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In the middle of the South Atlantic lies Ascension Island, a modest island constructed in the background of Cold War politics and military history. This essay examines Ascension Island in three parts: first, from geologic prehistory to British naval occupation; second, the operation of the island by the United States military and installation of NASA tracking stations; and third, the lost histories in the wake of empire building. Ascension, initially deemed uninhabitable, became a technical island. This essay explores a distant island which may mirror our future world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the British Civil Wars, London suffered a severe energy shortage. By the mid-seventeenth century, the English capital was highly dependent on supplies of coal from the North-East of England. However, during the civil wars, the predominantly Parliamentarian city’s access to coal was restricted when the Royalists secured control of Newcastle and its coal reserves. The constriction of the coal supply of London caused an energy crisis in the capital, forcing the Parliamentarians to introduce price controls and seek alternative supplies of fuel. This article argues that ‘weaponisation of energy’ and ‘energy policy’ are appropriate terms to describe London’s coal supply in this period, given the clear parallels with modern energy policies and conflict. This article will further argue that the use of this term makes historians engage with the importance of energy even in premodern conflicts, and acknowledge that contemporaries were aware of its paramount strategic importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A year and a half after two Sudanese military factions staged a joint coup against Sudan's transitional government, war broke out between the factions. Attempts by regional and international actors to arrange a cessation of hostilities between the warring parties have failed. The United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) was dissolved in early 2024, unable to fulfil its mandate of advancing Sudan's transition to democracy. UNITAMS could have been better equipped and endowed with a stronger and more realistic mandate for dealing with a contested transition. Arguably, however, it could not have prevented two armies that had conflicting interests and the resources to go to war from doing so. UNITAMS's record is in line with an apparent historical truth of international relations: only major powers motivated to use their political and economic leverage decisively can change the calculations of imminent combatants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently Western military history has concentrated on battles, technology, and the biographies of great generals. The roots of this tradition of history writing lie in the Ancient Greeks and this orientation has carried through to the present. Military historians studying other cultures, like China's, have usually tried to make very different traditions of commemorating war match or fit into the Western tradition. Although there is no established Chinese tradition of military history writing, an implicit tradition embedded in its extensive historiography suggests an emphasis on conflicts between military systems rather than specific weapons, battles, or individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently Western military history has concentrated on battles, technology, and the biographies of great generals. The roots of this tradition of history writing lie in the Ancient Greeks and this orientation has carried through to the present. Military historians studying other cultures, like China's, have usually tried to make very different traditions of commemorating war match or fit into the Western tradition. Although there is no established Chinese tradition of military history writing, an implicit tradition embedded in its extensive historiography suggests an emphasis on conflicts between military systems rather than specific weapons, battles, or individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We apply Anatol Rapoport’s typology of war to reconstruct how Russian research communities explain war against Ukraine. We argue that the initial three-dimensional framework can be divided into two explanatory models: military-political and eschatological-cataclysmic. The first model explains the war with reference to classical calculus about military threats and national interests. The second model interprets war as an act of creating a new world order and as a struggle existential for Russia. These two models are not mutually exclusive, yet they illuminate evolution of meanings given for the war during the first two years of Russia’s large-scale invasion against Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrate the advantages of combining the detailed military history of actual battles with contemporary decision-making cognitive theories. Specifically, we analyse two battle decisions made in Israeli-Arab wars, and interpret, through a cognitive lens, some of the decisions that were subsequently deemed "incomprehensible" in the civilian and military literature. This perspective permits analysis of multiple processes – such as risk evaluation, mental completion of unknown information, and estimation of enemy response. Moreover, it predicts that even highly experienced commanders are prone to the effect of cognitive biases, and may therefore make bad decisions with disastrous consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1840s, a monumental cairn was built on an island in the St Lawrence River by the Glengarry Highlanders Militia who were stationed in eastern Upper Canada and western Lower Canada during the Rebellions of 1837–1838. The cairn was officially raised to commemorate the Glengarry Highlanders' supreme commanding officer, Sir John Colborne and to acknowledge the role the Glengarry Highlanders played in supressing the Rebellion. However, as a product of early Victorian Highlandism and its association with three generations of a transatlantic Highland regiment, the cairn was also a physical representation of the historic Highland Scottish military contributions to the British imperial project in the Atlantic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (2014) and Alba Sotorra's Game Over (2015) explore the inculcating pull of pop myths on soldiers. Eastwood's biopic focuses on Chris Kyle, American military history's most lethal sniper. Sotorra's documentary Game Over considers Djalal, an Iranian Catalan youth who moves from being an America-idolizing gamer to a sniper in Afghanistan. Initially, they see themselves as Western cowboys and perfect soldiers. War, however, leaves them disillusioned and traumatized. Via distinct generic formats (documentary v. feature film) and nationally determined political frameworks (US v. Spain), they ask: can mythologies fueling the post-9/11 war machine empty it of its force? Mobilizing postcolonial, disability, and trauma studies, this comparative analysis theorizes how objects of soft power can both harden a soldier's mind and liberate it from the battlefield's thrall. Ultimately, the article reveals contrasting, potentially limited strategies subjects across cultures deploy to break the hold of American visions of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of counterfactuals ("what-ifs") has been a recognized approach in some fields within the humanities, in particular military history, where alternate scenarios can be readily proposed. As an approach it has also been used in fields such as the study of economics, and—much less so—in art history. This article will consider the violin and the piano, and then concentrate on a more modern—and, as such, better documented—example of the Gibson "Les Paul" model electric guitar to assess whether various decisions have had a major bearing on the business success of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around 300 physicians from Switzerland, the German as well as the Austro-Hungarian Empire joined the Dutch Colonial Army between 1814 and 1914. While their motives to volunteer in the first place could widely differ, many among them eagerly published on their experiences as medical officers 'Far East', presenting their alleged heroic deeds and the struggles they faced as medical men in the tropics to a broad readership in Germanophone Europe. This article zooms in on the lives of three such 'medical mercenaries' deployed in Aceh, where the Dutch fought one of the longest, most costly, and deadly wars in their Imperial history: the Swiss Dr. Heinrich Erni, Austrian Dr. Heinrich Breitenstein, and Prussian Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Stammeshaus. By analysing their testimonies of the daily lives in the military camps, it asks how European masculinities were forged, challenged, and contested through medicine and medical experts in colonial wars fought in from a European perspective remote, unknown tropical outdoor spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland and Sweden are two countries with long histories of military non-alignment. In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both countries swiftly decided to apply for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Why and how does such a drastic policy change come about? In this paper, I assess realist theory of threat and show that despite their apparent similarity, the reactions of the Nordic nonaligned to the Russian aggression differed significantly. Finland immediately sought protection from NATO, while Sweden attempted to continue non-alignment. Ultimately, the two countries reached the same alignment conclusion through different causal mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the issue of French executions during the Great War in a quantitative perspective. Based on the 'Shot in the First World War' database of the Ministry of Defense, we first provide a statistical portrait of the French soldiers who were sentenced to death by courts-martial or summarily executed. Then, we analyze the temporal distribution of executions using a regression approach. More specifically, we investigate whether the variations in the number of executions over time were related to the intensity of engagements. Finally, focusing on the soldiers' place of birth, we examine the differences across counties (départements) in the execution rate. Our results suggest that the vast majority of the executed soldiers were 'poilus' like the others who found themselves before a firing squad for having committed a fault in a moment of weakness, often after being involved in particularly bloody fighting, and sometimes under the influence of alcohol. Their acts were probably, in most cases, much more driven by survival instinct than by pacifist motives or other political considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber" by John Blaxland and Clare Birgin is a comprehensive and authoritative account of Australian Sigint history. The book explores the development of Sigint in Australia from the early 1900s to present-day military operations, highlighting challenges faced by professionals in this field. It discusses the role of Sigint in Australian diplomatic and military history, as well as its influence on cyber statecraft. The text also delves into the establishment of the Defence Signals Bureau, joint facilities like Pine Gap, and the role of the Australian Signals Directorate in intelligence gathering and cybersecurity. The article emphasizes the need for more historical scrutiny and public awareness of Sigint's mission, calling for independent scholarship on the topic. [Extracted from the article]

John Ferris, a professor of history at the University of Calgary, is a prominent figure in the study of intelligence. His work integrates intelligence with military and diplomatic history, international relations, and strategic studies. Ferris has published extensively on intelligence and strategy, particularly British signals intelligence. He emphasizes the importance of reading works in other languages and recognizing the value of research done by scholars in other languages. The text also addresses the myth surrounding Bletchley Park and the limitations on publishing intelligence history. In an interview, Ferris discusses the role of intelligence in the Cold War and the importance of diversity and inclusion in intelligence history. He praises GCHQ for its adaptability and effectiveness in times of change. [Extracted from the article]

The field of civil–military relations has a rich literature firmly anchored in military history and security studies. Similarly, the emerging field of civil–intelligence relations has received growing attention in intelligence studies. But how do intelligence and the military interact as distinct professions and institutions of national security? This article explores the concept of military–intelligence relations, including its origins in theory and history, and its attendant problems in policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article aims to show the development of Russian perceptions of the use of military history as a tool for ideology in Russia from the 1990s to the mid-2000s. Russian military history has been instrumentalized following the example of authoritarian/totalitarian countries of the past to mobilize the population for war against the image of the enemy — the West. The role of the history of war was used in Russia for the patriotic education of the armed forces and Russian people. With Putin's rise to power, the General Staff of the Russian army received spiritual and material support and from that time they became more involved in using military history as a tool of influence in shaping public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military welfare is a major yet abstract sub-field of warfare studies and warfare history, which interrogates the multitude of welfare, care, medical provisions and social policies that have existed at different times and within different social and political spaces relative to and for the benefit of armed forces personnel and their families or dependents. As a scholarly project military welfare history is both well developed and still evolving. It comprises a substantive community of scholars who have produced a robust body of literature. Yet, despite all of the scholarship that has existed since the 1960s, and more especially since the 1990s, military welfare history remains estranged from mainstream warfare history. Thus, it is the purpose of this special edition to encourage transformation in three ways: firstly, by highlighting or reacquainting a crosssection of scholars with the existence of this diverse but exclusive sub-field of warfare and welfare history that has existed as long as warfare itself; secondly, by highlighting the diversity of recent and current scholarship in this sub-field, and thirdly, by highlighting the existence of an academic network that has the explicit purpose of bringing together scholars in this diverse sub-field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military welfare history as a scholarly project is both well developed and still evolving. We now have a substantive community of scholars who have produced a robust body of literature. But what about the teaching project? How can we 'translate' military welfare scholarship into lesson plans? How can we share scholarly findings and questions with new generations of students -- and, indeed, with public audiences of all kinds? This article reflects on military welfare history as a pedagogy project, offering some reflections on how we can rethink our approaches to teaching academic research in our classrooms -- wherever they may be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the formulation of the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between South Korea (ROK) and the United States. It situates the treaty's development in a more international and greater historical context by tracing how certain preceding developments, especially the existing security arrangements, could have impacted the shaping of the ROK-US MDT. The aim is to better understand the origins of this momentous agreement and what it stands for. A thorough examination of how the alliance was first forged suggests that the "bilateral" ROK-US alliance is more international in character than hitherto thought in a sense that developments in the Americas, Europe and the wider Pacific impacted the shaping of the ROK-US MDT. It seems fair to say this was an early indication that the ROK-US alliance could not be isolated from major unfolding of events elsewhere around the world. This has important implications for Seoul, as the future of ROK-US alliance recently came to the fore as the US continues to wrestle with the developments in the Indo-Pacific. In addition to this contemporary significance, this study also has academic significance as it seeks to fill certain gaps in the existing historiography, such as Washington's experience negotiating the North Atlantic alliance and its bearing on the ROK-US MDT, and thereby offer a more balanced understanding of the ROK-US alliance. This article represents the author's own opinion and in no way reflects the views of the Institute for Military History. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Royalist administration during the British Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century has been understudied, a consequence both of the historic destruction of primary sources and due to a longstanding bias against investigation into Royalism by historians. However, extant sources, such as civic corporations' records, have survived in regional archives to reconstruct Royalist military government through its interaction with civil authorities. The devolution of power to garrison governors allowed the Royalists to subordinate the antebellum institutions of Northern England's civil administration to the material and security needs of the Royalist army. This article's historiographical purpose is to contribute towards the long-standing debate on Royalist governance. While often typified by historians as opaque, disorganised, and exploitative, Royalist administration in Northern England displayed remarkable mutability—being capable of significant change in reaction to changing military or political circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to summarize recent developments in Czech scholarship dedicated to the study of war and warfare. Over the past decade, numerous authors have expressed dismay at the state of the field, analyzing its situation with often harsh criticism. This article aims to offer a comprehensive fresh look at the state of research as it has developed over the past twenty years, to prove or disprove these judgments. Its conclusions are far from positive and it is obvious that military historiography — while dominating the popular study of history — is not the most progressive area in Czech historical scholarship. However, individual authors and some particular fields of research are closer to international and mainstream scholarly discourse than previously thought. While the field remains very much disjointed in its topical coverage of the past, being heavily dependent on individual authors and their preferences, some areas, in particular the First World War and the post-1945 period, perhaps even the patchy selection of works on the nineteenth-century Habsburg period, show some promise in terms of methodological innovation. Particularly strong is the "war and society" approach to military history, while the cultureal history of warfare is getting increasingly more attention in recent years as well. On the other hand, the inter-war period and the history of the Second World War remain firmly rooted in a neo-positivist discourse developed throughout the 1990s, producing descriptive biographies or histories of military institutions often attached to a strongly politicized/nationalized perspective on history. In particular, a scant international relevance and self-centered approach is the problem here, with analyses often all but ignoring the current state of research and methodology in a global perspective. As a result, it remains uncertain whether and when Czech military historiography will be able to overcome its conservative tendencies to integrate itself either into the international discourse on the history of warfare or into the academic study of history in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a key challenge in bringing about peace in civil war: credible commitment problems. Utilizing the 'perfect' example of the Syrian Civil War, it illuminates upon why they are challenging and therefore require solutions. The Syrian Civil War will inevitably end in military victory for the Assad regime, though it nevertheless supplies evidence that credible commitment problems are significant hindrances to conflict termination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unless the military is under civilian control, the risk of military intervention and control in politics will continue to linger even after democratization, especially in states with a history of military rule. Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand make up the past and present military-led regimes in Southeast Asia, in which the military has played a vital part in shaping the trajectory of each state's democratization process. Yet why are some militaries able to maintain significant military control despite transitions from military to democratic rule? What explains the Myanmar military's divergence from its Southeast Asian counterparts? The paper positions the military and the continuation of military control as the center of analysis in understanding civilian control and democratization. It proposes the reconceptualization of the military as an inherently political institution affected by path-dependency, relationalism, and rent-seeking. This framework focuses upon the military's legitimation of its role in politics, repression/co-optation of competing forces, and establishment of an independent economic base. The paper argues that the form and extent of military control in Myanmar is not only hegemonic, but has also transformed, in the decades of military rule, to become the state itself—a level of military influence unparalleled by its regional counterparts in Indonesia and Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay introduces papers delivered at a conference on Lucy Hutchinson, Nottingham, June 2022. While Hutchinson's 'Elegies' and Order and Disorder are discussed, the majority focus on Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, of which the manuscript was freshly on display in a special gallery in Nottingham Castle. I discuss the interdisciplinary range of the papers, from local and military history to European intellectual history, from gender theory to the study of manuscript collations, which together throw much light on Hutchinson's writings, and will open the way to further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western scholars agree that Chinese military history remains understudied, and the history of China's warfare overlooked. Before the 1970s, specialisation in Chinese military history was absent in Western academia and was a relatively new phenomenon. Since the 1980s, the study of Chinese warfare in the West has evolved significantly. Some attribute this to heightened tensions during the Cold War. 'If military history is to help us meet this crisis, surely it must take account of the Chinese experience in conducting warfare and also in avoiding it'.1 In the 2000s, when China rose to world military power status, historians explored untapped sources and addressed important issues such as the Chinese way of war, its strategic culture, military modernisation, and asymmetrical warfare. This essay provides a brief survey of the study of Chinese military history in the West from the last forty years as well as addressing a few current issues in the field. Since it is impossible for this author to recount every aspect of English-language Chinese military historiography from 1982–2023, the essay highlights some changes, a few conceptualisations, recent research foci, source availability, and new efforts in case studies and social components in Chinese military history research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are opportunities to critically reflect upon military violence and militarization shaped by museal representations of a country's military history? Inspired by a critical heritage perspective and feminist international relations research, this article contributes to the scholarly discussion of the political implications of military memory making. The aim is to analyse how military violence is framed in official heritagization of the Cold War period in Sweden. Based on fieldwork at three military museums, the article discusses how framings of violence affect opportunities to politically and ethically engage with military issues and the use of force. A central question concerns how gender underpins representations of violence at the museums and how this gendering affects politicization. The analysis discloses that military violence is framed as sacred sacrifice, as 'pure' technology, as play and as (male) omnipotence. The argument made is that such gendered frames obscure and depoliticize problematic aspects of military violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eminent historians reflect on the creation, evolution, and in some cases the destruction of the field of military history's 'grand narratives,' 'master narratives', or 'metanarratives' over the past forty years in the following areas: race and the history of the modern US military; Asian military history; US military history; African military history: Europe 1789 to 1900; European history since 1914; wars of decolonisation; explanations of Confederate defeat; gender and war; and early modern European warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter Dennis reflects on the founding and early years of War & Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first internal deployment of the Union Defence Force (UDF) since its inception in 1912 was to suppress a violent labour strike in January 1914. Because the inexperienced UDF was still assimilating various British and Boer military traditions, the Permanent Force was not yet sufficiently organised to quell the strike on its own. Therefore, the commandos of the Citizen Force Reserve were deployed. The traditional commando system of the former Boer republics and the Transvaal Colony was thus briefly revived to subdue the strike, in the unstable and complex South African socio-economic environment of 1914. This operation marked the end of the Boer commando system in its established format. It formed part of a vanishing military culture and was destined to be replaced by the modernising military systems of the early twentieth century. The deployment of burghers during the strike sets the background against which the article investigates both the customary and changing nature of military service for the long-established commandos. This article explores the conditions, abilities, and experiences of the 'burghers' on commando that participated in the crushing of the strike from a social-military history perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of 2021, the US Army published Modern War in an Ancient Land: The United States Army in Afghanistan, 2001–2014. It is a major two-volume history of the US Army in the war in Afghanistan. The primary authors are E.J. Degen, Director of the Army's Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Study Group, and Mark Reardon, a senior civilian historian at US Army Center of Military History. The work has 836 total pages of text and covers most intense period of US combat operations of the war. It is the closest thing that we have yet to an official history of the war and is likely to remain the closest thing for some time. The work contains valuable insights into counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. The authors see the concept as an effective tactical approach if properly aligned with strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Quantifying Counterfactual Military History" is a book that explores alternative scenarios in military history using mathematical, statistical, and game theory models. The book examines pivotal moments in history, such as the Battle of Jutland, the Battle of Britain, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War, and considers what could have happened if different decisions were made or circumstances were altered. The authors use quantitative techniques to provide a fuller understanding of historical dynamics and acknowledge the uncertainties faced by historical actors. The book offers a unique perspective on history and can be a valuable resource for those interested in exploring alternative outcomes in military events. [Extracted from the article]

Societies faced with authoritarian rule or conflict usually adopt different paths to peace. The course adopted by each community to guarantee stability determines the extent to which the sustainability of the peace can be assured. Every attempt to pacify a society should aim to prevent a relapse to conflict or authoritarian rule while considering the damage caused and sorting out measures to repair the harm. The history of military coups and conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR) is well documented. Still, the attempted remedies have greatly side-lined the raison d'être of the responses in guaranteeing peace and preventing relapse to conflict. As the CAR remains politically and socially unstable, an analysis of the failure of peace agreements to ensure stability constitutes a field of inquiry that urgently necessitates a more profound investigation to save the country from recurrent hostilities and guarantee a peaceful society for the citizens. Peace includes an aspiration manifested by both the CAR authorities and non-state armed groups in the course of hostilities and on the negotiation table. Central Africans indicate an interest in peace, but such interest often manifested and materialised in peace agreements has barely been implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hirsch casts the post-Nuremberg months of 1947 as a Soviet moment of opportunity squandered. Trainin's 1930s idea of codifying "crimes against peace", Hirsch argues, was a direct inspiration for the most important charge in the Nuremberg indictment: the "crime of aggression" for unprovoked warfare. Francine Hirsch's I Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg i is the first major history of the Soviet contribution to the International Military Tribunal (IMT), tasked with prosecuting leading Nazi figures in 1946. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores two works by Swedish artists Emanuel Cederqvist and Henrik Andersson that relate to the vast alpine areas of Norrland in the far north of Sweden. In both works, the artists relate their experiences of the area as it exists today as well as the layers of its history through both archival material and their own photographs. More specifically, both artists use material that show how the area was becoming an increaingly popular destination for researchers, explorers, and tourists in the beginning of the last century. Other archival material reveal aspects of military and colonial history as well as the history of the Sámi populations of the region. In the article, I explore these works and the multi-layered histories that they relate to with the help of Walter Benjamin's version of historical materialism, in which history is approached through images in the present, rather than a narrative of events structured in chronological order. From this perspective, the history of the area is engaged with as physical and emotional, as well as cognitive, experiences, taking place in what Benjamin refers to as now-time, with associations that take off in many different directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilising oral history interviews with black ex-Rhodesian soldiers and archival sources, this article contributes a new understanding as to why, at the moment of independence, the Zimbabwean government opted to retain black troops from the old Rhodesian Army, the wartime foe of its liberation forces. That these soldiers were integrated into the new Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) was striking for, although relatively small in number, they had proven militarily efficacious during the long liberation war. Furthermore, leaders of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), including Robert Mugabe, had previously made numerous threats of post-war retribution against them. This article contends that Mugabe's government sought to utilise these erstwhile enemies, in particular the battalions of the Rhodesian African Rifles, to ensure that it would not face a military challenge from rival nationalists. It also provides evidence that, despite proclamations to the contrary at the time, former Rhodesian soldiers from even the most notorious, and widely loathed, unit, the Selous Scouts, were quietly retained in the ZNA, and formed the bedrock of one of its elite units, the Paragroup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military theories are thoughts explaining how armed forces are to be used to achieve objectives. These thoughts are often influenced by emotions, yet the influence of emotions on military theory-crafting remains underexplored. This article fills the gap by exploring how awe influences military theorising. Awe is an emotion associated with the feeling of transcendence. Several military theorists felt that way about the technologies of air power, nuclear power and cyber power, respectively. Consequently, their theories became narrowly focused, technocentric and detached from the previous theories and military history. Understanding these tendencies can help improve military theorising in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the large literature on the Napoleonic wars, many key subjects remain unexplored in English language scholarship. This article reviews recent (approximately the past ten years) Anglophone military history scholarship addressing the European dimensions of the Napoleonic era to offer suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyses the frequently neglected synergies, past and present, between community-oriented policing (COP) and community-centred military interventions in Latin America. From the vantage point of Brazilian pacification efforts, from the Global Cold War to the Global War on Terror, it is argued that COP is a transnational security governance rationale that emerged during the Global Cold War out of the discovery of the 'community' as a key target for military interventions seeking to counter the presence of non-state armed actors challenging state authority. This underlying logic survived the end of the Cold War, including in Latin America. In the post-9/11 context COP efforts returned to their militarized Cold War origins, when local security bureaucracies (re)discovered the usefulness of engaging with local communities in order to confront challenges to state power from non-stated armed actors, such as gangs and drug traffickers. This argument will be elaborated through an analysis of on one of the most recent Latin American COP 'success stories': the pacification programme operating in Rio de Janeiro since 2008. Drawing on historical and contemporary policy documents, as well as multi-sited empirical fieldwork, the transnational historical entanglements of domestic and external pacification experiences will be highlighted, allowing us to point towards the negative potentials of militarising COP efforts in regards to the inclusiveness of democratic security governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines officer losses during the first three months of Operation Barbarossa. It uses original, never-published German officer casualty data extracted and statistically analyzed from 13 by-name reports prepared by the Army Group Center Adjutant for Officer Personnel (IIa) during the summer of 1941. The list, comprising 7,644 names, proposes a periodization of the first phase of Operation Barbarossa in the Army Group Center zone of operations and presents an innovative perspective that uses the rise and fall of officer casualties as a one-of-a-kind measure of combat intensity. In other words, periods of differing casualty rates are seen as discrete operational phases when equated to neighboring intervals. To make the losses comparable across time, the article proposes the concept of division-days, which, in a manner similar to man-hours, records effective activity of these units in daily intervals. The casualty rate compared to total number of division-days is a measure of intensity. The analysis indicates that although there are three operational periods, two later phases see higher odds for officer losses, indicating intensified combat. In addition, the article considers several under-studied aspects of operational military history. First, it analyzes the distribution of casualties across divisions as a function of their posture (attack, defense, movement, reserve). The article further reveals that battle posture does not always follow the precept that 'movement is the best defense'. In fact, overall analysis shows that units maneuvering (attack and move) were more likely to lose officers than those stationary (defend and reserve). Overall, the article is a first attempt to judge the nature and intensity of Barbarossa as a function of complex, over-time data, broken down by types of unit and posture, revealing how dear the officer casualty toll was for the Germans, setting the tone for a long and ultimately unwinnable war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

War is both violent and significantly ordered. As an intrinsically social phenomenon, war is deeply affected by all manner of socio-cultural norms and 'ethics' that shape the conceptualisation and experience of war, from justifying it to condemning it, from formulating grand strategy to engaging in individual hand-to-hand combat, and from understanding what it means to achieve victory or suffer defeat. How, then, should scholars approach the study of war and ethics, particularly from the perspective of intellectual history? When we still lack a consensus definition of what war is, much less a consensus about how war has shaped and been shaped by ethical thought, this is far from a simple question. This essay reflects on how a comparative and multi-disciplinary approach to the study of pre-modern war and ethics may encourage historians to ask new questions of the subject. I consider the methodology and theoretical foundations of four disciplines – comparative history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology – in order to highlight how a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach can enhance our understanding of the complex historical relationship between war and ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2011, Africa witnessed 7 different forms of popular uprisings leading to the overthrow of ruling heads of state. This includes the situations in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, Burkina Faso in 2014, Zimbabwe in 2017 as well as the recent cases in Algeria and Sudan in 2019. During these uprisings, the African Union (AU) is criticized for its lack of responsiveness to government crackdown, but quick action to condemn the military-supported revolution. Using the case of Sudan, this article examines the complexities of popular uprisings in Africa and AU's challenge in managing the situation. The paper argues that the AU faces the dilemma of protecting the rights of peaceful protesters in a sovereign state and ensuring long-term stability, including preventing the history of military adventurism on the continent. Yet, its role has often leaned disproportionately toward maintaining stability, which raises criticisms that it favors state regimes as opposed to its human-centric and democratic commitments. To enhance its credibility, the AU must adopt proactive roles to protect protesters against government crackdowns. Additionally, the AU needs to augment its existing African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) with actionable policy guidance for protesters, governments, and security agencies during popular uprisings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "Does History Matter?" in the Journal of Military Ethics explores the relevance of history in today's rapidly changing and violent world. The author argues that we can learn from historical figures and traditions in order to better understand the meaning and importance of crucial terminology, theoretical categories, and moral convictions. The article also discusses the coherence of just-war and military-ethics categories over time, as well as the differences and nuances within the history of medieval military ethics. The author emphasizes the importance of looking back to past thinkers and traditions to further develop conversations about military ethics, without blindly accepting their teachings. [Extracted from the article]

In this period, the partisans were also officially reformed into the "People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia" (NOVJ), as to reflect "the recent growth and changing nature of the guerrilla host" (p. 142). In Slovenia, two weeks after Italy's capitulation, the NOVJ managed to establish almost complete control of Slovenian territory outside the major towns/cities and railroad system. Due to the Cold War's post-war political division, Yugoslavia's historiography during the Second World War was very limited outside Yugoslavia itself. [Extracted from the article]

"Dublin's Great Wars: the First World War, the Easter Rising and the Irish Revolution" by Richard S. Grayson is a comprehensive account that explores the interconnectedness of the First World War and the Irish Revolution. The book challenges the traditional separation of these two narratives and argues that understanding the context of both is crucial. Grayson traces the military histories of Dubliners, providing detailed analysis of their involvement in various battles and conflicts. The book also delves into the Irish Revolutionary story, examining the planning and aftermath of the Easter Rising and the subsequent War of Independence and Civil War. With its personal accounts, facts, and statistics, this book offers valuable insights into the impact of these events on Dublin and Ireland as a whole. [Extracted from the article]

The Byzantine invasion of Crete in AD 960 provides a good opportunity to re-examine questions about the relative ease of supplying pre-modern armies by water in the Mediterranean basin. A combination of documentary, historical, and archaeological evidence suggests that the logistics behind supply by sea is more difficult than previously supposed. The army of Nikephoros Phokas besieged Chandax from July 960 to March 961 and had trouble supplying themselves with resources from the island. This paper creates a simple logistical model to get a sense of what the expedition required in terms of victuals and examines how they reached the army. The model suggests that previous work done on military supply in the classical period cannot be applied wholesale to the medieval Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]