Krigsvetenskap

Art of War skrevs på 500-talet f.Kr. och är ett av de äldsta verken om militär strategi, men ständigt aktuell. Strategisk flexibilitet, snabbhet i tanken på slagfältet och användandet av underrättelser för att nå insikt om fiendens avsikter, är även i dag nyckelfaktorer för framgång, och den som vill komma vidare som affärsman, idrottsutövare eller politiker kommer med hjälp av Art of War alltid vara steget före sina konkurrenter. Sedan den översattes från kinesiska har den lästs av många framstående statsmän och generaler, från Napoleon till Montgomery och Mao Zedong.

The Art Of War är en av vår historias mest betydande studier i krigföring och militär strategi. Den skrevs på 500-talet f.Kr. av generalen Sun Zi och otaliga militära och politiska ledare exempelvis Napoleon, Montgomery och Mao Zedong har alltsedan dess inspirerats av dess innehåll. Boken är indelad i tretton kapitel som täcker krigskonstens alla aspekter. Det Sun Zi lär oss är fortfarande lika aktuellt. Strategisk flexibilitet, snabbhet i tanken på slagfältet och användandet av underrättelser för att nå insikt om fiendens avsikter är även i dag nyckelfaktorer för framgång, och den som vill komma vidare som affärsman, idrottsutövare eller politiker kommer med hjälp av The Art Of War alltid vara steget före sina konkurrenter. Den här eleganta utgåvan är rikt illustrerad med tidstypiska bilder som har kriget som motiv.

The Sunday Times bestselling edge-of-your-seat exploration of what would happen in the event of nuclear war, perfect for readers of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.Nuclear war begins with a blip on a radar screen.This is a minute-by-minute account of what comes next.It has to be read to be believed.'A stomach-clenching, multi-perspective, ticking-clock, geopolitical thriller' Forbes'Dangerously plausible – and it reads like a thriller' Sunday Times'These are scenes straight out of Dr Strangelove' TelegraphThere is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war.Until now, no one outside official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilization.Decisions that affect hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, in the knowledge that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction.Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, been privy to the response plans, and taken responsibility for crucial decisions, this is the only account of what a nuclear exchange would look like.Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.'This terrifying book is a must-read for every world leader' Mother Jones'At once methodical and vivid' The Economist'Tells a terrifying story in a devastatingly straightforward way' Guardian* A New York Times bestseller (March 2024) and a Sunday Times bestseller (April 2024). Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2024, the UK's premier annual prize for non-fiction books.

"När du har bemästrat strategins väg undgår inget din blick." Miyamoto Musashi. Strax före sin död 1645 drog sig den obesegrade svärdsmästaren Miyamoto Musashi tillbaka till en grotta för att leva som eremit. På fem pergamentrullar nedtecknade han där de sanna principerna som krävs för seger inom stridskonst och på slagfältet. Hans skrifter utforskar den stränga självdisciplin och de praktiska tillvägagångssätt som krävs för att hantera fysiska och mentala konflikter. Hans verk har hyllats internationellt som ett användbart verktyg för utformning av affärsstrategi, konfliktlösning och framgång.

This is one of the most significant military books of the twentieth century. By an outstanding soldier of independent mind, it pushed forward the evolution of land warfare and was directly responsible for German armoured supremacy in the early years of the Second World War. Published in 1937, the result of 15 years of careful study since his days on the German General Staff in the First World War, Achtung Panzer! argues how vital the proper use of tanks and supporting armoured vehicles would be in the conduct of a future war. When that war came, just two years later, he proved it, leading his Panzers with distinction in the Polish, French and Russian campaigns. Panzer warfare had come of age, exactly as he had forecast.This first English translation of Heinz Guderian's classic book - used as a textbook by Panzer officers in the war - has an introduction and extensive background notes by the modern English historian Paul Harris.

När du har bemästrat strategins väg undgår inget din blick. Miyamoto Musashi. Strax före sin död 1645 drog sig den obesegrade svärdsmästaren Miyamoto Musashi tillbaka till en grotta för att leva som eremit. På fem pergamentrullar nedtecknade han där de sanna principerna som krävs för seger inom stridskonst och på slagfältet. Hans skrifter utforskar den stränga självdisciplin och de praktiska tillvägagångssätt som krävs för att hantera fysiska och mentala konflikter. Hans verk har hyllats internationellt som ett användbart verktyg för utformning av affärsstrategi, konfliktlösning och framgång.

Coup d’État astonished readers when it first appeared in 1968 because it showed, step by step, how governments could be overthrown. Translated into sixteen languages, it has inspired anti-coup precautions by regimes around the world. In addition to these detailed instructions, Edward Luttwak’s revised handbook offers an altogether new way of looking at political power—one that considers, for example, the vulnerability to coups of even the most stable democracies in the event of prolonged economic distress.The world has changed dramatically in the past half century, but not the essence of the coup d’état. It still requires the secret recruitment of military officers who command the loyalty of units well placed to seize important headquarters and key hubs in the capital city. The support of the armed forces as a whole is needed only in the aftermath, to avoid countercoups. And mass support is largely irrelevant, although passive acceptance is essential. To ensure it, violence must be kept to a minimum. The ideal coup is swift and bloodless. Very violent coups rarely succeed, and if they trigger a bloody civil war they fail utterly.Luttwak identifies conditions that make countries vulnerable to a coup, and he outlines the necessary stages of planning, from recruitment of coconspirators to postcoup promises of progress and stability. But much more broadly, his investigation of coups—updated for the twenty-first century—uncovers important truths about the nature of political power.

Written by leading scholars in the field, Causes of War provides the first comprehensive analysis of the leading theories relating to the origins of both interstate and civil wars. Utilizes historical examples to illustrate individual theories throughoutIncludes an analysis of theories of civil wars as well as interstate wars -- one of the only texts to do bothWritten by two former International Studies Association Presidents

In this fully revised and updated in-depth analysis of the war in Ukraine, Paul D'Anieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually resulted in Russia's invasion in 2022. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraine's separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called a 'civilized divorce,' led to Europe's most violent conflict since WWII. It argues the conflict came about because of three underlying factors-the security dilemma, the impact of democratization on geopolitics, and the incompatible goals of a post-Cold War Europe. Rather than a peaceful situation that was squandered, D'Anieri argues that these were deep-seated pre-existing disagreements that could not be bridged, with concerning implications for the prospects of resolution of the Ukraine conflict.

'Foucault must be reckoned with by humanists, social scientists, and political activists' The New York Times Book ReviewSociety Must Be Defended is Michel Foucault's devastating critique of the systems of power and control inherent in civilization. Taken from a series of lectures given by Foucault at the Collége de France in 1975-76, it reveals how war is the foundation of all power relations, and politics ultimately a continuation of battlefield violence. He offers a politically charged re-reading of history, with examples ranging from the Trojan myth to Nazi Germany, to show a continual, 'silent war' between the powerful and the powerless.'A timely and prescient book, mainly because of what it says about the way in which war is necessary as a means of control' New StatesmanTranslated by David Macey

Under 2500 år har detta ansetts som den bästa boken om ledarskap. Från början var den avsedd som lärobok i krigsfilosofi men idag anses den som en oöverträffad text om ledarskap och problemlösning. Vad du än sysselsätter dig med kan denna gamla bok leda till nya insikter och ­kunskaper om hur du ska bemästra de ­svårigheter du ställs inför. Texterna är nyöversatta direkt från kinesiska av: Bengt Pettersson, Ooi Kee Beng och Henrik Friman

Sun Tzu better watch his back' New York Magazine'An Art of War-style book of tough guy maxims to live by' Evening StandardSpanning world civilizations, synthesizing dozens of political, philosophical, and religious texts and thousands of years of violent conflict, The Concise 33 Strategies of War is the I-Ching of conflict, distilling Robert Greene's global bestseller into the essential, accessible rules of engagement. Illustrated with examples from history, from powerful world leaders like Napoleon and Margaret Thatcher, to Shaka the Zulu and Hannibal, each of the thirty-three chapters outlines a strategy to help you win life's wars. Learn proactive methods that require you to maintain initiative and negotiate from positions of strength, or defensive strategies that allow you to respond to dangerous situations and avoid unwinnable wars.Packed with indispensable, bite-sized advice, The Concise 33 Strategies of War provides you with all the advice you need to gain and maintain the upper hand.

Under 2500 år har detta ansetts som den bästa boken om ledarskap. Från början var den avsedd som lärobok i krigsfilosofi men idag anses den som en oöverträffad text om ledarskap och problemlösning. Vad du än sysselsätter dig med kan denna gamla bok leda till nya insikter och ­kunskaper om hur du ska bemästra de ­svårigheter du ställs inför. Texterna är nyöversatta direkt från kinesiska av: Bengt Pettersson, Ooi Kee Beng och Henrik Friman

Clausewitz's On War, first published in 1832, remains the most famous study of the nature and conditions of warfare. Contemporaries found him 'endearing' or 'totally unpalatable', while later generations called him 'the father of modern strategical study', whose tenets have 'eternal relevance', or dismissed him as outdated. Was it really he who made the discovery that warfare is a continuation of politics? Was he the 'Mahdi of mass and mutual massacre', in part responsible for the mass slaughter of the First World War, as Liddell Hart contended? Can the idea of total war be traced back to him? Complex and often misunderstood, Clausewitz has fascinated and influenced generations of politicians and strategic thinkers. Beatrice Heuser's study is the first book, not only on how to read Clausewitz, but also on how others have read him - from the Prussian and German masters of warfare of the late nineteenth century through to the military commanders of the First World War, through Lenin and Mao Zedong to strategists in the nuclear age and of guerrilla warfare. The result is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the work and influence of the greatest classic on the art of war.

Based on recently declassified documents, this book provides the first examination of the Truman Administration’s decision to employ covert operations in the Cold War. Although covert operations were an integral part of America’s arsenal during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the majority of these operations were ill conceived, unrealistic and ultimately doomed to failure. In this volume, the author looks at three central questions: Why were these types of operations adopted? Why were they conducted in such a haphazard manner? And, why, once it became clear that they were not working, did the administration fail to abandon them?The book argues that the Truman Administration was unable to reconcile policy, strategy and operations successfully, and to agree on a consistent course of action for waging the Cold War. This ensured that they wasted time and effort, money and manpower on covert operations designed to challenge Soviet hegemony, which had little or no real chance of success.US Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy will be of great interest to students of US foreign policy, Cold War history, intelligence and international history in general.

'War is the most important thing in the world', writes Martin van Creveld, one of the world's best-known experts on military history and strategy.The survival of every country, government, and individual is ultimately dependent on war - or the ability to wage it in self-defence. That is why, though it may come but once in a hundred years, it must be prepared for every day. When it is too late-when the bodies lie stiff and people weep over them-those in charge have failed in their duty. Nevertheless, in spite of the centrality of war to human history and culture, there has for long been no modern attempt to provide a replacement for the classics on war and strategy, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, dating from the 5th or 6th century BC, and Carl von Clausewitz's On War, written in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. What is needed is a modern, comprehensive, easy to read and understand theory of war for the 21st century that could serve as a replacement for these classic texts. The purpose of the present book is to provide just such a theory.

In the tradition of Sebastian Junger’s Tribe and Chris Hedges’s classic War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, a powerful investigation into the fraught history and ominous future of military education in the United States, and how it formed and fuels increasingly volatile strains of American masculinity.“Send us your boy and we will return to you a man.” Since the dawn of America, the military has articulated some version of this pledge, solidly staking its claim on the monumental work of building the American man. When investigative reporter Jasper Craven first dug into Valley Forge Military Academy five years ago, he uncovered an acrid strain of masculinity that was raw, violent, fiercely hierarchical, and quickly mutating out of control. Initially, he had assumed that military education was a dying, outmoded brand. But as he looked deeper, he found a sprawling, well-funded network featuring dozens of military schools, like Valley Forge and West Point, plus thousands of ROTC programs in public colleges and high schools that allowed the Pentagon to wield outsized power on education. In an unflinching narrative, Craven explores how the military has come to define American masculinity and how it often fosters its most toxic traits. Beginning with the American Revolution, Craven shows how the birth of our nation required a new masculine ideal, crafted in the image of George Washington. During the brutality of the Civil War, Craven traces the parallel violence in military hazing culture and the deeply prejudicial culture at places like West Point, which reared Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and other famed Confederates. The first and second World Wars escalated the need for battle-ready youth, and briefly resulted in a relatively noble male archetype, while the Cold War precipitated backlash, resentment, and trauma. This era also marked the beginning of the Christian right’s growing interest in military schools as upholding a patriarchal and fatalistic version of manhood. Vietnam and the antiwar movement fueled the rise of the “troubled teen” and the lying, lawless “operator,” embodied by graduates such as William Westmoreland and Oliver North. As he chronicles the forever wars, Craven brings us up to today, where the military has further burrowed into civilian education. Meanwhile, policies like “don’t ask, don’t tell” and a campaign of Islamophobia, misogyny, and homophobia have crafted a new manhood that is defined by its ability to both diminish and dehumanize “the other” while also being self-destructive. Its exemplars include such military school graduates as Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth. Part sweeping military history, part gripping journalistic investigation, God Forgives, Brothers Don’t lifts the veil on the harmful world of military schools and provides essential context and nuance to the ongoing debate on American masculinity.

Preserved in China for more than 2,000 years before it was brought to the West by the French, this compact little book is widely regarded as the oldest military treatise in the world. Rumored to have been used by Napoleon in his campaigns to conquer Europe, it today retains much of its original merit. American officers read it closely during World War II. The Japanese army studied the work for decades, and many 20th-century Chinese officers are said to have known the book by heart. More recently, it has also been viewed as a valuable guide to competing successfully in business.Stressing the importance of attacking your enemy when he is unprepared and scheming to discover his plans, the author advises avoiding the strong and striking at the weak, and using spies for every kind of business. Principles of strategy, tactics, manoeuvring, and communications, the treatment of soldiers, the importance of strong troops and well-trained officers, and the administration of rewards and punishments all have a modern ring to them.A valuable guide to the conduct of war, this classic of military strategy is indispensable to military personnel, history enthusiasts, and anyone intrigued by competition and rivalry.Reprint of The Military Service Publishing Company, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1944 edition.

The unmarked mass graves left by war and acts of terror are lasting traces of violence in communities traumatized by fear, conflict, and unfinished mourning. Like silent testimonies to the wounds of history, these graves continue to inflict harm on communities and families that wish to bury or memorialize their lost kin. Changing political circumstances can reveal the location of mass graves or facilitate their exhumation, but the challenge of identifying and recovering the dead is only the beginning of a complex process that brings the rights and wishes of a bereaved society onto a transnational stage.Necropolitics: Mass Graves and Exhumations in the Age of Human Rights examines the political and social implications of this sensitive undertaking in specific local and national contexts. International forensic methods, local-level claims, national political developments, and transnational human rights discourse converge in detailed case studies from the United States, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Korea. Contributors analyze the role of exhumations in transitional justice from the steps of interviewing eyewitnesses and survivors to the painstaking forensic recovery and comparison of DNA profiles. This innovative volume demonstrates that contemporary exhumations are as much a source of personal, historical, and criminal evidence as instruments of redress for victims through legal accountability and memory politics.Contributors: ZoË Crossland, Francisco FerrÁndiz, Luis Fondebrider, Iosif Kovras, Heonik Kwon, Isaias Rojas-Perez, Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Elena Lesley, Katerina Stefatos, Francesc Torres, Sarah Wagner, Richard Ashby Wilson.

A richly absorbing book... Overy is unquestionably one of our finest living historians - The Daily TelegraphWhy has warfare always been part of the human story?From biology to belief, what explains the persistence of violent conflict?What light can this shed on humanity’s past – and its future?There can be few more important but also more contentious issues than attempting to understand the human propensity for conflict. Our history is inextricably tangled in wave after wave of inter-human fighting from as far back as we have records.Repeatedly humans have foresworn war, have understood its appalling risks and have wished to create more pacific, productive societies. And yet almost inevitably circumstances emerge under which war once more seems inevitable or even desirableHow can we make sense of what Einstein called 'the dark places of human will and feeling'? Richard Overy draws on a lifetime's study of conflict to write this challenging account of how we can understand the causes of war. Looking at every facet of war from biology to belief, psychology to security, Overy allows readers to understand the many contradictory or self-reinforcing ways in which warfare can suddenly appear a legitimate option, and why it is likely to be part of our future as well as our past.

On today's complex, fragmented, fast-moving battlefield, where combatants adapt constantly to exploit one-another's weaknesses, there is a demonstrable requirement for military commanders to devolve a high level of autonomy of decision-making and action to leaders on the ground. An effective model for doing this has existed for some time in the form of mission command and has been utilized by the U.S., Israeli, and British Armies—but with mixed success.This book examines in depth the experiences of the armed forces of each of these countries in implementing mission command, and reveals the key factors that have determined the success or failure of the implementation—factors such as the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), the spread of low-intensity conflicts and operations other than war, and differences in how military cultures interpret, articulate, and exercise the command function. It has significant implications for both the development of military doctrine and the training and education of tomorrow's military leaders.

This book studies the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations. One would expect that countries accustomed to similar technologies would undergo analogous changes in their perception of and approach to warfare. However, the intellectual history of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia, the US, and Israel indicates the opposite. The US developed technology and weaponry for about a decade without reconceptualizing the existing paradigm about the nature of warfare. Soviet 'new theory of victory' represented a conceptualization which chronologically preceded technological procurement. Israel was the first to utilize the weaponry on the battlefield, but was the last to develop a conceptual framework that acknowledged its revolutionary implications.Utilizing primary sources that had previously been completely inaccessible, and borrowing methods of analysis from political science, history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, this book suggests a cultural explanation for this puzzling transformation in warfare.The Culture of Military Innovation offers a systematic, thorough, and unique analytical approach that may well be applicable in other perplexing strategic situations. Though framed in the context of specific historical experience, the insights of this book reveal important implications related to conventional, subconventional, and nonconventional security issues. It is therefore an ideal reference work for practitioners, scholars, teachers, and students of security studies.

An up-to-date analysis of cyberwarfare and hybrid warfare against the backdrop of the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine.This volume explores and dissects Russia’s efforts to leverage modern hybrid warfare against the West including cyber operations, operations in the information environment, energy politics as well as conventional military operations during the Post-Soviet Era with a particular emphasis on the Russian Ukraine War (2022- ).

This book analyses the origins, experiences, and challenges of total defence in Europe and comprises a broad spectrum of national case studies as well as one international organisation – NATO.The topic of total defence has been brought to the fore by deglobalisation, augmented international tension, the US pivot to Asia, grey‑zone threats, Covid‑19, and not least by the increased Russian threat during the 2010s, which culminated in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The analysis here is based on an in‑depth analysis of the four major Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Poland, Ukraine, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, as well as a perspective from NATO itself. This volume argues that although the activity that we describe as total defence has many labels and various expressions, which follow from each country’s own history, geopolitical setting, and strategic culture, some aspects of it are to be found in most countries. This is because all countries, at least to some extent, will need their armed forces to rely on civil society in a crisis; however, it is a long way from this to a full‑fledged total defence concept. With continued international tension, the need to build resilient societies, and the European need to take more responsibility for its own security in a cost‑efficient way, this book argues that we should expect total defence to gain importance in the 21st century.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, defence studies, European politics, and International Relations in general.

The definitive history of warfare told by Britain's foremost military historian.John Keegan’s masterpiece is a work of breath-taking scope that not only chronicles the history of warfare, but unearths lessons on the nature of humanity. Stretching across centuries and continents, from the Empire of Babylon to the Somme, A History of Warfare studies civilisations, psychology, archaeology, genetics, history and strategy with an expert’s eye. John Keegan’s unmissable and epic journey through military history has been widely acclaimed and remains vital reading today.

For as long as there have been wars there have been fears about the next war. Where are the new dangers? What is the best defence? How might peace come about? This is the history of how over the last 150 years we have tried - rightly and wrongly - to predict war's future. 'Britain's leading academic strategist ... read this book' Economist'Insightful and opinionated ... expertly covers centuries of evolving mayhem' Gary J. Bass, The New York Times'A bonfire of predictions ... Freedman's purpose in this wise book is to discern patterns in the way we have thought about war's future' Shashank Joshi, Financial Times'It reflects the author's immense knowledge and wisdom. It should feed our humility, because it reminds us of mankind's unlimited capacity for folly' Max Hastings, The Times