Showing 1 - 3 of 3 Items

Date: 2020-01-01

Creator: Artur Kalandarov

Access: Open access

This paper evaluates the validity of three concepts from Carl von Clausewitz’s On War as they relate to contemporary military conflict. Utilizing the Soviet and American Wars in Afghanistan as case studies, the paper also offers a model for comparative conflict analysis by expanding upon Clausewitz’s culminating point concept. It argues that – despite limitations to Clausewitz’s theory of war – his concepts of culminating points in military operations, mass and concentration, and changing war aims provide useful insights into counterinsurgency military failures. Chapter One identifies the Soviet and American culminating points. Concluding that the concept of a culminating point is not applicable to the means and objectives of insurgents, it expands upon Clausewitzian theory by presenting an effectual substitute: the Counterinsurgent Acceptance Point. This is the author’s idea, and it is defined as the moment at which the counterinsurgents first publicly call for negotiations with the enemy. As the first public acknowledgment that the insurgents have denied the counterinsurgents a strictly military resolution to the conflict, it marks a crucial shift in the political framework of the war and is a fitting antithesis to the culminating point. Chapters Two and Three show how an inadequate troop presence and unclear war aims harmed Soviet and American efforts in Afghanistan. The development of insurgencies in both wars are studied to pinpoint when both country’s leaderships failed to adopt a Clausewitzian view of war, despite calls to do so by General Colin Powell in 2001 and Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov in 1979.

Date: 2024-01-01

Creator: Matthew Cesar Audi

Access: Open access

Since the late 1800s, people have immigrated to the United states from Lebanon and Syria, and the community’s racial and ethnic position within the United States has been contested ever since. Previous research emphasizes that while people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are legally classified as “white” on the U.S. Census. However, many people from the region do not identify as white, and they often face discrimination or threats of violence. For people of Arab and Christian backgrounds this is further complicated because they are a part of the majority through their religion, but part of a minority through their ethnic background. In addition, media depictions of MENAs tend to be homogenizing and stereotypical. This thesis attempts to fill a gap in literature on Christian Lebanese American identities by conducting ethnographic interviews with Lebanese-Americans from a variety of generations. It pulls from theories of diaspora and race, emphasizing the importance of context and migration trajectories when understanding Lebanese American identities. My findings demonstrate wide-ranging diversity in how Christian Lebanese-Americans understand and articulate identity due to three major factors: divergent migrant pathways in multiple countries, generational difference given changing racial politics in the U.S., and generational difference given the impacts of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East upon young Lebanese-Americans.

Date: 2015-05-01

Creator: Camille E. Wasinger

Access: Open access