Recent Faculty Publications
This page features the recent books and articles by Baltic Defence College faculty.
Dr. James S. Corum
Airpower in Small Wars: 1913 to the Present (chapter in A History of Air Warfare, ed. John Andreas Olsen)
Year published: 2010
Language: English
Publisher: Potomac Books
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Air power: the quest to remove battle from war (chapter in The Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Warfare, eds. Kassimeris, G. and Buckley, J.)
Year published: 2010
Language: English
Publisher: Ashgate
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Air Power and Counter-insurgency: Back to the Basics (chapter in Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror”, ed. Joel
Year published: 2009
Language: English
Publisher: RAF Centre for Air Power Studies
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Wolfram von Richthofen: Master of the German Air War
Year published: 2008
Language: English
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Book description: Luftwaffe commander Wolfram von Richthofen was a brilliant master of the tactical and operational air war and one of the key catalysts in the resurrection of Germany’s air force. Long overshadowed in history by his cousin, World War I’s famous “Red Baron,” von Richthofen served in seven major air campaigns from 1936 to 1944, and as senior air commander he was always at the center of the action.
For this first full-length biography of von Richthofen, James Corum has mined the field marshal’s extensive diaries, which provide a detailed record of military campaigns, tactical and operational problems, interactions with other commanders, and his assessment of methods and weaponry. He has also drawn on interviews with former Luftwaffe members and on his unparalleled access to von Richthofen family papers and photos.
Corum reveals how, before World War II, von Richthofen played a central role in developing and building the Luftwaffe and such famous aircraft as the Me 109 fighter and He 111 bomber. He then delivered tactical and operational successes in the Spanish Civil War, where he established the close air support tactics that became an essential trademark of the German blitzkrieg. As commander of the Special Air Division in the invasion of Poland, he demonstrated the effectiveness of massed airpower and in 1940 helped produce a dramatic German victory in France by providing close air support for Von Kleist’s panzer divisions as they raced to the English Channel. Later he also led the Luftwaffe’s Second Air Fleet against the Allied landings in Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio.
Providing a fully rounded portrait, Corum also cites von Richthofen’s signal defeats in the Battle of Britain and around Stalingrad; depicts his arrogant and ruthless tendencies; and reveals his loyal but naïve belief in Hitler.
Cutting through the myths that have grown around von Richthofen’s life, Corum’s study fills a major gap in the literature and offers new insight into German military culture, Hitler’s strategic thinking, and their impact on the German way of war. (University Press of Kansas)
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Bad Strategies: How Major Powers Fail in Counterinsurgency
Year published: 2008
Language: English
Publisher: Zenith Press
Book description: By examining the failures against insurgents in Algeria, Cyprus, Vietnam, and Iraq, James S. Corum offers rare and much-needed insight into what can go wrong in such situations--and how these mistakes might be avoided. In each case, Corum shows how the conflict could have been won by the major power if its strategy had addressed the underlying causes of the insurgency it faced; not doing so wastes lives and weakens the power’s position in the world. Corum’s clear and practical prescriptions for success show how the lessons of the past apply to our failed policies in Iraq. (Amazon.com)
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LtCol Mika Juha Kerttunen
A Responsible Nuclear Weapons Power - Nuclear Weapons and Indian Foreign Policy
Year published: 2009
Language: English
Publisher: Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu/National Defence University
Book description: This study examines the intentions of Indian foreign and nuclear policies. Applying the notion of strategic culture and the speech act theory, the book draws upon the disciplines of history, philosophy and international relations. The purpose is in particular to grasp a better understanding of the politics of the Manmohan Singh Government of India. The findings pay attention to the inclusive nature of Indian foreign policy and to the exclusive nature of Indian nuclear policy. The study also argues that the successive governments, led by the Indian National Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, respectively, do not differ in their foreign and nuclear policies as much as their ideological differences and domestic policies suggest.
This book will be of interest to students of Indian politics, South Asian security and nuclear policy.
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EU Battlegroups - Theory and Development in the Light of Finnish-Swedish Co-operation
Co-authors: Koivula, Tommi & Tommy Jepsson
Year published: 2005 (2nd revised edition coming this year)
Language: English
Publisher: Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu/National Defence University
Book description: The study provides the audience with some basic facts regarding the Battlegroup concept. It takes a look on the political and theoretical foundations of the European Security and Defence Policy, analyses the Battlegroup concept from a institutional and capability points of views, and examines the Finnish and Swedish experiences in establishing their contributions to two Battlegroups. The authors argue that despite its well-trained units and advanced technological capabilities, the Battlegroups are first and foremost small tactical units. There thus migth exist a performance gap between the political expectations of the EU and the delivered military outcomes. This in turn can make it difficult to find a politically important but militarily small enough crisis where to intervene. The EU should have more robust tools for her potentially offensive expeditionary operations.
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Dr. Ilias Iliopoulos
ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΓΕΩΓΡΑΦΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΡΑΤΗΓΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΝΑΥΤΙΚΗΣ ΙΣΧΥΟΣ (History, Geography and Strategy of Sea Power: An Introduction in Fundamentals)
Year published: 2010
Language: Greek
Book description: There are cases in history in which the mere existence of a navy is considered to safeguard, strengthen or renew the historical and cultural identity of a nation. The emergence and manifestation of the U.S. Navy during the Berber Wars evidently contributed to “shaping a nation”, strengthening American national self-esteem. In the case of the Baltic nations, it is, undoubtedly, noteworthy that, after winning their independence, they began developing naval forces in order to maintain their hard-won freedoms. Thus, during 1919 the small Estonian Navy cooperated with the British Royal Navy in operations against the Bolsheviks and fought its first action already in June 1919.
Obviously, sea power is about naval forces. Still, it is more than that; it is about geography, geopolitics, geo-strategy, geo-economics and geo-culture. Through out modern history, Sea power seems to have been particularly associated with a certain Aristotelian-Jeffersonian style of limited government, administrative efficiency as well as a liberal and anthropocentric style of society, based on a values system of Greek-Roman, Judeo-Christian, occidental origin.
Further, it appears true to claim that, in modern times, sea or naval powers have persistently succeeded in solving the strategic problems posed by adversary continental powers, or, to put it with the words of Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery: “From the days when humans first began to use the seas, the great lesson of history is that the enemy who is confined to a land strategy is in the end defeated.”
Analogously, it may be said that even the final collapse of the essentially un-maritime and “continental”, land-bound Soviet empire at the end of the long 20th century was simply the latest illustration of the strategic advantages of sea power in the long term, the Soviet Union having been the very epitome of a Kontinental-Macht – a continental power.
It must be assumed as a plain fact that the international system will continue to be characterized by what Hans J. Morgenthauonce called Machttrieb (power instinct). Conflicts are to be expected – conflicts of interests between sea powers and emerging continental powers, and conflicts of values and identities. Hence, for the foreseeable future, it will be an imperative necessity to maintain an efficient coalition of great, middle and small sea powers, maritime nations and nations of the Rimland defending international order and the core values of the occidental, Aristotelian-Jeffersonian heritage.
More information (in Greek) (click on the link)
Dr. Erik Allan Sibul
Irregular Engineers: The Use of Indigenous Labor in the Rebuilding of Critical Infrastructure During the Korean War, 1950–1953 (chapter in The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare 1775-2007: Selected Papers from the 2007 Conference of Army Historians, ed. Richard G. Davis)
Year published: 2008
Language: English
Publisher: US
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Dr. Augustine Meaher
The Road to Singapore: The Myth of British Betrayal
Year published: 2010
Language: English
Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing
Book description: Generations of Australians have been reared on the belief the fall of Singapore in February 1942 was a British betrayal that exposed Australia to Japanese invasion. In The Road to Singapore a young American historian, using archival records from across the globe, exposes the notion of a British betrayal as nothing more than a myth. British authorities never gave Australia an iron-clad guarantee against enemy attack and invasion and always stressed the need for Australians to take responsibility for home defence.
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Col. Zdzislaw Sliwa (PhD)
Wspólpraca Wojskowa Chin i Rosji (article in Kwartalnik Bellona, nr. 2/2010 (661), pp. 100-106)
Year published: 2010
Language: Polish
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Marynarka Wojenna Chin w Walce z Piratami (article in Przeglad Morski, nr. 7 (037)
Year published: 2010
Language: Polish
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Cwiczenia "Hand-in-hand 2008" (article in Przeglad Wojsk Ladowych, nr. 6 (036)
Year published: 2010
Language: Polish
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Bezpieczenstwo Regionu Azji Poludniowo-Wschodniej a Roszczenia Terytorialne Wobec Wysp Morza Poludniowochinskiego (article in Zeszyty Naukowe Akademii Marynarki Wojennej, Rok LI Nr. 2 (181))
Year published: 2010
Language: Polish
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