The Midshipman Culture and Educational Reform

The Midshipman Culture and Educational Reform
Author :
Publisher : University of Delaware Press
Total Pages : 422
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0874138647
ISBN-13 : 9780874138641
Rating : 4/5 (47 Downloads)

Synopsis The Midshipman Culture and Educational Reform by : Todd A. Forney

The Midshipman Culture and Educational Reform examines the effect of educational and professional reforms on the culture of Annapolis from 1945-76. The Naval Academy has juggled the competing priorities of training and education throughout its history. Proper balance was a perennial problem since the academy was limited to a four-year timetable to graduation. Bancroft Hall was the focal point for professional indoctrination and the heart and soul of the academy culture. Its traditions and activities often competed with academies for the midshipmen's time and attention. technology and operational requirements forced the school to reevaluate the emphasis paid to academics. Outside groups, such as the Folsom Board and Admiral Hyman Rickover, also acted as a catalyst for reform. The culmination of these efforts was the academic revolution of the 1960s, which transformed Annapolis into an elite engineering college. Midshipmen and their officers occasionally resisted changes that undercut their most cherished traditions, including plebe indoctrination. Ironically, most core values of the academy culture remained similar to what they had always been, including the emphasis on career service and loyalty to one's shipmates. Fomey's book uses all original sources, including a thorough survey of graduates from these years.

Contemporary Military Culture and Strategic Studies

Contemporary Military Culture and Strategic Studies
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 201
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781136188688
ISBN-13 : 1136188681
Rating : 4/5 (88 Downloads)

Synopsis Contemporary Military Culture and Strategic Studies by : Alastair Finlan

This book explores and compares the contemporary military cultures of the United States and the United Kingdom. The last decade has witnessed astonishing global events, from 9/11 and military operations in Afghanistan in the same year, to the military intervention in Libya in 2011. Western military forces have been involved in all of these campaigns and have been engaged in continuous military operations for over ten years. It is therefore now apt to focus a spotlight on the military cultures of these state-based armed forces. This book examines how contemporary American and British military culture is formed, focusing explicitly on the six major military institutions. The author dedicates a chapter to each of these institutions with each one sharing a unifying analytical framework. These chapters explore the formation and sustenance of US/UK military culture under the rubric of common themes that include social origins, transformative events, leaders, approaches to war, technology and contemporary identity. To conclude, the book considers the impact of the War on Terror on the military cultures of the US and UK, as well as likely directions for the future. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, strategic studies, security studies and comparative politics.

American Defense Reform

American Defense Reform
Author :
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
Total Pages : 311
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781647122768
ISBN-13 : 1647122767
Rating : 4/5 (68 Downloads)

Synopsis American Defense Reform by : Dave Oliver

In American Defense Reform, retired admiral and defense executive Dave Oliver and historian Anand Toprani use US naval history as a guide for leading successful change in the Pentagon. The authors show that change comes from collaboration between civilians, the military, and industry that leverages each groups' strengths for the collective good.

Encyclopedia of War and American Society

Encyclopedia of War and American Society
Author :
Publisher : SAGE
Total Pages : 1385
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780761930976
ISBN-13 : 0761930973
Rating : 4/5 (76 Downloads)

Synopsis Encyclopedia of War and American Society by : Peter Karsten

Publisher description.

Sea Change at Annapolis

Sea Change at Annapolis
Author :
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages : 417
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780807877470
ISBN-13 : 0807877476
Rating : 4/5 (70 Downloads)

Synopsis Sea Change at Annapolis by : H. Michael Gelfand

Since 1845, the United States Naval Academy has prepared professional military leaders at its Annapolis, Maryland, campus. Although it remains steeped in a culture of tradition and discipline, the Academy is not impervious to change. Dispelling the myth that the Academy is a bastion of tradition unmarked by progress, H. Michael Gelfand examines challenges to the Naval Academy's culture from both inside and outside the Academy's walls between 1949 and 2000, an era of dramatic social change in American history. Drawing on more than two hundred oral histories, extensive archival research, and his own participatory observation at the Academy, Gelfand demonstrates that events at Annapolis reflect the transformation of American culture and society at large in the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. In eight chapters, he discusses recruiting and minority midshipmen, the end of mandatory attendance at religious services, women's experiences as they sought and achieved admission and later served as midshipmen, and the responses of multiple generations of midshipmen to societal changes, particularly during the Vietnam War era. This cultural history not only sheds light on events at the Naval Academy but also offers a novel perspective on democratic ideals in the United States.

A Companion to American Military History

A Companion to American Military History
Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages : 1136
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781444315110
ISBN-13 : 1444315110
Rating : 4/5 (10 Downloads)

Synopsis A Companion to American Military History by : James C. Bradford

With more than 60 essays, A Companion to American MilitaryHistory presents a comprehensive analysis of the historiographyof United States military history from the colonial era to thepresent. Covers the entire spectrum of US history from the Indian andimperial conflicts of the seventeenth century to the battles inAfghanistan and Iraq Features an unprecedented breadth of coverage from eminentmilitary historians and emerging scholars, including little studiedtopics such as the military and music, military ethics, care of thedead, and sports Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every importantera and topic Summarizes current debates and identifies areas whereconflicting interpretations are in need of further study

Loyalty

Loyalty
Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Total Pages : 248
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781439176887
ISBN-13 : 1439176884
Rating : 4/5 (87 Downloads)

Synopsis Loyalty by : Eric Felten

A witty, provocative, story-filled inquiry into the indispensable virtue of loyalty—a tricky ideal that gets tangled and compromised when loyalties collide (as they inevitably do), but a virtue the author, a prizewinning columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says is as essential as it is impossible. Felten illustrates the push and pull of loyalties— from the ancient Greeks to Facebook—with stories and scenarios in which conflicting would-be moral trump cards trap the unlucky in painful ethical dilemmas. The foundation of our greatest satisfactions in life, loyalty also proves to be the root of much misery. Can we escape the excruciating predicaments when loyalties are at loggerheads? Can we avoid betraying and being betrayed? When looking for love and friendship—the things that make life worthwhile—we are looking for loyalty. Who can we count on? And who can count on us? These are the essential (and uncomfortable) questions loyalty poses. Loyalty and betrayal are the stuff of the great stories that move us: Agamemnon, Huck Finn, Brutus, Antigone, Judas. When is loyalty right, and when does the virtue become a vice? As Felten writes in his thoughtful and entertaining book, loyalty is vexing. It forces us to choose who and what counts most in our lives—from siding with one friend over another to favoring our own children over others. It forces us to confront the conflicting claims of fidelity to country, community, company, church, and even ourselves. Loyalty demands we make decisions that define who we are.

Congress and Civil-Military Relations

Congress and Civil-Military Relations
Author :
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
Total Pages : 236
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781626161818
ISBN-13 : 162616181X
Rating : 4/5 (18 Downloads)

Synopsis Congress and Civil-Military Relations by : Colton C. Campbell

While the president is the commander in chief, the US Congress plays a critical and underappreciated role in civil-military relations—the relationship between the armed forces and the civilian leadership that commands it. This unique book edited by Colton C. Campbell and David P. Auerswald will help readers better understand the role of Congress in military affairs and national and international security policy. Contributors include the most experienced scholars in the field as well as practitioners and innovative new voices, all delving into the ways Congress attempts to direct the military. This book explores four tools in particular that play a key role in congressional action: the selection of military officers, delegation of authority to the military, oversight of the military branches, and the establishment of incentives—both positive and negative—to encourage appropriate military behavior. The contributors explore the obstacles and pressures faced by legislators including the necessity of balancing national concerns and local interests, partisan and intraparty differences, budgetary constraints, the military's traditional resistance to change, and an ongoing lack of foreign policy consensus at the national level. Yet, despite the considerable barriers, Congress influences policy on everything from closing bases to drone warfare to acquisitions. A groundbreaking study, Congress and Civil-Military Relations points the way forward in analyzing an overlooked yet fundamental government relationship.

Empowering Our Military Conscience

Empowering Our Military Conscience
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 231
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781317144120
ISBN-13 : 1317144120
Rating : 4/5 (20 Downloads)

Synopsis Empowering Our Military Conscience by : Roger Wertheimer

Responding to increasing global anxiety over the ethics education of military personnel, this volume illustrates the depth, rigour and critical acuity of Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE) with contributions by distinguished ethical theorists. It refreshes our thinking about the axioms of just war orthodoxy, the intellectual and political history of just war theorizing, and the justice of recent military doctrines and ventures. The volume also explores a neglected moral dimension of warfare, jus ante bellum (the ethics of pre-war practices) - particularly jus in disciplina bellica (the ethics of educating for warfare). Using metaphor to exemplify the professionalization of the military, the book exposes ambivalences within military professionals' concepts of their professional responsibilities, analyzes issues of self-respect posed by service in an unjust cause, and surveys the deep conflicts inherent in PMEE. While primarily focused on US military academies, the volume will resonate with those responsible for education in military academies across the globe.