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"War by Numbers assesses the nature of conventional warfare through the analysis of historical combat. Christopher A. Lawrence establishes what we know about conventional combat and why we know it. By demonstrating the impact a variety of factors have on combat he moves such analysis beyond the work of Carl von Clausewitz and into modern data and interpretation. Using vast data sets, Lawrence examines force ratios, the human factor in case studies from World War II and beyond, the combat value of superior situational awareness, and the effects of dispersion, among other elements. Lawrence challenges existing interpretations of conventional warfare and shows how such combat should be conducted in the future, simultaneously broadening our understanding of what it means to fight wars by the numbers"--Provided by publisher

"While the past half-century has seen no diminution in the valor and fighting skill of the U.S. military and its allies, the fact remains that our wars have become more protracted, with decisive results more elusive. With only two exceptions -- Panama and the Gulf War under the first President Bush -- our campaigns have taken on character of endless slogs without positive results. This analytical work takes a ground-up look at the problem in order to assess how our strategic objectives have recently become divorced from our true capability, or imperatives. The book presents a unique examination of the nature of insurgencies and the three major guerrilla wars the United States has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. Political passions aside, it addressed in hard detail -- demographic, terrain, cultural issues, and pure distance -- which insurgencies across the globe can successfully be fought It applies the hard experience of the last five decades to address the issues of today. As such, it also provides a timely and meaningful discussion of America's current geopolitical position. It starts with the previously close-held casualty estimate for Iraq that The Dupuy Institute complied in 2004 for the U.S. Department of Defense. Going from the practical to the theoretical, it then discusses a construct for understanding insurgencies and the contexts in which they can be fought. It applies these principles to Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, assessing where the projection of U.S. power can enhance our position and where the expense of our forces merely weakens it. It presents an extensive analysis of insurgencies based upon a unique database of 83 post-World War II cases. The book explores what is important to combat and what is not important to resist in insurgencies. As such, it builds a body of knowledge based upon a half-century's worth of real-life data. In these pages, Christopher A. Lawrence, the President of The Dupuy Institute, provides an invaluable guide to how the U.S. can best project its vital power, while avoiding the missteps of the recent past."-- from book jacket

The 1994 Agreed Framework called for North Korea to dismantle its plutonium-production complex in exchange for civilian light water reactors (LWRs) and the promise of political normalization with the United States. The accord succeeded at rolling back North Korea's nuclear program, but the regime secretly began enriching uranium when the LWR project fell behind schedule. Today, scholars look back at the Agreed Framework as a U.S. offer of "carrots" to bribe the regime, but this framing overlooks the credibility challenges of normalization and the distinctive technical challenges of building LWRs in North Korea. A combiniation of political and technical analysis reveals how the LWR project helped build credibility for the political changes promised in the Agreed Framework. Under this interpretation, the LWR project created a platform for important breakthroughs in U.S.-North Korean engagement by signaling a U.S. commitment to normalization, but its signaling function was undercut when the United States displaced the costs of LWR construction to its allies. The real challenge of proliferation crisis diplomacy is not to bribe or coerce target states into giving up nuclear weapons, but to credibly signal a U.S. commitment to the long-term political changes needed to make denuclearization possible.

Summary
Guy's Hospital was a major setting for the creation of heart surgery as a practice and speciality in immediate post-war Britain. Medical reformers of the twentieth century characterised much London hospital medicine as conservative and not organised for the production of modern research. Through the minutes of a hospital club formed to manage congenital heart disease, the paper explores how dynamic surgical research was carried out in an institution committed to traditional values and organisation. I trace the background to this development from around 1900.

The transformation of rural Greece -- A brief history of conflict and accommodation in Argolida -- Agricultural production and household economies -- Immigrant labor in the villages -- The social transformation of the countryside -- The state, citizenship, and identity in Argolida -- The politics of resistance -- Nationalism in a globalizing economy