Means to Kill

Gerrit Dworok is a lecturer in the University of Würzburg history department. His research focuses on the history of ideologies. Most of his published work deals with nation building processes in Germany and the Ottoman Empire. Frank Jacob is an assistant professor of world history at the City University of New York. His major research fields are German, Japanese, and military history. He lives in Bayside, New York.

• Table of ContentsPreface (Frank Jacob and Gerrit Dworok)Introduction (Frank Jacob, Gerrit Dworok and Jeffrey M. Shaw)Part I: Ancient Rome and the Medieval AgesAncient Naval Artillery Support (Jorit Wintjes)Stirrup, Composite Bow and Traction Trebuchet: Some Remarks on the Interdependence of War and Technology in the Early Middle Ages (Christian Scholl)The Medieval Arms Race: The Confrontation of Orient and Occident in the Crusades and the Reconquista (Thomas Schuetz)Gunpowder and Cannons: Gunnery in the Late Middle Ages (Marc-André Karpienski)Mining and Warfare: An Overview of Centuries of Interdependence (Olaf Wagener)Part II: The Age of the World WarsThe German Navy League, Navalism and the Perception of the Imperial German Navy as a Technological Masterpiece, 1898–1914 (Sebastian Diziol)The Soviet Propaganda Film as an Instrument of Warfare: Sergey Eisenstein’s Montage Technique and the “Global Civil War of Ideologies” (Gerrit Dworok)Four Technical Artifacts of the Great War (Kurt Möser)The Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Use and Abuse of Peacetime Technology, 1940–45: A Case Study of Unconventional Warfare (Roderick Bailey)The Liberal Attraction to Technological Progress and the RAF (Tomáš Kučera)Resource Policy and Technical Understanding: Aspects of Hitler’s Wartime Economy (Eckehard Dworok)Part III: The ColdA Weapon Changed the World: The AK-47 and the Consequences for Asymmetric Warfare (Frank Jacob)Tous Azimuts: Yugoslavia’s Defense Policy in the Cold War (James Horncastle)Technology, Warfare and ­Intra-Alliance Rivalry: The U.S.–West German Main Battle Tank Harmonization in the 1970s (Benedict von Bremen)Equipping the Marine Corps for the 21st Century, 1975–1990 (Nathan R. Packard)From AirLand Battle to ­Effects-Based Operations: United States Air Force and Army Doctrine Development from 1980 to 2001 (Daniel Fuhrer)Part IV: The Age of “New Wars”Technology and War: Nanotechnology, Precision and Globalization (Jeffrey M. Shaw)The Fallacy of Humane Killing: Interwar Debates About Air Power and ­Twenty-First Century “Killer Robots” (Adam Page)Death from the Skies: A ­Just-War Perspective on the Rise of Unmanned Weapons Systems and the Reduction of Combatant and Noncombatant Casualties (Timothy J. Demy)About the ContributorsIndex