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7 books match the query 'Defenses'

cover of A Fortified Sea: The Defense of the Caribbean in the Eighteenth Century

A Fortified Sea

The Defense of the Caribbean in the Eighteenth Century

Edited by Pedro Luengo and Gene Allen Smith

University of Alabama Press, 2024

WINNER OF THE SOCIETY FOR MILITARY HISTORY'S 2025 DISTINGUISHED BOOK AWARD

A multinational, interdisciplinary study illuminating how fortifications reshaped the Caribbean as a contested imperial borderland in the eighteenth century.

A Fortified Sea illuminates the key role of military forts in the greater Caribbean during the long eighteenth century. The historical Caribbean, with its multiple contested boundaries at the periphery of European western expansion, typically has been analyzed as part of an empire. European powers, including Spain, the Netherlands, England, and Denmark, carved up the Caribbean Sea into a cultural patchwork. These varied cultural contexts were especially evident during regional and national conflicts throughout the eighteenth century and prompted the construction of more fortifications to protect imperial interests. The emergence of Anglo-American colonies during the eighteenth century and later the United States gradually altered previous geopolitical balances, redefining the cultural and geopolitical boundaries of the region.

This collection of essays incorporates several historiographical traditions—from Spanish to American—all portraying the borderland as a breakthrough contested cultural, social, economic, and military boundary. A multinational roster of contributors approaches topics through a war studies lens as well as architecturally and historically, enriching a usually monothematic view. As well, discussion of cultural management of the historical remains of forts shows local communities trying to preserve and interpret the role of forts in society.

Part I defines the training of military engineers in Spain. Part II engages with British defensive military plans and settlements in the Caribbean and shows how the British dealt with the rhetorical image of the empire. Part III clarifies the building processes of fortifications in Santiago de Cuba, Cartagena de Indias, Havana, and Veracruz, among other places. Copious period maps complement the prodigious research. The book will appeal to readers interested in the history of the Caribbean, military history, and European imperial expansion.
 

CONTRIBUTORS
Mónica Cejudo Collera / Pedro Cruz Freire / María Mercedes Fernández Martín / Aaron Graham / Manuel Gámez Casado / Francisco Javier Herrera García / Nuria Hinarejos Martín / Pedro Luengo / Ignacio J. López-Hernández / José Miguel Morales Folguera / Alfredo J. Morales / Juan Miguel Muñoz Corbalán / Jesús Maria Ruiz Carrasco / Germán Segura García / Gene Allen Smith / Christopher K. Waters

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cover of Antipredator Defenses in Birds and Mammals

Antipredator Defenses in Birds and Mammals

Tim Caro

University of Chicago Press, 2005

In nature, the ability to defend against predators is fundamental to an animal's survival. From the giraffes that rely on their spotted coats to blend into the patchy light of their woodland habitats to the South American sea lions that pile themselves in heaps to ward off the killer whales that prey on them in the shallow surf, defense strategies in the animal kingdom are seemingly innumerable.

In Antipredator Defenses in Birds and Mammals, Tim Caro ambitiously synthesizes predator defenses in birds and mammals and integrates all functional and evolutionary perspectives on antipredator defenses that have developed over the last century. Structured chronologically along a hypothetical sequence of predation—Caro evokes a gazelle fawn desperate to survive a cheetah attack to illustrate the continuum of the evolution of antipredator defenses—Antipredator Defenses in Birds and Mammals considers the defenses that prey use to avoid detection by predators; the benefits of living in groups; morphological and behavioral defenses in individuals and groups; and, finally, flight and adaptations of last resort.

Antipredator Defenses in Birds and Mammals will be of interest to both specialists and general readers interested in ecological issues.
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cover of Conventional Arms Control and East-West Security

Conventional Arms Control and East-West Security

Robert D. Blackwill and F. Stephen Larrabee, eds.

Duke University Press, 1989

This important and timely work, prepared by the leading researchers, planners, and policymakers from both Eastern and Western alliances, analyzes the major issues in the Vienna talks on conventional forces in Europe involving NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. It is likely to have a significant influence on the course of these negotiations and on emerging debate on conventional arms control. The contributors met in Moscow prior to the Vienna conference to review and compare their analyses and revised them thereafter for publication in this work.
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cover of Mediterranean Security at the Crossroads: A Reader

Mediterranean Security at the Crossroads

A Reader

Nikolaos A. Stavrou, ed.

Duke University Press, 1999

The Mediterranean is a diverse and volatile region, especially in its post—Cold War state, and it is entering a new phase of uncertainty. Twenty-two sovereign states surround this body of water: six are part of the Western alliance system, three have engaged in or supported terrorism, and others face serious internal tensions arising from territorial claims and ethnic strife. An expansion of a previous issue of Mediterranean Quarterly, this book brings together a distinguished array of diplomats, politicians, scholars, and policymakers representing twelve countries and a variety of interests and ideas to discuss this unique region and to explore its prospects for peace and stability.
New essays in this expanded volume include a reflection by former President Jimmy Carter on the causes of war and their links to human suffering, a prophetic analysis of the post-Cold War environment in the Mediterranean by former U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, an essay on the strategic significance of Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean by the former Turkish ambassador to the United States, and, in light of recent events in Kosovo and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, a piece on the issue of Balkan security by the editor. Introducing the volume is a foreword by former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz and an essay focusing on NATO in the Mediterranean by Javier Solana, the Secretary General of NATO. Central to the Mediterranean debate is the question of NATO’s role in its future. Some contributors suggest that the southward expansion of NATO could be an important first step toward stability, while others argue that the Mediterranean should be treated as an integrated geostrategic region, with a central place in Western security considerations. Other essays discuss the comparative experience of UNPROFOR and IFOR in the former Yugoslavia; the role of Italy in the future of the Mediterranean; the economic challenges facing the Middle East; and the role of Israel and its relationship to its neighbors.
Mediterranean Security at the Crossroads is one of the first in-depth looks at this region from a strictly post-Cold War perspective.

Contributors. Hanan Bar-On, Ted Galen Carpenter, Jimmy Carter, Charles G. Cogan, Gregorios Demestichas, Boutros-Boutros Ghali, Carlo Jean, Nuzhet Kandemir, Nicolai A. Kovalsky, William H. Lewis, Peter H. Liotta, John A. MacInnis, Phebe Marr, Matthew Nimetz, George P. Schultz, Javier Solana, Richard F. Staar, Nikolaos A. Stavrou, George Vella, W. Bruce Weinrod

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cover of The Future of NATO: Regional Defense and Global Security

The Future of NATO

Regional Defense and Global Security

Andrew A. Michta and Paal Sigurd Hilde, editors

University of Michigan Press, 2014

 The conclusion of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations in Afghanistan in 2014 closes an important chapter in the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In this volume, European and US experts examine a range of perennial issues facing the Alliance, including relations with Russia, NATO’s institutional organization and command structure, and the role of the United States in the Alliance, in order to show how these issues shape today’s most pressing debate—the debate over the balance between NATO’s engagement in security operations globally and traditional defense within the North-Atlantic region. The volume’s contributors propose that NATO can indeed find a viable balance between competing, but not inherently incompatible, strategic visions.

A theoretically informed, empirical account and analysis of NATO’s recent evolution, this volume will appeal to both security scholars and practitioners from the policy community.
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cover of War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination

War Stars

The Superweapon and the American Imagination

H. Bruce Franklin

University of Massachusetts Press, 2008

In this new and expanded edition of an already classic work, H. Bruce Franklin brings the epic story of the superweapon and the American imagination into the ominous twenty-first century, demonstrating its continuing importance both to comprehending our current predicament and to finding ways to escape from it. 

Sweeping through two centuries of American culture and military history, Franklin traces the evolution of superweapons from Robert Fulton's eighteenth-century submarine through the strategic bomber, atomic bomb, and Star Wars to a twenty-first century dominated by “weapons of mass destruction,” real and imagined. Interweaving culture, science, technology, and history, he shows how and why the American pursuit of the ultimate defensive weapon—guaranteed to end all war and bring universal triumph to American ideals—has led our nation and the world into an epoch of terror and endless war.

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cover of Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power--Economic and Military

Winged Defense

The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power--Economic and Military

William "Billy" Mitchell, with a new foreword by Robert S. Ehlers Jr.

University of Alabama Press, 2009

This book is the basis for airpower doctrine in the US, and demonstrates  how forward looking Gen Mitchell was even though the technology for conducting air operations was in its infancy  when it was written.  It is essential reading for anyone concerned with airpower history or aerospace doctrine.

William Lendrum "Billy" Mitchell (December 28, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was an American Army general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force, and is one of the most famous and most controversial figures in the history of American airpower.

Mitchell served in France during the First World War and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began to advocate  increased investment in air power, claiming this would prove vital in future wars. He particularly stressed the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of dramatic bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea that attracted wide notice from the public.

He antagonized many  in both the Army and Navy with his arguments and criticism and, in 1925, was demoted to Colonel. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing military chiefs of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." He resigned from the service shortly thereafter.

Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a commission by the President as a Major General. He is also the only individual after whom a type of American military aircraft is named: the B-25 "Mitchell."

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