Bøger af Beatrice Heuser

Beatrice Heuser erschließt auf knappem Raum die wichtigsten Inhalte von Clausewitz' "Vom Kriege". Der Klassiker der Kriegskunst - viel zitiert, wenig gelesen, noch weniger verstanden - wird so endlich greifbar; und das sowohl in seinen Inhalten als auch in der Geschichte seiner Rezeption.

Containing the histories (from 1945 to the present) of the nuclear strategies of NATO, Britain and France, and of the defence preferences of the FRG (West Germany), this book shows how strategies were functions of a perceived Soviet threat and an American 'nuclear guarantee'. national nuclear forces, developed by Britain and France;

The authors use a wide range of case studies to explore the ways in which people in different societies at different times perceived and felt about war and peace in the world around them.

Is there a 'Western way of war' which pursues battles of annihilation and single-minded military victory? Is warfare on a path to ever greater destructive force? This magisterial account answers these questions by tracing the history of Western thinking about strategy - the employment of military force as a political instrument - from antiquity to the present day. Assessing sources from Vegetius to contemporary America, and with a particular focus on strategy since the Napoleonic Wars, Beatrice Heuser explores the evolution of strategic thought, the social institutions, norms and patterns of behaviour within which it operates, the policies that guide it and the cultures that influence it. Ranging across technology and warfare, total warfare and small wars as well as land, sea, air and nuclear warfare, she demonstrates that warfare and strategic thinking have fluctuated wildly in their aims, intensity, limitations and excesses over the past two millennia.

Are Europeans hard-wired for conflict? Given the enmities that wracked the Greek city-states, or the Valois, Bourbons and Habsburgs, it seems undeniable. The Holy Roman Empire promised peace, but collapsed before it could deliver it, while rival rulers counter-balanced its power by stressing their own sovereign independence. Yet, since Antiquity, there has also been a yearning for the rule of law, the Pax Romana. For seven centuries, Europe''s philosophers and diplomats have sought to build institutions of compromise between the unrestricted competition of nation-states and the universal monarchy of the old empires: a confederation whose representatives would meet to resolve differences. We have seen these ambitions at least partially realised in a progression of multilateral solutions: the Congress System, the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the European Union. But, with the United Kingdom''s vote to leave the EU, state sovereignty seems to be pushing back against two centuries of travel in the other direction. The Brexit result shows that distrust of a ''greater Europe'' and fierce insistence on state sovereignty remain live issues in today''s politics. To explain recent events, Beatrice Heuser charts the history and culture underpinning this age-old tension between two systems of international affairs.

This book reintroduces readers to the lives and writings of the greatest military minds of the modern era, writers whose ideas and teachings continue to shape the conduct of war in the 21st century.

A comprehensive study of Clausewitz's "On War", first published in 1832 and regarded as a classic study of the nature and conditions of warfare. Heuser shows how to read Clausewitz as well as how others have read him - from the military commanders of World War I to strategists in the nuclear age.