The Biblical Account Of Gideon's Use Of Psychological Warfare

Surviving the war was not a matter of intelligently planned decisions, but a series of reactions triggered by primal instincts. The animal instincts within strong soldiers inhibited

Why do notions go to war? What is the reasoning behind their actions? John G. Stoessinger analyzes these questions in his book, Why Nations go to War. Stoessinger believes that to understand the war, you must understand the leaders of the war. When you understand the leaders you understand their actions and when you understand their actions, you have the answer to the question, "Why do nations go to war?" In this review paper I am going to review each chapter individually, 1-10. I will then give a brief summary of the book and what I think as a whole based on my reading.

Wars are often glorified in tone to give praise and respect for those on the battlefields. There is an overall understanding that there are sacrifices needed in order to accomplish a larger goal. Excluded from this understanding is the realization that the effects of war

It is vital to attempt to take alternate routes before deciding such a drastic measure as conflict. Doing so will save lives, supplies, and figuratively speaking, morale of the country as a whole. Even so, the natures of war can happen without it being existing, such as feelings of hostility or lack of peace. Just like a human's emotions and temperament, war's nature can be quick, ruthless, and detrimental to one's goals, if no military strategy or planning is put in place to secure victory. But no matter how much planning and precision goes into effect, it is not possible to avoid one main factor of war's nature; chance. It can affect all levels of combat and can be unpredictable in most situations. The leader's ability to adapt to new problems and quick thinking can save a strategy that's been eradicated due to chance or surprise, greatly reducing the likelihood of loss of troops or

The psychologists discovered this perilous disorder by examining the survivors of combat stress post the war. Although the discovery of PTSD is recent, the history dates back to around 1600. One of the early and unbelievably accurate descriptions of PTSD was given by William Shakespeare in his play Henry IV, Part 1(act 2, scene 3, lines 40–62) and it was around 1597. The history of PTSD has always been linked to the history of wars especially World War I. Another such striking, autobiographical account of PTSD was given by a recuperating British lieutenant in England after being trapped in enemy lines. The autobiographical account was given in the book war neuroses and shell shock written by Frederick Mott 1919 . The British lieutenant spent 5 days in the village and the physical and the mental challenges that he faced in those 5 days had conquered his mind. He still hasn’t recovered in the present context. This historical perspective shows that the concept of PTSD was rather discovered and not

Throughout human history, we have watched many men and women storm into combat to sweat, bleed, and die for a cause that they believe in. War is no secret to mankind, we have seen it hundreds of times, and we are aware of the mental and physical damage it has the capability of causing. We’ve learned of the gruesome damage caused by the first world war, and the numerous amount of lives it claimed. We’ve read the vivid stories authors wrote, using literature as a means to communicate the horrors experienced in war. Even in present day, we’ve seen, or known veterans who have returned from war with mental damage due to the terrible things they witnessed or partook in. Whether or not it is the smartest or most responsible idea, the human race uses

This case started with the 1961 arrest of Clarence Earl Gideon. He was charged with breaking and entering in a Panama City, Florida, pool hall and stealing money from the vending machine. At trial, Gideon could not afford an attorney and asked for one to be appointed to represent him. The judge proceeded to tell Gideon that the state of Florida only appointed attorneys to indignant defendents charged with that may result in the death penalty if convicted. Gideon was sentenced to five years in prison.

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

War is a human endeavor. Humanity continually pursues solutions to counter evolving threats with the end of preserving power while also enabling peace. Civilizations resort to war to maintain their perception of this equilibrium. Defined threats and adversaries have changed throughout history, however, the essence of human nature and the base concept of conflict itself have not. Carl von Clausewitz’s theories on warfare capture the relationship between humanity and its application of war, remaining relevant in today’s era through their pensive explanations of timeless philosophical principles regarding the concept of war. These theories regarding war in politics, the key factors affecting war, and the extent that war is applied are inherently interconnected, providing insight on the relationships between humanity and its application of war.

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a

There are no universal theories to explain the true nature and character of war, and any war theories are not a fact or absolute truth. All strategic principles are dynamic and contextual, so “every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.” The battlefield environment of the 21st century will be the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and nature of war will be completely different because of the Revolution in Military Affairs. Highly advance communication and information technologies, a dramatic increase in computing capabilities, developed of precision munitions, dominant air and space power ‘war could be waged by the projection of

On War is not just a manuscript on of how to understand war; it also provides insight into what Clausewitz thought about the dynamics of human thinking. Similar to what Claxton outlined in Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, Clausewitz believed that, “knowledge must be absorbed into the mind that it almost ceases to exist in a separate, objective way.” (Clausewitz, p147). In other words, Clausewitz believed knowledge

For example, wars get people's attention and forces them to listen to whatever you want them to do(if you have the power to maintain

War is many things. It may be many different things depending on each individual. Many soldiers get trained so their mentality is to characterize their opponents as less than human, so their lives lose all worth. Some soldiers however, are not prepared for this, even though they have been trained. One thing is training for it, another thing is actually killing a human being. As they kill more people, it becomes normalized for them. All they have seen changes their mind, while all of their dreams get swept aside by bloody hands of the hypnotized while they carry the cross of homicide. But why kill other strangers? What’s in it for the soldiers? War feeds the rich while it buries the poor. Rich people are power hungry, selling soldiers in human grocery store, using them as their little puppets who obey their master, making them go around killing each other in order to determine who is right, but in the end, war determines who is left. “The Man I Killed” by Tim O’Brien shows how soldiers who commit violence become traumatized and how that changes over time.

It is a common thing: an innocent, kind, humane person joins the military, goes to war, and comes back as a psychological disaster. They either become paranoid, depressed, anything to this nature. However, there are also individuals who go to war with prior psychological conditions. In J.M. Coetzee’s novel “Waiting for the Barbarians”, is reflective of these two situations. In the novel, war breaks out between an Empire and a group of nomads, the barbarians. In between all of this, is the protagonist, the magistrate, a man with a position of power in the military, who opposes the war. Much like actual war, there is an array of different psychological disorders portrayed through the characters, with some characters having disorders before