The laws of war have always been concerned with issues of necessity and proportionality, but how are these principles applied in modern warfare? What are the pressures on practitioners where an increasing emphasis on legality is the norm? Where do such boundaries lie in the contexts, means and methods of contemporary war? What is wrong, or right, in the view of military-political practitioners, in how those concepts relate to today's means and methods of war? These are among the issues addressed by James Gow in his compelling analysis of war and war crimes, which draws upon research conducted over many years with defence professionals from all over the world. Today more than ever, military strategy has to embrace justice and law, with both being deemed essential prerequisites for achieving success on the battlefield. And in a context where legitimacy defines success in warfare, but is a fragile and contested concept, no group has a greater interest in responding to these pressures and changes positively than the military. It is they who have the greatest need and desire to foster legitimacy in war by getting the politics-law-strategy nexus right, as well as developing a clear understanding of the relationship between war and war crimes, and calibrating where war becomes a war crime.

War and War Crimes: The Military, Legitimacy and Success in Armed Conflict

Gow, James

Foreign & International Law

Oxford University Press

This book examines how and why the United States, Britain, France, and Germany failed to cope with the collapse of Yugoslavia and its descent into a savage civil war. This failure also shattered long-cherished notions about how the UN, NATO, and the European Community would deal with such a crisis and prompted a drastic reassessment of their roles. Gow demonstrates that the lack of timing, bad judgment, poor cohesion, and absence of political will over the use of force were the fundamental reasons for this failure.

Triumph of the Lack of Will

History

Europe

Columbia University Press

Necessity and proportionality inform the laws of war, but how do these principles work in modern warfare? What new pressures do the practitioners of war face, especially in light of rapid changes in strategy and policy and an increasing emphasis on ethics and legality?Wars waged in fluctuating environments make the legitimacy of armed force hard to justify, especially among diverse international and transnational publics. More than ever, strategy has come to embrace justice and law as crucial components of military success, but legitimacy is fragile and easily contested, and today's militaries struggle to respond positively, consistently, and legally to an ever-shifting dynamic. Drawing on empirical research and interviews with seasoned military professionals, this volume describes how militaries can work successfully within the politics-law-strategy nexus to foster and maintain a sense of legitimacy in war. James Gow clearly defines the mutual relationship between wars and their outcomes, pinpointing the moment when a war act becomes a war crime, especially within multidimensional combat. Taking an initial, bold step in reconciling a troubling and taboo issue, Gow provides strategists, policymakers, and others with a framework for mitigating negative outcomes.

War and War Crimes: Military, Legitimacy, and Success in Armed Conflict (Columbia/Hurst)

One of Europe's smallest countries, with a population of less than 2 million, Slovenia has an ancient and distinct national culture. Traces of the Slovene language are found in documents of the ninth century, a system of peasant democracy is recorded in medieval times, and a Slovene Bible appeared as early as 1557. Slovene culture survived centuries of incorporation within the Habsburg Empire. Emerging as an independent state in 1991 at the breakup of the remnants of Tito's Yugoslavia, Slovenia now faces the challenge of defining itself as a sovereign country within the ""New Europe"", as it deals with problems of political and economic transition from both the communist period and the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation. This comprehensive introduction to the history, culture, and politics of Slovenia shows how Slovenes are working to become part of Europe while striving to preserve their distinctive culture.

Slovenia and the Slovenes

Carmichael, Cathie

Indiana University Press

Impact in International Affairs (Contemporary Security Studies)

Redwood, Henry

Reference

Routledge

This book examines how and to what extent academic research in politics and international studies has had 'impact' -- in doing so, it also considers what might characterise 'world leading' research impact. International Relations was always meant to have impact - it was intended to make a difference in the world, when the subject was formally founded to understand and prevent war in 1919. This volume addresses the concept of 'impact' and offers a typology of the term -- instrumental, conceptual, capacity building and procedural. The authors examine 111 impact case studies in the UK Research Excellence Framework (2014) that were classified as having achieved the highest level of evaluation, and they identify eight characteristics that mark 'world leading' impact. The book concludes that process, public and media engagement are previously underestimated aspects of impact in official approaches. It further demonstrates that achieving the top levels of impact in international relations is possible, but that factors such as the nature of the subject, the approach of researchers and mean-spiritedness in the peer review process inhibited this. This book will be of much interest to students of politics and international studies, as well as educational research and policymakers.

War, Image and Legitimacy: Viewing Contemporary Conflict (Contemporary Security Studies)

This book examines how image affects war and whether image affects our understanding of war. Crucially, how can moving-image representation of conflict affect the legitimacy, conduct and outcome of contemporary warfare? The collapsing Twin Towers of September 11; the hooded figure at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; the images of beheadings on the internet; the emaciated figure in a Bosnian-Serb concentration camp; the dancing flashes across the skylines of Baghdad as US-led air bombardment deals blows to another ‘rogue’ regime: such images define contemporary conflict. Drawing on a wide range of examples from fiction and factual film, current affairs and television news, as well as new digital media, this book introduces the notion of moving images as the key weapons in contemporary armed conflict. The authors make use of information about the US, the UK, the ‘War on Terror’, the former Yugoslavia, former Soviet states, the Middle East and Africa. War, Image and Legitimacy will be of great interest to students of war and security studies, media and communication studies, and international relations in general.

Michalski, Milena

Military

Mathematicians will find accounts of every extant Greek mathematical book and many proofs translated directly from ancient texts. Students and Greek scholars will encounter a chronicle of the development of mathematical science, including the decimal scale; Egyptian and Greek arithmetic; the Greek theory of numbers; Greek geometry; Egyptian geometry; and the works of Euclid, Archimedes, and their successors.

A Short History of Greek Mathematics (Dover Phoenix Editions)

Science & Math

Mathematics

Dover Publications

Defending the West

What is the West? Why does it need to be defended? From what, by whom, and how? These are thorny questions that international society must grapple with in order to meet the security challenges of the 21st Century. This little book provides answers to these questions. In it, James Gow sends out a clarion call for a radical re-interpretation of the right of self-defence within the terms of international law and international politics.   The world is a wonderful, but dangerous place. There are any number of threats to peace and security, ranging from new forms of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to environmental degradation, famine and disease. Defending the West matters to everyone, regardless of colour, creed, or nationality. It matters to those who are seeking to destroy it as much as it does to those seeking to protect it. Defence of the West requires pre-emptive action, but it cannot be undertaken on a unilateral basis and outside the law. Instead of outlawing pre-emptive action, we must acknowledge that it is necessary and ensure that it can be taken in a framework of partnership and legitimacy.

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Polity

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gow, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gow, James

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gow, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

War and War Crimes: The Military, Legitimacy and Success in Armed Conflict

Triumph of the Lack of Will

War and War Crimes: Military, Legitimacy, and Success in Armed Conflict (Columbia/Hurst)

Slovenia and the Slovenes

Impact in International Affairs (Contemporary Security Studies)

Impact in International Affairs (Contemporary Security Studies)

War, Image and Legitimacy: Viewing Contemporary Conflict (Contemporary Security Studies)

War, Image and Legitimacy: Viewing Contemporary Conflict (Contemporary Security Studies)

A Short History of Greek Mathematics (Dover Phoenix Editions)

Defending the West