during the Khrushchev Period by Jennifer G Mathers
Although the Soviet missile defence effort was begun to protect the USSR from attack by nuclear missiles, Khrushchev was quick to see its political value, and used the prospect of an anti-ballistic missile system to emphasize Soviet technological superiority. Within the Soviet armed forces there was widespread consensus about the importance of ABM's damage-limiting role. The debates about strategy for future war in Soviet military publications demonstrate that support in the armed forces for an ABM capability transcended service loyalties and remained remarkably strong even after 1962, when technical problems and an effort to improve relations with the US following the Cuban Missile Crisis meant that the missile defence project no longer enjoyed the public backing of senior Party and military figures.
'Backing the Wrong Horse': Japan in British Middle Eastern Policy 1914–18 by John Fisher
The course of Anglo-Japanese relations prior to 1914 rendered senior British policy-makers nervous regarding possible Japanese aggrandisement in the Middle East. This article explores the factors which precluded British acceptance of Japanese military involvement there when, both before and during World War I, the idea was discussed. Particular reference is made to the views of the India Office and to those of Lord Curzon and the subject is analysed in the broader context of British Middle Eastern policy.
War and Punishment The Implication of Arms Purchases in Maritime Southeast Asia by Julian Schofield
While there is no arms race currently underway in Southeast Asia, there should still be concern for the effects of a regional arms buildup. No state currently possesses, or is seeking to possess, the capabilities necessary to dominate the core territory of its potential adversaries. However, the types of weapons being procured favour punishment based strategies that are highly unstable and war-prone. Geographic vulnerability to blockade and interdiction make Southeast Asia's security dilemma particularly acute.
