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This book improves our understanding of battlefield coalitions, providing novel theoretical and empirical insight into their nature and capabilities, as well as the military and political consequences of their combat operations. The volume provides the first dataset of battlefield coalitions, uses primary sources to understand how non-state actors of varying types form such groupings, reports interviews with policymakers illuminating North Atlantic Treaty Organization operations, and uses cases studies of various wars waged throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries to understand how other such collectives have operated. Part I introduces battlefield coalitions as an object of study, demonstrating how they are distinct from other wartime collectives. Using a novel dataset of actors fighting in 492 battles during interstate wars waged between 1900 and 2003, it provides, for the first time, a comprehensive portrait of the universe of battlefield coalitions. Part II explores processes and dynamics involved in the formation of battlefield coalitions, addressing how potential coalition members prepare for future battles in peacetime (as well as the consequences of such preparations) and the dynamics of mission design. Part III focuses on how battlefield coalitions are organised and fight when combat ensues, notably their decision-making rules and practices, command structures, and learning capacities. Part IV addresses three curious tendencies observed in the operations of battlefield coalitions: partners under-providing effort in combat, rebels and terrorist networks persisting in cooperation even when their interests diverge, and members defecting from the collective. Part V concludes with a chapter outlining for future researchers what we know about battlefield coalitions and what remains to be understood. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, defence studies and International Relations.
This book explains how military coalitions form, as well as their implications for war, peace, and the spread of conflicts.
Some of the most brutal and long-lasting civil wars of our time involve the rapid formation and disintegration of alliances among warring groups, as well as fractionalization within them. It would be natural to suppose that warring groups form alliances based on shared identity considerations - such as Christian groups allying with Christian groups - but this is not what we see. Two groups that identify themselves as bitter foes one day, on the basis of some identity narrative, might be allies the next day and vice versa. Nor is any group, however homogeneous, safe from internal fractionalization. Rather, looking closely at the civil wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia and testing against the broader universe of fifty-three cases of multiparty civil wars, Fotini Christia finds that the relative power distribution between and within various warring groups is the primary driving force behind alliance formation, alliance changes, group splits and internal group takeovers.
Paths to Peace begins by developing a theory about the domestic obstacles to making peace and the role played by shifts in states' governing coalitions in overcoming these obstacles. In particular, it explains how the longer the war, the harder it is to end, because domestic obstacles to peace become institutionalized over time. Next, it tests this theory with a mixed methods approach—through historical case studies and quantitative statistical analysis. Finally, it applies the theory to an in-depth analysis of the ending of the Korean War. By analyzing the domestic politics of the war's major combatants—the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and North and South Korea—it explains why the final armistice terms accepted in July 1953 were little different from those proposed at the start of negotiations in July 1951, some 294,000 additional battle-deaths later.
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, nearly every combatant foresaw a short decisive conflict. Experience would soon prove, however, that this belief was sorely misplaced. Eventually, excessive economic dislocations would topple every authoritarian regime. Only the intervention of the United States would save the British and the French from collapse. This book traces the trilateral struggle between the Entente, the Central Powers, and the United States to determine the outcome of the war. Stubbs focuses on a few essential factors vital to understanding this three-way race: the acquisition of war materiel, food, human resources, and the movement of each. In an analysis of coalition strategies, it is not enough to study the memoirs and memoranda of General Staffs or political figures engaged in war. One must also examine the roles played by each population, their industries, economy, means of transportation, and the financial decisions that make such strategies possible. In short, the material foundations of war set the boundaries within which strategic maneuvers occur. Ultimately, the United States determined the outcome of the First World War, not simply because it provided the last untapped reservoir of manpower, but due to its overall economic contributions to the allied effort.
This extended treatment of insurgent fragmentation provides an innovative new theory tested through analysis of the Horn of Africa's civil wars.
This is a book about strategy and war fighting. It contains 11 essays which examine topics such as military operations against a well-armed rogue state, the potential of parallel warfare strategy for different kinds of states, the revolutionary potential of information warfare, the lethal possibilities of biological warfare and the elements of an ongoing revolution in military affairs. The purpose of the book is to focus attention on the operational problems, enemy strategies and threat that will confront U.S. national security decision makers in the twenty-first century.
History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains - from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon - play a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare.
It seemed that whenever Mussolini acted on his own, it was bad news for Hitler. Indeed, the Fuhrer's relations with his Axis partners were fraught with an almost total lack of coordination. Compared to the Allies, the coalition was hardly an alliance at all. Focusing on Germany's military relations with Italy, Romania, Hungary, and Finland, Richard DiNardo unearths a wealth of information that reveals how the Axis coalition largely undermined Hitler's objectives from the Eastern Front to the Balkans, Mediterranean, and North Africa. DiNardo argues that the Axis military alliance was doomed from the beginning by a lack of common war aims, the absence of a unified command structure, and each nation's fundamental mistrust of the others. Germany was disinclined to make the kinds of compromises that successful wartime partnerships demanded and, because Hitler insisted on separate pacts with each nation, Italy and Finland often found themselves conducting counterproductive parallel wars on their own. DiNardo's detailed assessments of ground, naval, and air operations reveal precisely why the Axis allies were so dysfunctional as a collective force, sometimes for seemingly mundane but vital reasons-a shortage of interpreters, for example. His analysis covers coalition warfare at every level, demonstrating that some military services were better at working with their allies than others, while also pointing to rare successes, such as Rommel's effective coordination with Italian forces in North Africa. In the end, while some individual Axis units fought with distinction—if not on a par with the vaunted Wehrmacht—and helped Germany achieve some of its military aims, the coalition's overall military performance was riddled with disappointments. Breaking new ground, DiNardo's work enlarges our understanding of Germany's defeat while at the same time offering a timely reminder of the challenges presented by coalition warfare.
The mechanism for the operation of our military forces beyond the shores of the U.S. is the modern coalition from the grand alliance of NATO to simple bilateral relationships. Understanding the dynamics of coalition warfare is important for a U.S. Military that often finds itself operating as the dominant member of any coalition it joins. One of the major considerations listed in the portion of joint doctrine which addresses multinational coalitions is the concept of unity of effort Current U.S. Army doctrine has long recognized the importance of unity of command. However, the latest drafts of the new Army keystone doctrine publication, FM 100-5, have upgraded the principle of unity of command to unity of effort. The efficacy of this change recognizes the realities of operations in a world of coalitions, trans-governmental agencies, and private organizations all which find themselves often in league with our military as we strive to reach common (not always strictly military) objectives. This monograph will examine two historical case studies from the Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) in order to explore the relationship between tactical and doctrinal differences between different members of the same coalition. The first case study examines the coalition army of Marshal Suvorov at the battles of the Trebbia and Novi in 1799. The second example will move forward in time to the Russo-Prussian army of the spring of 1813 and its performance at the battles of Lützen and Bautzen. Although history does not provide us with exact recipes for implementing complex solutions in a complex world, it does provide a means to understand the dynamics of human behavior on a vast scale. The Napoleonic period represents a veritable laboratory of coalition warfare and provides a means of applying the lessons of a historical period to understanding the dynamics of coalitions.