Widely recognized as one of the most important theorists of warfare, important strands of Carl von Clausewitz's thinking on the subject are not widely known. In the English-speaking world, few are familiar with anything other than his major, though unfinished and posthumously published, opus On War, which is available in numerous translations. Although the corpus of Clausewitz's writings on the topic of warfare is far greater, most of these texts have never been translated. In Clausewitz on Small War, Christopher Daase and James W. Davis begin to redress this unfortunate state of affairs. In this volume they have assembled and translated Clausewitz's most important texts devoted to the analysis of asymmetric, unconventional, guerrilla, and small unit warfare, including Clausewitz's Lectures on Small War, held at the Prussian War Academy in 1810 and 1811. Augmenting our understanding of Clausewitz with his early writings on Small War leads to the conclusion that asymmetric warfare is not an historical development that can be termed pre- or post-Clausewitzian as many contemporary scholars of war and military strategy argue. Rather, Clausewitz himself emerges as an early theorist of insurgency and asymmetric warfare with insights that are relevant today. The book is a must read for soldiers, military strategists, historians of war, and students of international security.
How can we better relate and respond to the political times we inhabit? Temporal relationships play a central role in the questions at the heart of global politics, but political commentators and observers focus almost exclusively on the past as a means of predicting and preparing for the future. Christopher McIntosh argues that, although past events are meaningful for our collective future, the present remains vitally important. McIntosh emphasises the importance of the present as a conceptual resource and analytical category for thinking about international politics. The present, he suggests, places an orientation toward difference and a recognition of the human limits of understanding alongside an emphasis on process and change. This book will shift current thinking about prediction and better enable the use of knowledge about international politics to meaningfully and positively intervene in present-day concerns.
Rebooting Clausewitz offers an entirely new take on the work of history's greatest theorist of war. Written for an undergraduate readership that often struggles with Clausewitz's master work On War--a book that is often considered too philosophical and impenetrably dense--it seeks to unpack some of Clausewitz's key insights on theory and strategy. In three fictional interludes Clausewitz attends a seminar at West Point; debates the War on Terror at a Washington think tank; and visits a Robotics Institute in Santa Fe where he discusses how scientists are reshaping the future of war. Three separate essays situate Clausewitz in the context of his times, discuss his understanding of the culture of war, and the extent to which two other giants--Thucydides and Sun Tzu--complement his work. Some years ago the philosopher W.B. Gallie argued that Clausewitz needed to be 'saved from the Clausewitzians'. Clausewitz doesn't need saving and his commentators have contributed a great deal to our understanding of On War's seminal status as a text. But too often they tend to conduct a conversation between themselves. This book is an attempt to let a wider audience into the conversation.
Contesting conventional assumptions of the modern nation-state, this book challenges us to rethink the segmentation of the political realm and its underlying economic and social processes. Cognizant of the historical context of systemic change, Lilyblad reconstructs how illicit social order arises from agonistic competition over territory, authority, and institutions. Immersive empirical investigation traces this bottom-up process in local conflict zones, detailing how spontaneous configurations of violence, socioeconomic resources, and legitimacy transcend the divide between public and private. Ultimately, the analytical vantage of global governance assesses the sobering implications for sovereignty to more accurately reflect the world we have, not the one we may want. By showing how these inherently local illicit social orders develop apart from – not below – the state within a global anarchic society, this book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars, including political scientists, economists, sociologists, geographers, as well as researchers in interdisciplinary fields such as International Development, International Political Economy, and Global Governance.
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