Killing Kith and Kin: The Viability of British Military Intervention in Rhodesia, 1964-5

This article uses correspondence from former members of theRhodesian security services, recent oral testimony from Britishpoliticians and civil servants, and newly available documentaryevidence from archives around the world, to re-examine the viabilityof British military intervention in Rhodesia during 1964 and1965. It argues that the military and political obstacles tothe use of force cited at the time and since have been grosslyexaggerated. This article argues that with sufficient resolve,the Labour government led by Harold Wilson could have used forcein an attempt to prevent or end Rhodesia's Unilateral Declarationof Independence of 11 November 1965. This might have offereda possible solution to one of the most protracted and embarrassinginternational problems that confronted successive British governmentsduring disengagement from Empire.     

Lyndon Johnson's War? Part 1: Escalation

At the beginning of 1964 there were around 20,000 US military ‘advisers’ in South Vietnam, working alongside the South Vietnamese army in the latter's campaign against the communist guerrillas, led and supplied by the government of North Vietnam. By the summer of 1965 there were 125,000 American troops in the country, with more pledged for future deployment. Most of these were not ‘advisers’, but combat forces openly engaged in fighting the communists. In addition, since March 1965, a sustained American bombing campaign had been waged against targets in North Vietnam. This transformation in the nature of the American commitment to South Vietnam had been brought about by two factors: the continued weakness of South Vietnamese governments as military and civilians struggled for control; and the growing strength and success of the communist guerrillas. South Vietnam was regarded as a vital American interest for two reasons: it was perceived as a test of US resolution throughout the rest of the world; and, following the famous ‘domino theory’, it was believed that the loss of South Vietnam to communism would precipitate the weakening and eventual collapse of other non‐communist states in the region. Although there was opposition to the escalation of the war, both in Congress and the administration, there were also voices notably in the military, who wished to press on further and faster. The administration adopted a middle course, gradually increasing its commitment and continually planning for the next step. Although political motives undoubtedly played a part in this more measured approach—there was a presidential election in November 1964—it is clear that President Johnson was not at all convinced that any policy he chose would save South Vietnam. At the same time, he feared the consequences of withdrawal, both at home and abroad. A deeply insecure man, he allowed himself to be persuaded by his principal advisers, to whom he felt indebted for personal as well as political reasons.     

20世纪90年代的中国军事变革

20世纪90年代,中国充分利用世界军事变革的形势和冷战结束后相对和平的环境,紧跟世界潮流,全面推进了具有中国特色的新军事变革:及时调整军事战略方针,形成了军事变革的总体规划和设计;大胆进行理论创新,充分发挥了理论的先导作用;自力更生发展"杀手锏",提高了武器装备的信忠化水平;以人为本,人才先行,培养出大批高素质的人才;调整体制编制,压缩军队规模,优化了部队结构。经过近十年的努力,中国新军事变革取得巨大的成就,缩短了同美、俄等国军事力量的差距,同时也为新世纪新军事变革的继续深入奠定了坚实的基础。     

South Africa's Transition in a Globalizing World: HIV/AIDS as a Window and a Mirror

South Africa's peaceful transition is evolving during a period in which spectacular twentieth-century achievements have greatly improved life for one-fifth of the world's population. These are being gradually eclipsed, however, by the impact of social and economic forces that relegate four-fifths of the world's population to increasingly insecure, miserable and impoverished lives. South Africa's negotiated revolution, which has allowed it to move from the pariah status of apartheid to that of a fledgling democracy, exemplifies the paradigm shift required for global progress towards a more just and peaceful world. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, a major threat to South Africa, the African continent and many others around the world, is used in this article as a window through which to view the prospects for the long-term social success of South Africa's transition. It is also used as a mirror to reflect the world in which such a disease could emerge and spread pervasively. The explanatory links between exploitative global economic forces and the emergence of threats to lives are considered, in order to illuminate new pathways towards global progress in which respect for human rights will be further consolidated through promotion of solidarity, interdependence and social justice.     

21世纪的太平洋——在政治、经济、军事上的重要性评价

太平洋是地球上最大的海洋,在环太平洋沿岸和浩瀚海洋中星罗棋布的岛屿上,分布着40个国家和一些尚未独立的地区,太平洋地区国家陆地面积占世界的46%,人口占世界的40%,但却拥有全球50%以上的GNP和近1/2的世界贸易总额。二次大战以后,太平洋地区的迅速崛起,引起国际舆论的广泛关注。21世纪是太平洋世纪,已日益被国际社会所公认。本文立足于政治军事地理及地缘政治学的基本理论,以21世纪是太平洋世纪的基本结论为出发点,从资源、经济、政治、军事等四个方面对太平洋在21世纪的重要性进行了系统地分析与评价。指出太平洋不仅是人类有待开发的巨大资源宝库和全球经济最富有活力的地区而且是21世纪全球地缘政治中心和地缘战略中心,是世界上各大国和大国集团矛盾的焦点,以及军费增长最快和军备最密集的地区。在今后相当长一段时期内,围绕太平洋地区控制权的争夺竟会日趋激烈。因此21世纪的世界是走向和平还是步入战争,关键取决于环太平洋地区各种战略力量的矛盾与合作。     

Establishing the Populations and Occupation Spans of Fort Johnson and Cantonment Davis,Hancock County,Illinois

Abstract

Fort Johnson and Cantonment Davis are two short-term War of 1812–era American military posts located above the east bank of the Mississippi River in Hancock County, Illinois, within what was then the western frontier of the United States. Because little has been written regarding the fort and the cantonment, most details of their occupations are poorly documented and occasionally contradictory. A review of the documents associated with the two military posts establishes that Fort Johnson was occupied by approximately 100 men for 42 days, while Cantonment Davis was occupied by as many as 825 military personnel for about six to eight months.     

Reinhold Niebuhr: Public and Private

Abstract

Little has been written in recent Christian ethics regarding the moral basis of the voluntary military service of Christian individuals. This article identifies some sources of that lack of discussion. Furthermore, it explores the moral basis of voluntary military service, especially in the modern United States' military. This is critical because service in the US military is not, in many respects, simply equivalent to generic military service. This is due to the unique and historically unprecedented military superiority of the United States in the world—its ‘sole remaining superpower’ status. This status places unique political responsibility and obligations on the military forces of the United States in the twenty-first century global community. The article attempts to articulate a moral argument in support of the voluntary military service of thoughtful Christian individuals in the US military in this geopolitical environment.     

“Horned cattle and pack horses”: zooarchaeological legacy collections from the unauthorized (and unscreened) Spanish Fort

ABSTRACT

In 1689, the governor of La Florida ordered the construction of a fort near the Muscogee (Creek) ancestral community of Apalachicola, supplying it with a caravan of “horned cattle and pack horses.” The fort, referred to as “Spanish Fort,” was abandoned a year later. Archaeological investigations of the fort were carried out in 1960 without sieving, and a large collection of faunal remains was minimally studied. Despite the limitations of the recovery methods, a recent analysis of these zooarchaeological legacy collections provides insight into the provisioning strategies of the Spanish military 150 years after initial colonialism began. Spanish Fort was better provisioned than its predecessors, such as Fort San Juan, but with a limited range of domesticated livestock—only cattle and horses. The presidio may have traded with the Apalachicola community in order to diversify their diet, but butchering marks indicate that the presidio’s soldiers processed their own meat at the fort. Having learned hard lessons from earlier colonial expeditions, Spanish military colonialists minimized the outpost’s vulnerability by not relying heavily on the local Native American population, while building a transactional relationship with Apalachicola to ensure the community’s cooperation. The zooarchaeological materials from Spanish Fort also indicate that the fort was intentionally destroyed by fire, providing a glimpse of Spanish adaptive strategies as the mission of securing the inland Southeast from rival colonialism abruptly ended.     

论清代茶叶贸易的社会影响

清代是中国茶叶外销兴盛时期。由于世界茶叶市场的需求拉动和国内茶叶生产的发展,茶叶出口量迅速扩大,成为中西贸易的核心商品,获取了丰厚利润。茶叶贸易对发展茶叶生产、改善交通运输、活跃金融、繁荣经济,产生了积极影响,并成为外交和军事斗争的重要武器。     

Eurasian Steppe Chariots and Social Complexity During the Bronze Age

This paper aims to examine some societal principles that underlie the development of horse-drawn chariots in Inner Eurasia during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (cal. 2050–1750 BC). Analysis is based on an evaluation and re-examination of the archaeological evidence for horse-drawn chariots, and the social constructs they entail. Chariots were developed in the zone of the Northern Eurasian steppes before c. 2000 BC in the context of complex but stateless societies. Because chariots depend on a set of developed skills, valuable resources, and complicated technologies, which involve several outstanding improvements to previously known solutions, they require specific conditions for their development and maintenance in social life. Most fundamentally, they require a group of people with an interest in this complex technology: a class of military elites characterized by aggrandizing behavior. The competition between collectives of military elites for resources, power and prestige brought into life the earliest chariot complex in the world.     

甲午陆战与晚清陆军军事教育的发展

甲午陆战的失败是晚清陆军军事教育的重要转折点.由于汲取了甲午陆战失败的教训,陆军军事教育得到了空前的重视,无论是陆军军事学堂的数量还是教育人数都得到了飞速的发展,促进了中国军事教育近代化的发展.     

The Spanish American War’s ‘Most Durable Hero’: Admiral Pasquale Cervera and Popular Heroic Values in the United States, 1898–1909

The United States honored a host of military heroes during the Spanish American War including Pasqual Cervera y Topete, the enemy admiral who had experienced a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Santiago Bay, Cuba (3 June 1898) at the hands of US naval forces. Over the course of the war and in the year that followed, American public opinion of the admiral became positive and increasingly laudatory. By late 1899, Life Magazine, followed by other popular publications, claimed that Cervera was a better war hero then Admiral George Dewey and other American officers who had been wildly celebrated for their wartime heroics. The enemy admiral’s heroic rise was possible because of a fundamental change in the relationship between the press and the nation’s war heroes that sped up each champion’s ultimate decline. In the late nineteenth century Americans sought chivalrous, selfless men of action for their heroes. As journalists began covering each war hero’s daily life as they did other celebrities, however, they discovered character flaws in the nation’s homegrown champions. This examination of Cervera’s gradual rise as an American hero through his death in 1909 includes an overview of the American hero-making process and lifecycle and how celebrity journalism shortened the reign of most war heroes. After identifying the complicated set of values the nation sought in its war heroes at the end of the century, this study will also explain why journalists considered naval heroes as better representatives of those cherished ideals than those from the Army (including volunteer Theodore Roosevelt) until well after the end of the war. Roosevelt was honored as a hero during the war and won the 1899 New York gubernatorial election largely because of his wartime popularity, but was not considered selfless because of his clear political ambitions. American hero-worship of Cervera developed slowly, was considerably more subdued than the public enthusiasm displayed for America’s native-born champions, and was undoubtedly bestowed, in part, as a criticism of the failure of American heroes to live up to the heroic narrative created for them by reporters and biographers. Cervera’s ranking as Life’s ‘most durable hero’ of the war, while seemingly nonsensical, begins to make more sense when the Spanish admiral is reconfigured as a national cultural hero instead of an American military champion. Despite his enemy status, Cervera came to epitomise important military values of the day, because of the rapid decline of the nation’s American-born war heroes brought about by celebrity journalism.     

Georgii Mirskii and Soviet Theories of Authoritarian Modernization

This article examines Soviet thinking about authoritarian modernization through the life and thought of Georgii Mirskii, a noted expert on Arab politics. Mirskii was a regular adviser and speechwriter for the Soviet Central Committee, and was also followed by the KGB for his criticism of Stalin. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mirskii looked to the example of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser to develop a theory of military-led modernization. This article examines how Mirskii's faith in the ability of Third World militaries to function as modernizing forces changed over time. The course of military politics in the Third World during the 1970s and 1980s, when military coups proliferated, bringing to power violent and self-interested regimes, disabused Mirskii of any faith in military modernization. Examining Mirskii's thought not only sheds light on the ideas that motivated Khrushchev-era Soviet foreign and development policy, it also provides an illuminating comparison for better-studied theories of authoritarian modernization in the United States.     

The fort in the doctor’s house: using tree-ring growth patterns to discover historic Fort Wayne,Indiana, USA

Local Fort Wayne, Indiana (USA) lore says that the Dr. Merchant Huxford House contains timbers from Fort Wayne, the US military outpost constructed in 1794 by General Anthony Wayne. The wilderness fort played roles in Native American and British conflicts and was the genesis for a city with a current population of more than 250,000. The doctor’s residence was built on the outskirts of the young city, but within 0.4 km of the fort site. Accounts contemporary to the house’s construction describe timbers being recycled from the fort for use in new building projects. This article describes the use of dendrochronological methods to establish a construction date for the Huxford House and attempts to confirm or dispel accounts that the house contains recycled timbers from the historic fort.     

A Technocratic Vision of Empire: Lord Montagu and the Origins of British Air Power

This article advances the existing literature on British imperial aeronautics by explaining how Lord John Montagu’s extensive collaboration with military and government officials during the first decades of powered flight expanded the global distribution of the air forces and anticipated their important later role in facilitating international communication and security. In reconsidering problems of conquest and governance through an aeronautical perspective, Montagu strengthened critical junctures between British civil and military affairs, while his innovative employment of the new technology also complicated divisions between the metropolis and periphery in ways that would intensify the destructiveness of modern warfare across the planet.     

Edward III’s siege of Calais: A reappraisal

In September 1346, Edward III brought his victorious army to the gates of Calais to begin a siege that over 12 months developed into the largest military operation conducted by the English on French soil during the fourteenth century. It is also perhaps the least understood campaign of Edward III’s reign, because of the loss of the army pay records. We know from chronicles that the men of Calais conducted a heroic defence of their town, and we know too that the English created and maintained an enormous logistical operation first to besiege and then to capture the port. What is little understood, however, is the scale, scope and chronology of the siege. The role played by English naval forces has received little attention, yet there is a series of pay records relating to their service which can compensate for the loss of the vadia guerre accounts and which can enrich understanding of the campaign. Using this evidence, this article reappraises the whole expedition, highlights the numbers of ships and mariners involved in the siege, and draws attention to periods of intensive military activity. Edward III’s ultimate objective was to capture, hold and use the town as a safe port of disembarkation for future invasions.     

A Post-Imperial Cold War Paradox: The Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement 1958–62

As the recent and current French military interventions in West Africa have illustrated, France succeeded in establishing long-lasting security relationships with its former colonies during the transfer of power. In Britain’s case, by contrast, decolonisation was largely followed by military withdrawal. This was not, however, for lack of trying. The episode of the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement clearly illustrates that Britain, driven by its global cold war military strategy, wanted to secure its long-term interests in sub-Saharan Africa. The agreement was first welcomed by the Nigerian elite, which was not only anglophile and anti-communist, but also wanted British military assistance for the build-up of its armed forces. Yet, in Nigeria, the defence pact was faced with mounting opposition, and decried as a neo-colonial scheme. Whereas this first allowed the Nigerian leaders to extract strategic, material and financial concessions from Britain, it eventually led to the abrogation of the agreement. Paradoxically, Britain’s cold war grand strategy created not only the need for the agreement, but also to abrogate it. In the increasingly global East-West struggle, the agreement was strategically desirable, but politically counterproductive.     

British judicial engagement and the juridification of the armed forces

Although the law has always been a major reference point in the conduct of war, little scholarly attention has focused on the transformative effect of recent legal challenges, judicial rulings and inquiries on the armed forces themselves, notably the 2011 Gage Inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa and the Philip Inquiry into the Mull of Kintyre helicopter disaster. Despite this, the impact has been significant in the ways it has transformed the governance regime of British armed forces and the professional autonomy of the military. This article conceptualizes the impact of law on the armed forces as ‘juridification’. In applying this concept, this article analyses the implications of this for the culture, conduct and organization of the British armed forces. It argues that juridification closes a civil–military relations gap between society on the one hand and the armed forces on the other. As important, juridification also brings with it permanent instability because of the inevitable conflicts that arise from the replacement of an old order based on authority, to a new military system based on rights. Thus the effects of juridification are not just a liminal moment—a transitory dislocation from established structures and the reversal of existing hierarchies—followed by the creation of a permanent new order. Rather, juridification has initiated an era of instability that is characterized by the absence of any permanent settlement of authority and rights in the governance of the armed forces. This has significant implications for the armed forces and their professional autonomy and the social, political and legal context in which armed forces have to operate.     

American civil–military relations today: the continuing relevance of Samuel P. Huntington's The soldier and the state

Fifty‐five years after it was first published, Samuel Huntington's The soldier and the state remains an essential starting point for serious discussions of American civil–military relations. In part this is due to the boldness and ambition of the author. Huntington brought theory to a research area that had suffered from too little theorizing and then went on to formulate concepts that scholars and practitioners of civil–military relations still find useful. These include: the conceptualization of the military as a profession; the articulation of the two central forces shaping the nature of military institutions as the functional and the societal imperatives; and the formulation of subjective and objective control as the two main patterns of civilian control. This review article briefly revisits these concepts and argues that they retain utility in illuminating important issues in American civil–military relations today. It also argues, however, that Huntington's contributions were productive but not perfect. Some of his specific definitions, such as the content of military expertise, are debatable. Some of his central concerns, such as whether the United States could sustain a strong military over an extended period of time, are no longer central today. Finally, in some places the literature has moved beyond what Huntington offered. The best example is the ongoing debate over how the country's political leaders and its most senior military officers should interact. It is precisely on this point that Huntington's objective control is the weakest. While The soldier and the state certainly does not deserve uncritical acceptance, it does continue to merit a fair hearing. Current discussions of American civil–military relations are likely to be more reasonable and productive if Huntington is given a voice.     

Playful heritage: excavating Ancient Greece in New York City

This article examines how concepts of ‘play’ can be used within studies of cultural heritage to build an alternative to the dominant use of consumer-orientated models within current scholarship. Using the example of how the traditions, motifs and history of Ancient Greece have been reused within New York, from the nineteenth century to the present day this work demonstrates that this is a heritage that has been ‘played with’ by successive generations as a means of establishing identity within the metropolis. Whilst the ideals of Athenian democracy and classical learning inspired the formation of the early American republic, these associations were brought into wider usage in New York with the arrival of significant Greek immigration into the city during the twentieth century. This provided a new opportunity of a playful use of Ancient Greek heritage as this émigré community built new identities and became established in the metropolis. The Greek American enclave of Astoria, located in the borough of Queens, will be the focus of this study as the site where this playful use of heritage has taken place, undertaken both by members of the Greek American community and also by individuals and groups responding to their presence.