The Road to Total War Por
Examines the various factors that impelled leaders on both sides of the conflict in World War II to respond to immediate problems with actions resulting in effects that were often neither planned nor foreseen. Both Great Britain and Germany drifted into an escalation that ended in the wholesale bombardment of cities and civilian populations, when neither had originally planned any such action, and serves as the author’s lesson to show us how decisionmakers can respond once more to provocations and counterreactions. Emotional pressures, the fog of war, and judgments blurred by wishful thinking can produce decisions, even self-destructive decisions, and lead down an inexorable path to all-out, total war. More than thirty years after its initial publication, and to celebrate RAND’s 60th Anniversary, RAND is proud to bring this classic work back into print in paperback and digital formats.
Military Reengineering Between the World Wars Por
This study analyzes the contrasting military responses of various militaries to the internal combustion engine between World War I and World War II. The Italian, British, and American armies adopted the tank but left basic military processes intact. The French army, virtually all of the naval forces, and the U.S. Army Air Corps changed their processes (i.e., reengineered) but based their work on fallacious strategic assumptions. The Red Army, the German Wehrmacht, and the U.S. Marine Corps, despite relatively successful reengineering attempts, discovered serious shortfalls when their new forces were exposed to combat but were able to use feedback to correct the errors of their peacetime reengineering efforts. For the Germans, however, such feedback came too late to avoid catastrophic defeat. Five conditions are necessary for successful military reengineering: a willingness to exploit new technological opportunities systematically; the ability to anticipate and prepare for the range of future strategic demands; securing sufficient resources (financial, material, and human) for the reengineering process-both externally from civilian political authorities and internally from the military ranks; the ability to balance the skilled, traditional warrior and the scientific or rational analyst; and the ability to objectively diagnose weaknesses in the reengineered processes and to proceed to correct them expeditiously. The countries’ experiences have lessons for modern-day efforts to transform U.S. military forces.
Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy Por
From Vietnam in the 1960s to the Afghanistan of this decade, James Dobbins was on the frontline of American diplomacy and working to advance U.S. national interests in some of the world's most difficult and troubled situations. In Foreign Service, Dobbins takes the reader behind the scenes at the Vietnam peace talks, the darkest dates of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Somalia. He provides a thoughtful insider's account of all these ventures, analyzes the sources of both success and failure, and provides incisive portraits of many of the chief actors.
Religion, Conflict, and Stability in the Former Soviet Union Por
Despite the rise of religion as a visible force in the sociopolitical life of post-Soviet countries, little is known about how religion has contributed or may yet contribute to tensions or peace in this region. An improved understanding of the relationship between religion and conflict in the former Soviet republics can fill a critical gap and help inform policymakers and other actors working to bring peace and stability to this volatile region.
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