Haldane's Mackindergarten: a radical experiment in British military education

This article critically evaluates a course that was conceived and run at the LSE by Sir Halford Mackinder for officers of the Britsh Army between 1907 and 1932.There is an examination of the nature of the syllabus,the aims and objectives of this course.An explanation is also given as to why the army cut it seven years before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Co-operative explanatory capabilities in organizational design and personnel management

Based on an online image archive documenting the construction and history of an early computing company, the fictional story of "Co-Operative Explanatory Capabilities in Organizational Design and Personnel Management” follows the development of an experimental approach to worker productivity into a religious cult. The project investigates the place of creativity in efficiency management and the operation of bureaucratic systems in a post-industrial work environment. The project has spawned a series of collages, featured on the Economic Thought Projects 7" collaboration with Gelbart, The Eleventh Voyage, as well as the film of Co-Operative Explanatory Capabilities in Organizational Design and Personnel Management, which has also been published as a short story in Vertigo of the Modern and on Sacrifice Press.

Military doctrine, command philosophy and the generation of fighting power: genesis and theory

Military doctrine is one of the conceptual components of war. Its raison d’être is that of a force multiplier. It enables a smaller force to take on and defeat a larger force in battle. This article’s departure point is the aphorism of Sir Julian Corbett, who described doctrine as ‘the soul of warfare’. The second dimension to creating a force multiplier effect is forging doctrine with an appropriate command philosophy. The challenge for commanders is how, in unique circumstances, to formulate, disseminate and apply an appropriate doctrine and combine it with a relevant command philosophy. This can only be achieved by policy-makers and senior commanders successfully answering the Clausewitzian question: what kind of conflict are they involved in? Once an answer has been provided, a synthesis of these two factors can be developed and applied. Doctrine has implications for all three levels of war. Tactically, doctrine does two things: first, it helps to create a tempo of operations; second, it develops a transitory quality that will produce operational effect, and ultimately facilitate the pursuit of strategic objectives. Its function is to provide both training and instruction. At the operational level instruction and understanding are critical functions. Third, at the strategic level it provides understanding and direction. Using John Gooch’s six components of doctrine, it will be argued that there is a lacunae in the theory of doctrine as these components can manifest themselves in very different ways at the three levels of war. They can in turn affect the transitory quality of tactical operations. Doctrine is pivotal to success in war. Without doctrine and the appropriate command philosophy military operations cannot be successfully concluded against an active and determined foe.

Planning for the reuse of redundant defence estate: disposal processes, policy frameworks and development impacts

This paper reviews recent research and other literature concerning the planning and development of redundant defence estate. It concentrates on UK sources but includes reference to material from Europe and the North America were it is relevant for comparative purposes. It introduces the topic by providing a brief review of the recent restructuring of the UK defence estate and then proceeds to examine the various planning policy issues generated by this process; the policy frameworks used to guide it; comparable approaches to surplus land disposal and the appraisal of impacts; and ending the main body of the review with an analyse of the economic, social and environmental impacts of military base closure and redevelopment. It concludes that there is a significant body of work focusing on the reuse and redevelopment of redundant defence estate in the UK and abroad, but that much of this work is based on limited research or on personal experience. One particular weakness of the current literature is that it does not fully reflect the institutional difficulties posed by the disposal process and the day-to-day pressures which MOD personnel have to deal with. In doing this, it also under-emphasises the embedded cultures of individuals and professional groups who are required to operationalise the policies, procedures and practices for planning and redeveloping redundant defence estate.

‘Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 70s and 80s: Findings in the East German Archives’

This article draws on Warsaw Treaty Organisation and East German military archives to demonstrate that the WTO's military exercises until the mid-1990s always envisaged an offensive strategy with the aim of reaching the Channel in a few days. Only gradually did this change under Gorbachev and to include also defensive strategies, very much against the opposition of East Germany.

Denial of change: the 'Military Revolution' as seen by contemporaries

Writers on military matters from the 14th century until the late 18th century either regretted the decadence of their times compared with Antiquity, or they saw no great change in military affairs since Antiquity. Few saw a revolutionary change ushered in by gunpowder, although this number increased since the great "querelle" about the Ancients and the Moderns under Louis XIV. In the early 19th century, the balance tipped, and few would have denied that technology had profoundly changed warfare. All this is a far cry, however, from any contemporary perception of a "Military Revolution" in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Military competition and the emergence of nationalism: putting the logic of political survival into historical context

This essay aims to make a contribution to the conversation between IR and nationalism literatures by considering a particular question: What is the relationship between interstate military competition and the emergence of nationalism as a potent force in world politics? The conventional wisdom among international security scholars, especially neorealists, holds that nationalism can be more or less treated like a “technology” that allowed states to extract significant resources as well as manpower from their respective populations. This paper underlines some of the problems involved with this perspective and pushes forward an interpretation that is based on the logic of political survival. I argue that nationalism’s emergence as a powerful force in world politics followed from the “mutation” and absorption of the universalistic/cosmopolitan republican ideas that gained temporary primacy in Europe during the eighteenth century into particularistic nationalist ideologies. This transformation, in turn, can be best explained by the French Revolution’s dramatic impacts on rulers’ political survival calculi vis-à-vis both interstate and domestic political challenges. The analysis offered in this essay contributes to our understanding of the relationship between IR and nationalism while also highlighting the potential value of the political survival framework for exploring macrohistorical puzzles.

Strong armies, slow adaptation: civil-military relations and diffusion of military power

Why are some states more willing to adopt military innovations than others? Why, for example, were the great powers of Europe able to successfully reform their military practices to better adapt to and participate in the so-called military revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries while their most important extra-European competitor, the Ottoman Empire, failed to do so? This puzzle is best explained by two factors: civil-military relations and historical timing. In the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of an institutionally strong and internally cohesive army during the early stages of state formation—in the late fourteenth century—equipped the military with substantial bargaining powers. In contrast, the great powers of Europe drew heavily on private providers of military power during the military revolution and developed similar armies only by the second half of the seventeenth century, limiting the bargaining leverage of European militaries over their rulers. In essence, the Ottoman standing army was able to block reform efforts that it believed challenged its parochial interests. Absent a similar institutional challenge, European rulers initiated military reforms and motivated officers and military entrepreneurs to participate in the ongoing military revolution.