This timely study synthesizes past history with the major military events and dynamics of the 20th- and 21st-century Middle East, helping readers understand the region's present-and look into its future. The Middle East has been-and will continue to be-a major influence on policy around the globe. This work reviews the impact of past epochs on the modern Middle East and analyzes key military events that contributed to forming the region and its people. By helping readers recognize historical patterns of conflict, the book will stimulate a greater understanding of the Middle East as it exists today. The work probes cause and effect in major conflicts that include the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the World Wars, the Arab-Israeli wars, and the U.S. wars with Iraq, examining the manner in which military operations have been conducted by both internal and external actors. New regional groups-for example, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-are addressed, and pertinent events in Afghanistan and Pakistan are scrutinized. Since military affairs are traditionally an extension of politics and economics, the three are considered together in historical context as they relate to war and peace. The book closes with a chapter on the Arab Awakening and its impact on the future balance of power.

Without question, the American military has opened doors for those left outside the mainstream of public education. A long tradition of servant-leadership has produced a system demonstrating excellence in education and in many ways continuing the servant leader tradition of leadership by trial.

Key military developments occurred in the Early Modern period, during which armies evolved from troops of medieval knights to Napoleon's mass levies. Firearms impelled change, necessitating new battlefield tactics and fundamentally altering siege and naval warfare. The size and cost of military forces expanded enormously, and new standing armies underpinned the growing absolutist power of princes. Academic experts from both sides of the Atlantic review these developments, discussing the medieval legacy, Spain, the Ottoman Turks, the Thirty Years War, Prussia, the ancien régime and the Napoleonic Wars, together with sea power, the American Revolution and warfare outside the West.

First published in 2002. This work of military history integrates the Italian dimension into the wider political and military history of early modern Europe.

The period 1866–1920 saw the rise and ruin of imperial Germany, and Hans Delbrück (1848–1929) reported on the events of those years from a uniquely privileged position. A professor of history at the University of Berlin, editor of the Prussian Annals—the most famous journal of political commentary of his day—and a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, he also moved among political, cultural, and military elites. Delbrück pioneered the techniques of modern military history, studying tactics and technology as well as the social, political, and economic context of military operations. His four-volume History of the Art of War is a classic of German and military history. This volume reveals the tension between Delbrück’s patriotism and his scholarship, which helped him to recognize German military failings. The twenty-four readings, comprising letters written to his mother while he served in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and essays, reviews, commentaries, and speeches on military figures, historians, and events through World War I, show his talents as a historian and political commentator. Arden Bucholz’s introduction and headnotes illuminate the context of Delbrück’s life and work.