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Article
Publication date: 27 February 2024

Alan S. Marcus, Katherine A. Griffith and Francis Gary Powers Jr

In this article, we use the film Bridge of Spies – which depicts the case of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers – and relevant primary sources, particularly Powers' letters from…

Abstract

Purpose

In this article, we use the film Bridge of Spies – which depicts the case of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers – and relevant primary sources, particularly Powers' letters from prison, to provide teachers with a case that can engage students with the complexity of the Cold War. Understanding USA–Russia relations is as important today as ever as we watch the tragedy unfold in Ukraine. Using primary sources to reflect on the Cold War can help secondary students understand the historical context of the war in Ukraine as well as how to evaluate and critique sources of information about the war.

Design/methodology/approach

The film and personal letters provide insights often not available or obvious when we focus on the political or military history of an event or time period. The Cold War is frequently defined by the rhetoric of the USA and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) governments – but everyday people and citizens had a wider range of views and experiences. The film and letters bring out the humanity of the Cold War.

Findings

This article supports secondary teachers in incorporating film and primary sources as teaching tools to study the Cold War while more broadly thinking about these sources as ways to understand the past. The letters used, including those from U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers, help us understand his time in a Soviet prison as well as the behind-the-scenes work to free him as part of a prisoner exchange.

Originality/value

The U-2 Incident and other events of the Cold War provide important context for understanding the Cold War-like tensions between the USA and Russia today. The distrust between these countries has a long history. However, documents like the film and letters discussed here show that there is much more to the bluster of political leaders and the military chess game. There is an important human element to these events and an impact on individuals who are much more than pawns in international diplomacy.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1977

A.M. Shadrake

Though lectures in military studies were given at King's College in the mid nineteenth century and again in the inter‐war period there was virtually no library to support them and…

Abstract

Though lectures in military studies were given at King's College in the mid nineteenth century and again in the inter‐war period there was virtually no library to support them and history further records that towards the end of the Second World War military studies ceased and were not revived until 1953 when a Lectureship in Military Studies was established in the King's History Department. The holder of this lectureship was Michael Howard, who has since achieved wide renown in military history and strategic studies and is at present Chichele Professor‐Elect of the History of War in the University of Oxford. When he was appointed Reader in War Studies in 1961 and Professor of War Studies in 1963 the subject may be said to have finally got off the ground and in token of this it was organized as a separate Department of the College in 1961. I may add that, in common with higher education in general, the 1960s was a period of great expansion in the Department and between 1965 and 1971 four other lecturers were appointed to the staff. The growth of the War Studies Library kept pace with this expansion, for as early as 1953 when London University voted a special grant Michael Howard began to build up the Library on the surest foundations, so that as regards numbers there were approximately 2,500 volumes by the end of the 1950s and by 1977 it has grown to some 11,000.

Details

Aslib Proceedings, vol. 29 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0001-253X

Article
Publication date: 10 September 2018

Janie Hubbard, Adam Caldwell, Paige Moses Bahr, Ben Reed, Kristen Slade Watts and Broolyn Mims Wood

The purpose of this paper is to explore a true World War One event, the Christmas Truce of 1914. The paper is inspired by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) award…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore a true World War One event, the Christmas Truce of 1914. The paper is inspired by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) award winning book, Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914 by John Hendrix, which narrates the truce through a fictitious letter from a British soldier. On Christmas Eve, German soldiers on the western front line, specifically near the Belgium border, ceased fire and invited British soldiers to celebrate Christmas. Descriptions of events derive from oral histories and photos collected from actual soldiers who experienced this unusual historic event.

Design/methodology/approach

This lesson engages students in inquiry centers focused on events, location, soldiers, remembrance, and primary sources to answer the question: Why did the First World War Christmas Truce of 1914 occur?

Practical implications

World War One (AKA the First World War and The Great War) classroom history studies typically focus on tragic components of, what many call, a needless war. Many lessons examine military technologies, political power struggles, horrors of trench warfare, disease and casualties. In essence, “World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people – soldiers and civilians alike – were dead” (history.com Staff, 2009). This lesson reveals a spontaneous, impactful, emotionally charged event occurring during the worst of times. The Christmas Truce of 1914 moves students from thinking about the ravages of war into thinking deeply about what it truly means to be enemies, friends or even to mend relationships. Who are soldiers – what do they feel, need, believe and miss? During the truce, the longing for peace and human interaction superseded political ideologies, for a while. This lesson starts with students participating in a class discussion to uncover prior knowledge of the famous event. Students examine their real-life feelings regarding personal truces, answer guiding questions while rotating through classroom research centers, and collectively create a generalized response to answer the compelling question: Why did the First World War Truce of 1914 occur? Students will apply their understandings of the event, location, and feelings associated with the truce by taking a soldier’s persona and writing a letter home. Illustrations and maps further engage students’ creativity.

Social implications

This true story about the Christmas Truce of 1914 reminds us that countries may have differing ideologies and political beliefs which cause conflicts, yet people, as individuals, find commonalities making them seek peaceful connections with one another.

Originality/value

“The soldiers of 1914 remind us of the choice we all can make: we can see others as humans who matter like we matter – even when they’re our enemies. They also show us what can happen when we make that choice: enemies can become friends and, at least for a moment, there is peace” (Arbinger Institute, 2017, Section 3). This quote embodies the lesson’s value, because it brings understanding to a personal level – soldiers on the field. First World War soldiers were typically powerless. For instance, as many as 250,000 boys under the age of 18 served in the British army during the First World War. Patriotic fervor, escape from poor conditions or hopes for adventure were motives for joining. Birth certificates were uncommon; war recruiters received money for each sign-on, so boys as young as 14 went to war. In this lesson, students examine First World War background information; analyze the truce’s events, geography, soldiers and memorials. Students are immersed in large numbers of resources including videos, music, photographs, maps, books, articles, newspapers, historians’ perspectives, oral histories, museum archives and the First World War soldiers’ original letters that help reveal the story and help students understand underlying feelings of soldiers and their families.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2007

Mark Chussil

Business war games support competitive‐strategy decisions under uncertainty. They are especially useful in combating confirmation bias, the human tendency to look for reassuring

1877

Abstract

Purpose

Business war games support competitive‐strategy decisions under uncertainty. They are especially useful in combating confirmation bias, the human tendency to look for reassuring evidence that a desired future will come true. There is no generally accepted definition of what a business war game is, and there are many ways to conduct them. This paper aims to describe why, when, and how to use different types of business war games.

Design/methodology/approach

The author has conducted some 100 business war games for major companies around the world, and has 30 years' experience in strategy analysis. The paper draws on the author's observations of thousands of managers in those war games, on his familiarity with simulation technologies, and on research in social psychology, to categorize and recommend war‐gaming techniques for different business needs. The paper includes two illustrative case descriptions.

Findings

The paper finds that business war game objectives include: stimulating excitement around a strategy; building skill on strategic thinking; creating strategy options and anticipating threats and opportunities; and testing strategy options and making decisions. When the war‐game objective calls for quantitative models, traditional financial or trend‐line analysis can be dangerous. The objective will also influence the scope and length of the game, and its “rules of engagement.”

Originality/value

Few managers have participated in a business war game, and even fewer are aware of the variety of war games. This paper describes the link between war gaming and competitive advantage, and helps managers (and those who advise them) know why, when, and how to use different types of business war games.

Details

Journal of Business Strategy, vol. 28 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0275-6668

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 January 2024

Li Dai and Yongsun Paik

Conventional wisdom suggests that war in the host country makes it unattractive for foreign firms to invest. To see if this is true for US firms on the aggregate, this paper aims…

Abstract

Purpose

Conventional wisdom suggests that war in the host country makes it unattractive for foreign firms to invest. To see if this is true for US firms on the aggregate, this paper aims to examine the veracity of a “permanent war economy” hypothesis, that foreign direct investment (FDI) may, in fact, increase in the host country not despite, but because of, war, i.e. one that lends credence to the idea that, in the USA, “defense [has] become one of constant preparation for future wars and foreign interventions rather than an exercise in response to one-off threats.”

Design/methodology/approach

The authors test the hypotheses using Generalized Method of Moments estimation, with Heckman Selection, on US FDI data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and war data from the Correlates of War2 Project, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program/International Peace Research Institute data set, the International Crisis Behavior Project and the Center for Systemic Peace Major Episodes of Political Violence data set. The final sample consists of 351 country-year observations in 55 host countries from 1982 to 2006.

Findings

The findings indicate that overall US FDI in a host country in a given year decreases if the host country is engaged in wars with multiple countries and if the US Government is involved in the war. Most notably, the results show that US involvement in multiple host country wars is actually correlated with increased US FDI into the host country, providing empirical support for the “permanent war economy” hypothesis.

Originality/value

While other studies have focused on war and FDI, the authors have sought to show the impact of the involvement of arguably the most influential country, i.e. the USA, in the sovereign matters of a focal host country. By studying FDI from the USA as a function of US involvement in wars overseas, over the years with the greatest use of private military companies by the USA and the largest portion of global FDI accounted for by the USA, this work motivates a research agenda on home-host-"other” relations in the context of war and FDI, with the “other” being the supranational “elephant in the room.”

Details

Multinational Business Review, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1525-383X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 December 2009

Yu-Wen Fan

Charles Tilly argues that continuous wars and preparation for wars motivated early European rulers to extract resources from their subject populations, thereby expanding states’…

Abstract

Charles Tilly argues that continuous wars and preparation for wars motivated early European rulers to extract resources from their subject populations, thereby expanding states’ infrastructure and establishing mechanisms to enable negotiations with societies. State capacity was thus strengthened. Tilly's argument has inspired a wave of scholarship to reconsider state building in various regions of the Third World. Analysts of the Third World employ two theoretical elements inferred from Tilly to account for the failures of many Third World states. One is that without continuous international wars (as early modern Europe had), there would be no capable and effective states. The other element is that availability of foreign aid from the global powers so unique to the Cold War Era exempted Third World states from extracting resources from their societies. I call these analyses Tillian theories of the Third World.

Tillian analysts acknowledge that the capable state in Taiwan during the Cold War stood out from its Third World counterparts. However, the Tillian generalization of the Third World does not account for Taiwan's state-building path. Taiwan's experience is situated in a perplexity between the two variables above: On the one hand, Taiwan resembles early modern European state formation with high military expenditures and a huge standing army prepared for war. In the Tillian model, this condition enhances state capacity. On the other hand, Taiwan was a huge US aid recipient in the Cold War, second only to South Korea. In the Tillian model, this degrades the state's effectiveness, contrary to Taiwan's experience. Solving this puzzle will revise Tillian logics of state building. That, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, through literature review and presentation of empirical evidences, I suggest some analytical directions for future research to enhance our understanding of Taiwan's state-building trajectory in particular and of Third World states in general.

Details

Advances in Military Sociology: Essays in Honor of Charles C. Moskos
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-893-9

Book part
Publication date: 25 July 2015

Stephen Coleman

War is undoubtedly a dirty business, usually entailing massive destruction and loss of life on both sides. In an attempt to limit this inevitable death and destruction…

Abstract

War is undoubtedly a dirty business, usually entailing massive destruction and loss of life on both sides. In an attempt to limit this inevitable death and destruction, philosophers have argued that belligerents must following certain principles in the conduct of warfare; namely, the principles of discrimination (that only legitimate military targets may be attacked) and of proportionality (that the damage done in attacking such targets must not be out of proportion to the military value of the target). These principles have come to be enshrined in International Law through a range of treaties, which are collectively known in military circles as the International Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).

The essential idea at the heart of Michael Walzer’s supreme emergency argument, or as Brian Orend calls it, the supreme emergency exemption, is that desperate times call for desperate measures. If the situation is dire enough, and the consequences faced are serious enough, then it will be justifiable to act in ways which would normally be prohibited. In concrete terms, what this means is that during a time of war, a state can in some circumstances ignore the usual rules of warfare (i.e. the principles of discrimination and proportionality). Walzer claims this is justified if and only if the following conditions are met: the state is the victim of aggression, the state is about to be militarily defeated, and that the consequences of defeat will be catastrophic (i.e. would include extreme and widespread violations of fundamental human rights). In other words, when faced with a supreme emergency one is justified in engaging in widespread violations of the rights of some people (people to whom one only has a general duty) in order to prevent widespread violations of the rights of others (people to whom one has a specific duty).

In this paper I argue that the ‘rules’ which must be applied in order for widespread rights-violations to be considered justified are actually well understood, and that supreme emergency is not an unusual situation for which new rules must be considered, but simply an important specific example of such a situation. Essentially I argue that one must dirty one’s hands in war, but that there is no need for one’s hands to get any dirtier in a situation of supreme emergency.

This paper provides a novel framework for considering a much-debated question within military ethical fields, using insights from two of the major proponents of contemporary military ethics.

Details

Conscience, Leadership and the Problem of ‘Dirty Hands’
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-203-0

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Photography and Death: Framing Death throughout History
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-045-5

Book part
Publication date: 9 April 2003

Thomas M Hawley

This paper explores the political and legal issues contained in the law and jurisprudence surrounding missing American service personnel. It argues that the Missing Service…

Abstract

This paper explores the political and legal issues contained in the law and jurisprudence surrounding missing American service personnel. It argues that the Missing Service Personnel Act of 1995 is an effect of the legacy of the Vietnam War rather than a response to a particular legal problem. The essay further contends that we should be suspicious of the effort to transform the balance sheet of war into a justiciable legal question, primarily because the requirement to produce a body fails to disarm the representational economy in which the absent body constitutes a continuation of Vietnam War hostilities.

Details

Studies in Law, Politics and Society
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-209-2

Abstract

Details

Delivering Victory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-603-5

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