Explores the use of armed force in occupied territory under different international law branches.

A surprise attack on American soil and a holy war waged under the guise of an ancient religion . . . A nation of zealots indoctrinated to hate Western Civilization and a culture ignoring reason in favor of mindless violence . . . A cabal of militarists conditioned to elect suicide as a battle strategy and celebrate death for divine reward! Headlines from today's war on terrorism? No--these were the themes of America's war with twentieth-century Japan. Joining the Navy to face these fearsome enemies, seventeen-year-old Charlie misses the action in World War II by mere days. Then, directed to occupy the former foe's homeland instead, he remains behind when the war's heroes have all returned to a welcoming nation. Working and enduring through the months, Charlie records his daily thoughts while growing to respect the Japanese people--and does his best to find adventure along the way!

Few would contest that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a clear example of just how fraught a military occupation can become. In Occupational Hazards, David M. Edelstein elucidates the occasional successes of military occupations and their more frequent failures. Edelstein has identified twenty-six cases since 1815 in which an outside power seized control of a territory where the occupying party had no long-term claim on sovereignty. In a book that has implications for present-day policy, he draws evidence from such historical cases as well as from four current occupations—Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq—where the outcome is not yet known. Occupation is difficult, in Edelstein's view, because ambitious goals require considerable time and resources, yet both the occupied population and the occupying power want occupation to end quickly and inexpensively; in drawn-out occupations, impatience grows and resources dwindle. This combination sabotages the occupying power's ability to accomplish two tasks: convince an occupied population to suppress its nationalist desires and sustain its own commitment to the occupation. Structural conditions and strategic choices play crucial roles in the success or failure of an occupation. In describing those factors, Edelstein prescribes a course of action for the future.

Traditions of War examines wars and military occupation, and the ideas underlying them. The search for these ideas is conducted in the domain of the laws of war, a body of rules which sought to regulate the practices of war and those permitted to fight in it. This work introduces three ideologies: the martial, Grotian, and republican. These traditions were rooted in incommensurable conceptions of the good life, and the overall argument is that these differences lay at the heart of the failure fully to resolve the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants at successive diplomatic conferences of Brussels in 1874, the Hague in 1899 and 1907, and Geneva in 1949. Based on a wide range of sources and a plurality of intellectual disciplines, this book places these diplomatic failures in their broader social and political contexts. By bringing out idealogical continuities and drawing on the social history of army occupation in Europe and resistance to it, this book both challenges and illuminates our understanding of modern war.