Assesses contemporary civil-military trends by looking at specific areas in the US military. This book provides the student and defense professional with a foundation on which to base organizational and personal policies. It also tells readers about what life is really like in military, and how it is both the same and different around the world.

Postmodern War poses an urgent challenge to the ways we conceptualize and actually wage war in our high technology age. Computerization and artificial intelligence have brought about a revolution in warfare spawning both increasingly powerful weapons and a rhetoric which disguises their apocalyptic potential in catch phrases like smart weapons and bloodless combat. Postmodern War examines: * contemporary practices of war, defining and critiquing trendy military doctrines hidden behind phrases like Infowar and Cyberwar * the roles of those who manipulate high technology, those who are manipulated by it, and those who are increasingly merging with it * the role of peace activists and socially responsible scientists in countering dangerous assumptions made by a postmodern military. Far from opposing technological change, however, Gray finds new hopes for peace in the twenty-first century. Provocative and far-reaching in its scope, the book argues that postmodern war has left us poised between the most dreadful and most utopian of alternatives: we may eradicate either the human race or war itself.

This study uses the postmodern military model to measure how public perception of the military is influenced by self-identification in Taiwan. It unveils the schism that exists between military and society, contributing to low morale and a lack of esprit de corps that puts the island’s forces at risk from an increasingly confident China.

Discussing theorists including Baudrillard and Virilio and covering conflicts including the two Gulf Wars, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda, Kosove, Afhanistan, and the War on Terror, this book investigates the new character of modern warfare, and why media presentation of conflict is so central to both Western military operations and terrorists.

Frederic Jameson once characterized the Vietnam War as "the first terrible postmodernist war, " suggesting that it embodied or reflected the sensibility of an emerging historical epoch. But does it make sense to place a military conflict within a category of cultural and aesthetic periodization? Is it possible to see the Vietnam War as an expression and reflection of postmodernity -- what Jameson calls "the cultural logic of late capitalism"?

In Beyond Baghdad, America's most provocative writer on strategy recounts the liberation of Iraq and analyzes its implications for the future of U.S. military strategy and foreign policy. Author Ralph Peters describes future threats at home and abroad, offers startling insights into today's most pressing issues, and highlights global opportunities that lie, unrecognized, within our grasp. Written in his trademark style--powerful, lively, and accessible--Peters's themes range from the lessons of recent combat experiences to a proposed revolutionary redesign of Washington's international strategy. Certain to be widely read and heatedly discussed, Beyond Baghdad is destined to become one of the most influential books of the decade.

This collection provides the first comprehensive analysis of the nature of the relationship between the military and society in post-Soviet Russia. It brings together a multidisciplinary group of leading Western and Russian experts to investigate both the ways in which developments in the Russian armed forces influence Russian society, and the impact of broader societal change on the military sphere.