3. Attrition and exhaustion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antulio J. Echevarria
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Physical Capacity ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
World War ◽  
Physical Ground ◽  
Political Geographies ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

Two of the more frequently used military strategies are attrition and exhaustion. Attrition means reducing an adversary’s physical capacity to fight; exhaustion entails wearing down the opponent’s willingness to do so. Both strategies can mean long wars, imposing heavy burdens on a nation’s population and economy, meaning they are not always culturally acceptable or economically practical. The Allies’ strategy in the Second World War is a modern example of attrition. A strategy of exhaustion can take several forms: blockades, sieges, guerrilla warfare, and “scorched earth” policies that destroy the physical ground an attacker might use. Physical and political geographies in the region will affect the implementation of either strategy.

The Surrealist Revolutionaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
William Klinger ◽  
Denis Kuljiš
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Commander ◽  
Commander In Chief ◽  
Second World ◽  
General Secretary

This chapter begins with Marshal Tito's proclamation of being the commander-in-chief of the National-Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (NOPOJ) as he was the general secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). It looks at Tito's article “The Task of the National-Liberation Partisan Detachments,” in which he defines the formations and tactics that must be used. It also points out how detailed planning helped make communists successful when fighting on secret fronts or waging guerrilla warfare. The chapter describes Konstantin “Koča” Popović as Tito's military commander and the greatest general of the Second World War. It emphasizes how Koča was the single most important cadre among the tough people from the communist underground who was essential for the ensuing war.

Evil

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Eaglestone
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Working Through ◽  
William Golding ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

Evil—the Nobel laureate William Golding wrote that anyone who lived through the years of the Second World War ‘without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head’. Why, then, do accounts by Holocaust perpetrators and fictions that focus on perpetrators and which appear to teach us about evil fail to do so, swerve from the issue, and seem shallow and unproductive? By working through Hannah Arendt’s changing view of evil, this chapter develops a way to answer this question and examine the significance of evil, first in relation to texts by perpetrators (often, like Speer with Sereny, by or with proxies) then in relation to fiction about perpetrators, concluding with the most significant work of Holocaust fiction in recent years, Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones.

Beyond the Railway

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-244
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
World War ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This concluding chapter provides a summary of the discoveries of the Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) from the conflict landscape of the Hejaz Railway. A decade in the desert revealed the anthropological archaeology of the Arab Revolt of 1916–18 to be more than the excavation of historically recent places or the survey of ruinous station buildings. It was rather an interdisciplinary study of the railway’s heritage from 1900 to the present, its role as a catalyst in creating a unique conflict landscape, and its intriguing relationships with earlier Hajj routes. The railway was also entangled with the beginnings of modern guerrilla warfare, the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and a complex and sometimes volatile mix of traditional Bedouin culture, modernity, religion, and local and national politics. Furthermore, the Revolt itself was embedded in the wider regional and geo-political framework of the First World War and its many aftermaths: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the creation of the modern Middle East; the rise of Arab Nationalism; the Second World War; the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq; the destructive legacy of the Islamic State’s short-lived Caliphate announced in 2014; and Syria’s descent into a tortuous and tragic civil war.

Evolution in the Theatre of Gabriel Cousin

1976 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-215
Author(s):  
D. W. Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

To anyone familiar with the work of Gabriel Cousin, adaptability is a natural and acceptable phenomenon that has been, and still remains, a feature of his writing for the theatre. As an evolving and creative activity, his dramatic output has expressed his ‘prise de conscience’ on social and political themes for the past thirty years. Since the end of the Second World War when, with the group known as Les Compagnons de la Saint-Jean, Cousin's rôle was to put to paper the collective product of their ideas, he has continued to work on a collaborative basis with producers, musicians, designers and theatre managements. Indeed, the willingness to do so frequently becomes a necessity in view of some of the difficult problems that a production of his plays entail – problems that affect the audience as much as the actors and producers.

The State and the Jews: Reflections on Difficult Freedom

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Annette Aronowicz
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

AbstractThis essay examines the contrast between two conceptions of the universal, one represented by the modern State and the other by the Jewish people. In order to do so, it returns to the collection of essays on Judaism Levinas wrote in the approximately two decades after the Second World War, Difficult Freedom. Its aim is to focus specifically on the political dimension within this collection and then to step back and reflect on how his way of speaking of the political appears to us a full generation later. As is well known, Levinas's approach to the political has a way of escaping that realm, while nonetheless remaining relevant to it. This is what we shall try to capture and to evaluate.

Religion and Social Control in the Soviet Union 1945–1964

1984 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 473-480
Author(s):  
Gavin White
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

Why have churches in the U.S.S.R. been harassed in recent years? It has been supposed by many that if Stalin stopped most persecution during the Second World War, then things under Khrushchev could only improve. Instead they deteriorated, and all liberties of Soviet citizens received more respect except the religious.A common answer has been that the Soviet authorities were horrified by the continued hold of religion which they considered to be a threat to Marxism. Such a view is quite popular in the west where a clash of ideologies, with Christianity triumphing over Marxism, consoles churchmen who cannot find such a triumph in their own society. But this assumes that the Soviet rulers consider Christianity to be a religion based on certain tenets, and as Marxists they cannot be expected to do so. For them religion is primarily an instrument of social control.

scholarly journals A 2x2=4 hobbyhorse: Mark Blaug on rational and historical reconstructions

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harro Maas
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of Economics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

Over time, Mark Blaug became increasingly sceptical of the merits of the approach to the history of economics that we find in his magnum opus, Economic theory in retrospect, first published in 1962, and increasingly leaned to favour 'historical' over 'rational' reconstructions. In this essay, I discuss Blaug's shifting historiographical position, and the changing terms of historiographical debate. I do so against the background of Blaug's personal life history and the increasingly beleaguered position the history of economic thought found itself in after the Second World War. I argue that Blaug never resolved the tensions between historical and rational reconstructions, partly because he never fleshed out a viable notion of historical reconstruction. I trace Blaug's difficulty in doing so to his firm conviction that the history of economics should speak to economists, a conviction clearly present in his 2001 essay: "No history of ideas, please, we're economists".

2. Annihilation and dislocation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antulio J. Echevarria
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Physical Capacity ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
High Reward ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Ideal

Annihilation and dislocation represent the “ideal outcome” in military strategy: a swift victory with as few casualties and economic costs as possible. Annihilation seeks to reduce an adversary’s physical capacity to fight, usually in a single battle or “lightning” campaign, such as Hannibal’s victory against the Romans in Cannae (216 BCE). Dislocation endeavors to reduce an opponent’s willingness to fight by causing confusion or disorientation through unexpected maneuvers or the use of surprise, such as Hitler’s blitzkrieg conquests in the Second World War. Annihilation and dislocation strategies can be considered high risk, high reward. They both require military forces trained well enough, and led effectively enough, to execute complex maneuvers.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Webster
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Gallup Poll ◽  
Government Decision ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

In 2015, a display opened at Imperial War Museum North, telling the story of people who arrived in Britain during the Second World War—chiefly from continental Europe, America and the British Empire—and of what happened to them when the war was over.1 A museum visitor commented, ‘People post-war wanted Polish fighters to leave despite the help we were given—sad reflection of “Brexit Britain” ’. The comment was prompted by a panel in the display on Polish soldiers and airmen. Many were in Britain during the Second World War and lost their lives fighting alongside British forces. But when a Gallup Poll was held in Britain in June 1946, asking people whether they agreed with a government decision to allow Poles who wanted to remain in Britain to do so, more than half answered ‘no’....

scholarly journals INTEGRATED GEOMATIC TECHNIQUES FOR THE LOCALIZATION AND GEOREFERENCING OF ANCIENT HERMITAGES

2021 ◽  
Vol XLVI-M-1-2021 ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
V. Baiocchi ◽  
M. Onori ◽  
M. Scuti
Keyword(s):  
Structure From Motion ◽  
Accuracy Assessment ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
World War ◽  
Survey Techniques ◽  
Second World ◽  
Do So

Abstract. Historical maps represent an important source of geographical information. The changes occurred over time can be extrapolated from them, especially if their geometric accuracies match those achievable with modern survey techniques. An 1820 map belonging to the Gregorian Cadastre provides the position of seven hermitages belonging to the monastery of Fara in Sabina (Italy). Just three of them are nowadays visible, while the others may have been covered by thick vegetation or been destroyed during the Second World War. The paper proposes the integration of geomatic techniques for the localization of the lost hermitages. To do so, Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithms were applied to UAV imagery to produce an orthophoto of the area. In addition, a GNSS survey was carried out using a professional and a low-cost receiver to correctly georeference the photogrammetric products. An accuracy assessment was then performed to evaluate the performance of the u-blox board in real applications. The accuracies obtained with the low-cost receiver indicates a possible more widespread utilization of these new devices. Subsequently, the comparison between the orthophoto and the cadastral map have been detailed. A weak correspondence between the position of the hermitages in the two maps have been observed. On the other side, the comparison led to the localization of two lost hermitages, with the other two being still undiscovered. This study has opened the door to an enhancement process of the monastery and to the rediscovery of the religious values of the hermitages.

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