Military Defeat Research Articles

Wars in the Horn of Africa and the dismantling of the Somali State

Somalia was an artificial colonial construct and had no depth of state formation. Although supposedly homogenous, its clan families operate as independent entities and the reality of any Somali commitment to a single state must be questioned. Under the stresses of military defeat against Ethiopia, and a failed socialist revolution, and the resurrection of «clanism», it fell apart in the late 1980s. Subsequent international efforts to rebuild the state of Somalia have failed because the international community has ignored the realities of Somalia clan politics. The only area to succeed in restoring political structures is Somaliland, basing itself upon one particular clan family; its attempts have rejected internationally, despite having provided a clear, and successful, model for the rest of Somalia.

Playa Girón: Bay of Pigs: Washington’s First Military Defeat in the AmericasThe Missile Crisis in Cuba

Playa Girón: Bay of Pigs: Washington’s First Military Defeat in the AmericasThe Missile Crisis in Cuba

Archaeological arguments in national debates in late 19th-century France: Gabriel de Mortillet's La Formation de la nation française (1897)

Chauvinist reactions were rife in late 19th-century France, following the 1870 defeat to Prussia, the unification of Germany and the annexation of Alsace and part of Lorraine to the new empire. Besides their political manifestations, as in the creation of the Ligue des patriotes in 1882, these reactions also received intellectual expression. For most of the cultivated elites, the revelation of Prussian militarism came to negate the prevailing image of Germany as the cosmopolitan heartland of philosophy and of amodel university system. The French military defeat was interpreted as a sign of the political and moral weakness of the regime of Napoleon I11 (Renan 18711, but also as a wider symptom of intellectual inferiority, itself due to the inadequacies of the French educational and university structure. There ensued in intellectual circles a veritable ‘German crisis of French thought’ (Digeon 1959).

The Mapuche People in Post-Dictatorship Chile

AbstractThis paper deals with the Mapuche ethnic resurgence in post-dictatorship Chile. Drawing on several concrete examples, I show that the Mapuche social movement that has developed since the 1990s both challenges the very basis of the dominant political and ideological order and contributes to the process of rethinking the way of doing politics and building democracy, territory, and citizenship. By revalidating former political institutions and reasserting the value of “traditional” devices of communication, socialization and memorializing, indigenous leaders and organizations are contesting the territoriality imposed by the Chilean state in the wake of their military defeat at the end of the 19th century. Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s peasants used to claim for more lands, the ethnogenetic processes in which present indigenous peoples are involved lead to the building of new territories, social groupings and identities.

The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s-1880s

Extending his investigation into the ethical life of the white American south beyond Southern Honour (1982), Bertram Wyatt-Brown explores three major themes: the political aspects of the South's code of honour, the increasing prominence of Protestant faith in white southerners' lives, and the devastating impact of war, defeat, and an angry loss of confidence during the post-Civil War era. This study first demonstrates the psychological complexity of race relations, drawing provocative comparisons between American slave oppression and the Nazi concentration camp experience. The author then reveals how the rhetoric and rituals of honour affected the revolutionary generation, and through a study of Andrew Jackson duelling and other demonstrations of manhood, how American politicians won or lost popularity. In perhaps the most subtle and intriguing section of the book, he discloses the interconnections of honour and religious belief and practice. Finally exploring the effects of war and defeat on former confederates, Wyatt-Brown proposes that the rise in violent racism following the Civil War had significant links to the shame of military defeat and the spurious invocation of religious convictions.

La mise en forme savante des sciences politiques. Les usages de la référence allemande dans l'institutionnalisation de l'Ecole libre des sciences politiques à la fin du XIXe siècle

Shaping French political science. The German model and the institutionalisation of the Ecole libre des sciences politiques in the late 19th century Rachel Vanneuville The purpose is to examine how both definition and teaching of political science in the Ecole libre des sciences politiques has been influenced by a reference to Germany. The context of the Sedan military defeat but above ail the admiration for the German high school system and the content of its pedagogy shaped the background for the creation of the French school. Our aim is to evaluate to what extent the German model have been used as a « scientific backing » to legitimise the, not yet established in this period, political science.

Transformation: Let's Get it Right this Time

The lessons of Task Force Hawk and Kosovo have rung loudly in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon. However, the immense difficulty the US Army faced in deploying a capable, warfighting force to northern Albania is only symptomatic of a much larger problem that the Army has grappled with for several decades: how to develop a force light enough to get where it is needed quickly and yet lethal enough to win when it gets there. Task Force Hawk was just the most recent manifestation of this problem, demonstrating yet again that the Army is still far from a solution. In response, General Eric Shinseki, the Army's Chief of Staff, has launched the Army on a path to transform itself into a deployable force fully capable of meeting the national strategic challenges of this new century. This is a path the Army has trod before. Unfortunately, it is strewn with dashed hopes and lost opportunities, victims of the landmines of the Army's own institutional nature. As George Santayana wrote, Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. This article, then, is a cautionary tale; its purpose is to relate the story of the Army's effort to transform itself in the 1980s in the hope that the current generation of transformers will learn to avoid these landmines by studying the failures--and successes--of their predecessors. Saudi Arabia, 1990 When the United States responded to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990, US forces faced the prospect of a major military defeat. Had Saddam Hussein continued to attack south, there was the very real possibility of a disaster unmatched since the lightly armed troops of Task Force Smith had been brutally overrun by North Korean armor in the opening episode of our involvement in the Korean War. At the beginning of the Gulf War, American soldiers and the success of our overall Mideast policy were placed in grave danger, not only by Saddam Hussein but also by an Army decisionmaking process that years earlier had deprived the United States of air-deployable forces capable of defeating heavy armor on Middle Eastern terrain. When President Bush drew his famous in the sand to thwart the potential advance of Iraqi forces into Saudi Arabia, the line was held for several weeks by only the lightly armed and relatively immobile 82d Airborne Division and a Marine Expeditionary Force. The airborne division--even backed by considerable air power--was no match for the heavy Iraqi armored forces poised north of the Saudi border. Had Saddam Hussein elected to invade Saudi Arabia, this light infantry force--the only type of Army force that could be rapidly deployed by air--might have been quickly overrun. This force imbalance created an extremely dangerous of that closed only when reinforcing heavy forces arrived by sea several weeks later. Until the arrival of the Army's heavy force, the deployed ground units were left to hope that Baghdad would be deterred by the possible adverse implications of directly attacking American forces. It's worth repeating: we hoped they would be deterred. Although this wishful det errence worked in this instance, as former Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan is fond of saying, Hope is not a method. Few if any of the paratroopers anxiously scanning the northern sky for the telltale dust columns of Iraqi armor advancing south knew that this window of vulnerability could have been avoided. For years the Army had been preparing to field a high-technology light division that combined the air deployability of a light infantry division with the firepower and mobility of a heavy division. It was also intentionally designed to fight heavy armored forces in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this division disappeared completely from the Army force structure in 1989, only a year before it was critically needed. Why did this happen? An analysis of the internal Army decisionmaking involved provides a few answers--and perhaps hope of avoiding past mistakes. …

The Luck of the House of Habsburg: Military Defeat and Political Survival

The Luck of the House of Habsburg: Military Defeat and Political Survival

The Afterlife of a Text. The Case of Solomon’s Prayer in 1 Kings 8

Most studies of 1 Kings 8 have focused on the compositional history of the text. Analysis of its literary structure, however, suggests that the passage has a literary unity that needs to be taken seriously. The heart of 1 Kgs 8 is a prayer put on the lips of Solomon that is almost completely at odds with the tenor of the event that the Deuteronomistic Historian (DtrH) is narrating: the dedication of the Temple. The text focuses on what action Israel should take once it experiences natural disaster, military defeat and exile. The Deuteronomistic story of the Temple's dedication underscores the significance of the Temple as a place of prayer rather than as the dwelling place of God and the setting for sacrificial worship. In doing so, DtrH follows a pattern of subordinating all institutions of ancient Israel to the written Torah, the observance of which was the key to the future. The efforts of DtrH ironically made possible the continuity of the idea of the Temple in a world without a temple.

Models of Religious Peace in the Middle English Romance Sir Isumbras

Sir Isumbras, like many other didactic Middle English romances, concerns the triumph of Christianity over "non-Christianity." That victory has two interrelated narrative manifestations – the redemption of the titular hero and the military defeat of "Saracens," who are painted as worshippers of "Mahmoud," but are, of course, not fully developed as Islamic. At different points in the plot's development, however, the main characters – Isumbras, his wife, who is stolen away from him by a heathen sultan, and the sultan and his cohorts – implicitly or explicitly propose models of religious "co-existence." These models apply in the first instance to the conflict between Christianity and Islam. But, because the presentation of the poem's Muslims is so reminiscent of medieval English renderings of Jews and apostate and heretical Christians, these models may be read more generally as concerning the difficulty of achieving Christian hegemony, a more relevant topic for the English in the age of Lollardy, when Islam was far away. Although these models are rejected in favor of the seeming religious homogeneity of the poem's ending, this paper reads the fact of the proposals as evidence of poets' and scribes' desire to find alternative models for achieving religious peace.

The Navajo Healing Project.

The articles in this issue represent some of the first fruits of the Navajo Healing Project, a collaborative work by a group of Navajo and non-Navajo researchers dedicated to understanding the nature of the therapeutic process in contemporary Navajo religious healing. Life in Navajo land today proves the outdatedness of any simple dichotomy between tradition and modernity/postmodernity. Many of those who explicitly define themselves as traditional Navajos do so in full awareness of the contemporary context in which that identity takes on meaning, while at the same time the anomalies of modern life are often taken very much in stride by even elderly, monolingual Navajo people. One of the most striking ways in which this complexity is evident is in the large area of Navajo life in which religion and spirituality are intimately entwined with health care and healing. Indeed, healing is the central theme of Navajo religion, while the sacred is the central element in Navajo medicine. Just as Navajos orient themselves geographically within a territory defined by four sacred mountains aligned with the four cardinal points, today they orient themselves medically in a field of vital interaction among four modes of healing: conventional biomedicine, Traditional Navajo healing, Native American Church (NAC) healing, and Navajo Christian faith healing. The Navajo, or Dine, are speakers of an Athabaskan language, and their contemporary homeland is located geographically in the four-corners region where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado meet. The reservation is an institution of the U.S. federal government, its boundaries established by an imposed treaty in 1868 as the condition for the Navajos' release from captivity at Bosque Redondo, near Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico. The collective trauma of the Long Walk, their forced march into captivity following military defeat at the hands of the infamous Kit Carson, is critical to contemporary Navajos' identity as a people. According to the 1990 census, the population of the Navajo Nation was 155,276, of which 96 percent was American Indian. Although precise figures are not available, as many as another 50,000 Navajos, for a total population of roughly 200,000, may live in various other regions of the United States, many maintaining close ties to their homeland. Given the size and geographical expanse of Navajoland, it is not surprising that there exists a degree of regional cultural variation among Navajos, though this may have become less salient as more paved roads have decreased isolation over the past 20 years.

Self-Help Criminality as Resistance?: Currency Counterfeiting in Colonial Nigeria

This essay examines the counterfeiting and uttering of British Imperial coinage in interwar Nigeria, and the response of the colonial state. In particular, it establishes a connection between criminality and resistance to European colonialism in Africa. In this regard, it contextualizes the preponderant involvement in the counterfeiting saga of the Ijebu, a subgroup of the Yoruba nationality in southwestern Nigeria. Though other considerations were involved, the preponderance of the Ijebu in making what was called “Ijebu money” illustrates how self-help criminality was both a means of accumulation and a veritable form of resistance to colonial rule. Following their military defeat in 1892 and their subsequent alienation from British rule, this criminal activity represented resistance by other means. The point must be stressed, however, that not all Ijebu were counterfeiters, and all counterfeiters were not Ijebu, and that the counterfeiters were no “heroic criminals”, who shared their loot with the poor.

Defeat, National Humiliation, and the Revenge Motif in International Politics

The complex relationships between national defeat, and the resultant humiliation and compulsion to revenge, constitute a critical understudied area of international relations. Recent historical illustrations abound: Russian after the Cold War, the Arabs, France after several defeats, Germany after World War I, Argentina, etc. The salience of this factor may also call for critical adjustments to realist and rational choice theories hinged on assumptions of rational behavior. There is no existing relevant scholarship directly on this subject. But there are some strands of the literature which, in combination, may form the basis for future research: general works on revenge, territorial irredentism, and military defeat; psychological studies of shame and “narcissistic rage;” and applications of concepts in the clinical psychology of individuals as possibly applied to nation-state aggregates.

Japanese Paradox: Secular State, Religious Society

The evolution of Japanese religious attitudes mirrors to a great extent the changes in relations between the religious institutions and the state. Between the Meiji era and today these changes have been considerable, particularly since the Japanese military defeat. Before American occupation, the hegemony of state religion (State Shintoism) paradoxically alienated people from religious organizations. After the dismantling of Japanese “theocracy” and the separation of the state from the church, Japanese people rediscovered religion in the social and private sphere. Put another way, Japanese citizens rediscovered their gods thanks to the divorce of state and religion.

The French Churches and the Jewish Question: July 1940 — March 1941

This article examines why, following the military defeat of June 1940, the French Catholic Church remained silent as race laws were introduced, whereas before the war it had publicly rejected racism and opposed antisemitism. A number of reasons accounted for it. A strong conviction prevailed in its ranks that the regime which had then emerged offered a unique opportunity to resume preeminence in French society and regain rights formerly denied under the Republic. It took two years for members of the clergy to recognise that by its prolonged silence the Church had in fact jettisoned its traditional views on ‘justice and charity’ for all men. It was only after the deportation to the death camps of over fifty thousand Jews that it finally raised its voice up on their behalf.

By due process of law?: racial discrimination and the right to vote in South Africa, 1855-1960

Part 1 The European colonisation of South Africa: the initial invasions 1650-1806 the consolidation and fragmentation of British rule 1806-1880. Part 2 The Boer wars: the first Boer war the independent Boer Republics the second Boer war. Part 3 Securing a white peace: British policy towards the non-white races from military defeat to political victory - the reassertion of the Afrikaaner identity from reconstruction to redemption th emergence of non-white political movements conclusion. Part 4 The Act of Union 1909: the constitutional structure of South Africa conclusion. Part 5 From automony to racial discrimination 1909-1918: state-sponsored racial discrimination 1909-1918 the consolidation and reinforcement of state-sponsored racial discrimination 1919-1930 conclusion. Part 6 Disenfranchising the African: the terms of independence - the Statute of Westminster 1931 a white consensus on native policy? the Hertzog-Smuts coalition government the representation of the Natives Act 1936 Ndlwana v Hofmeyr the Second World War conclusion. Part 7 Harris v Donges (Minister of the Interior) No. 1 - the immediate context: the 1948 general election the Nationalist government - the initial programme judical responses to apartheid. Part 8 Harris v Donges (Minister of the Interior) No. 1 - the litigation: the separate representation of Voters Bill the judgement the reaction conclusion. Part 0 Harris v Minister of the Interior No. 2: the High Court of Parliament Bill the judgements of the Cape Provincial Division and the High Court of Parliament before the appellate division the reaction race discrimination at common law conclusion. Part 10 Collins v Minister of the Interior: the legislation the South Africa Act Amendment Act 1956 the Collins litigation the aftermath conclusion. Part 11 Constitutionalism, parliamentary sovereignty and the common law: electoral apportionment a second legislative chamber the independence of the judiciary constitutions as fundamental law conclusion.

The Two American Presidents: A Dual Biography of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis (review)

BOOK REVIEWS63 checkmate the CSS Virginia. The United States Military Academy at West Point continued to function as an officer school. Leading newspaper persons Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune and James Gordon Bennett of the New York Harold created and led public opinion. Generals Philip Henry Sheridan, Daniel Edgar Sides, Fitz-John Porter, Emory Upton, Joseph Jackson Barlett, and Daniel Butterfield were some of the more noted New Yorkers military leaders. The Union Preserved provides information about the battlefronts and home front including New York City and Troy draft riots of July 1863 and New York genealogical resources. NewYork was the last state to organize an archive ( 1978). One of the most interesting accounts in the guide is the initial success of Chief of the Bureau of Military Statistics, Lockwood Lyon Doty, who gather a large amount of war documents. Researchers today wish that the Doty collection of lost and scattered Civil War-related resources still exist. However, it is an accomplishment that an identifying guide to the remaining Civil War items and collections are now available. The collected effort of the New York State Archives, New York State Library, New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, and the New York State Museum is a commendable achievement. Eleven appendices ranging from "Conducting Genealogical and Local History research in Civil WarRecords" to "Where the Men Came From," will be popular reference sections. Not dted in this guide is Frederick Porter Todd's American Military Equipage, 1851-1872, Vol. 2: State Forces (1983). Chapter 45 covers New York Civil War arms, equipment and clothing by military organizations are from National Archives and New York State Archives documents. However, most researchers will be eager to consult the guide for years to come. Harold Hölzer, Abraham Lincoln and Civil War-illustration expert, and Daniel Lorello, Associate Archivist at the New York State Archives, are good choices. They teamed up to edit and compile a well organized, well written and beautifully illustrated reference book. The Union Preserved will be a desirable source for exploring the eastern theater of the war and the Union army. Alan Aimone U.S. Military Academy Library The Two American Presidents: A Dual Biography ofAbraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. By Bruce Chadwick. (Secaucus, N.J.: Birch Lane Press/Carol Publishing Group, 1999. Pp. vii, 490. $29.95.) Bruce Chadwick draws upon memoirs, campaign speeches, letters, and congressional reports to sketch how the personalities of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis reflected American society and shaped the outcome of the Civil War. Union armies ultimately won, according to Chadwick, because Lincoln's personal skills made him a superior political and military leader. While armies fought on battlefields, an equally importantcontest to sustain civilian morale raged in legislative chambers and newspapers. Warm and charismatic, 64CIVIL WAR HISTORY Lincoln unified the shaky Republican Party, won over a fractious Northern electorate , and earned the respect and often the political support ofhis most vitriolic opponents. Amiable Abraham Lincoln weathered withering military losses and searing political dissent without castigating his critics publicly. Thus Lincoln sustained the Northern war effort through dark days and revolutionized national public policy by charming Republicans, ignoring personal criticism, and earning the deferential respect of his generals. Because of Lincoln's political skills, support for the war among Northerners remained solid, even when Union armies stalled within the South. Davis, by contrast, floundered politically. The absence of a party system exposed Davis to intense criticism, especially when Confederate armies lost. Personal attacks placed considerable pressure on Davis to float above politics, but his personality doomed him to failure. Neurotic and paranoid, Davis confused dissent with treason. Unable and unwilling to share power, Davis alienated government administrators, cabinet members, state legislatures and governors, military leaders (save Robert E. Lee), and states-rights ideologues. Instead of unifying the rebellion, Davis became a hated figure who embodied all that had gone awry. The Confederacy unraveled internally due to the leadership of the caustic and belligerent Davis, and military defeat swiftly followed. Union victory was never assured, Chadwick concludes. The outcome hinged on presidential leadership, and the charming Lincoln politically overpowered the dour Davis. The use of biography to explain the Union victory...

The Life and Times of Pancho Villa

The Life and Times of Pancho Villa

The Last Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu

This text examines the life of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, born in 1837, he came to power 30 years later as the 15th successor to the Tokugawa shogunate. Though his ancestral claim and his will to become a shogun were never as powerful as those of his enemies, he far outclassed them. The book discusses how he came to power just as the Tokugawa regime was suffering the worst military defeat in its history, and Yoshinobu strongly suspected that the rule of the Tokugawas was swiftly becoming an anachronism. The book chronicles how during a year of frenetic activity, he overhauled the military systems, reorganized the civil administration, promoted industrial development and expanded foreign intercourse, all with the farsighted aim of creating a unified Japan.

From megaphone to microscope: The correspondence of Richard Duke of York with Henry VI in 1450 revisited

The conduct and motivation of Richard Duke of York is important for an understanding of the outbreak of the Wars of Roses but historians are sharply divided about it. The earliest concrete evidence is the duke's correspondence with Henry VI in 1450, but this too is open to differing interpretations. This paper re-examines the correspondence both as diplomatic and in terms of its contents. On the evidence of his own utterances, the duke moves from Irish and financial matters to concern about misgovernment and then to the loss of France. Misgovernment and military defeat were concerns that developed in the autumn, after September: the duke's feud with Somerset evolved rather than being the root cause. York's return was expected at court and was opposed by those around the king. Henry VI's denials were known by York to be false. Bad faith in 1450 influenced subsequent relations between York and the government.