Address to the Nation as a Genre of Military-Political Discourse

The political rhetoric prevailing in democratic countries does not allow an open demonstration of commitment to military means of conflict resolution and, therefore, naturally gives rise to a special type of discourse, the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts of which are determined by the goal of initiating a war. This study aims to analyze the components of military-political discourse, as well as the ways they are implemented in the texts and the role they play in manipulating public opinion. The authors defines military-political discourse as the discourse of political elites accompanying various stages of military operations and developed to substantiate the need for their initiation based on the fundamental values of a particular society. The relevance of this study is determined both by the increased interest in military conflicts in modern society and by the insufficient study of military-political discourse in general. Address to the nation is one of the main genres of military-political discourse. The novelty of the research is determined by the authors approach to the analysis and interpretation of military-political discourse. The original texts of the addresses to the nation by B. Obama and D. Trump dedicated to the US military operations in Syria are used as the research material. The choice of these texts is due to their significant role in the coverage of the US Syrian campaign. Describing military-political discourse requires the use of a number of methods, namely descriptive and comparative methods, dictionary definitions and contextual analyses, as well as the method of critical discourse analysis. The authors established that, regardless of the administration in power, address to the nation as a genre of military-political discourse implies a certain scenario based on the following scheme: greeting - address to the nation agenda - description of US actions - description of violence (accusations) - description of the US role in the world - reference to previous military campaigns - call to action. The authors comes to the conclusion that each of these components plays a substantial role in the structure of military-political discourse and is realized through a certain set of discursive means that do not depend on the political preferences of a speaker.

“Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519” by Vesconte Maggiolo: A Source of Historical Geography for the Caspian Region

Research objectives: To conduct a detailed comparative analysis of the toponymic source known as “Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea (1519)” by Vesconte Maggiolo, and ascertain the range and chronology of its sources. Research materials: At the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were a few navigational maps – portolan charts – created in Italy which contained rather precise outlines of the coastline of the Caspian Sea. The present Portolan excels all earlier items in terms of precision of the depicted topographical realities of the region. The quality of the map we are examining was surpassed only in the seventeenth century after Peter I’s hydrographic expeditions. The high level of shoreline’s precision also strongly suggests that the map was based on authentic topographic input. Maggiolo’s map contains 136 geographical names. Results and novelty of the research: For the first time ever in domestic scholarship, we conducted a comparative historical analysis of the hand drawn portolan chart of the Caspian Sea. We also proved the correlation of some toponyms of the West Caspian region with the Timurid and local sources that covered the military campaigns of Amir Timur in the region. In our view, the “Hand Drawn Portolan Chart of the Caspian Sea (1519)” created by Vesconte Maggiolo is one of the most notable among similar works. It finds many common features with the portolan from the island of Lesina, but also contains some common elements with the Mallorca cartographic school and Fra Mauro, Egerton MS 73, and Egerton MS 2083. This research allows us to extend and systematize our understanding of Italian cartography in relation to the Caspian region. It also details or adds some facts about the presence of Europeans in this region during the Golden Horde era. Based on this topographic and toponymic analysis, we furthermore come to a conclusion that the portolan in question is derived from a protograph created in the first half of fifteenth century, reflecting the realities of the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The Byzantine Military Strategy in Asia Minor During the Early Palaiologan Period (1259–1328)

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to determine the specifics of the Byzantine war strategy in Asia Minor. A qualitative military and political characteristics of the main military expeditions to the eastern borders are crucial for the disclosure of this problem. From this aspect, the study addresses the following issues: defining of the role of the eastern military campaigns in the complex of military-strategic measures on the state scale; characteristics of the features the armed forces used, as well as the tasks solved during military expeditions to Asia Minor; disclosure of the features of military-technical measures to ensure the security of Byzantium eastern borders. Methods. Critical use of elements of civilizational, formational and systemic approaches is the methodological basis of this study. It should be noted that the use of a systematic approach in the analysis of the Byzantine troops combat practice in east direction, allows to determine the strategic objectives of military expeditions in Asia Minor, to reveal the logic of warfare in the eastern theater, to determine the functional purpose of military-technical measures. Analysis and Results. The study reveals the strategic concept of Byzantium armed forces military operations during the reign of the first Palaeologus on the Asia Minor territory. Analysis of combat practice allows us to conclude that the strategic priority of the western and northwestern directions, which required the use of the most combat-ready troops consisting of mercenaries during the reign of Michael VIII, determined the need to use the Byzantine troops at the eastern borders of the empire. TheByzantine army was episodically involved in major defensive expeditions to the borders of the empire. We determined that the purpose of these campaigns is to stop the advance of enemy armies and their subsequent expulsion from the empire. This logic of military operations does not mean the loss of strategic initiative at the eastern direction. The strategy of passive defense which determined the nature of the military confrontation in the Asia Minor region was ensured by the creation of a garrison system, or a line of fortresses, on the eastern borders of the empire. Fortification activities of Michael VIII and Andronikos II in 1280–1282 temporarily stopped the advance of the Turkish troops. However, natural factors and the intensification of the economic crisis at the end of the 13th century made it impossible to preserve the defensive line located along the banks of the rivers that served as the borders of the Byzantine state. In addition, the strengthening of the military-political power of the emirates of Menteşe, Aydinoglu and Osman led to the loss of the initiative by the Byzantine troops and, as a result, the reduction of the Asia Minor territories of the empire. In an effort to change the situation, Andronicus II proceeded to implement an active defense strategy.

Influence Operations: Conceptual Dimension

The article focuses on the meaning and features of influence operations. It is shown that this term does not have precise and widely accepted definition. The researchers tend to consider influence operations as general term for any activities of international actors in information environment, or as a modern form of information operations that exceed military campaigns. The analysis of researchers’ publications made it possible to highlight some features of influence operations. The core of influence operations is perception management. The success of such operations depends largely on understanding vulnerabilities and adaptation to the specifics of target audiences. One of key features of influence operations is synchronization and coordination of activities in information and physical environment. The idea is that communication activities should be reinforced by appropriateactions that also aim to affect perceptions, opinions, and behavior of target audiences and not to obtain advantages in physical environment. Influence operations are also characterized by the use of various combinations of “soft” and “hard”, legitimate and partly legitimate influence techniques. The scenarios of influence operations are long lasting and may take different formsthat involve the participation of state and non-state agents of influence. Influence operations cover all aspects of information operations and strategic communication, but they are used in more complicated and subtle way. So, it makes sense to regard influence operations as long-term and advanced form of information operations. The emergence of this term may mark the necessity torevise and updateexisting terminology in the field of information warfare,taking into account moderntrends in the development of international relations.

Antonine sophistication (c. AD 135–65)

This chapter describes how and why Antonine London came to be characterized by an architecture of domestic luxury. This was evidenced by large private houses laid out around several wings with porticoes, dining rooms, and heated private baths, and decorated with mosaic pavements and painted walls sometimes referencing Bacchic iconography. These designs materialized an educated paideia that drew on Hellenistic ideas, perhaps under the influence of the philosophies of the Second Sophistic. These ideas may have first found architectural expression in London in the Hadrianic period, but were more characteristic of the Antonine city. London’s wealth sustained a local demand for imported goods, whilst the waterfronts where these were landed were also busy at times of military campaigns. Several Romano-Celtic temples were built c. AD 165, including one dedicated to Mars Camulus. Imposing mausolea were built within walled cemeteries along the main road into town. These temples and tombs formed a monumental landscape adapted to the religious and funerary processions through the city.

Augusta (c. AD 350–80)

London’s later Roman defences were enhanced by a series of towers, or bastions, likely to have been built in association with military campaigns in Britain in the 360s. The revived walled city housed important institutions of Roman government, several of which were later described in the Notitia Dignitatum, and was renamed Augusta. This chapter reviews the archaeological evidence for the fourth century city set within its historical context. It also summarizes the uncertain evidence of London’s first Christian communities, and considers the extent to which new institutional arrangements gave rise to new forms of public architecture.

London in the Roman World

This original study draws on the results of latest discoveries to describe London’s Roman origins. It presents a wealth of new information from one of the world’s most intensively studied archaeological sites, introducing many original ideas concerning London’s economic and political history. The archaeological discoveries are used to build a narrative account that explains how recent investigations in London challenge our understanding of the ancient world. The Roman city was probably converted from a fort built on the north side of London Bridge at the time of the Roman conquest, and is the place where the emperor Claudius arrived en route to claim his victory in AD 43. It was rebuilt as the commanding site for Rome’s rule of Britain. A history of social, architectural, and economic development is reconstructed from precise tree-ring dating, and used to show that investment in the urban infrastructure was provoked by the needs of military campaigns and political strategies. The story also shows how the city suffered violent destruction in resistance to Roman rule, and was brought to the verge of collapse by pandemics and political insecurity in the second and third centuries. These events had a critical bearing on the reforms of late antiquity, from which London emerged as a defended administrative enclave. Always a creature of the centralized Roman administration, and largely dependent on colonial immigration, the city was subsequently deserted when Rome failed to maintain political control. This ground-breaking study brings new information and arguments drawn from urban archaeology to our study of the way in which Rome ruled, and how empire failed.

Early Medieval Kyrgyz burial from the Upper Irtysh region

In Central Asia in the second half of the 1st millennium A.D., there were development and rapid change of large polyethnic state formations of allied congeneric groups of the Turkic people, Uigurs, Kyrgyz, Kimaks, and Kipchaks. The material goods of most of the tribal unions are unidentified and cannot be associated with the names of specific ethnic groups known from the written sources. Continuance and cultural affinity of the succes-sive nomadic communities are based upon identity of the subsistence systems in similar natural and climatic con-ditions. The Kyrgyz (Khakass) Khaganate, which emerged in the Upper Yenisei region, was one of the Early Me-dieval states. In the second half of the 9th century, the authority of the Kyrgyz khagans spread onto the vast terri-tories of Central Asia. The main culture-forming attribute of the Kyrgyz ethnos is cremation burials. The study of the cremation burials found beyond the ancestral homeland of the Kyrgyz allows tracing the intertribal contacts and directions of military campaigns of the Kyrgyz during the period of their “greatpowerness”. In this paper, mate-rials of the burial mound of Menovnoe VIII, situated in the territory of the Upper Irtysh 2.1 km south-east from the village of Menovnoe, Tavrichesky district, East-Kazakhstan Region, are analysed. Under the mound of the kurgan, there was a fence with an outbuilding. The central grave contained a cremation burial, and the outbuilding — an adolescent burial and a sacrificial pit with a horse carcass split into halves. The grave goods are represented by a bronze waistbelt clasp and a fragment of an iron object. Alongside the horse, there was a quiver with three arrow-heads and a rasp-file, as well as part of a bridle (a snaffle bit fixed to a wooden cheekpiece and a bronze buckle tip). The specifics of the burial rite and analysis of the material obtained during the study of the funeral complex allows attribution of the Menovnoe-VIII kurgan 8 graves to representatives of the Kyrgyz-Khakass antiquities, who were in contact with the rulers of the Kimak Khaganate during the second half of the 8th — 10th century.

‘Treacherous Herbert’ or Man of Honour?

The final decade of Herbert’s life was dominated by the breakdown in relations between Charles I and the English Parliament and the outbreak of civil war throughout the British Isles. Chapter 14 traces Herbert’s support for Charles’s military campaigns against the Scots and his cautious support for the king in parliamentary debate in the House of Lords in 1642 which led to his brief imprisonment. It explores his decision to avoid involvement in civil war preparations and hostilities during 1642–3 and his refusal to accept a royalist garrison for Montgomery Castle and surrender of the strategically important fortress to a parliamentary army in 1644. It examines Herbert’s political and constitutional views and considers to what extent he genuinely supported the political agenda of either king or Parliament and whether his behaviour was typical of the nobility. It presents his perceived treachery within its wider political context, places him among the growing number of noblemen who switched their allegiance to Parliament during 1644 and 1645, and acknowledges his success in convincing Parliament of his loyalty and securing repossession of Montgomery Castle. It examines Herbert’s continuing commitment to writing and publishing academic treatises and considers the purpose of his autobiography and Latin advice poem. It explores Herbert’s declining health, parliamentary attendance, visit to Paris, and relations with friends and family during his final years and ends with his much discussed deathbed drama in August 1648.

War, Military Forces, and Society in Colonial Brazil

War played a crucial role in the political and administrative development of colonial Brazil. The adoption of different government solutions, from the initial naval expeditions and proprietary captaincies to the establishment of a general government, were, in part, a response to the military challenges the Portuguese faced in the New World. In the 17th century, the leading municipalities in Brazil expanded their political prominence and reinforced their autonomy precisely when they assumed the commitment to feed the troops and pay for the army’s wages. War and military conflicts also played an important role in the formation of the colonial society in Brazil. There was a natural overlay between the hierarchical structure of the military institutions created in, or transplanted to, the colony and the hierarchical society the Portuguese established in America. The armed forces consolidated the social status of local elites; while they provided opportunities for the more marginalized groups of blacks, mixed-race, and Indians—active participants in the defense of Brazil from the outset—they also helped colonial administrators organize society along racial lines. Regulars, militias, ordenanças, and other military units filled different functions in the territory. They often took part in different military operations in a territory that was hardly suitable for large-scale operations, prolonged siege warfare, or coordinated deployment of mass infantry formations. In Brazil, similarly to other colonies in America, a distinct kind of warfare emerged, marked by a synthesis of European, Indian, and African military knowledges. It was called Guerra Brasílica, and it was both admired for its effectiveness and disparaged for not fitting nicely in traditional European military orthodoxies and for being undisciplined and supposedly “uncivilized.” The negative imageries attached to military campaigns in Brazil persisted in the minds of colonial administrators for a long time, underpinning the territory’s undeserving military status (when compared with India and North Africa)—a status that the colony seldom escaped.