Strategy and Semiosis: Insights from Operation Fortitude

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 i (14) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Paul Ryder ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Good Strategy ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Strategic Design ◽  
Related Idea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Conceptual Core

The European summer of 1944 saw what is arguably the greatest deception wrought through deliberate miscommunication. Operation Fortitude focussed on convincing the Nazis that the invasion of Europe would come not at Normandy but further north at the Pas-de-Calais. Seeing the enemy almost completely wrong-footed, Fortitude remains the most devastating deception in the history of warfare. It is also a campaign that teaches us a great deal about the internal dynamics and semiotics of strategy more generally. Accordingly, I propose that Operation Fortitude speaks profoundly to the principle of polysemy and to the related idea that, in competitive fields, strategic design may see to it that we are deceived into misreading tactics in relation to their informing concepts. Directly related to the above, the paper proposes that, since it is always founded upon a more or less difficult-to-fathom conceptual core, all strategy inevitably deceives—and that the question of deception is merely a matter of degree. Further to the above, I also argue that Operation Fortitude teaches us that, at its heart, good strategy seldom depends upon a singular concept but upon several cooperating abstractions. The paper’s final substantive point is that Operation Fortitude reminds us that in order to think productively about strategy, it pays to bear in mind the following military principle: at its most effective, strategy is a unique and exquisitely synergistic coupling of objectives, concepts, and (dehabitualised) tactics.

The Aristocracy in England and Tuscany, 1000 - 1250

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Time Frame ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
English History ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Italian Experience ◽  
English Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interpretative Framework

Part I of this book is an in-depth examination of the characteristics of the Tuscan aristocracy across the first two and a half centuries of the second millennium, as studied by Italian historians and others working within the Italian tradition: their origins, interests, strategies for survival and exercise of power; the structure and the several levels of aristocracy and how these interrelated; the internal dynamics and perceptions that governed aristocratic life; and the relationship to non-aristocratic sectors of society. It will look at how aristocratic society changed across this period and how far changes were internally generated as opposed to responses from external stimuli. The relationship between the aristocracy and public authority will also be examined. Part II of the book deals with England. The aim here is not a comparative study but to bring insights drawn from Tuscan history and Tuscan historiography into play in understanding the evolution of English society from around the year 1000 to around 1250. This part of the book draws on the breadth of English historiography but is also guided by the Italian experience. The book challenges the interpretative framework within which much English history of this period tends to be written—that is to say the grand narrative which revolves around Magna Carta and English exceptionalism—and seeks to avoid dangers of teleology, of idealism, and of essentialism. By offering a study of the aristocracy across a wide time-frame and with themes drawn from Italian historiography, I hope to obviate these tendencies and to appreciate the aristocracy firmly within its own contexts.

Cold War Hong Kong

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscilla Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Global Cold War

In Hong Kong the rules of the global Cold War were often suspended. Or perhaps it is fairer to say that the territory epitomized to the ultimate degree many of the ambiguities and contradictions of the Cold War, a confrontation that, however fierce its rhetoric, was usually characterized by pragmatic caution, at least where the major powers were concerned. The story of Hong Kong during the Cold War reinforces a growing body of scholarship on the period that suggests that, while situating the history of post-1945 Asia in “a globalized Cold War context,” one must also remember that Asia “had its own internal dynamics and trajectories, and it evolved in ways that were not entirely the making of the big powers.”

POVERTY'S PASTS: A CASE FORLONGUE DURÉESTUDIES

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
RHIANNON STEPHENS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Class Difference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée

AbstractThis article examines how historians have approached the history of poverty in Africa before European colonisation. From an earlier focus on the emergence of class difference to more recent studies on the emergence of poverty, scholars have demonstrated the longevity of economic inequality in Africa. This historiography counters a linear view of the growth of economic inequality and the idea that poverty is a necessary corollary of wealth. The article then considers how historians have studied the meanings of poverty within particular societies to the nineteenth century allowing us to move beyond the inadequacy of quantitative data. It ends by arguing for morelongue duréestudies of poverty in Africa with a focus on the qualitative and on the internal dynamics of particular societies. This will improve our knowledge about how colonial rule changed the experience and reality of poverty for people across the continent and form a basis for comparative studies.

Historicism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Hvattum
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Related Idea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Historian ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Art And Architecture

In its most general sense, historicism refers to a new historical consciousness emerging in late-18th- and early-19th-century Europe. This novel “historical-mindedness,” as the cultural historian Stephen Bann has called it, sprung from a recognition that human knowledge and human making are historically conditioned and must be understood within particular historical contexts. Historicism inspired new interest in the origin and development of cultural phenomena, not least art and architecture. When used in relation to architecture, historicism usually refers to the 19th-century notion that architecture is a historically dynamic and relative phenomenon, changing with time and circumstance. This in contrast to 18th-century classicism which tended to uphold the classical tradition as a universal ideal and a timeless standard. Historicism in architecture often entails Revivals of various kinds, i.e., the reference to or use of historical styles and motifs. The term is related to concepts such as eclecticism, revivalism, and relativism. In architectural history, an early anticipation of a historicist way of thinking is Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s History of the Art of Antiquity (1764). While still idealizing Greek art, Winckelmann also analyzed Egyptian, Etruscan, Phoenician, and Persian art and architecture, paying close attention to the historical conditions in which each of these cultures emerged. This new attentiveness to the relationship between cultural conditions and artistic expression lies at the heart of historicism, as does the related idea that architecture has the capacity to represent an epoch or a nation, forming a veritable index of cultural development. There is a strong organicist aspect to historicism, i.e., a tendency to think about cultural phenomena as organic wholes that evolve according to laws.

scholarly journals Russia’s Digital Economy Program: An Effective Strategy for Digital Transformation?

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-75
Author(s):  
Anna Lowry
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Subsequent Transformation ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Constructive Criticism

AbstractThis chapter focuses on the state program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” (2017) and its subsequent transformation into the national project (2018) to be implemented from 2018 to 2024. It examines the effectiveness of the government’s strategy in this area and provides an analysis of the program’s content in terms of its main objectives and mechanisms of implementation, drawing on the constructive criticism of the program in the literature. It also reviews the history of the development of the program, main actors involved in its design and implementation, and the nature of the decision-making process.

scholarly journals Postmodern Theology as a Methodological Resource of Understanding Modern Religiosity: Conceptual, Worldview and Important Social Dimensions

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Iryna Horokholinska
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Christian Spirituality ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Conceptual Core

The article comprehends the potential of the current achievements of the new Christian theologians in interpreting of the phenomenon of religiosity, its life and value-conceptual core and contexts of functioning, taking into account the modification of the historical conditions of the existence of culture, society, spirituality. The author ponders the conceptual content of the ideas of J. Milbank, J.-L. Marion and J. Caputo. The ideas of these authors are highlighted in their methodological uniqueness and at the same time the general paradigmatic context of their focus for comprehending the postmodern anthropological situation and the effectiveness of Christian spirituality in the conditions of post-secularism is taken into account. The research is interdisciplinary, combining the history of theological thought with the possibilities of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of religion.

scholarly journals Modern Assyrian/Syriac Diaspora in Sweden

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Woźniak-Bobińska
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
European Country ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Eastern Group ◽  
Integration Policies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single Construct ◽  
External Actors

The monograph discusses up-to-date issues concerning the acculturation of a Middle Eastern group in a European country. The book is based on research conducted by the Author in 2014 in the Assyrian/Syriac diaspora in Sweden, within the framework of the “Defining and Identifying Middle Eastern Christian Communities in Europe” project. Assyrians/Syriacs (Assyrier/Syrianer) began to arrive in Scandinavia in the late 1960s, fleeing the wars and meagre economic prospects in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Today, they constitute an active diaspora which contributes in various ways to the development of its new homeland and numbers around 150 000 people. The Author describes Swedish migration and integration policies, the history of the Assyrian/Syriac community in the Middle East, the phases and forms of institutionalisation in Sweden, internal dynamics as well as the group’s relations with external actors and its transnational links. One of the main findings of the book is that the ethno-national identity of this community was largely constructed in the Swedish diaspora and is considerably more complex than it had previously been described in research. The identity in question is not a single construct, but rather a few – if not a few dozen – variants, although polarisation resulting from the divide between Assyrians and Arameans/Suryoye/Syriacs is visible.

scholarly journals Bringing the Question of Chinese IPR Enforcement to the WTO Under TRIPS: An Effective Strategy or a Meaningless and Overused Tactic by the U.S.?

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Yun (Jennifer) Yang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Drug Administration ◽  
Trade Deficit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intellectual Property Right ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Growing Economy ◽  
The U.S

China has had a long history of high levels of piracy and counterfeiting. Leaders of China’s Food and Drug Administration have confessed that their pharmaceutical market is immersed in fake and deadly drugs.1 In addition, DVD’s and VCD’s 2 containing pirated versions of Chinese and foreign films or television series are easily found in China’s major cities.3 Since China is the world’s fastest growing economy and the contributor of the largest trade deficit to the United States (U.S.) (U.S. $268 billion in 2008), 4 it is no surprise that the issue of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) counterfeiting and piracy are of national interest to the U.S..

Endoscope-assisted microsurgical repair in trigeminal meningocele: case report

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Takaya Yasuda ◽  
Yoshitaka Kurosaki ◽  
Ryota Ishibashi ◽  
Kensuke Takada ◽  
Masaki Chin
Keyword(s):  
Check Valve ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Recurrent Meningitis ◽  
Recurrence Rates ◽  
Prepontine Cistern ◽  
Anterior Transpetrosal Approach ◽  
Direct View ◽  
Cystic Cavity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tailored Approach

Trigeminal meningocele is a rare disease that results in rhinorrhea. Treatments with endoscopic approaches and open craniotomies have high recurrence rates, and controversy regarding the most effective surgical strategy for trigeminal meningocele is ongoing. The authors report a case of a 13-year-old female patient with a diagnosis of trigeminal meningocele determined after she presented with a history of intermittent headaches, suspected rhinorrhea, and recurrent meningitis. In addition to the conventional method of covering the efflux point of CSF and filling the inside of the meningocele with fascial tissues, the authors selectively closed the influx point of CSF from the prepontine cistern to the meningocele using an anterior transpetrosal approach. On the basis of the preoperative images, the authors hypothesized that the influx point of CSF could not be observed under the microscopic direct view and instead used a flexible endoscope. A check valve–like structure with one-way communication of CSF from the prepontine cistern into the cystic cavity was identified and was closed. At the time of this report, 36 months postoperatively, the patient had no indications of recurrence. Although cases of trigeminal meningoceles are infrequently encountered and require a tailored approach, the results in this case thus far indicate that the use of an endoscope and open craniotomy is an effective strategy for surgical treatment.

scholarly journals The Return to Ethiopia of the Twelve Tribes of Israel

2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Giulia Bonacci
Keyword(s):  
International Expansion ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
New West ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Insight Into

Twenty-eight years ago, F.J. van Dijk published in the New West Indian Guide what remained for a long time the only scholarly paper on the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Undoubtedly the largest Rastafari organization both in terms of membership and international expansion, the Twelve Tribes of Israel remains little known in public and academic circles. This article fills two major but closely related gaps in Van Dijk’s seminal article. The first is information on the formation and history of the Twelve Tribes, and the second is how the organization mobilized the return of members to Africa, a cornerstone of Rastafari belief. This article argues that the issue of return to the continent determined the very genesis of the organization and subsequently the development of its eighteen international branches. In its turn, this focus on return to Africa offers another perspective on the internal dynamics of the Rastafari movement, namely the structuring role of Rastafari organizations, a role which challenges the common image of Rastafari as an “acephalous” movement. Exploring the tangible relationship of Rastafari with Ethiopia, through the return to Ethiopia of members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, offers new insight into the history of the Rastafari movement.

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