A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY7 start with M start with M
Spaniard Josep Conangla was conscripted at the age of twenty and sent to Cuba. In the course of his time there, he reaffirmed his pacifism and support of Cuban independence. The young man was a believer who unfailingly connected his view of events to the Christian humanitarianism on which he prided himself. Conangla’s advanced education and the influence of well-placed friends facilitated his assignment to safe bureaucratic positions during the war, ensuring that he would not see combat. From his privileged position, he was a keen observer of his surroundings. He described some of the decisions he made—which at times put him at odds with the military bureaucracy he served—along with what he saw as the consequences of General Valeriano Weyler’s decree mandating the reconcentración, an early version of concentration camps. What Conangla saw fueled his revulsion at the collusion of the Spanish state and its state-sponsored religion in that policy. “Red Mass,” published six years after the War of Independence and included in his memoir, is a vivid expression in verse of his abhorrence.
Conangla’s recollections of the contacts between Spaniards and Cubans in the areas to which he was assigned reveal his ability to forge friendships even with Creole opponents of the insurrection. As an aspiring poet and writer, Conangla included material on fellow writers, Cuban and Spanish, who managed to meet and exchange ideas despite their circumstances. His accounts of the Spanish defeat, the scene in Havana around the end of the war, along with his return to Spain, are stirring.
The twenty-first century has been labeled the “Pacific Century,” both in terms of economics as well as military affairs. While South Korea and Japan have stagnated in these aspects, the growth of China since 1980 is unprecedented in modern history. While its economic achievements are both well known and studied, the rapid development of its military is not. In A Military History of China: From the First Recorded Battle to the Twenty-First Century, historian David Richard Petriello provides the first English language account of China’s martial history. China’s military prowess extends across the centuries, and includes the invention or first use of gunpowder, landmines, rocket launchers, armored cavalry, repeating crossbows, multistage rockets, and chemical weapons—in many cases, long before the West.
Illustrated with more than one hundred maps and figures, the book traces the general military history of China from the Neolithic Age to the present day. Particular attention is paid to specific battles, military thinkers, the impact of geography on warfare in China, and the role played by technology. Likewise, the work examines the underlying philosophy of why China goes to war. Because China’s military weakness over the past two centuries compared to the West has given a false sense of China’s potential, a thorough knowledge of the men, battles, tactics, geography, strategies, philosophy, and experiences of war throughout Chinese history are vital to prepare students, scholars, soldiers, and politicians for the return of China as a major innovative and global military power.
In five case studies of U.S. Army doctrine, Campbell pits military realism against bureaucratic and cultural perspectives in three key areas—nuclear versus conventional warfare, preferences for offense versus defense, and COIN missions—and finds that the army has been more doctrinally flexible than those perspectives would predict. He demonstrates that decision makers, while vowing in the wake of Vietnam to avoid (COIN) missions, nonetheless found themselves adapting to the geopolitical realities of fighting “low intensity” conflicts. In essence, he demonstrates that pragmatism has won out over dogmatism. At a time when American policymakers remain similarly conflicted about future defense strategies, Campbell’s work will undoubtedly shape and guide the debate.
Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower will introduce readers to contemporary strategy and the operational level of war, particularly as it relates to airpower.
This intermediate textbook was developed as required reading for all US Air Force Academy cadets, and is designed to close the gap between military theory and military practice. It asks readers to reconceive of the military as a “profession of effects” rather than as a profession of arms because much of the military's work and impact no longer involves kinetic warfare.
The book covers strategic foundations; operational design and joint-service operations; the air, space, and cyber capabilities that make up modern airpower; and contemporary challenges in the application of strategy. The contributing authors include both military practitioners and scholars of security studies, political science, and history.
In addition to being required reading for Air Force Academy cadets, the book will provide an essential overview of strategy and practice for anyone interested in modern airpower and the joint operating environment.
An essential introduction to contemporary strategy at the operational level of war, now in its second edition
Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower introduces contemporary strategy at the operational level of war, particularly as it relates to airpower. Developed as foundational reading for all US Air Force Academy cadets, Air Force ROTC students, and Officer Training School candidates, this intermediate textbook is designed to close the gap between military theory and practice. It covers strategic foundations; operational design and joint-service operations; the air, space, and cyber capabilities that comprise modern airpower; and contemporary challenges in the application of strategy.
In this second edition, each chapter has been updated and revised, and several sections have been expanded. Part 2, “Military Forces and the Joint Fight,” now features separate chapters about each service. Similarly, operational design is expanded from one to four chapters to provide a more thorough step-by-step guide through the process. New chapters in this second edition include “Integrating the Instruments of Power,” “The Spectrum of Conflict and Range of Military Operations,” and “The Nuclear Weapons Triad and Missile Defense.”
Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower’s contributing authors and editors include both military practitioners and scholars of security studies, political science, and history. In addition to being required reading for US Air Force cadets, the book provides an essential overview of strategy and practice for anyone interested in modern airpower.
Between 1961 and 1967 the United States Air Force buried 1,000 Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in pastures across the Great Plains. The Missile Next Door tells the story of how rural Americans of all political stripes were drafted to fight the Cold War by living with nuclear missiles in their backyards—and what that story tells us about enduring political divides and the persistence of defense spending.
By scattering the missiles in out-of-the-way places, the Defense Department kept the chilling calculus of Cold War nuclear strategy out of view. This subterfuge was necessary, Gretchen Heefner argues, in order for Americans to accept a costly nuclear buildup and the resulting threat of Armageddon. As for the ranchers, farmers, and other civilians in the Plains states who were first seduced by the economics of war and then forced to live in the Soviet crosshairs, their sense of citizenship was forever changed. Some were stirred to dissent. Others consented but found their proud Plains individualism giving way to a growing dependence on the military-industrial complex. Even today, some communities express reluctance to let the Minutemen go, though the Air Force no longer wants them buried in the heartland.
Complicating a red state/blue state reading of American politics, Heefner’s account helps to explain the deep distrust of government found in many western regions, and also an addiction to defense spending which, for many local economies, seems inescapable.
The Strategic Victory that Established the Continental Army as a True Fighting Force
The battle of Monmouth Court House, New Jersey, is among the most important battles in the history of the American Army. Well known in American mythology as the battle where Molly Pitcher fought alongside her fallen husband, Monmouth Court House is regarded by historians as the moment when the image of the American army in both Europe and the colonies was transformed from that of a rag-tag band of ill-trained civilians to that of a disciplined, well-guided, professional military unit. In June 1778, British General Henry Clinton’s army evacuated Philadelphia and struck out across “the Jerseys” on its way back to New York City. George Washington’s Continental Army, retrained and confident after enduring a winter at Valley Forge and supplemented by a large number of fresh New Jersey militia, marched in pursuit. About 50 miles south of New York City, the armies clashed at Monmouth Court House on June 28, in the last major Revolutionary War battle in the north. Essentially a draw, the battle marked the first time in the war that the Continental Army was able to hold a battlefield, fighting the full force of the British army to a standstill. Monmouth Court House: The Battle that Made the American Army by Joseph G. Bilby and Katherine Bilby Jenkins is the story of this battle, how it came to be, and its influence on the course of the war and American history.
The authors set Monmouth Court House within the context of the American Revolution and the civil war between Tories and Whigs that erupted in New Jersey during that time. The entire campaign and battle are described, including an analysis of the commanders, personnel, organization, training, and weapons of both armies. The book also assesses the historiography and folklore of the battle, including the story of the real “Molly Pitcher,” the use of the battleground as Civil War muster-in camp, its eventual status as Monmouth Battleground State Park, and current efforts at interpretation and battlefield archaeology and how they have changed our understanding of the battle.
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