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Author: Jurgen Brauer Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226071650 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 425
Book Description
Castles, Battles, and Bombs reconsiders key episodes of military history from the point of view of economics—with dramatically insightful results. For example, when looked at as a question of sheer cost, the building of castles in the High Middle Ages seems almost inevitable: though stunningly expensive, a strong castle was far cheaper to maintain than a standing army. The authors also reexamine the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II and provide new insights into France’s decision to develop nuclear weapons. Drawing on these examples and more, Brauer and Van Tuyll suggest lessons for today’s military, from counterterrorist strategy and military manpower planning to the use of private military companies in Afghanistan and Iraq. "In bringing economics into assessments of military history, [the authors] also bring illumination. . . . [The authors] turn their interdisciplinary lens on the mercenary arrangements of Renaissance Italy; the wars of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; Grant's campaigns in the Civil War; and the strategic bombings of World War II. The results are invariably stimulating."—Martin Walker, Wilson Quarterly "This study is serious, creative, important. As an economist I am happy to see economics so professionally applied to illuminate major decisions in the history of warfare."—Thomas C. Schelling, Winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics
Author: Jurgen Brauer Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226071650 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 425
Book Description
Castles, Battles, and Bombs reconsiders key episodes of military history from the point of view of economics—with dramatically insightful results. For example, when looked at as a question of sheer cost, the building of castles in the High Middle Ages seems almost inevitable: though stunningly expensive, a strong castle was far cheaper to maintain than a standing army. The authors also reexamine the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II and provide new insights into France’s decision to develop nuclear weapons. Drawing on these examples and more, Brauer and Van Tuyll suggest lessons for today’s military, from counterterrorist strategy and military manpower planning to the use of private military companies in Afghanistan and Iraq. "In bringing economics into assessments of military history, [the authors] also bring illumination. . . . [The authors] turn their interdisciplinary lens on the mercenary arrangements of Renaissance Italy; the wars of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; Grant's campaigns in the Civil War; and the strategic bombings of World War II. The results are invariably stimulating."—Martin Walker, Wilson Quarterly "This study is serious, creative, important. As an economist I am happy to see economics so professionally applied to illuminate major decisions in the history of warfare."—Thomas C. Schelling, Winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics
Author: Brenda J. Buchanan Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN: 9780754652595 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 464
Book Description
Gunpowder studies are still in their infancy despite the long-standing civil and military importance of this explosive since its discovery in China in the mid-ninth century AD. This volume is the first to develop the implications of the subject, not just in the sense of relating it to changing military technologies, but in that of seeing the securing of gunpowder supplies as fundamental to the power of the state and imperial pretensions.
Author: Colin F. Baxter Publisher: University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 0813175313 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 176
Book Description
The noted historian offers “a compelling sociohistorical account of an often overlooked yet critical” WWII explosive twice as powerful as TNT (Choice). During the early years of World War II, American ships crossing the Atlantic were virtually defenseless against German U-boats. Bombs and torpedoes fitted with TNT barely dented the hulls of Axis naval vessels. Then, seemingly overnight, a top-secret manufacturing plant appeared near Kingsport, Tennessee, producing a sugar-white substance called Research Department Explosive, code name RDX. Twice as deadly as TNT and overshadowed only by the atomic bomb, RDX proved to be pivotal in the Battle of the Atlantic and directly contributed to the Allied victory in WWII. In The Secret History of RDX, Colin F. Baxter documents the journey of the super-explosive from conceptualization at Woolwich Arsenal in England to mass production at Holston Ordnance Works in east Tennessee. Baxter examines the debates between RDX advocates and their opponents and explores the use of the explosive in the bomber war over Germany, in the naval war in the Atlantic, and as a key element in the trigger device of the atomic bomb. Drawing on archival records and interviews with individuals who worked at the Kingsport “powder plant,” Baxter illuminates both the explosive’s military significance and its impact on the lives of ordinary Americans involved in the war industry. Much more than a technical account, this study assesses the social and economic impact of the military-industrial complex on small communities on the home front.
Author: Alex Wellerstein Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022602038X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 558
Book Description
"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--
Author: Gilbert F. Kinney Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3642866824 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
A purpose of science is to organize diversified factual knowledge into a coherent body of information, and to present this from the simplest possible viewpoint. This is a formidable task where our knowledge is incomplete, as it is with explosions. Here one runs the risk of oversimplification, naivete, and incom pleteness. Nevertheless a purpose of this work is to present as simply as possible a general description of the basic nature of explosions. This treatise should be of interest to all who are working with explosives such as used in construction or in demolition work, in mining operations, or in military applications. It should also be of interest to those concemed with disasters such as explosions or earthquakes, to those involved in civil defense precautions, and to those concemed with defense against terrorists. That is, this material should be of interest to all who wish to utilize, or to avoid, the effects of explosions as weil as to those whose interest is primarily scientific in nature.
Author: William M. Arkin Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1982131012 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
The definitive book about America’s perpetual wars and how to end them from bestselling author, military expert, and award-winning journalist William M. Arkin. The first rule of perpetual war is to never stop, a fact which former NBC News analyst William M. Arkin knows better than anyone, having served in the Army and having covered all of America’s wars over the past three decades. He has spent his career investigating how the military throws around the word “war” to justify everything, from physical combat to today’s globe-straddling cyber and intelligence network. In The Generals Have No Clothes, Arkin traces how we got where we are—bombing ten countries, killing terrorists in dozens more—all without Congressional approval or public knowledge. Starting after the 9/11 attacks, the government put forth a singular idea that perpetual war was the only way to keep the American people safe. Arkin explains why President Obama failed to achieve his national security goal of ending war in Iraq and reducing our military engagements, and shows how President Trump has been frustrated in his attempts to end conflict in Afghanistan and Syria. He also reveals how COVID-19 is a watershed moment for the military, where the country’s civilian and public health needs clash with the demands of future wars against China and Russia, North Korea and Iran. Proposing bold solutions, Arkin calls for a new era of civilian control over the military. He also calls for a Global Security Index (GSX), the security equivalent to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which would measure the national and international events in real time to determine whether perpetual war is actually making the nation safer. Arguing that the American people should be empowered by facts rather than spurred by fear, The Generals Have No Clothes outlines how we can take control of the military…before it’s too late.
Author: Jonas A. Zukas Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 1461205891 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 440
Book Description
This is a broad-based text on the fundamentals of explosive behavior and the application of explosives in civil engineering, industrial processes, aerospace applications, and military uses.
Author: Paola Lo Cascio Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1443869686 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 140
Book Description
This volume is the result of an academic initiative organized by the Center for International Historical Studies of the University of Barcelona (CEHI-UB) in April 2012, with the purpose of bringing Military History to the center of the attention of university and historiographical debate. This choice is based on the idea that, too often, Military History is considered a technical discipline, only intended for experts. On the contrary, we think that – on the one hand – this research field constitutes an unavoidable tool for the interpretation of the historical processes of contemporaneity, and that – on the other – Military History is among the most interesting research fields because of its intrinsic interdisciplinarity. On the basis of these considerations, the congress and the resulting book propose the analysis of some of the main war processes of the twentieth century, from a perspective that could situate them in the wider background defined by the conflicts themselves. The book gathers the contributions of Professors Fortunato Minniti (University of Roma Tre, Rome), Giuseppe Conti (University La Sapienza, Rome), Joan Villarroya (University of Barcelona), Allan R. Millett (University of New Orleans) and Antoni Segura i Mas (University of Barcelona), respectively about World War I, war intelligence, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the asymmetric conflicts ranging from the Cold War to more recent examples.
Author: Herbert Lin Publisher: Brookings Institution Press ISBN: 0815735480 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 440
Book Description
“We are dropping cyber bombs. We have never done that before.”—U.S. Defense Department official A new era of war fighting is emerging for the U.S. military. Hi-tech weapons have given way to hi tech in a number of instances recently: A computer virus is unleashed that destroys centrifuges in Iran, slowing that country’s attempt to build a nuclear weapon. ISIS, which has made the internet the backbone of its terror operations, finds its network-based command and control systems are overwhelmed in a cyber attack. A number of North Korean ballistic missiles fail on launch, reportedly because their systems were compromised by a cyber campaign. Offensive cyber operations like these have become important components of U.S. defense strategy and their role will grow larger. But just what offensive cyber weapons are and how they could be used remains clouded by secrecy. This new volume by Amy Zegart and Herb Lin is a groundbreaking discussion and exploration of cyber weapons with a focus on their strategic dimensions. It brings together many of the leading specialists in the field to provide new and incisive analysis of what former CIA director Michael Hayden has called “digital combat power” and how the United States should incorporate that power into its national security strategy.
Author: Jurgen Brauer
Author: Jurgen Brauer
Author: Brenda J. Buchanan
Author: Colin F. Baxter
Author: Alex Wellerstein
Author: J. Samuel Walker
Author: Gilbert F. Kinney
Author: William M. Arkin
Author: Jonas A. Zukas
Author: Paola Lo Cascio
Author: Herbert Lin