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This work is an examination of the effectiveness of British infantry firepower from 1642 to 1765, it establishes the manner in which that firepower was organised and managed and how it developed. In order to achieve this it has been necessary to develop and propose a new approach to the study of military history; practical military history, which uses a thorough understanding of the practices and procedures of the army to interpret and analyse contemporary writings on the subject. In doing so it has been possible to identify and analyse the effectiveness of the tactical doctrine and combat techniques of British infantry during the English Civil Wars and then to trace a continuous line of development of doctrine and technique from then until 1765, in the immediate aftermath of the Seven Years War, when this study concludes. It has also been possible to analyse the battlefield effectiveness of those techniques and to identify previously unrecognised aspects of them. It has also been possible to correct some long held misconceptions and to pinpoint times when key changes were brought about, such as the introduction of the organisation of platoons into firings. As well as identifying, for the first time, a single underlying tactical doctrine it has also been possible to clarify the manner in which the methods used to execute that doctrine changed. The work has identified the origins of platoon firing, its earliest form and its subsequent developments during the War of Spanish Succession, thereby correcting the long standing misidentification of the form that it first took and the idea that it remained largely unchanged from the 1680s to the 1740s. It has also identified when changes occurred and analysed the implications for the effectiveness of the firepower and, in some instances, been able to demonstrate in absolute terms, the effectiveness of that firepower. This work will enable military historians to achieve an understanding of how British infantry fought, how they achieved what they did, rather than simply what those achievements were. In using a practical military history approach it also proposes a new approach to military history that will enable an analysis of events to be given, rather than a simple narrative.

The US Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program was officially terminated on June 26, 29. Close followers of the program were shocked. Large defense acquisition programs are notoriously difficult to terminate, despite constant bickering over time, cost and feasibility. The FCS program was no exception. Its program features normally would have safeguarded it beyond the usual Washington DC politicking. Since 199, the FCS program had accrued the $18.1 billion in sunk costs which alone may have discouraged cancellation. In addition, the FCS technology was beginning to work, and some of the systems were receiving positive reviews from the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps most importantly, FCS employed 550 contractors in 41 states and 220 congressional districts. This level of political breadth should have guaranteed the life of a program despite any shortcomings. Given these program attributes, any attempt to explain the FCS program termination must delve deeper than the usual political struggle over defense equipment priorities and resources. The central argument of this thesis is that the FCS program required an ongoing, close connection between the program's technical elements and its political context. Such a strategy would have provided a well-articulated, growing political defense of the program combined with a more fluid technological approach that was willing to jettison obsolete requirements. The opposite occurred. The Army leadership failed to build the necessary supportive political relationships. The program also doggedly retained all of its original technological requirements while adding new requirements over time. The combination of these characteristics created the faults of the FCS program which led to its termination. In this light, program failure is no surprise. This paper aims to demonstrate what the FCS program can teach the Army about its ability to manage its acquisition efforts and how the program's history may inform the broader study of defense procurement.

This study uncovers the motivations of the indigenous counter-violent-extremist movement in Marjah, a village in southwest Afghanistan, between 2009 and 2013. Furthermore, it elucidates how the international and central government security forces allowed and enabled this grassroots anti-Taliban militia. The thesis submits that the fighters rose up and defeated Taliban because of selfdetermination- describing the townsmen’s ultimate goal of village autonomy as well as their self-sufficient actions. Self-determination acted as a centre of gravity that drove fighters to struggle and die to eradicate local violent extremist elements. The Afghan government and outside militaries allowed this independence, unlike the Taliban, and thus became the militia’s welcome partners instead of enemies. After introducing the history of traditional Pashtun militias in southern Afghanistan and then in Marjah specifically, the paper tests three hypotheses: whether and how much the 1) need for stability, 2) antipathy towards a foreign ideology, and 3) protection of tribalism may have factored into the motivations for this movement. From interviews with over a quarter of the civilian guardians in 2011, unpublished unclassified and declassified reports, and notes from observers, this study assesses that stability, hatred of an alien ideology, and nationalism—not tribalism—were rallying cries for the movement. However, self-determination, not originally postulated before field research, served as the central theme underpinning these other drivers and acting as the main master narrative. The findings of this single case study may be an early look at a burgeoning discipline in counterinsurgency and stability operations investigating similar movements worldwide.

Camouflage of military uniforms exhibits a remarkable diversity; since 1929 most nations around the world had created their own 'lineages' of patterns. This variety cannot be reliably explained by concealment only, as camouflage of countries inhabiting the same environment often differs to a great extent. This thesis explores potential functions of deceptive uniform patterns beyond concealment. Somewhat paradoxically, camouflage can be used to signal national identity, which helps friendly troops to identify each other. By applying two graph network-based models, it was demonstrated that national patterns of a country are more alike than would be expected by chance. On the contrary, the evidence of convergence on an alliance-level was found to be weak, suggesting militaries conducting multinational operations do not match up their patterns, potentially resulting in an increased risk of friendly fire. The phenomenon of how signalling and concealment can function at the same time is demonstrated by nations with a colonial past. These countries often wear the same texture as their former rulers, but optimise their colours to match their local environment. Conflicts were also found to have an impact on camouflage design; the rate of innovation increases during wars, resulting in more novel looking patterns. Finally, nations can convey political messages by selecting for particular patterns. This is demonstrated by the case of post-Soviet Eastern European countries, which abandoned their national design after the fall of the Iron Curtain in favour to US and British patterns; potentially signalling to NATO that they are ready to join the alliance. It is concluded that camouflage patterns are subject to historical and political forces, demonstrating that concealment not only need to be effective, but also recognisable.

With contemporary conflicts being fought amongst and alongside civilian populations, the likelihood of professional soldiers encountering children during military operations has increased. Legal frameworks concerning the topic of children in armed conflict are born from sociological understandings surrounding the Western concept of childhood based on the idea that children are innocent and in need of protection. Within theatres of armed conflict children can be encountered by military forces in two distinct ways; either as innocent bystanders or as security threats. However, a moral dilemma can occur when a child, who is armed and capable of a lethal attack, is encountered by an adult soldier, whose values resonate with the Western concept of childhood. This leads to the adult soldier needing to make a difficult decision: to shoot and harm a child or to hesitate and risk harming themselves and others around them. This situation can have consequences for both the military operation and the psychological well-being of the professional soldier. This thesis collated evidence from former British soldiers to examine their experiences of encountering children in armed conflict, and whether the presence of children impacts military operations, and the attitudes and practices of British soldiers. Examples from the conflicts in Bosnia (1992-95), Sierra Leone (2000-02), and Afghanistan (2001-2012), determine the various roles children play in contemporary armed conflict and the different challenges the child actor poses to military personnel. Locating itself in the existing child soldier literature base, this thesis argues that children involved in armed conflict can be both victims and perpetrators. However, this thesis also approaches the topic from a security perspective. By using a bottom-up approach, it shows how soldiers have individual reactions, experiences and understandings of this particular issue which should be acknowledged when designing and implementing military training guidelines and support frameworks on this topic.

For a last more than ten years conflict in Afghanistan was called “task or test” for NATO and international community. It is because NATO countries cannot fail the task of stabilization of the Afghanistan. It is also a biggest test of the NATO as a military alliance. But armed conflict in Afghanistan is a challenge for contemporary lawyers as well. The main question of my thesis addresses issues arising out of military operation in Afghanistan. I divided my work on three major elements. First part address legal challenges related to the Rules of Engagement. How they are affecting practical application of humanitarian law? What is their status in domestic and international law? Second part address issue of treatment and transfer of detainees during non-international armed conflict. Finally I am trying to address challenges resulting out of newly created, by gen. David H. Petraeus, concept of modern counterinsurgency. How those changes affect international Humanitarian Law application nowadays. Those mentioned briefly issues do not cover all my research questions. I couldn’t address given question before tackling the basic one. I provided to the reader basic background of the Afghan conflict. It helps to asses legal issues as some relevant facts to my thesis need to be derived from political or historical considerations. In this part I provided the reader with basic concepts Of humanitarian law applicable during the conflict in Afghanistan. This thesis contribute also to the discussion on interrelation between the human rights and the humanitarian law. Particularly to the issue of extraterritorial application of the human rights. The lege ferenda considerations provide legal grounds of the possible overruling of the concepts provided by the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia in Tadić Case.

The present work aims at exploring the re-elaboration of the ideology problematique in post-Marxist philosophy and social theory. The traditional problematique - drawing mainly on Marxist categories - articulates the relation between the analysis of determining instances operating beneath the layer of reflective consciousness and the possibility of subjective autonomy. As a result of the post-structuralist turn in philosophy and social sciences, this space of enquiry has been progressively associated to untenable metaphysical assumptions - among which the idea of an essential reality, meaning or telos beyond discursive mediation and the possibility of defining a self-sustained system of rationality as a parameter to measure ideological distortion. The present work argues that the implicative connection between the critique of essentialist metaphysics and the abandonment of the Marxist emancipatory model - resulting in a deep suspicion towards comprehensive explanatory frameworks and universalist political projects - is theoretically questionable and politically debilitating. However, one main hypothesis underpinning the thesis is that the post-structuralist problematization of such model mediates in theory real socio-historical impasses - related to deepening patterns of capitalist deterritorialization - whose analysis requires novel theoretical elaborations. Accordingly, this dissertation aims at demonstrating that the paradigms developed by seminal authors on the Left (Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou and Fredric Jameson), operating in the space of enquiry opened up by the intersection between Marxist and post-structuralist categories of analysis, can be read as attempts to rethink the traditional ideology problematique in terms appropriate to the present historical situation. This central argument unfolds in different theoretical articulations. Firstly, the thesis explores how the post-foundationalist ontologies developed by the above mentioned authors contribute to outline the sedimentation of new patterns of subjection characterizing the contemporary symbolic economy. By doing this, it also individuates, by means of immanent critique, recurrent contradictions and problematic knots traversing the post-Marxist intellectual field. Finally, such contradictions and knots are dialectically rescued as further avenues to outline objective limits imposed on affectivity and cognition by the current development of the capitalist mode of production.