Routledge Handbook Of Defence Studies

The Routledge Handbook of Defence Studies provides a comprehensive collection of essays on contemporary defence studies by leading international scholars. Defence studies is a multi-disciplinary study of how agents, predominantly states, prepare for and go to war. Whereas security studies has been broadened and stretched to cover at times the near totality of international and domestic affairs, and war studies has come to mean not just operations and tactics but also experiences and outcomes, defence studies remains a coherent area of study primarily aimed at how defence policy changes over time and in relation to stimulating factors such as alterations in power, strategy and technology. This new Handbook offers a complete landscape of this area of study and contributes to a review of defence studies in terms of policy, security and war, but also looks forward to new challenges to existing conceptions of defence and how this is changing as states and their militaries also change. The volume is divided into four thematic sections: Defence as Policy; Defence Practice; Operations and Tactics; and Contemporary Defence Issues. The ability to review the field while also looking forward to further research is an important element of a sustainable text on defence studies. In as much as this volume is able to highlight the main themes of defence studies, it also offers an in-depth look into how defence issues can be examined and compared in a contemporary setting. This Handbook will be of great interest to students of defence studies, strategic studies, war studies, security studies and IR.

This textbook provides an overview of qualitive and quantitative methods used in different social sciences to investigate defence issues. Recently, defence issues have become of increasing interest to researchers in the social sciences, but they raise specific methodological questions. This volume intends to fill a gap in the literature on defence studies by addressing a number of topics not dealt with sufficiently before. The contributors offer a range of methodological reflections and tools from various social sciences (political science, sociology, geography, history, economics and public law) for researching defence issues. They also address the increasingly important question of data and digitalization. The book introduces the added value of quantitative and qualitative methods, and calls for a cross-fertilization of methods in order to facilitate better research on defence topics and to fully grasp the complexity of defence in the 21st century. This book will be of much interest to students, researchers and practitioners of defence studies, war studies, military studies, and social science research methods in general.

This volume offers an overview of the methodologies of research in the field of military studies. As an institution relying on individuals and resources provided by society, the military has been studied by scholars from a wide range of disciplines: political science, sociology, history, psychology, anthropology, economics and administrative studies. The methodological approaches in these disciplines vary from computational modelling of conflicts and surveys of military performance, to the qualitative study of military stories from the battlefield and veterans experiences. Rapidly developing technological facilities (more powerful hardware, more sophisticated software, digitalization of documents and pictures) render the methodologies in use more dynamic than ever. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Military Studies offers a comprehensive and dynamic overview of these developments as they emerge in the many approaches to military studies. The chapters in this Handbook are divided over four parts: starting research, qualitative methods, quantitative methods, and finalizing a study, and every chapter starts with the description of a well-published study illustrating the methodological issues that will be dealt with in that particular chapter. Hence, this Handbook not only provides methodological know-how, but also offers a useful overview of military studies from a variety of research perspectives. This Handbook will be of much interest to students of military studies, security and war studies, civil-military relations, military sociology, political science and research methods in general.

This handbook provides a comprehensive, problem-driven and dynamic overview of the future of warfare. The volatilities and uncertainties of the global security environment raise timely and important questions about the future of humanity’s oldest occupation: war. This volume addresses these questions through a collection of cutting-edge contributions by leading scholars in the field. Its overall focus is prognostic rather than futuristic, highlighting discernible trends, key developments and themes without downplaying the lessons from the past. By making the past meet the present in order to envision the future, the handbook offers a diversified outlook on the future of warfare, which will be indispensable for researchers, students and military practitioners alike. The volume is divided into six thematic sections. Section I draws out general trends in the phenomenon of war and sketches the most significant developments, from the past to the present and into the future. Section II looks at the areas and domains which actively shape the future of warfare. Section III engages with the main theories and conceptions of warfare, capturing those attributes of contemporary conflicts which will most likely persist and determine the dynamics and directions of their transformations. The fourth section addresses differentiation and complexity in the domain of warfare, pointing to those factors which will exert a strong impact on the structure and properties of that domain. Section V focuses on technology as the principal trigger of changes and alterations in the essence of warfare. The final section draws on the general trends identified in Section I and sheds light on how those trends have manifested in specific local contexts. This section zooms in on particular geographies which are seen and anticipated as hotbeds where future warfare will most likely assume its shape and reveal its true colours. This book will be of great interest to students of strategic studies, defence studies, war and technology, and International Relations.

The Routledge Handbook of Civil-Military Relations not only fills this important lacuna, but offers an up-to-date comparative analysis which identifies three essential components in civil-military relations: (1) democratic civilian control; (2) operational effectiveness; and (3) the efficiency of the security institutions. This Handbook will be essential reading for students and practitioners in the fields of civil-military relations.

The Routledge Handbook of Indian Defence Policy brings together the most eminent scholarship in South Asia on India’s defence policy and contemporary military history. It maps India’s political and military profile in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, and analyses its emergence as a global player. This edition of the handbook: Canvasses over 60 years of Indian defence policy, its relation to India’s rising global economic profile, as well as foreign policy shifts; Discusses several key debates that have shaped defence strategies through the years: military doctrine and policy, internal and external security challenges, terrorism and insurgencies; Explores the origins of the modern armed forces in India; evolution of the army, navy and air forces; investments in professional military education, intelligence and net-centric warfare, reforms in paramilitary forces and the Indian police; Comments on India’s contemporary strategic interests, focusing on the rise of China, nuclearisation of India and Pakistan’s security establishments, and developments in space security and missile defence. Taking stock of India’s defence planning architecture over the past decade, this accessibly written handbook will be an indispensable resource for scholars and researchers of security and defence studies, international relations and political science, as well as for government thinktanks and policymakers.

India has the world’s fourth largest military and one of the biggest defence budgets. It asserts its political and military profile in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. The nation has been in the midst of an ambitious plan to modernize its largely Soviet-era arms since the late 1990s and has spent billions of dollars on latest high-tech military technology. This handbook: canvasses over 60 years of Indian defence policy and the major debates that have shaped it; discusses several key themes such as the origins of the modern armed forces in India; military doctrine and policy; internal and external challenges; and nuclearization and its consequences; includes contributions by well-known scholars, experts in the field and policymakers; and provides an annotated bibliography for further research. Presented in an accessible format, this lucidly written handbook will be an indispensable resource for scholars and researchers of security and defence studies, international relations and political science, as well as for government think tanks and policymakers.

Focusing on contemporary challenges, this major new Handbook offers a wide-ranging collection of cutting-edge essays from leading scholars in the field of Security Studies. The field of Security Studies has undergone significant change during the past twenty years, and is now one of the most dynamic sub-disciplines within International Relations. It now encompasses issues ranging from pandemics and environmental degradation to more traditional concerns about direct violence, such as those posed by international terrorism and inter-state armed conflict. A comprehensive volume, comprising articles by both established and up-and-coming scholars, the Handbook of Security Studies identifies the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. This Handbook is a benchmark publication with major importance both for current research and the future of the field. It will be essential reading for all scholars and students of Security Studies, War and Conflict Studies, and International Relations.