scholarly journals Fuller’s theory of war and the changes in the concepts of warfare in the second half of XX century: The rise of "creative" war

Sociologija ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Nada Sekulic

Current scientific and scholarly discourse on war, which represents the legitimate knowledge and theory on war today, has been narrowed to the topics and issues related to war doctrine and technology of war. It has become reserved for the privileged ?green collars?, highly skilled professionals and officers inside the military structure, which act in cooperation with the political and economic elites, forming the triumvirate of power in contemporary world. The opportunities for civil critique of military politics and strategies of wars have been decreased enormously, in spite of the fact that contemporary wars have spread deeply into the civil sector of society. By looking into the social context and political background of the knowledge reserved for the military experts, we can develop insights into the process of the ideological framing of wars today, marked by naturalization and purposeful interpretations of wars, as if they are fought in the name of democratization of global world. At the same time, the image of the importance of human factor in war has been decreased, as much as responsibility for causalities. Citizens have been pacified for the silent acceptance of military politics promoted in their countries.

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siddharth Chandra ◽  
Douglas Kammen

This article examines the importance of the internal structural dynamics of the military in the analysis of transitions from nondemocratic rule and in democratic consolidation. The authors argues that factors endogenous to the military—including variations in the size of the officer corps, solidarity among graduating classes from the military academy, and promotional prospects—are important determinants of the political behavior of militaries. As a case study, military structure and politics during Indonesia's recent transition from nondemocratic rule and current consolidation of democracy are explored in detail. While the ongoing interaction between civilians and the military is acknowledged, systematic structural features are identified as being important for understanding the behavior of the Indonesian military between 1998 and 2001. The authors compare and contrast the study of Indonesia with other cases in the literature on transitions—including Ghana, Nigeria, Portugal, and Thailand—and discuss resulting implications for the study of transitions and consolidations.


Author(s):  
José Antonio Mateos Martín

El blanqueo de capitales es uno de los fenómenos de mayor impacto social del mundo contemporáneo. Esta repercusión social es debida, en parte, al ruido mediático del que se hacen eco diariamente los medios de comunicación mundial y a la repercusión económica que tiene este fenómeno en las economías mundiales, minando el amplio abanico que va desde las cuentas de un Estado, hasta la moral individual de las personas, o lo que es lo mismo, afectando tanto a aspectos macroeconómicos como a los microeconómicos. Desde que en los años 80, y unido al tráfico de estupefacientes comenzó a considerarse un problema para los Estados, el blanqueo de capitales ha sido tratado de diversas formas. En un principio se le consideró como un daño colateral, sin dotarle de la capacidad destructiva que verdaderamente tiene, siendo en los últimos veinte años cuando se le ha considerado como una verdadera amenaza para el orden económico establecido. A partir de ese momento un enjambre de leyes, resoluciones, órdenes, instrucciones, etc, emanan de los poderes legislativos de los Estados, que viéndose superados, en muchas ocasiones por sus fronteras físicas y por las facilidades de la globalización, intentan acordar la mejor manera de combatir, con una sola voz, este fenómeno delictivo.The impact of money laundering in the contemporary world is impressive. In part, media attention has contributed to this impact since world media informs on a daily basis of money laundering cases; at the same time, its economic impact plays a role in the relevance citizens put in this phenomenon. It affects the State accounts as well as the individual well-being of particular subjetcs, not to mention its macroeconomic impact. Money laundering has been treated, together with drug traffic, since the early eighties as a problem for the individual State. At first it was considered a collateral damage, without realizing the really destructive capacity it holds. In the last twenty years its dangers have been realized and a constellation of laws, resolutions, instructions, etc, have been produced by the States. But Status are oftenly unable to fight a phenomenon that trascends fisical borders in a global world.


Author(s):  
Irina Afanasyeva

At the turn of the third Millennium, significant changes have affected the global world. The contemporary world economy, the world order, international organizational and economic relations are all involved in the intensive process of global development. There is no country in the world that is able to form and implement foreign economic policy without taking into account the behavior of other participants within the world economic system. Scientific and practical analysis of the subject area of the existing research has predetermined the key objective of this article – to determine the factors of contemporary global development.


2017 ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Freddy Timmermann

El autor aborda la temática denominada “el factor Pinochet”, más allá de su presencia física directa en los espacios de poder, sino más bien como una herencia política de su régimen dictatorial, en alianzas con las élites políticas y económicas de Chile. Como se señala, pareciera ser que hemos heredado una cultura autoritaria que traspasa las fronteras temporales del período del régimen militar y se instala en una debilitada democracia actual.Palabras clave Pinochet / autoritarismo / élites / poder / políticaAbstract:The author approaches the topic denominated “Pinochet factor”, beyond his direct physical presence in the spaces of power, but rather like a political inheritance of his dictatorial regime, in alliances with the political and economic elites of Chile. As it is shown, it seemed to be that we have inherited an authoritarian culture that transfers the temporary borders of the period of the military regime and it settles in a weakened present democracy.Keywords Pinochet / authoritarianism / elites / power / politics


Author(s):  
Astrid Jamar ◽  
Gerard Birantamije

Military politics have been entangled with the trajectory of Burundian public institutions, experiences of violence, and the army formation. From 1994 to 2009, the peace process brought together different political parties, security forces, and rebel groups to negotiate ceasefires and major institutional reforms. Adopted in 2000, the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement contained some of the most ambitious and sophisticated security reforms. While most literature emphasizes mostly on the Arusha Peace Agreement, 22 agreements were signed by different sets of parties, including political parties and rebel groups during these 15 years of peace meditation. The Arusha Peace Agreement provides for complex security arrangements: (a) a strictly defined role, structure, and mandate of the army and other security forces; (b) sophisticated power-sharing arrangements for both leadership and composition of the army and other security forces; (c) demobilization, disarmament, integration, and training of armed forces; (d) transformation of armed groups into political parties; and (e) ceasefires. The peace talks integrated various armed political groups into Burundian institutions. Responding to four decades of violence and military dictatorship, these reforms of the military and other security forces aimed to disentangle the military from politics. Initially contested, the agreements shaped the reading of the historical contexts that justified these institutional military reforms. Indeed, provisions of these agreements also framed a narrative about violence and imposed fixed interpretations of political mobilization of violence. These imposed interpretations neglected key elements that enabled and, continue to enable, the political use of violence as well as the emergence of new forms of military politics. The main institutional approaches adopted to tackle issue of inclusion and correct imbalances in armed forces was the introduction of power-sharing arrangements based on ethnic dimensions. The formulation and further implementation of ethnic quotas reinforced the binary elements of ethnic identities, rather than promote a more fluid understanding that would appreciate intersecting elements, such as gender, political affiliation, and class and regional dimensions in the undertaking of power, alliance, and relations between executive and military institutions. Security reforms continue to affect the functioning of public institutions, with limited effects for disentangling politics and military.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-429
Author(s):  
Bon Sang Koo

This paper revisits the military rule in Korea by paying attention, like Korean specialists, to the disconnection in dictatorship but like comparativists, using the tools in comparative studies of modern authoritarian regimes. This paper argues that the differences in the military leaders’ orientations (personalist vs. party-based type) and survival strategies to deal with potential threat sources (key insiders, political opponents, and economic elites) entailed different regime pathways. Examining (a) how to form a ruling group in terms of unity (competing factions vs. a single dominant faction), (b) how to control the legislative branch (directly controlled organization vs. opposition parties indirectly supported by the government), and (c) how to manage capital owners (tight constraints vs. financial liberalization with occasional punishments), this paper provides an explanation as to why only the second military regime was able to open the door to democratization instead of giving way to authoritarian replacement in Korea.


1974 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 146-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Whitson

Although many readers would probably interpret William Parish's article in the previous issue of The China Quarterly (“Factions in Chinese Military Politics,” CQ, No. 56, pp. 667–699) as an attack on my 1969 assessment of the historic role of the Field Army in post-1950 Chinese politics, I am nevertheless sincerely grateful to him for keeping the dialogue about “loyalty systems” alive. Indeed, I am struck by the irony of our respective positions. He seems to argue that, while the Field Army loyalty system apparently (according to my statistics) had little demonstrable impact on elite assignments before the Cultural Revolution, the same system apparently (according to his statistics) helps clarify factional behaviour within the PLA during and after the Cultural Revolution. The irony of this is doubled since the statistical evidence which I now have available argues that “the old boy net” of the Field Armies actually had a diminishing impact on the domestic politics of China in the late 1960s. By then the Military Region as a geo-political unit had replaced the Field Army as a temporary focus of individual and collective PLA loyalties.


1974 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 148-155
Author(s):  
David S. G. Goodman

William Parish in “Factions in Chinese Military Politics,” ( The China Quarterly, No. 56, p. 667) argues that military factions only assumed political importance during the Cultural Revolution. Part of this argument is based on the claim that Yang Ch'eng-wu, when acting chief of staff and secretary-general of the Central Committee's Military Affairs Committee, attempted to influence the appointment of PLA cadres to provincial revolutionary committees in favour of the 5th Field Army. This influence, he demonstrates, by considering the distribution of PLA cadres with known Field Army affiliations on two groups of provincial revolutionary committees: those formed before and those formed after 8 March 1968 – the date of Yang's last public appearance. Parish argues that a significantly greater proportion of military cadres with a 5th Field Army background were appointed to those Provincial Revolutionary Committees formed before 8 March 1968, than one would have expected given the distribution of such cadres in military posts in 1966. Since he had previously argued that military appointments before 1967 were made without reference to Field Army affiliations, he concludes that Yang was engaged in factional politics. However, Parish's account of Yang Ch'engwu's activities is very much open to question on the grounds that the available evidence suggests that most military appointments to the leading positions (i.e. chairman or vice-chairman) on Provincial-level Revolutionary Committees were determined well before the formal establishment of these institutions and before Yang's dismissal.


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