Description
Book SynopsisThis book improves our understanding of battlefield coalitions, providing novel theoretical and empirical insight into their nature and capabilities, as well as the military and political consequences of their combat operations.
The volume provides the first dataset of battlefield coalitions, uses primary sources to understand how non-state actors of varying types form such groupings, reports interviews with policymakers illuminating North Atlantic Treaty Organization operations, and uses cases studies of various wars waged throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries to understand how other such collectives have operated. Part I introduces battlefield coalitions as an object of study, demonstrating how they are distinct from other wartime collectives. Using a novel dataset of actors fighting in 492 battles during interstate wars waged between 1900 and 2003, it provides, for the first time, a comprehensive portrait of the universe of battlefield coalitions
Trade Review
'Many wars are fought by alliances and coalitions, yet we have very little systematic study of how such groupings fight together on the battlefield. Cappella Zielinski and Grauer amass a terrific team of analysts to ask and answer important questions about how wartime cooperation works or fails on the ground.'
Stephen Saideman, Carleton University, Canada
'Understanding Battlefield Coalitions
is an impressive effort to consider the political and operational challenges of an increasingly common aspect of war-fighting. This theoretically and empirically rich collection of studies improves our understanding of modern warfare and sets an agenda for future research.'
Brett Ashley Leeds, Rice University, USA
Table of ContentsPart I: Introducing Battlefield Coalitions 1. Battlefield Coalitions: Preparation, Organisation, Execution 2. A Century of Coalitions in Battle: Incidence, Composition, and Performance, 1900-2003 Part II: Preparation 3. Exercising Escalation: Do Multinational Military Exercises Provoke Interstate Security Crises? 4. When the Coalition Determines the Mission: NATO’s Detour in Libya Part III: Organisation 5. Battlefield Coalitions as International Institutions: A Conceptual Framework 6. Command and Military Effectiveness in Rebel and Hybrid Battlefield Coalitions 7. Learning from Losing: How Defeat Shapes Coalition Dynamics in Wartime Part IV: Execution 8. Regime Type, War Aims, and Coalition Member Effort in Combat 9. Why Rebels Rely on Terrorists: The Persistence of the Taliban--al-Qaeda Battlefield Coalition in Afghanistan 10. Coalitions and Wartime Diplomacy: Speaking with One Voice Part V: Looking Ahead 11. Next Steps in the Study of Battlefield Coalitions
