The past two decades have witnessed the rapid proliferation of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in armed conflicts around the world, with PMSCs participating in, for example, offensive combat, prisoner interrogation and the provision of advice and training. The extensive outsourcing of military and security activities has challenged conventional conceptions of the state as the primary holder of coercive power and raised concerns about the reduction in state control over the use of violence. Hannah Tonkin critically analyses the international obligations on three key states - the hiring state, the home state and the host state of a PMSC - and identifies the circumstances in which PMSC misconduct may give rise to state responsibility. This analysis will facilitate the assessment of state responsibility in cases of PMSC misconduct and set standards to guide states in developing their domestic laws and policies on private security.
The past two decades have witnessed the rapid proliferation of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in armed conflicts around the world, with PMSCs participating in, for example, offensive combat, prisoner interrogation and the provision of advice and training. The extensive outsourcing of military and security activities has challenged conventional conceptions of the state as the primary holder of coercive power and raised concerns about the reduction in state control over the use of violence. Hannah Tonkin critically analyses the international obligations on three key states - the hiring state, the home state and the host state of a PMSC - and identifies the circumstances in which PMSC misconduct may give rise to state responsibility. This analysis will facilitate the assessment of state responsibility in cases of PMSC misconduct and set standards to guide states in developing their domestic laws and policies on private security.
Annotation. "Tactical bombing", Gen. Jimmy Doolittle reportedly observed, "is breaking the milk bottle. Strategic bombing is killing the cow". Most nations have historically chosen between building tactical and strategic air forces; rarely has a state given equal weight to both. The advantages of tactical air power are obvious today as small wars and petty tyrants bedevil us, but in a Cold War world split between continental superpowers, strategic bombing took precedence, with calamitous consequences. In the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force lacked the equipment and properly trained pilots to assure air superiority because the Tactical Air Command (TAC) had become little more than a handmaiden to the Strategic Air Command (SAC). TAC focused primarily on the interdiction of enemy bombers and virtually ignored its other responsibilities. Its aircraft were designed to shoot at large, lumbering bombers and not to engage in dog fights with highly maneuverable MiGs. Hannah shows how a tactical air force that won a victory in World War II deteriorated into a second-rate force flying aging aircraft during the early years of the Cold War, recovered briefly over Korea, then slid into obsolescence during the 1950s. His explanation of why America's fighter aircraft did not work in Vietnam is instructive and unsettling. Hannah explains how TAC struggled through the war in Vietnam to emerge in the 1970s as the best tactical air force in the world. He side-steps politics and inter-service rivalries to focus on the nuts and bolts of tactical air power. The result is a factual, informative account of how an air force first loses its way then finds its mission again.
Beginning with the Cold War and concluding with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Hannah Gurman explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. During America's reign as a dominant world power, U.S. presidents and senior foreign policy officials largely ignored or rejected their diplomats' reports, memos, and telegrams, especially when they challenged key policies relating to the Cold War, China, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The Dissent Papers recovers these diplomats' invaluable perspective and their commitment to the transformative power of diplomatic writing. Gurman showcases the work of diplomats whose opposition enjoyed some success. George Kennan, John Stewart Service, John Paton Davies, George Ball, and John Brady Kiesling all caught the attention of sitting presidents and policymakers, achieving temporary triumphs yet ultimately failing to change the status quo. Gurman follows the circulation of documents within the State Department, the National Security Council, the C.I.A., and the military, and she details the rationale behind "The Dissent Channel," instituted by the State Department in the 1970s, to both encourage and contain dissent. Advancing an alternative narrative of modern U.S. history, she connects the erosion of the diplomatic establishment and the weakening of the diplomatic writing tradition to larger political and ideological trends while, at the same time, foreshadowing the resurgent significance of diplomatic writing in the age of Wikileaks.
Hannah August's intelligent and humane study illuminates, sometimes uncomfortably, the ways in which our demographics are changing and our attitudes are not. This is public intellection that is curious, rigorous, and highly relevant to our time.' Eleanor Catton In 2013, there were over 66,000 more women between the ages of 25-49 living in New Zealand than there were men. This so-called ‘man drought’ is a hot topic for journalists and academics alike, who comment on how the situation might affect New Zealand women’s chances of finding love. Yet they rarely stop to ask women their own opinions on the matter. In this BWB Text, Hannah August does just that, integrating interview material, statistics and cultural commentary in order to demonstrate why we need to talk differently about the ‘man drought’.
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